From strategy, to action, to impact, we unleash the power of your people to drive…
Having previously worked in marketing, Rosie joined the Synergy team just three weeks ago.
We recently caught up with her over a coffee to find out how she’s finding the comparison to working in external comms.
Why did you want to move to internal comms?
I really like the idea that with IC you’re helping clients to overcome a business challenge 99 percent of time. Well thought-out, well executed employee engagement campaigns can increase performance, loyalty and job satisfaction, and in turn influence overall profitability. But there’s also the human aspect. You may be working for huge companies, but you can make a big difference to their employees’ work lives: making them feel valued and proud of what they do. It’s far more rewarding.
With three weeks under your belt, does working in IC feel different?
Dealing with internal company projects and challenges, it feels like you’re more of a trusted partner than a supplier. But also, on a personal level, in IC you’re often briefed on projects that affect you and your own work life, so you’re naturally more interested. At marketing agencies this isn’t always the case – in previous roles I’ve been briefed on driving sales for everything from printers to drills!
What about creatively?
I think you can have more creative flexibility in internal communications – clients may allow you to push the brand guidelines for an employee audience, and you’re given the chance to work on a huge variety of important subjects such as diversity & inclusion, continuous learning, wellbeing, values and big changes in strategy. At an external marketing agency, your comms are usually geared towards a wider audience. Communicating with employees is a lot more focused. That said, the audiences/comms for different clients can differ massively from retail colleagues to engineers that work out in the field to contact centre agents, so there’s still plenty of variety.
What were your first impressions of Synergy?
Well, it feels like Synergy as a company is really in-tune with their employees in terms of engagement etc. Yes, everyone’s really busy, but training and development still seem to be high up on the priorities list. I’ve only been here for three weeks, but have already had presentation training booked in and seen the Account Directors head to a leadership training session.
And finally, what are you looking forward to doing this year on employee engagement?
One of the things I’m really looking forward to is getting to grips with each client’s overall strategy. In marketing, projects can be very siloed, but in IC the campaigns you work on all feed into the overall people strategy and business direction, so you get a better idea of the big picture – it’s fascinating.
We’re constantly looking for excellent people to join the Synergy team; if you’re looking for a new challenge, check out the roles we’re currently recruiting for and take a look at #lifeatsynergy on Twitter to see what working here is like.
