The Journal of Internal Communication Volume 7

THE JOURNAL OF
INTERNAL
COMMUNICATION
VOLUME 7

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1
THE JOURNAL OF INTERNAL COMMUNICATION • VOLUME 7
Foreword
M
usicians live in fear of
cryptomensia. It’s when
you steal somebody’s work
without realising it.
One night, Paul McCartney dreamt
the melody to Yesterday. He was
paranoid that he’d unwittingly
pinched it, so he spent a month
going around the music industry
asking people if they recognised it.
Obviously, plagarism is bad. But
borrowing people’s ideas? Increas
ingly, it’s the only way to succeed.
When Oscar Wilde wrote: “Talent
borrows, genius steals”, what he
meant was that while clever
people appropriate other people’s
ideas, the smartest minds steal
them – in other words, they make
them their own.
That’s why we created the Journal
of Internal Communication.
We wanted to give everybody in
internal communication a way to
brush up on best practice from
around the industry and once
again we’ve got a stellar line up.
Lansons’ Scott McKenzie shares
the “Three easy steps to ensuring
effective change”.
Claire Purves explains how she’s
pioneered the use of communi
cations champions within the
engineering giant Howden.
And Neil Burgess at RWE nPower
shares his thoughts on “Peer-to-
peer recognition: the importance
of an ‘applause’.”
Hope you enjoy the issue.
Lee Smith
l.smith@gatehousegroup.co.uk
Simon Wright
s.wright@gatehousegroup.co.uk

2 www.gatehousegroup.co.uk/joic
Contents
STRATEGY
Focusing on their people – how News UK
made their people the main priority�� 4
Guto Harri, Director of Communications at News
UK, talks about how the company is using internal
communication to achieve its business objectives.
Using research to leverage internal
communications�� 8
Claire Goring, Global Head of Internal Commu
nications at Dentus Aegis Network, explains
how research was critical to help build a global
collaborative platform.
At Deloitte, a distinctive way to
communicate a distinctive audit�� 12
Andrew Ball has the task of communicating
Deloitte’s new audit approach to employees.
He explains how he uses his newsletter to
engage and entertain.
OPINIONS
The first 100 days�� 15
Nigel Edwards, formerly of Pfizer and more
recently Betfair, talks about his ‘100 day’ plan
to help introduce a new CEO or leader into a
business.
Three easy steps to
ensuring effective change�� 20
Scott McKenzie, Director of Change and Employee
Engagement at Lansons, talks us through his
top tips for implementing a successful change
communication programme.
Making internal communications ‘FaB’�� 24
BBC Internal Communications Manager Annie
Tufton explains how she used the coined
phrase ‘FaB’ to revive excitement, morale and
engagement at the BBC.

3
TACTICS
Communication Champions at Howden�� 30
How Claire Purves has pioneered the use of
communication champions within engineering
giant Howden.
Employee Engagement starts
with a Woo!�� 34
Colin Wong, Product Manager for WooBoard,
talks us through the cloud-based employee
recognition platform that focuses on total
engagement and peer recognition.
‘Opportunity, excellence, and
belonging’ at AMEC�� 39
Tereza Urbankova, Internal Communications
Manager at AMEC, discusses the ‘employer
brand’ communications campaign and explains
how it is changing the way that the company is
engaging with its people.
CASE STUDIES
Peer-to-peer recognition:
the importance of an ‘applause’�� 44
Neil Burgess, Internal Communications Business
Partner at RWE npower, talks us through the
key elements of Employee Value Proposition
(EVP) and their new approach to employee
recognition.
Communicating global change from a local
level – how FirstGroup is empowering its
people to change its business�� 49
Cathryn Halton, Group Internal Communications
Manager at FirstGroup, talks us through the
company’s ongoing internal communication
agenda and describes how they have engaged
with their people.

News UK, the UK newspaper publishers of newly formed News Corporation,
hasundergoneanumberofchangesoverthelasteighteenmonths.Publications
such as the The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun are all published by
News UK’s subsidiary companies. Guto Harri, Director of Communications,
talks about how the company is using internal communication to achieve its
business objectives.
4
FOCUSING ON THEIR
PEOPLEHOW NEWS UK MADE THEIR
PEOPLE THE MAIN PRIORITY

5
W
hen I joined the company
in 2012, the morale of our
staff was very low. There
were many reasons for this, but
the public scandals, corruption
and the general structural decline
of the newspaper industry overall
were all key components in this
negative opinion. Our people
needed to hear that somebody
was going to plan for a sustainable
future for our company.
The company has undergone
some major changes since
then. At the center of these
changes has been a focus on
our people, ensuring that we
build our future around them.
Our CEO, Mike Darcey, joined
us in 2013 and immediately
decided to put our people at
the heart of everything we do.
We consciously decided to put
the past into perspective and to
leave our problems there too.
We have established many
channels to ensure that we
are continually consulting with
our staff, ensuring that internal
communication took centre stage
in the management of News UK
and that our staff became co-
partners in the success of the
business. We needed a complete
overhaul of our processes and the
core part of the communication
strategy was to champion our
people and our papers. However,
saying something and doing it are
very different things altogether.
MORE THAN JUST A
MEETING OF MINDS
When I joined the company, we
started CEO emails that would
provide a consistent message to
every one of our 2,600 employees.
These emails, which are still sent
today, would cover all sorts of
news – from business strategy
through to announcements about
any awards that we had won.
However, we have really pro
gressed since then.
We decided that face-to-face
communication would achieve the
most success; we set up a quart
erly program for our leadership
and senior management teams –
‘Meeting of Minds’ – which allows
us to communicate all business
decisions to our most senior
leaders who, in turn, cascade
this information to their staff.
We also have monthly ‘Executive
Conversations’, whereby two
members of the executive board
speak to around two hundred of
our staff about a specific subject.

FOCUSING ON THEIR PEOPLE – HOW NEWS UK MADE THEIR PEOPLE THE MAIN PRIORITY • GUTO HARRI
Each month, Mike Darcey invites
a member of staff from each
department of each paper for a
lunch briefing. At these sessions,
twelve of our people are able to
meet our CEO and hear about our
vision directly from him. Over the
course of eighteen months, we are
able to talk to over two hundred
staff in a relaxed and open setting,
allowing us to reinforce our
commitment to communication.
We have also redesigned our
intranet and internet pages, too.
Good communication is meant to
be a two-way street.
NEW COMPANY,
NEW HOME
Over the last year, all our papers
now have new editors. Also,
two-thirds of the Executive
have changed in that time.
There’s been a change in our
processes and procedures with
new governance introduced. Our
organisation is changing and
this is all underpinned by a real
commitment to our people.
The printing of our publications is
now all undertaken at our sites
in Broxbourne, Knowsley and
Lanarkshire. We are also getting
ready to move to a new central
office in London. We will be
moving from Wapping, where the
printing traditionally also took
place, into a new office next to the
Shard. We have taken a thirty-year
lease, which demonstrates the
commitment to our new company
vision and direction. We will be
reinforcing our commitment to
Our CEO, Mike Darcey,
joined us in 2013 and
immediately decided to put
our people at the heart of
everything we do.

