Welcome from the Chair

Mandy Thatcher
Head of Content
Melcrum

INTERNATIONAL KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Helping leaders engage with their people

In the seismic lurches of the last year, many leaders will have lost the trust of their people. Employees are much keener to get a clear picture of how their lives have been affected. In a world of tighter interdependencies, where fortunes are so closely linked, people need a better understanding of the connections. People want to know some simple truths about what's going on, and they want to be treated as if they matter.

Trust in institutions and in management has eroded. Just at the time when employees need to act as advocates for their organisation, to tell its story and argue its case, they are most beset with doubt, questions and concerns.

Leaders who may have been used to the boom times, find themselves confronted with having to lead in tough times. The rules are different, and the challenges greater.

For internal communicators, times are tougher and the job is more demanding. We have to raise our game, to help our leaders engage with their people to rebuild trust, rediscover confidence, and refocus efforts.

In this keynote speech, Bill Quirke will look at:

• The role of the leader in tough times
• What builds trust - and rebuilds trust which is damaged
• How leaders can engage with their people more effectively
• The role of the internal communicator - and how can they add more value

Bill Quirke,
Managing Director,
Synopsis Communication Consulting

Exploring Engagement as an Emotional State

Westaff has been named one of Hewitt's Best Employers in 2005, 2006/7 and 2008, is recognized as an Employer of Choice for Women (2009) and won the category of Best Generalist Recruiter (Medium) at the Seek Annual Recruitment Awards in 2008.  But what do all these awards mean?  Westaff is an organization that prides itself on its ability to engage not only the internal workforce but also their external workforce.  An important part of this is recognizing the underlying factors that drive engagement,  and even more importantly recognizing that employee engagement cannot be achieved with a one-size-fits-all approach.

This session will explore key concepts that drive engagement including:

• Engagement: Truth or Dare
• The importance of maintaining engagement - no matter what the state of the economy
• The relationship between engagement, family & productivity
• The where, why and how of selecting communication channels

Nigel Haworth,
Managing Director - International Operations,
Westaff (Australia) Pty Ltd

Ready Steady Communicate: a masterful approach to fresh thinking in employee communication

Adding a fresh, creative approach to internal communication is critical to cut through the communication clutter and drive behavior change. In this interactive session, you'll work in teams to cook-up smart solutions for a fresh approach to employee communication. Competing before a panel of expert judges, with a basket of practical tools from storytelling to social media, you'll battle it out against other leading professionals in your field to craft innovative solutions for some of today's toughest employee communication challenges including:

• Managing major organisational change
• Strengthening the connections between senior leaders and employees
• Embedding organisational values
• Reinvigorating employee communications

Thrown into the mix will be best practice examples and tools to help you add your own flavour to your communication going forward. So get ready and get steady to communicate.

Led by the Impact Employee Communications team

Meeting customer needs during rapidly changing times

As a result of the financial crisis, GE made the decision to combine its finance businesses, involving a significant restructure and leadership changes. In this session Emma will cover:

• Managing communications during periods of uncertainty
• The role of communications in realigning the business, transforming operations and facilitating change
• Ingraining change across the organisation with tools and training to engage employees, customers and business partners
• Leveraging leadership and partnerships to drive change
• Embedding change across the organisation to focus on the future

Emma Rugge-Price,
Corporate Communications,
GE Australia & New Zealand

The Communicator as change agent: Transitioning culture and leadership communication from traditional hierarchical command and control to enable empowerment, emergence and a participatory culture

1. A look at a long-term (9 year) culture journey in a community of 800 IT professionals
2. Technological innovation, societal and cultural shifts and communication innovation
3. Leadership authenticity, trust and transparency and how communication style/ channels impact that
4. How the IT@AMP communication strategy evolved from 2000-2009 and facilitates authenticity, participatory culture and democratised innovation
5. Measured results and impact on trust, engagement, employment brand, etc

Specific examples
• Self-organised IT Leaders Forums,
• IT@IMAX Film Festival,
• Creativity Bootcamp,
• Infobites, Conversation Cafes/ Barcamp & Social Media Cafe,
• Innov8 ideas management process and tools,
• A quick tour of our online collaboration environments and the employee spontaneity and viral innovation happening there, and
• The AMPLIFY Innovation & Thought Leadership Festivals started in 2005

Annalie Killian,
Catalyst for Magic
AMP

Effective compliance communication CAN change behaviour

As one of the largest and most complex government departments in Victoria, dealing with sensitive areas ranging from prison operations, court administration, gaming and racing, consumer protection, and legal policy development, the Department of Justice relies on its staff to adhere to a range of policies and procedures. Having delivered an integrated corporate compliance campaign that worked, Justin will explain:

• How the CEO announcement gained attention in a far flung empire
• Moving from awareness to behaviour change with technology and face-to-face
• Getting attention by communicating audit findings
• Integrating a myriad of communication approaches to ensure success

Justin Gehde,
Strategic Adviser Internal & Stakeholder Communication,
Department of Justice, Victoria

A picture of the future

How do we connect the big picture and the local picture? We have looked at Megatrends, researched our customers' needs, researched the future and ended up with a solution that gives us a picture of the future.  This needs to be communicated to employees, customers, and all other stakeholders through key channels.  The Siemens Innovation Forum was developed as one of these communications channels, creating a facilitated environment for discussion. In this case study we will look at this channel in terms of:

• Who are the audience?
• What do they need to know?
• What can we tell them?
• What can they tell us?
• How can we together make a difference in the future?
• and the 'crux of the matter': measurement - is it working?

