Internal Communication
Often the poorest element of a change initiative, the process of communicating with all those affected by change can not be overdone - at the outset when change is planned to capture hearts and minds, throughout the programme to keep people up to date with progress, and at the conclusion to reinforce success and offer recognition for people’s efforts.
Development of a communication strategy is fundamental to the success of all change initiatives, whether that be a short-term project to support the introduction of a new IT system or construction of a 3-year corporate transformation strategy. It's equally important to maximise the impact of business-as-usual employee communication.
Echelon offers communication and service branding campaigns in support of culture change and customer care programmes. Our innovative approaches have proved to be award winning, for example a 1,000 Best Ideas campaign won the 2005 Hospital Journal Communications Award.
We tailor the application of the communications strategy to the situation and the amount of work already undertaken. We prefer to work with client staff, and are happy to cross-train if required, to ensure the sustainability and ongoing success of the project.
We begin by researching the business drivers around the initiative to ensure that messages can be as contextually rich as possible. Stakeholder analysis identifies the influencers and influence groups that must be satisfied, and audience analysis uncovers the information needs of those who will be affected. We then consider the messages: what, when, medium and how best to present them. During strategy development we design the process to evaluate effectiveness.
The result is a defined communications strategy that meets the needs of the organisation, divisions, teams and individuals and that drives employee buy-in and engagement.
Echelon, Angles House, 210 Sheen Lane, London SW14 8LB; 020 8274 9965