7
staff communication by hosting
an induction lunch shortly after we
move in, as well as an executive
conversation on the fourteenth
floor.
Mike Darcey, along with the rest of
our Executive Team, also regularly
visit all of our sites across the UK
and Ireland. It is not just our staff
in London who will see the leaders
of our business or hear about key
strategic decisions.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
Derrick Crowley and his HR team
recently secured record partici
pation in a staff survey, which
speaks volumes about the lift in
morale that has happened here.
Overall, the 96% completion
rate was fantastic. 68% said that
they were optimistic, which is an
improvement of 24% over the
course of a year. 72% understand
our company objectives – an
improvement of 17% – and 71%
believe that the company has the
courage to take the right decisions.
84% say that they find their
colleagues supportive and 83% say
that they feel that their manager
respects them. 96% of our staff say
they are prepared to go the extra
mile to get the job done.
Once you have empowered
your staff and have raised their
expectations of being treated
like grown-ups, you cannot go
back on that. Our staff now have
expectations that they will be
informed, listened to and that
their views will be respected.
There would be a high price to
pay for not doing so being in the
industry that we are in.
BIOGRAPHY • GUTO HARRI
Guto Harri began his career as a BBC journalist
covering UK politics on TV and radio. He was also
Chief Political Correspondent at Westminster before
taking two foreign postings in Rome and New York.
He left the BBC to handle communications for Boris
Johnson and helped mastermind his re-election as
Mayor of London in May 2012.
guto@news.co.uk
www.linkedin.com/pub/guto-harri/13/153/218

Dentsu Aegis Network is a multinational digital
communications company stretching across five
continents, 24 time zones and 110 countries. Claire
Goring, Global Head of Internal Communications,
explains how research was critical to help build a
global collaborative platform.
8
USING
RESEARCHTO LEVERAGE INTERNAL
COMMUNICATION

9
I
joined the business at a
really interesting time, just
as Dentsu Inc. completed the
deal to acquire Aegis Media in
April 2013. The deal prompted
an urgent investment in internal
communication that the board
recognised as a crucial factor.
THE MERGER
Dentsu Inc, previously known as
Dentsu Network, was headquarter
ed in Japan and had a large reach of
brands and agencies internationally;
this included Aegis Media. Dentsu
Aegis Network comprises Aegis
Business and all the Dentsu owned
companies outside of Japan.
Headquartered in London, we ope
rate across 110 countries, five conti
nents and 24 time zones, we can
communicate in up to 23 languages
at any one time – that presents a
number of practical and cultural
challenges. We had to look at
how we harmonised the existing
expertise across both Dentsu Inc.
and Dentsu Aegis Network and work
together to build a global function.
By bringing together that shared
expertise across our network, we’re
able to offer our customers a truly
integrated offering to match the
needs of global businesses.
THE RESEARCH
In order to understand what
our people needed from a com
municationsfunction,weconducted
a three-month piece of research.
Consisting of three different
strands, the first one reviewed best
practice and research in global
communications. The second part
consisted of a series of qualitative
interviews across multiple countries,
brands and agencies. The third
was quantitative; we conducted
surveys across our communities.
We then pulled all of the findings
together, including the results from
our annual employee survey and
analysed all the information to
arrive at our final report including a
series of recommendations.
Those recommendations were taken
forward to our global executive
board and they formed the basis
of our three-year communication
strategy, across both PR and in
ternal communication.
THE PLATFORM
One of the things our research told
us was that our people needed a
centralised space to connect and
create content to share expertise
and skills across the business. This
global collaboration platform is
called ‘NEON’ (meaning “new one” in

USING RESEARCH TO LEVERAGE INTERNAL COMMUNICATION • CLAIRE GORING
Greek). It allows for quick exchange,
honest interaction between global
networks, business announcements
and for people to receive news in
bite-sized pieces – really important
for our majority millennial audience.
People are able to share documents
and showcase best practice, and
examples of work that wins awards
globally and/or is appropriate to
their market, brand or agency.
NEON represents a completely new
way of working. In a complex matrix
organisation comprising brands and
agencies in multiple markets, we
had to get people to ‘buy’ into
this platform by heavily selling the
benefits of it. We worked with our
technology team to create a roadmap
for integration of additional function
ality onto the platform; so time
sheets, forms and various systems
including HR and Finance – materials
that make it easier for people to do
their jobs – in effect creating a one-
stop shop for information.
We also have a multi-disciplinary
communications group called the
Global Communications Network
comprising communication profes
sionals based in different brands
and countries. The platform gives
this global communications team a
conduit to be able to liaise globally
and get key messages into their
market or brands with the added
benefit of them being able to tailor
those messages and translate as
necessary.
THE LAUNCH
We took a phase by phase approach
to the containing because launching
the platform in Taiwan would be very
different to launching it in Toronto.
Every market had a dedicated
We can
communicate
in up to
23 languages
at any one
time – that
presents a
number of
practical
and cultural
challenges.

11
project team in place governed by
the CEO of that particular country.
The project team would manage the
content, a bespoke launch and also
monitor the ongoing performance
of the platform with the emphasis
on quality of content. That model
was replicated worldwide. We pro
vided all the networks with the
creative tools to launch including
videos, posters, stickers, chopsticks,
you name it. It was important that
the launch experience was a good
one in each market.
We also had the CEO of each
market on the ground using the
platform at the launch with their
team to encourage participation.
As of today, we’ve got approxi
mately 13,000 people on board
the platform out of 23,000; by the
end of this year we will have virtu-
ally 97% of people on board NEON.
THE KEY FACTORS
There were a few key factors that
contributed to the success of this
project. Firstly, research played a big
role in bringing the leadership team
fully on board. The findings were
irrefutable so the recommendations
we put forward were accepted
unanimously across our board.
Secondly, I have a very supportive
manager, our Director of Corporate
Communications and Marketing,
Louise Evans. We work together
really well. People often say that
your success relies on having a
strong management team and I
think that’s certainly the case here.
Louise reports directly into our
Chief Executive, Jerry Buhlmann.
The last part is that we’ve worked
extremely hard within the business
to socialise our strategy every step
of the way, building it up whilst at the
same time implementing it. We had
a big focus on building relationships,
familiarising our people at all differ
ent levels in the organisation with
our plans and promoting this new
collaborative culture in line with our
new vision and company values.
BIOGRAPHY • CLAIRE GORING
Claire Goring has over 10 years internal communications
experience across the engineering, telecommunications
and media and advertising industries. She previously
managed internal communications at Virgin Atlantic.
Claire.Goring@dentsuaegis.com

Deloitte’s Andrew Ball has the task of communicating the firm’s new
audit approach to several thousand employees. He explains how he
uses his newsletter to engage and entertain.
12
AT DELOITTE,
ADISTINCTIVEWAY
TOCOMMUNICATE
ADISTINCTIVE
AUDIT

13
I
’m audit internal communi
cations manager at Deloitte.
Recently, part of my job has
been to launch the ‘Distinctive
Audit’ internally – which is our
new core audit product.
Because it’s the Distinctive Audit,
just from a communications pers
pective, I wanted the internal com
munications to feel distinctive. To
feel different. So I used my com
munications champions as the
key channel by which I distribute
our ongoing newsletter on the
Distinctive Audit.
People like reading about people,
particularly people that they know.
So as part of the newsletter, I
interview a couple of our profes
sionals, and draw out from them a
simple story of how they delivered
more value, more challenge, and
greater insight to one of our
clients. The newsletter puts all the
latest updates and the new tools
into one place. With such pressure
on email, you don’t want loads of
different emails going out across
the practice.
DISTINCTIVE NEWSLETTER
I send the newsletter to between
20 and 25 people, and they
cascade it to their local audience.
Some of them will just forward
it, which is fine. What I often
find more effective is they will
forward it, but at the same time
as forwarding it, it gives them the
opportunity to add that personal
touch, that says, you know, “Hi
guys, here’s the latest updates.
If there’s anything you need, just
get in contact with me,” or, “We’re
going to be discussing this at our
next group meeting on Monday.”
It’s that sort of localisation that
I could never do centrally. There
does have to be a very good
reason for using this strategy
because there’s a lot more work
involved in doing such a cascade.
Firstly, you’ve got to follow-up.
You’ve got to chase people a
little bit. I mean, there’s just a
bit less control. For me, working
with my stakeholders makes
it slightly more challenging.
I’m accountable for what I do,
because I’m using now a channel
in which I don’t have the same
element of control.
But I think this is the right ap
proach. Because it’s the Distinctive
Audit, and because it needed
to be so embedded across the
organisation, I felt that in this case,
even though much of the content

