Internal Communications

“So if there was one platform, it would definitely evolve around communication, especially for culture building, engagement, making sure the right information reaches the right people. The same way every time so that ever...”

“I don't think any of us could say that we've seen a Glassdoor review or Indeed review or performance review that said, that hurt, that just way too much communication. I just understand way too much about what's going on...”

“Communication, I often think about, is really that it's a leadership superpower in a sense that if you can develop good leadership skills, you can apply it across a series of different areas, and that allows you to drive...”

“Yeah, I think a lot of the feedback that I've seen in engagement surveys from employees is around cross-department communication and collaboration. I think it's an ongoing initiative that we keep chipping away at and try...”

“So, something I've implemented in the past is called Exec Connects. So, we actually pair up a department with a different department leader so that they can kind of learn from that leader, but also have a safe space. Lik...”

“Communication, it makes or breaks everything... What we want to talk about is what we're passionate about, but that doesn't mean that everybody else is passionate about it. We're looking at everything from an individual...”

“I think that we have to also entertain people, and I'm in the entertainment business. So I try to where I can, you know, I don't have a lot of budget... So doing unusual things like that, that kind of catch people off gu...”

“I think being partners with our leaders to make sure that the employees understand not only the priorities, but things are changing so quickly with AI and there's so much, you know, fear and anticipation and, you know, k...”

“I think that we've got to get better at— I think it's just always the approval process. You know, there's always so many layers to that. And that would be one thing that I think if I can improve anything, that I would be...”

“He said, if you have a lot of Gen Z employees, they're not reading the handbook... I don't care which generation you're in, nobody reads the handbook. Turn it into a podcast.”

“And in the course of that, I actually give every employee my personal cell phone number. So it's the same number my wife, my kids, and my mama call me on, you know, and it's there for them to use.”

“Unless people need something, they don't necessarily reach out to that group.”

“The communication gap was significant, and the organization had been through some speed bumps. And so, I introduced a in a LiveCORE leadership series, which is really a fireside chat.”

“the old adage in real estate, it's location, location, location. I think for businesses, it's communication, communication, communication.”

“But when you're answering the same question for the 10th time, right, about the same kind of thing, or, hey, maybe they didn't read the email that was sent, that's kind of demoralizing, right? And then you spend a lot of...”

“And of course, and so this isn't just in my current company, but it's sort of universal that the number one issue that employees state they have is a lack of or insufficient communication with the leadership team.”

“We changed the policy that affected a, a smallish number of people, but a very vocal small number of people... And what it really turns out is, is sometimes, sometimes the best way to do that is by, is by bringing people...”

“Our HR team proposed the idea of meeting with each employee individually. The motivation behind this strategy was to demonstrate that we recognize each person has a voice and deserves the opportunity to be heard.”

“What ends up happening is that we solve, we identify issues faster and we solve them faster, and there's just more cross-functional insight and visibility.”

“It's amazing how roadblocks fall away when people actually get why somebody else wants them to do what they're doing. That is the standard motion for me. Getting people face-to-face is invaluable.”

“80% of my job are communication issues. People didn't understand what they were asked to do. They didn't understand the direction. They didn't understand what the company's trying to do, or they just got into a fight wit...”

“What I came to understand, and I'm glad I came to understand this pretty early on in my startup life, was that most of the tension isn't about what people are doing, but it's about what they're saying and what they're no...”

“So you, remembering that you need to collaborate and not create conflict. It is a long-term relationship. It's never only when you're sitting across from the table and negotiating a contract.”

“So it really comes down to communication, which is something that HR offices are always being asked to do more of and do better. And early and frequent engagement...”

“communication solves the most known problems”

“My general mantra about communication is we communicate what we know, when we know it, in the most thoughtful and engaging way possible.”

“there's not a great substitute for live communication, but the video solution is really key and is the absolute best way to convey concepts in bite-sized and accessible ways.”

“Our PSDs are really our champions. And again, when I say PSDs, that's equivalent to the human resource directors... They are constantly interacting with the doctors, the nurses, the technicians and food service staff tha...”