Herna van Reenen,
Head of Communications, Pacific Cluster,
Siemens

Hitting the restart button: Redesigning communication systems to reflect the reality of today's working environment

This session will look at the work being done by the IBM A/NZ Marketing and Communications team to build a healthy communications culture to more effectively enable employees.

On the heels of a global restructure of the Marketing and Communication function, professionals at IBM A/NZ saw an opportunity to rethink their value-add and worked with the business to refine their role and improve the effectiveness of their function.

• Realising the potential of a healthy communications culture to create a favourable environment for the IBM brand
• Collaborating across the business to identify opportunities to realise the scope and potential of communications to drive profitable growth
• "Physician, heal thyself" - how communicators can build their reputations internally

Alison Brown,
Lead, Field Enablement,
IBM Australia

Closing remarks from the chair

Networking reception sponsored by AON Consulting

Welcome from the Chair

Mandy Thatcher
Head of Content
Melcrum

The Best Social and Viral Media Campaign in the World? Outcomes of the journey of the "Best Job in the World" campaign.

With a PR campaign that spawned around 200,000 blogs, more than 40,000 news stories and more than $200 million worth of global publicity, Tourism Queensland was responsible for one of the most successful and talked-about media campaigns in recent history. In this session you'll hear:

• How the Best Job in the World campaign was developed and the team mobilised to execute this global campaign
• Equipping senior leaders to deal with intense media attention
• How  both digital and social media were used to reach the global target audience
• What Tourism Queensland learnt along the way
• Going forward: harnessing the hype to drive employee engagement
  

Danielle Koopman,
General Manager Corporate and Government Relations,
Tourism Queensland

Delivering 'strategic communication' one tactic at a time...

The brief: "We just want our managers to have the right messages and be in front of people talking about them regularly". Through a combination of change communication, manager communication tools and links with the business planning process, QBE line managers are now equipped monthly with targeted tailored messages supporting strategy and engagement. In this case study you will hear how the Internal Communication team at QBE have:

• Created a simpler internal communication environment through focussing on 'the basics'
• Used media coverage and industry news to provide context for leader communication and to focus messages
• Aligned communication development with change initiatives to drive new internal communication approaches
• Provided managers with a simple framework and tools to get consistent messages to all levels of the organisation

Jonathan Champ,
Head of Internal Communications,
QBE Australia

Communications Think Tank: Internal Communications Working Smarter in the Current Business Climate

• Alliances with other functions
• Adapting to the leadership mindset
• Keeping employees motivated and innovative during this economy
• Alternative communication channels
• Laying the groundwork for the future

Group discussion facilitated by:
Gerard Castles: Castles & Associates, Jonathan Champ: QBE Australia, David
Miller: ATO, Alison Brown: IBM, Tam Sandeman: Impact Communications,
Sam Werner: Zurich Financial Services Australia

Communication Challenges - the Bejing Olympics

The Chinese spent $US 44 billion on hosting their first Olympic Games - they were seen as a "coming out" party for China. The host nation faced numerous challenges and so did the other 2004 countries taking part, particularly those from the western world including Australia. This session will focus on conveying key messages to the media and general public, without damaging the brand and reputation of the AOC or the Olympic Movement in general. Mike dealt with the communication challenges confronting the Australian Team including:

• Human Rights / Tibet
• Air pollution & heat / Food hygiene
• Clean water
• Media restrictions

Mike Tancred,
Director Media and Communications,
Australian Olympics Committee

The ATO's Challenge: Influencing Culture and Employee Engagement across so many employees, systems and sites

In a large and complex organisation, internal communication is a fundamental part of the success of the Australian Taxation Office. More than ever, employee engagement has become a high priority for the ATO. The ATO is tackling two challenges in it's internal communication environment. Moving from a decentralised internal communication model, to an integrated and collaborative approach across it's many service lines and sites. And shifting the ATO culture from a structured, rules-based culture to a principles based-culture with a focus on employee engagement. In this case study you'll learn:

• How to align corporate communication with local communication
• How to build relationships with communication functions across a large organisation by collaboration, consultation and co-design
• How to understand what you're communicating about and who you're communicating with, to achieve the best outcomes for everyone
• How to influence culture and employee engagement across a large and complex organisation

David Miller,
Director of Employee Communications,
Australian Taxation Office

Communicating effectively with a hard to reach workforce

The Resources Division of Leighton Contractors is one of the largest contract miners in Australia, employing more than 4000 people across Australia and New Zealand in a range of disciplines. Understanding how, when and what messages to communicate to the diverse un-wired workforce has always proved an issue, however the communications team are proving that with the right strategy, tools and business support, communicating effectively to a disperse audience isn't impossible. In this session you will hear how Leighton Contractors are empowering employees and supervisors and creating a culture built on effective communications. Learn about:

• Gaining senior management buy-in
• Equipping and empowering managers and employees
• Techniques and tools for engaging hard to reach employees

Shannon Kliendienst
National Communications Manager
Leighton Contractors

INTERNATIONAL SPEAKER:
Yamming it up! Internal Comms & Web 2.0

What are you working on? That's the premise behind Yammer, one of a handful of Web 2.0 and social networking tools that help employees collaborate better, share information and be more creative. This session focuses on how social media is practically being used by businesses and organisations globally to communicate effectively internally. Brian will explain the business relevance of social media tools - from Yammer to YouTube - and why internal communicators should care.

• Key Trends & Why social media and online word of mouth are important to internal communication
• 10 best-practice learnings from deploying internal social media-based programs
• What are the ways to manage social media "conversations" across internal digital channels
• How to measure effectiveness?

Brian Giesen
Director
Ogilvy PR, Ogilvy 360° Digital Influence