is the same, it’s still worth going
down the localisation route to get
it out to our 4,000 people.
I recognise that sending the news
letter for them is not as critical as
servicing their client. So I give them
a week to send it, and then I just
follow up if I haven’t seen it within
that week.
WRITING STYLE
When I communicate with my
stakeholders, I use the ‘hook and
bridge’ technique. I start the email
with a story, then I ‘bridge’ into
the content. That isn’t widely used
within Deloitte as an organisation,
so I was very careful to explain
– the reason I’m doing this is
because there’s a huge amount
of pressure on our people’s time,
but this is the most effective
technique that I have come across
to draw people in and take your
audience with you.
The story I use to grab their
attention is often from outside
the organisation. It might be, for
example a story of Muhammed
Ali’s star being on the wall of the
Kodak Theater, rather than the
floor, so nobody would walk on it.
I haven’t had any push back. You
worry people will say: “That’s not
the way we talk here”. But the
danger is that you self-censor
yourself too much. It’s something
that as a communicator, you’re pla
ying in your own head. But usually,
people are allowed to talk like that
– as long as what you’re delivering
is clearly business-focused.
You have to recognise that con
suming your content is discre
tionary for the reader. So bearing
in mind that it’s discretionary,
you’ve got to make it as easy as
possible to consume and enjoy.
I think good communicators have
a certain level of empathy to help
them do this.
AT DELOITTE, A DISTINCTIVE WAY TO COMMUNICATE A DISTINCTIVE AUDIT • ANDREW BALL
BIOGRAPHY • ANDREW BALL
Andrew has extensive communications, research and editorial experience
and has worked at Deloitte for over seven years.
aball@deloitte.co.uk

Nigel Edwards, formerly of Pfizer
and more recently Betfair, talks
about his ‘100 day’ plan to help
introduce a new CEO or leader into
a business.
15
THE FIRST 100
DAYS

I
’ve delivered several ‘100 day’
plans, most recently at Betfair
and previously with Pfizer.
At Pfizer, it was a new site head
rather than a CEO but with over
3,000 employees, it was a very
similar proposition to a new CEO.
One of the additional pressures for
CEOs of listed companies is that
there are shareholder, investor
community and government
responsibilities to consider. This
would have been the difference
between Pfizer and Betfair for
example.
HELPING THE NEW CEO
AT BETFAIR SETTLE IN TO
HIS ROLE
If we look at the Betfair
example, the new CEO had
been on gardening leave from a
competitor since his appointment
nine months earlier. I joined
the company six weeks before
his start date and focused on
working with the Corporate
Communications and HR directors
to develop his ‘first 100 days’ plan.
Naturally, during this extended
period of time, speculation had
been building about the CEO
and his intentions. With the next
financial results update due at the
end of the first 100 days, the CEO
was keen to ‘keep the powder dry’
on his strategy until this date.
I was responsible for developing
and implementing an internal
communication plan which gave
our global family of employees
an insight into the new CEO’s
approach and focus; while also
giving him an understanding of
employees’ issues, attitude and
cultural behaviours.
To get a head start on building the
plan, I met with the new CEO before
his official start date to discuss
activities in his first few days and
begin to establish our working
relationship. This included, for
example, a global webcast on his
first day where all employees could
‘meet’ the new CEO to set the tone
and share his overall timetable for
his first 100 days. I organised town
halls and associated messages to
coincide with his visit to each site.
We also set up a workshop with
the top 70 leaders, to share and
validate his initial thinking on a
new business strategy.
Attendees were provided with
talking points to help ensure that
their own local communications
were consistent. A follow-up
session with the same group
was organised on the eve of the
THE FIRST 100 DAYS • NIGEL EDWARDS

17
strategy presentation to investors
and the media. I recorded a video
interview with the CEO about
his strategy, which was made
available for all employees on the
day of his presentation. This was
followed up with a live, interactive
‘global town hall’ within a few
days, to enable employees to gain
a clearer understanding of the
new strategy.
This was his first CEO appointment
and, while he understood the
expectations from various
stakeholders and key milestones
during his first 100 days, he
greatly valued having an internal
communications plan to engage
employees on our new strategic
journey. The plan helped to create
the context and an appropriate
state of readiness for change
across the group.
ENSURING THAT PFIZER
COPED WITH CHANGE
The Pfizer example is quite
different as the outgoing site
leader was well-liked and
popular and there were several
contenders for the job at the
same site. A leader from a much
smaller site was ‘parachuted’ into
a challenging environment.
You can be a new CEO
coming from another company,
or be an internal appointment.
Either way, there will always
be things that go smoothly,
or things that have the potential
to be problematic.

I took the opportunity to contact
the incoming site leader a few
weeks before her appointment to
offer to help her hit the ground
running and be a success. This
situation is a big opportunity for
communicators, because they
can help support a key leader
whilst they are in transition to a
new role – this is a powerful thing.
An additional advantage is once
they have become established
in the business and you have
demonstrated the value you
bring, it becomes much easier
to operate with that person
and to influence them on your
communication strategy.
The lesson here is that context is
everything. You can be a new CEO
coming from another company,
or be an internal appointment.
Either way, there will always
be things that go smoothly, or
things that have the potential
to be problematic. The other
consideration for communicators
is that you have the circumstances
of the appointment to take into
account. For example, the stage
of the business’ life cycle can
impact on the success of the
appointment. There are a lot
of things that can change the
approach that you take and so you
need to understand the context
before starting to tackle it.
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
Is ‘first 100 days’ the right
duration? Three months feels
about right; but it also depends
on specific factors such as the
size of the organisation or the way
in which the person has joined the
company. I think six months feels
too long. It’s a long time to get to
know any business so, again, if it
was a very large organisation like
Microsoft for example, there may
be some justification in having it
at six months.
Equally, if it was an organisation
with a single product that
operated in one country, then
maybe a month is enough. It
really needs to be appropriate for
the business itself. In the Betfair
example in particular, it just so
happened that the next financial
results statement announcement
was roughly a hundred days after
the CEO starting, so that was quite
relevant and very convenient.
A written plan is key if a company
has operations internationally;
you need to plan things like what
are the first tier of countries or
operations? Which locations are
THE FIRST 100 DAYS • NIGEL EDWARDS

19
you going to prioritise? Likewise,
you need to plan for some more
troublesome parts of the business
in which there are people who
may need longer engagement.
It’s imperative to know your
audience. Also, it is very important
for the CEO to get to know their
audience and use this to get an
understanding of their business
very quickly.
TOP TIPS:
• Meet the CEO before they join
to understand more about
them and formulate a plan.
• Allow time to develop a
rapport with them as they get
established in the business –
going forward, this can improve
the influence that you have.
• Identify top influencers to help
you and also the areas of the
business that may need extra
engagement
• Context and timing is every
thing. Is the company listed;
are they going through
acquisition; is the CEO ap
pointment internal or are they
new to the business? Each
business will need a tailored
approach.
BIOGRAPHY • NIGEL EDWARDS
Nigel is an internal communication specialist and
consultant with over 15 years experience in leader
communication, organisational and behavioural
change. He has worked in a range of industry sectors
including pharmaceuticals, telecommunications,
electronics, and online gambling in global, regional
and national roles. He has a post graduate diploma in
Internal Communication Management.
nigeltedwards@hotmail.co.uk

Scott McKenzie, Director of Change and Employee Engagement at
Lansons, talks us through his top tips for implementing a successful change
communication programme. Based on years of experience leading and
delivering change communications and employee engagement programmes,
both in-house and agency side, Scott McKenzie talks us through his top
three tips to ensure success.
20
THREE EASY STEPS
TO ENSURING EFFECTIVE
CHANGE

