Engaging Internal Comms

In this episode of Engaging Internal Comms, The Big Picture People’s Craig Smith talks to Prarthna Thakore about audience segmentation in internal communications. Prarthna is an internal comms expert at an organisation called ISG, a dynamic construction company that employs 3,000 people working across 24 different countries, specialising in construction projects that include new build schools through to office fit-outs – a range of everything that encompasses the construction sector. One of ISG’s biggest communication challenges is communicating with its remote, deskless workers, office-based employees, and on-site employees and contractors across several different languages.

During this episode, Rob Baker from Tailored Thinking will introduce us to job crafting. We will be provided with a framework that covers why Job Crafting delivers greater employee engagement, how to implement the practice within a team or organisation, and the elements that make it so successful. Job crafting can be defined as “Making changes in the way that you do your job, the tasks, relationships, and how you think about your job, to make it a better, more comfortable fit, and to bring your passions and your strengths to life within the work that you’re doing.”

An award-winning consultant, coach, speaker and author, Antoinette describes the work she does with organisations and individuals as “Developing employees’ careers in organisations, and progression of a person’s working life within an organisation as well as between organisations and between jobs.” She helps to answer the question, “How can we retain, engage and develop people by helping them develop careers within the current organisations?” and provides the link between proactively managing careers and an organisation’s bottom line.

Hannah’s role is Head of Customer Marketing at Virgin Media, where she has worked for 16 years. She has held a variety of roles, from retail to external communications, including positions such as Head of Retail Experience and Head of Internal Communications. Hannah shares a plethora of stories and examples that demonstrate the role of communications in an organisation. Her passion for her work shines through. Hannah shares her journey to employment with Virgin Media – from a musician with big dreams to a role in internal communications role – before diving into the knowledge she gained from her in-store role and how that has helped inform her in her position in internal comms.

What is important is that the questions you ask and the data you collect are relevant to the employees you are asking. During the COVID-19 lockdown, when you may have assumed that survey participation numbers would have fallen, Ryan says that numbers are up by a staggering 15% on average. The reason? People are being asked questions about COVID-19 and their experiences, thoughts, and ideas – and this is relevant to them.