“Communication is a theme that you'll hear a lot in our conversation, but really communicating consistently in a transparent manner, town halls with the CEO, executive team members, myself, being very open and soliciting...”

“We all publish, every member of the executive team here, we publish our cell phone numbers and contact numbers. And it is not unusual for me to walk into our CEO's office and he's on the phone with a technician in a serv...”

“95% of issues can be solved with good proactive communication, responsive communication, the what channels are open. And when someone pings you in one of those channels, being very responsive and answering the call.”

“Over the years, we have gotten much better in terms of integrating and making sure we're talking. So the CHROs from the 3 entities, as an example, we have spent a lot of time over the last 6 or 7 years making sure we all...”

“Communication is one of the fundamental building blocks of any kind of a change effort, and it will make or break you. So don't in any way ever feel like you're overcommunicating because it's never enough.”

“I learned this from my internal comms director. She at one point said, all communication is internal communication.”

“Trust a lot of times is built prior to that time. Like trust being built before it's tested is so much stronger than when you're in the fire.”

“And at that moment, I couldn't proceed. I just, I froze up, right? In that moment, because I was so reliant again, just so reliant on the technology that I forgot that at the end of the day, I need to be able to communic...”

“The biggest thing was making sure that you drive— when you have a meeting, you need to come out of there with a decision. Meeting for meeting's sake and saying, we'll meet again to talk about it more is really just a was...”

“Leveraging our internal marketing team has really helped increase utilization for a lot of the benefits that we have low utilization on.”

“The best thing for us to do at that moment would be to listen. So, I created a listening strategy that we rolled out so we could capture feedback from our leaders. So, rather than to just make assumptions about what we t...”

“What I found most effective in this situation has been transparent communication. And often JFS has a hybrid work environment, so we usually have quite a few employees that are physically at the location, and I still use...”

“But we put together a good project team. And we had our really strong corporate communications team that was there by our side from a communication standpoint. Talent, ensuring that we had the right leaders in place to b...”

“But the one thing an employee does every single day for us is clock in and out. So if we have that ability to say something to them as they're clocking in and out, we're going to be able to disperse communication a lot m...”

“I just pick, have a random sampling of employees, 5 or 6 employees. We provide a lunch and just ask them what's going well, what we can do better, and what ideas they have.”

“I think one of the most powerful tools and one we use quite a lot here at Unum is storytelling. So, I think sharing stories is about the collective journey, it's about successes, and often about challenges.”

“There's this balance between listening and sharing because they're going to need to absorb all of the things that you're sharing, which is a ton. But if you don't stop and listen, really overtly ask for the things that t...”

“The biggest challenges that we face is really bridging that gap. And HR has to work with the different groups to be able to get them to communicate and understand. That there's no wrong or right in the form of communicat...”

“How do we scale our communication, ensure everybody's up to speed on and marching in the same direction on what's going to be important to the business.”

“We dissect and analyze the information, you know, 6 ways to Sunday... And then by team, we create almost like tiger teams to go in and say, hey, this is what your business unit said. What's important to you?”

“One thing is we're really lucky to have strong communication from our CEO and President, Jeff Stavener. The leadership team has a really strong servant leadership style. Those things play a crucial role.”

“The clearer and more memorable the statements are, the more likely that they are to be embraced and lived by the organization.”

“to truly understand, remember, and acknowledge internalize something, it needs to be communicated about 7 times or more. So that means that communication is really never enough. It's a constant process.”

“from an HR perspective, I think first and foremost, one of the challenges that we face is that there's always an assumption by the employee base that we all know what's going on. And that the HR team is involved in every...”

“you have to have a strong and rigorous communications plan that clearly outlines the milestones that you need to achieve, how you're going to achieve them, and who is in charge of those, all with respect to communication...”

“Communication is key and it sounds basic, but it's, it's true.”

“I cannot underestimate the power of storytelling as it relates to driving a culture of continuous improvement.”

“I don't think we have the answers just yet. I think certainly something's quite certain is that transparent communication is really the name of the game. And if you do nail it, then there's immediate outcomes and just fr...”

“A lot of employees don't necessarily have the financial acumen to understand what it takes to operationalize and scale a company.”