21
STEP 1: BE CLEAR
T
his may seem obvious, but
for any change programme
to be successful there needs
to be clarity. Be clear about your
objectives; be clear about your
outcomes.
I’ve seen a lot of change
programmes where those central
to the project don’t understand
what it’s trying to achieve. If those
integral to running the project
don’t get it, then you can’t expect
your stakeholders, employees,
leaders or investors to either.
STEP 2: MAKE SURE THE
COMMS TEAM IS INVOLVED
FROM THE BEGINNING
Too often change projects do not
engage with the communications
team at the beginning of each
project. The major side-effect of
this is that many organisations
struggle to get to grips with the
changes and really understand
the impact it has on different
areas of the business.
We get called in too late, typically
when the project team realise
they don’t have the capacity,
capability or resources in place
to effectively engage employees
with the project; and then they
end up having to take two or
three steps back in order to move
forward again.
The lesson is to ensure that
communications is considered
at the start of every change
project or programme. This will
help sharpen its focus and enable
clear stakeholder mapping. It
will lead to clear communication,
clarity around end goals and
employees who are engaged with
the objectives of the project. If
it’s a systems or process change
this is likely to increase adoption
and save time and money; while
moving the culture in the right
direction too.
STEP 3: WHO ARE YOUR
INFLUENCERS?
This is more of a specific point:
take time to identify who your
influencers are both inside and
outside the organisation. Some of
them might surprise you.
It’s so easy to get hung up on
your organisation’s hierarchy
and while you should make sure
senior stakeholders are informed
and engaged, it’s important to
consider who is going to help
you get the organisation ready
for the change. They can be at

THREE EASY STEPS TO ENSURING EFFECTIVE CHANGE • SCOTT McKENZIE
any level within the organisation.
Sometimes this can include those
who have been around a long
time; people who have got a lot of
knowledge about specific systems
or processes or those who others
listen to. You should also look to
integrate your approach across
internal and external influencers.
Within the wider world this
includes engaging commentators,
journalists, investors, political
stakeholders and regulators.
GOING VIRAL
I like the way Leandro Herrero
writes about change as being a
virus (in his book Viral Change:
The alternative to slow, painful
and unsuccessful management of
change in organisations). He talks
about infecting the organisation
with change, rather than the
traditional top down cascade.
I think this concept has a lot of
validity. It’s less about seeing
the organisation as a hierarchy
where momentum moves down
the organisation, and more like
an organism where you find the
It’s less about seeing the organisation
as a hierarchy where momentum moves down,
and more like an organism where you find
the most important parts of the body and
target those instead i.e. your influencers.

23
most important parts of the body
and target those instead i.e. your
influencers.
Ultimately, it’s about having an
integrated, 360 approach to
understanding your stakeholders
and the impacts of the change(s)
on those people. Based on this,
we can really demonstrate how
we add value to the business by
helping the organisation make
effective decisions during the
change programme.
BIOGRAPHY • SCOTT McKENZIE
Scott McKenzie has over 15 years experience in change,
employee engagement and internal communications.
He is currently Director of Change and Employee
Engagement at the award-winning consultancy
Lansons. Prior to this, he worked for Hill and Knowlton,
RBS and Lloyds Bank and has also been chair of the
CIPR Inside group.
scottm@lansons.com
+44(0)20 7490 8828
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/scott-mckenzie/2/234/80b
Twitter: @scotty_bhoy

24
MAKING INTERNAL
COMMUNICATIONS
FaB
One of the world’s largest
broadcast companies was
undergoing a restructure, with
frequent negative press and
a division outwardly lacking
in enthusiasm. Internal Com
munications Manager Annie
Tufton explains how she used
the coined phrase ‘FaB’ to
revive excitement, morale and
engagement at the BBC.

25
T
he BBC was undergoing
a big restructure when I
joined the Finance and
Business division. My role re
ported to the CFO, but I also
maintained a relationship with the
central comms team. I worked on
a variety of channels from the CFO’s
speech writing, planning leader
ship workshops, to announcements
and general newsletters.
THE BEGINNING OF FAB
Given that there were so many
changes over a short period of
time, it was a great opportunity
to give the division a new brand
identity.
Finance isn’t known for being the
most exciting area of the BBC.
However, they did do exciting
things that had a great impact
on the BBC, but it was difficult
to make people feel that their
jobs were just as important
as someone who worked in
Production, for example. Given
that this department didn’t get a
lot of the attention because they
were considered ‘back office’, we
needed to shake things up and
lift up the spirit of the division.
When we coined FaB, it basically
changed everything. Our people
were FaB, and senior managers
were known as FaB Leaders.
The CFO used the phrase, “Thank
you for being FaB. Thank you for
being so FaBulous, and thank you
for representing exactly what I
expect Finance and Business to
be…” It just changed everything
once we started using that
language. Everyone had a little
spring in their step whenever they
said it. We created a really fun
logo, and it was all started at the
conference. All FaB people were
invited to the FaB conference!
THE FAB CONFERENCE
Besides a new name and brand
for the conference, we had a new
strategy for this all-staff event.
We didn’t want to put on another
event where each area of the
division gave an update on what
they’ve achieved over the year.
We didn’t want to fill up the day
with PowerPoint presentations
and endless speeches with our
goals for the next year. We did
that all the time anyway, in team
meetings, etc. We wanted to
reward our people for all the great
work they had done and give them
a treat that they would remember,
which would encourage them
to work just as hard over the
next year.

MAKING INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS ‘FAB’ • ANNIE TUFTON
FaB was the first step in the right
direction. We’d had some bad
news within the BBC, and there
were a lot of negative things to
talk about, but there were also
a number of people that were
working hard every day, and
not feeling great about it. So we
turned the focus onto our people.
We created a FaB conference
programme that promoted the
successes of our people and that
gave news about what how you
could get involved with activities
in the division. The FaB logo
was dropped in anywhere and
everywhere and our people began
identifying with it right away.
As this conference was going to
be very different to the usual ‘sit
down and talk about what the
business has achieved’ affair, we
focused on the ‘thank you’ bit;
thank you for being FaB. What
you don’t get every day is a thank
you. What you don’t get every
day is recognition for how hard
you’re working. We decided this
is going to be a day of reward for
everybody.
We asked one of our BBC
celebrities to host the 8-hour
conference; a correspondent
called Steph McGovern from
BBC Breakfast. She was very fun
and was able to add an element
of humour to the conference.
Another way we picked up some
excitement in the audience was
by starting the conference with
an interview with the Director
General, who was George
Entwistle at the time.
SETTING A FAB SCENE
Imagine, it’s 9 am and you’ve
walked into this big room that’s
completely dark. It feels like
an evening event. The room is
branded top to bottom in black,
white and hot pink and you’ve got
these bright LED lights shining at
you that spell out FaB. You’ve got
a programme and a little card at
your seat that says, “Thank you
for being FaB.”
We also invited paparazzi-like
photographers to come in and
take pictures of everyone as they
entered the door against a step-
and-repeat background. These are
finance people, they were shy at
first and ran far from the camera,
but by lunchtime, they were
queuing up to have their picture
taken in front of the branded
wall; they were so excited. The
energy in the room had gotten so
high. They kept approaching the

27
photographer, “Will you take a
picture of me with my team?”
FINISHING OFF WITH
THE FaBbies
After lunch, we introduced the
FaB Leadership team which were
our ten new directors who were
now heading up the division
following the restructure. One by
one, we asked them to come on
stage and speak for 60 seconds
about themselves. There was a
big timer behind them. There was
countdown music. At the end of
the 60 seconds, the microphone
turned off, a big bright red light
shone on them, and their time
was up.
This was the most comical part of
the day. Again, these were mostly
serious people who weren’t used to
letting their hair down at this type
of event. They got up on stage each
showed off their personality with
a bit of humility and inspiration.
Some came up to the stage and
spoke about their personal lives,
pet peeves and love for the BBC.
Others described their roles and
talked about their teams. But each
of them threw in their own style
and tried to speak beyond the 60
seconds, which was not allowed.
Following that session, we had our
keynote speaker, Dave Fishwick
Annie’s event helped a humdrum part of her business look at itself in a brand
new light

MAKING INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS ‘FAB’ • ANNIE TUFTON
from the Bank of Dave who
shared his inspiring story about
giving back to the people in his
community. He was real and
funny and has to be one of the
most engaging speakers I’ve
ever seen. The audience truly
learned something from him
whilst laughing the whole way
through.
At the end of the day, we had
the awards… the FaBbies of
course! This is where we changed
the whole set and everyone
took a short break to pick up a
beverage. We turned down the
lights, dropped a disco ball in the
middle of the room and threw on
the spotlights. Our CFO, celebrity
host and awards host took time to
change into glamourous evening
gowns and black ties.
There were five awards to give
away, all based on five categories
that were aligned to our values.
The criteria to win each award was
aligned to the behaviours we had
identified with these values. We
underwent a formal nomination
Imagine, it’s 9 am, it’s completely dark.
It feels like an evening event. You’ve got these
LED bright lights shining at you that say FaB.
You’ve got a little card at your seat that says,
‘Thank you for being FAB!’

29
process and as this was our first
ever awards ceremony, winning
was a big deal. To make it really
special, when someone won an
award, we would play a 45-second
video of team members speaking
about the winner. For example,
if I was winning the award, when
the host said ‘And the winner is…’
a video would start playing of
all my colleagues and manager
saying lovely things about me and
that’s when I would realise that I
would be receiving the award. It
was really emotional and sweet.
After the FaBbies, we all stuck
around for drinks and more
pictures. People didn’t want to
leave so everyone stayed until the
lights went off and we were forced
out. The conference was just
brilliant. You can’t recreate that
feeling. We had one opportunity
and we absolutely nailed it. I was
so privileged to be a part of FaB
and the team that helped make
this conference come to life.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FAB
At this point in the BBC, we
needed everyone to know that
they were special. It was about
awarding them for being great at
what they are and for sticking with
the BBC throughout a difficult
time. They walked into the room
at 9am feeling, “Oh, another
conference. Where’s my coffee?”
and leaving the room elated and
on cloud nine.
Post-conference, we gained
higher engagement and higher
morale. We followed up with
the FaB theme, people changed
their signatures on their emails
to include the new branding
and they put up their little pink
card that said ‘Thank you for
being FaB’. The FaB Leaders
network continued on and the
FaB Women’s Network was also
started.
BIOGRAPHY • ANNIE TUFTON
Annie graduated from the University of Texas in Austin
with a degree in corporate communications, and a
second degree in Spanish. She has also worked as an
Internal Communications Manager at HSBC and ASOS.
anniemariec@gmail.com

Here’s how Claire Purves has pioneered the use of
communication champions within engineering giant
Howden.
30
COMMUNICATION
CHAMPIONS
HOWDENAT

31
W
hen I joined Howden I
knew I had a particular
challenge – I’m based in
Renfrew, just outside of Glasgow,
yet we had 4,000 staff in 29
countries (6000 now) speaking
11 languages. Besides English, the
only language I speak is schoolgirl
French. So I needed to find a way
to have sentinels – my eyes and
my ears – all over the world.
I knew I needed to have a regular
vehicle to speak to people and for
people to speak back, but without
the use of an intranet back then
it was difficult. So I sat down and
created the ‘spec’ for my idea
of an excellent communication
champion – what a communica
tions champion should look like
and what makes a really good
one. I’ve got a fantastic team.
There’s 47 people now in our
communications champions team.
It means we can pull news
from every single part of the
organisation. The communications
champions network is very well
known within the business. I’ve
got the right people and I keep
close to them, it’s like having 47
children really.
Some of them are super champ
ions. The really key ones are
also language checkers for me
so they’ll check my translations
when they come back from the
translation company to make
sure that we’re on message and
nothing’s been lost in translation.
But day-to-day the communications
champions are my eyes and ears.
You need to bring those people to
life and turn every single one of
them into a brand ambassador.
We have communications champ
ions in every country. It does be
come a round-the-clock operation
– sometimes you just don’t know
what’s coming next! China doesn’t
go home until about 9:30am UK
time, so when you come in each
morning you have to make them
the priority because their day’s
almost over. America doesn’t come
to work until 1pm my time, so you
can put off doing things for them.
Then Australia comes to work at
about 10:30 at night. If I’m work
ing late, they’re sitting there with
a breakfast coffee in their hand
while you’re just about to go to
bed. We’d all be in bed and they’d
be there still in the middle of their
working day so that was a bit of
a strange one. I love that, though.
That’s part of the buzz. This is
my second global job and I just

COMMUNICATIONS CHAMPIONS AT HOWDEN • CLAIRE PURVES
couldn’t change that now. I just
couldn’t go back.
I asked the managing directors to
nominate somebody from their
business to agree to me having six
hours a month with them. That was
quite a key figure, because seven
hours looks like a working day but
six is a little bit less to work on
communication projects. In some
months, they just attend online
meetings in their own time zones.
Yesterday, I had three hours of
communications champions meet
ings. They come to the table
with fresh ideas, with feedback,
having consulted with their
colleagues, having come up with
material every single month in
Howden World News; they’d
carry out the annual audit, share
good practice and support each
other – last year we improved the
internal communications scores
in our global employee engage
ment survey by nearly 10% –
the communications champions
should take some credit for that
phenomenal shift. I’m blown
away with the material that we’re
covering. I think, if I could distil
that into a bottle as a magic elixir
of motivation then I would!
Without my comms champions,
I just could not do that. There’s
no other way, apart from chang
ing the structure in internal
communications. I would need an
army of paid communicators in
the regions or in the businesses
to make that happen. And my
communications champions are
doing such a great job, I’m not
sure I would even want an army of
communications managers!
I’m blown
away with the
material that
we’re covering.
I think, if I
could distil
that into a
bottle as a
magic elixir of
motivation then
I would!

33
For example, one project they
launched with me was Connect,
our intranet. I got them involved in
scoping the business requirements
– how the site could be made
more intuitive and ultimately, the
launch campaign – a countdown
campaign, an interactive pdf and
a video we made together.
I gave the champions a script that
was broken down into separate
statements, and I got them to
film people on their mobile phone
with a distinct background so
the international nature of our
people and business was easily
recognisable.
They got totally into the project.
Encouraging colleagues to shout
out the lines from the script and
then we cut them all together
and made a video out of it. It was
fantastic! Totally global and 100%
Howden. Some of the material
had to hit the cutting room floor
because it was just too wacky. So
many people had tried to slide
across the floor of their office in
their chairs and as they passed
each other they shout out the word
Connect – some ended in disaster,
but it was great fun. The champions
did that. I think I had 200 video
clips in the end, representing all
the roles we have in Howden, from
office staff to guys in factories who
would turn around from their work
welding a compressor, lift their
mask and say ‘Connect’.
The concept showed we were a
global organisation that under
stood the value of connecting and
that we were a better organisation
if we worked together.
BIOGRAPHY • CLAIRE PURVES
Claire has over 17 years experience in internal and corporate
communications in media relations, brand and reputation
management. She has previously worked for Scottish
Widows, Lloyds TSB and Exova (a global leader in materials
testing). The proud winner of IOIC and PPA awards for Best
Employee publications, Claire particularly enjoys inspiring
employees to deliver business benefits by defining and
communicating Values-led behaviours and successes.
Claire.Purves@howden.com

Colin Wong, Product Manager for WooBoard, talks us through the cloud-based employee
recognition platform that focuses on total engagement and peer recognition. Its customers
include Ernst Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and SunGard.
34
EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT
STARTS WITH A
WOO!