“We make assumptions about everything instead of qualifying our thoughts, our perspectives, our points of view with the people in our orbit.”

“Dave, you could throw the best party in the world, right? You think about the biggest stars. You got Beyoncé, you got Taylor Swift... But imagine if your invitations fall short... This benefit communications is where I s...”

“So Talking about the riff, exactly why it happened from a quantitative perspective, from how that was gonna influence our business moving forward. And then also talking about the decision to become fully remote for the l...”

“I have a strong conviction around the importance of doing through people and not to people. To unimportant people, you simply tell what. To important people, you explain why.”

“Clarity and transparency is kindness, and that's what employees are looking for... They trust you more, and they're more engaged. So clarity is kindness would be my parting advice.”

“much like in our own households, you can handle bad news when you have a little bit of sense of how you're going to tackle it. But getting that context and knowing where things are and what markers you need to see to add...”

“I can't say that enough. It sounds so simple, but communicating with people about what good looks like, that behavior was just as important as the outputs.”

“employees will reach out to us and say, I wish we had a benefit that offered this... And our response, fortunately, a lot of times, we do. So it's pushing that communication, that education to them so they are aware...”

“I think what provides a supportive workplace culture with regard and in connection with an EAP is market, market. And I market the EAP to employees.”

“Market your work. Like, we're just not good at figuring out how we market internally and externally the value of what we're driving.”

“The best way to have the balance is really through communication of expectations and to clarify the definition of roles.”

“But I think the biggest thing that I would suggest to anyone is literacy, really educating team members on the programs that you offer already.”

“always communicate, which is one of our cultural beliefs that we have. And it's so, so true and so easy to miss.”

“Open communication goes without saying. I believe a strong employee culture and a unified employee culture is one that believes that open communication and open two-way, three-way, four-way communication is something tha...”

“Don't wait to start thinking about, at least just start thinking about a compensation philosophy and really prioritize bringing your employees and your managers along on this journey. Don't, don't hide behind curtains.”

“Information is not a power tool. It's there to be shared across your team.”

“the default setting was to share everything. And that was not just from a culture and HR perspective, that was also from a marketing perspective.”

“if you don't bring people along during the build, they're really going to miss the lift, and most importantly, the impact of your role.”

“Having a communication plan is critical because the more communication that we have on updates in terms of What is changing? Why it's changing? Understanding the why is really important. What's in it for me to be able to...”

“The other piece that I would say is extremely important that I think sometimes we forget about in HR is communication, telling our story. And, you know, that people sometimes don't even know what we're doing, and we're d...”

“Here in Minnesota, we have this phrase about Minnesota nice, and that has no place in the workplace. That's sweeping things under the rug, pretending everything's okay. You're actually doing a disservice to employees and...”

“We could both describe what happened in identical ways. We would interpret it in diametrically opposite ways.”

“By being transparent and having the employees have the ability to ask questions and have those breakout sessions, I think really helped. Bring that trust that's needed to be able to say, hey, we're in this together and w...”

“Our ERGs, I think, are integral in this... these peer-to-peer discussions serve as platforms to share experiences, ideas. They help people build trust. It helps people understand what benefits are available to them.”

“No, we're there. We're showing support. We're asking questions. We're helping them navigate through the challenges that they have, whether it's getting them connected with someone in benefits or getting them connected wi...”

“I think sometimes we get very, very reliant on technology and how we use that technology. And there still has to be a human touch to everything that we do.”

“I would have asked for maybe even more examples so that we can start to articulate when we say, wholehearted. Here's a few stories of what that looks like, quite literally.”

“I also encourage them to overcommunicate. Even if they had no new information. Especially in challenging times, people managers need to remain engaged and accessible to their teams.”

“It also built a stronger bond and relationship between senior leaders, broke down barriers, broke down the silos between having conversation with senior executives and made it more comfortable and vulnerable and, and ope...”

“HR is generally— we're not very good marketers a lot of times, and a lot of it is kind of internal marketing and promoting of what you've done, the impact that it's had, what you need to do, that compelling vision and st...”