35
W
ooBoard was founded in
2011 when our founder,
Mick Liubinskas, noticed
a gap within the employee
engagement market. At one time
or another, most people have felt
discouraged and deflated in the
workplace when they’ve put a lot
of work into something that ulti
mately goes unnoticed. Over time,
they can start to think, “What’s
the point?” and that’s where lack
of recognition starts to become
a major problem for companies.
What WooBoard does is it makes
those efforts visible where they
can be celebrated together. It can
be incredibly motivating to know
that your achievements will be
visible at all levels.
Essentially, WooBoard is an in
ternal social media platform for
companies – where the conversation
is focused around recognition.
Every employee in the organi
sation creates an account and is
encouraged to recognise their
colleagues in certain areas, rang
ing from the daily wins to their
big achievements.
Regular engagement is driven
through unique gamification and
social mechanics. The entire pro
duct is white labelled – clients are
able to customise elements such
as colours, logos, teams, managers
and company values – and it’s all
hosted from the cloud. It is a really
flexible product and can be used
to achieve a range of different
corporate objectives, including
recognition, appreciation, en
gagement, culture and values
alignment and inter-office collab
oration.
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT:
THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE
OF THE NEXT DECADE
A number of business leaders think
that recognition is simply about
making people feel “warm and
fuzzy”. In reality, there’s a significant
business case for addressing the
issue. This year, Aon Hewitt declared
“making engagement happen will be
the single most important business
challenge of the next decade and
the focal point of the war for talent.”
There’s a great body of research
that backs this up:
• ThevastmajorityofU.S.workers,
70%, are “not engaged” or are
“actively disengaged” at work
– Gallup, ‘State of the American
Workplace’ (2013)
• Disengaged employees cost the
U.S. economy up to $550 billion

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT STARTS WITH A WOO! • COLIN WONG
each year – Gallup, ‘State of The
American Workplace’ (2013)
• 67% of employees rate recog
nition as the top motivator for
performance – McKinsey, ‘Moti
vating People, Getting Beyond
Money’ (2009)
• Top engagement companies
outperform other companies on
all financial indicators: Revenue
growth (+7%), Operating Margin
(+7%), Total Shareholder Return
(+14%) – Aon Hewitt, ‘Trends in
Global Employee Engagement’
(2014)
What’s becoming increasingly
apparent is that the ‘Millennials’
(employees aged 20-32) who are
now dominating the workforce,
are proving difficult to engage via
traditional means; how companies
choose to engage them will define
their success for the future.
NOT THE TYPICAL ‘EMPLOYEE
OF THE MONTH’ PROGRAM
A large number of our clients
approach us because their in
ternal recognition programs aren’t
working. They’re largely seen as
tokenistic by employees and don’t
achieve any of their engagement
objectives, thus failing to add value.
Most commonly, they have the
typical ‘employee of the month’
programinplacewhereemployees
are invited to periodically nomi
nate a person that they think
deserves recognition. This might
be via email or a more sophisti
cated platform. However, in the
great majority of cases, most
people don’t participate and the
person selected is just the random
result of a handful of nominations.
Essentially, there is no real mean
ing to this type of recognition.
In order to create a meaningful
result, recognition programs must
reflect the voice of the company
as a whole. Essentially, this re
quires that your recognition pro
gram generates widespread and
frequent participation. WooBoard
is designed to do this by using a
comprehensive Points System.
The platform rewards users for
all engagement actions, includ
ing sending and receiving re
cognition, sharing information,
earning badges, logging on, and
simply joining in the conversation
every day.
That’s the most exciting part of
our vision. By driving a company-
wide conversation we ensure
that recognition is transparent and
meaningful – that recognition goes
to those who deserve it. It’s really
simple but, when you achieve that,

37
you immediately have a really power
ful base on which to genuinely moti
vate performance and drive real
cultural change.
CUSTOMER-DRIVEN
EVOLUTION
WooBoard has been developed
and evolves in accordance with
the continuous input and feedback
of our clients. If you look at early
screenshots of our product com
pared to where we are now, it’s
almost unrecognisable.
There are always new features
being launched and the product
continues to improve. One of
the biggest benefits of adopting
a cloud-based solution is that,
as soon any upgrades are rolled
out, they instantly go live to all of
our clients so that their platform
remains relevant.
What’s becoming
increasingly apparent
is that the ‘Millennials’
(employees aged 20-32)
who are now dominating
the workforce, are proving
difficult to engage
via traditional means;
how companies choose
to engage them will define
their success for the future.

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT STARTS WITH A WOO! • COLIN WONG
PROVIDING A COMPLETE
SERVICE
For a large number of our clients,
WooBoard is a system that is
managed by the company itself;
it has been built to be really
intuitive. However, prospective
clients often tell us that they
don’t have the time to launch
and implement a recognition
program.
Through the experience of
launching thousands of programs,
WooBoard now features full con
cierge services as part of the
price. Whether it’s consulting
and designing an implementation
strategy, a rewards program or
preparingrolloutcommunications;
clients can be assured that their
engagement will be both effective
and sustainable.
We recently conducted a QA
session with one of our clients –
Educators4Excellence, who have
a number of offices across the
US. One of the most exciting
comments from that interview
was that they found WooBoard
regularly sparked ideas and colla
boration within teams – not only
within their local offices but also
between offices all around the
country. For them, it’s been a really
effective way to stay connected
as an organisation and also to
reinforce the national scope
of their work. All of this came
from the simple concept of
providing people with a place
to say “thank you” to each other
– we think this is really amazing.
BIOGRAPHY • COLIN WONG
Colin heads up WooBoard where he works regularly with major clients
on structuring, implementing and sustaining employee recognition and
engagement programs. He is an advocate and regular speaker on all
things relating to peer recognition, employee engagement, gamification
and behavioural change, values alignment and corporate culture. Prior
to joining WooBoard, Colin worked as a commercial lawyer and has
founded and advised on several early stage companies.
colin@wooboard.com • au.linkedin.com/in/colinjwong

AMEC plc is a global consultancy, engineering
and project management company, operating
across Oil Gas, Mining, Clean Energy and
Environment Infrastructure markets in
over 40 countries. Tereza Urbankova, Internal
Communications Manager, discusses the
‘employer brand’ communications campaign
and explains how it is changing the way that
the company is engaging with its people.
39
OPPORTUNITY,
EXCELLENCE,
AND BELONGING
AT AMEC

‘OPPORTUNITY, EXCELLENCE, AND BELONGING’ AT AMEC • TEREZA URBANKOVA
T
he EVP (or employer brand)
project originated as part
of a training program called
‘Manager Advance’, offered by
AMEC Academy, our development
platform which provides all
development programs for staff
worldwide. This program is very
useful because it basically puts
together a small group of people
from different countries, different
sectors, with different knowledge
and skills and gives them a project
that takes them out of their
comfort zone. The objective was
to identify what AMEC’s EVP is,
articulate it, test it and roll it out
in the organisation.
The group did quite a lot of
external research first, looking at
how our competitors and other
companies manage their EVP,
if at all. They also conducted
internal research throughout
AMEC, approaching various busi
ness units, as well as diverse
geographies.
Throughout the process they were
trying to identify what AMEC
stands for and represents extern
ally, and what our people think
that AMEC is like as an employer.
This research piece took around
six months; it was a deliberately
thorough process.
Then they narrowed their findings
into what resembled a temple with
three ‘pillars’ – a typically ‘engine
ering’ concept! Those three pillars
were called opportunity, excel
lence, and belonging. Once the
concept and research section was
completed, the group presented
the EVP to the senior management
team and it was approved.
The corporate communications
team has been providing support
to the group since the start and
after the senior management
approval, we got involved much
more actively in the testing, roll
out and implementation phases.
THREE GUIDING PRINCIPLES
EVP is an employee promise;
it’s a deal between an employer
and an employee which revolves
around expectations. This can
work only when both parties are
fully engaged.
‘Opportunity’ means AMEC pro
vides development opportunities
toitspeople,beitthroughtheAMEC
Academy or through working
on challenging projects or work
ing for prestigious clients, for
example. At the same time, people
must want to grab opportunities

41
and use them to grow within the
organisation.
‘Excellence’ was delicate to manage
since it very much overlaps with
opportunity; you want people to
excel and deliver excellence (one of
the core AMEC values), so this was
about AMEC providing the environ
ment for its employees to excel in.
And that could even include devel
opment opportunities, for example.
‘Belonging’ is about people want
ing to be respected, recognised,
rewarded and valued and AMEC
expecting its employees to be
loyal and go the extra mile. It’s
very subjective sometimes as
it also depends on what makes
people feel they belong.
FROM EVP TO WHY AMEC
We conducted focus groups across
all parts of the world to identify if
these three elements resonate with
our people globally, which took
several weeks. We changed EVP
to ‘Why AMEC’ which was much
more accurate for us, and which
our engineers could identify with.
The ‘pillars’ changed to ‘reasons’,
i.e. why people join AMEC and
why they stay. These focus groups
revealed some more findings; we
used them to refine the Why AMEC
terminology.
Eventually, we came to a point
where we thought we had a final
product. By this point, the Group
Senior Vice President for HR was
driving the project, as one of the
strategic recruitment initiatives. We
felt we had something really good,
really meaningful. Something that
resonated with our people, but
there was another challenging task
ahead of us: embedding it into the
organisation.
We had the senior management
support already but we needed
We never stop
measuring the
engagement
and feedback
part of the
campaign,
as this gives
us validity.

‘OPPORTUNITY, EXCELLENCE, AND BELONGING’ AT AMEC • TEREZA URBANKOVA
support from bottom up. Through
an internal campaign we ‘hired’
over one hundred engagement
champions, all of whom are
volunteers, helping us roll out
individual Why AMEC reasons.
We changed the graphics of
the campaign to make it more
dynamic and we also linked the
individual words – opportunity,
excellence, and belonging – to
our strategy for growth which
we call ‘2015 and beyond’ and
which is all about collaborating,
improving, growing, and therefore
achieving. We consciously linked
the three individual elements to
that strategy, in order to give it
credibility and make sure that
people understand how they
contribute to the company’s
overall strategy when they
implement Why AMEC. We started
communicating this initiative as
‘change for growth’, which again,
made it more meaningful to our
employees.
AN ONGOING PROCESS
OF DELIVERY
We then kicked off the roll out
campaign. We divided Why AMEC
into parts, with one reason launch
ed in each quarter. However, the
previous quarter’s learning was
not shelved; we always try to
maintain a holistic view of the
campaign in order for it to remain
relevant. In the process of roll
out, the entire Why AMEC team
(now comprising of the original
team, a couple of engagement
champions who wanted to get
more involved in the project,
HR and Communications) has
been supporting our engagement
champions driving it.
Aswithallinternalcommunications,
we knew that measurement would
be crucial to the whole process.
We conducted pulse surveys from
the beginning that focused on
capturing the engagement index
scores as well as feedback on
individual reasons and on the
overall campaign. We never stop
measuring the engagement and
feedback part of the campaign,
as this gives us validity. We were
pleased to see Why AMEC winning
a UK’s ‘cHeRies’ Finders Keepers
Recruitment and Retention Award
for excellence in HR, Training and
Recruitment in 2014 as the cam
paign has helped us in the recruit
ment of over 4,200 people into our
Brownfield and Asset Management
operating units; whilst reducing
onshore voluntary staff turnover
by 6% in 2013.

43
We are still driving the Why AMEC
campaign within the business
with the help of our champions.
We promote their success stories
about how they embedded Why
AMEC and what tools they used.
This inspires people in other parts
of the business and they can see
it works. We also promote the
initiative through the regular CEO
blogs, the Intranet and through
Yammer internally. Externally, it
has also been included on our
corporate website and LinkedIn
profile under the career sections
which shows how it is viewed
as a tangible element that is
part of our Group drive for ‘2015
and beyond’.
BIOGRAPHY • TEREZA URANKOVA
Tereza Urbankova is a PR, communications and marketing
professional with over 15 years’ experience in industries
such as hospitality, retail, IT, defence, broadcast, logis
tics and engineering. As well as managing internal
communications at AMEC plc, Tereza works as a freelance
communications and PR consultant. She speaks Czech,
English, Spanish and Russian.
tereza.urbankova@amec.com
www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=10558221trk=nav_responsive_
tab_profile

The peer-to-peer recognition scheme at RWE npower makes up an
integral part of the company’s Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and
helps colleagues recognise each other’s efforts in helping the company
achieve its goals. Neil Burgess, Internal Communications Business
Partner, talks us through the key elements of the platform and their
new approach to employee recognition.
44
PEER-TO-PEER
RECOGNITION
THE IMPORTANCE OF AN
‘APPLAUSE’

45
O
ur Employee Value Propo
sition (EVP) is a critical part
of our people strategy. In it,
we outline what we expect from
our people and what they can
expect from us.
CHANGING A CULTURE
Although our EVP information was
definitely out there on the intranet,
it tended to be fragmented, unclear,
inaccessible from one simple place
and not easily accessible for our
more remote workers.
We knew we needed to develop
something that would help our
people understand what was on
offer to them and also what the
company expected of them in
return to help us get it right for
our customers.
The result was the launch of People
Positive – a website available to all
our people. We also enabled access
to people at home via an employee
extranet and whilst on the move
by launching our very own People
Positive app. Enabling our people
to access the information in the way
that best suits them was always a
key consideration as it suits both
our office-based and field-based
employees.
Once our People Positive site had
launched, we quickly followed it
up with the launch of Applause
– our brand new peer-to-peer
recognition scheme. This was a
great new addition to our EVP, but
crucially served a real business
need. Historically we had a lot of
fragmented recognition schemes
across the organisation. A lot of
them were manager led and, in
reality, were very hard to maintain
effectively.
We felt that the company, and
our people, would benefit from
one scheme that transcended the
business and Applause gave us
just that. Being able to recognise
someone, even just the simple
act of saying ‘thank you’, is very
powerful. Applause makes this
process easy across our entire
business. You may not sit in the
same location as the colleague you
want to thank – you may have only
spoken to them over the phone
while addressing a customer query
for example. However, you can still
formally say thanks by logging into
Applause, selecting the person’s

PEER-TO-PEER RECOGNITION: THE IMPORTANCE OF AN ‘APPLAUSE’ • NEIL BURGESS
name and detailing what you want
to thank them for.
This is then flagged to their line
manager and, if appropriate, can
be promoted for consideration
for further recognition. Whether
that further recognition is a
simple message of thanks from
a senior manager or a small
financial reward, there’s enough
flexibility in the system for the
most appropriate and authentic
approach to be taken.
WAS IT SUCCESSFUL?
We had around 20,000 Applause
entries submitted in the first 10
months – which was a fantastic
uptake and culminated in ‘The
Pride Awards’ which recognises
the ‘Best of the Best’ examples
of Applause from across our
business and has now become an
annual event.
We arrange the Pride Award final
ists into categories, ten in total,
including ‘putting the customer
first’, ‘best customer experience’,
‘customer advisor of the year’,
improving cost or quality’ and
‘teamwork’. All of the categories
support our strategy and mission
to get it right for our customers.
Our people now really
understand and appreciate
its benefits; and now readily
see the connection between
their day‑to‑day work and
the goals of the business
which is great to see.

47
HOW WAS THIS SUPPORTED
INTERNALLY?
First of all, we listened to our
people and gained the insight
into what they wanted to see.
Delivering a solution that meets
the needs of the target audience
certainly put us on the path to
success. Collaboration was also
key. Internal Communication, HR,
Reward, our leadership team and
representatives from every single
area of our business all worked
together to create and prepare
the launch of Applause. We spent
a lot of time engaging with all
people managers, and held a series
of webinars to explain how the
system worked and how managers
could support it.
Although Applause is peer-to-peer,
managers still had an important job
which was to support the scheme
and promote some examples of
‘Applause’ for further recognition
where appropriate. We then went
into our official launch phase. We
did all the basics you would expect,
intranet articles, targeted email,
postersetc…butwealsodeveloped
interactive user guides, which
showed how the system worked
and when to use it. These went
down very well with our people.
Authentic leadership endorsement
was also a powerful tool and the
leadership team really supported
the scheme, including our CEO
taking part in the launch video.
Post-launch, we quickly turned our
attention to finding those early
adopters to Applause and simply
started a dialogue with them. Why
did they use the system? How did
they find it? What sorts of things
did they like to recognise people
for? How does it feel to receive/
give recognition?
This really brought Applause to life
and has enabled the scheme to grow
to the levels we see today. In fact,
we’ve never stopped promoting
Applause and the scheme continues
to grow – one recognition at a time.
Our people now really understand
and appreciate its benefits; and
RWE’s peer-to-peer recognition
scheme is now a key part of
the company’s Employee Value
Proposition (EVP)

PEER-TO-PEER RECOGNITION: THE IMPORTANCE OF AN ‘APPLAUSE’ • NEIL BURGESS
now readily see the connection
between their day-to-day work
and the goals of the business
which is great to see as it helps
drive employee satisfaction which
in turn will drive customer satis
faction.
We are on course to beat the
numbers from the first ten months
and are always looking at new
ways to improve and develop our
recognition schemes. Everyone
can see the value of having happy
employees and happy customers.
We certainly don’t intend to go
back to the old way of doing
things. Our business has really
taken to our new approach and
everyone is benefitting from the
new way of working.
BIOGRAPHY • NEIL BURGESS
Neil began his internal communications career with the
Virgin Group. Departing Virgin after seven years, he
has since spent time at Cable and Wireless Worldwide,
Wincanton Logistics and, for the last three years, RWE
npower. In 2012, Neil was recognised as one of the
communication industry’s rising stars, being named as
one of the ‘top 30 under 30’ to watch.
Neil.Burgess@rwenpower.com
uk.linkedin.com/pub/neil-burgess/13/b58/131

FirstGroup has expanded rapidly since the company was formed in Scotland in 1990. Since the
management buyout of an Aberdeen bus company, it has grown to become a multinational
business that employs nearly 120,000 people. Largely developed through acquisitions, the
company has risen to become the leading transport operator in the UK and North America
– serving over 2.5 billion people a year on train, bus and student transport services. Cathryn
Halton, Group Internal Communications Manager, talks us through the company’s ongoing
internal communications agenda and describes how they have engaged with their people.
49
COMMUNICATING GLOBAL
CHANGEFROM A LOCAL LEVEL
HOW FIRSTGROUP IS EMPOWERING ITS
PEOPLE TO CHANGE ITS BUSINESS

COMMUNICATING GLOBAL CHANGE FROM A LOCAL LEVEL • CATHRYN HALTON
When our new CEO Tim O’Toole
joined us in 2010, it brought about
a huge change for our company.
We needed to unify our people
behind a single purpose, with an
agreed direction for our company.
We decided that our strength was in
operating as a group, rather than as
a group of companies. We would be
able to leverage our expertise across
our different divisions, rather than
trying to initiate change by imposing
blanket initiatives from group level.
NEW LEADERSHIP,
NEW VISION
This meantoperatingunderashared
culture, through a collective set of
values so that there was a consistent
way of working that everyone could
expect from each other. Each area
of our business had slightly different
setsofvalues,butwhenwelookedat
them in more detail we found com
monalities. We could see the explicit
values that underpinned our group.
TANGIBLE EMPOWERMENT
We also felt that it was important
for our stakeholders, customers and
partners to have a consistent ex
perience with FirstGroup; regard
less of which part of the company
they were dealing with. Obviously,
due to the geographic spread of
our company – along with the fact
that we needed to engage with
nearly 117,000 people – we needed
to establish how we would commu
nicate these messages.
Our ultimate audience is our em
ployees but, in order to be realistic,
my focus needed to be on a smaller
group of people. We needed to focus
on the local teams to be able to
deliver communications across their
networks; we knew that their local
channels were already established
and trusted, so there was no real
need to change this.
At a group level, our aim was to
create and define the impact of the
messaging and to empower our
leaders at a local level to deliver it
for us. The very first thing that we
did was engage with leadership to
buy into the new vision, strategy and
values so that it was understood. We
engaged our leadership team so that
they were clear on their role in achiev
ing this overall vision. Two leadership
events in the UK and North America
were organised to speak to our top
250 leaders. We started to tell them
the story, describing how the differ
ent pieces fit together and asked
them to start to discuss this back in
their business. We needed to them
to take the time to understand what
the story meant for them and their

51
people, in the context of their own
part of the business.
For our group to flourish, all of this
work needed to happen on a local
level involving a wide range of
stakeholders. Ultimately, we needed
people who knew the local markets
to identify what was needed and
then adapt the group approach to
meet those needs. It is was only by
helping them to reap the benefits
in this way that we knew we would
gain their commitment.
After six months or so, we went back
to our top 250 leaders and asked
them what they thought about it in
relation to their individual business.
We asked them how they saw them
selves taking it forward and what
obstacles they think they would en
counter. We then empowered them
to roll this out across their businesses
withsupportfromour‘enablergroup’,
which was made up of communica
tion and HR professionals.
CHANGING THROUGH
COMMUNICATION
The drive from our senior leader
ship team has really helped us to
succeed with this. By engaging with
our senior leaders, we were able to
gain ownership and commitment to
the overall vision rather than just ask
them to deliver a group message.
They knew what was needed to talk
to their own people, and all we need
ed to do was to engage with them
enough for them to own the mes
sage that we were trying to convey
at a group level.
One of our biggest challenges is
being able to move people from
saying how something is a great
idea to actually believing in it
We decided that our strength was
in operating as a group, rather
than as a group of companies.

COMMUNICATING GLOBAL CHANGE FROM A LOCAL LEVEL • CATHRYN HALTON
enough to make it something they
do every day.
Putting the idea into practice by
being able to change the way they
work – that’s where the biggest
challenge of such an engagement
strategy lies.
We consistently measure our efforts
using a combination of qualitative
and quantitative techniques, so we
can clearly define our progress.
When we do achieve our goals, it
is also one of the most satisfying
parts of this work.
One of our biggest successes so far
has been the Greyhound business
that operates out of North America.
They have a very distinct culture
and are wary of anything that might
disrupt that. However, they have
wholeheartedly supported this and
the President of that business now
lives and breathes our story. It
doesn’t sound like an afterthought
– it sounds totally natural and some
thing he truly believes. His leader
ship team explicitly talks about
Greyhound and FirstGroup in the
same way now to all of their dif
ferent audiences and this is clearly
seen in how the business operates.
Due to the sheer size and reach of
our organisation, we are still in the
midst of this transformation. We are
constantly trying to refine our work
by helping people get to grips with
the strategy and understanding how
it aligns with our vision. When people
can see consistency coming through
our story, they believe in it. We’ve
actively avoided any general an
nouncements or campaigns around
a new vision or values because we
didn’t want these statements to
become a barrier to genuine change.
We want them to be real and for
our people to live and breathe our
organisation’s values – that’s where
our focus always has been and
where it is always going to remain.
BIOGRAPHY • CATHRYN HALTON
Cathryn joined FirstGroup in 2011 as its first Group
Internal Communications Manager. Previously, she spent
some time working for G4S in their operational UK
security business, leading the delivery of their internal
communications strategy.
Cathryn.Halton@firstgroup.com
www.linkedin.com/in/cathrynhalton

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