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One of the risks of being internally focused is the tendency to lose sight of what's going on in the wider comms profession. Which is why a recent event hosted by the Volvo Group – bringing together internal communicators from across Europe to benchmark and pick up new ideas – proved valuable to all involved.
Sue Dewhurst, associate director of Melcrum's Research Forum, was there to help the group identify common themes.
Three issues faced by communicators
According to Dewhurst three key themes emerged over the two-day event: enabling others to make things happen, creating line of sight and being clear about our own role.
If that third point sounds familiar, here's four questions that Dewhurst presented back to the group, to help when defining roles and responsibilities for you and your team:
- Are you clear about the role of internal communication in your organization? Even if you get pulled in a dozen different directions every day, have you set a course to aim for?
- Have you set it out in writing, discussed it and agreed it with your leadership team?
- Do your team members have a competency framework setting the behaviors needed to fulfill their roles?
- Are you investing in development to make sure people have the right knowledge, skills and experience?
Get more details from the full story of the Volvo Group benchmarking event.
See you next week.
Mandy Thatcher
Editor
mandy.thatcher@melcrum.com
- John Finney of Watson Wyatt, who discusses the forthcoming ROI study.
- Barbara Fagan-Smith of ROI Communication, who speaks about The Gap's unusual "Moose" sessions.
- Connie Eckhard, who gives his advice for making progress as a communicator.
Special offer
Order Melcrum's best-selling report, Making Managers Better Communicators and add the essential practitioner guide, Developing A Communication Toolkit for Managers today, for only £100/$160/€150!
Making Managers Better Communicators features implementation ideas from 44 qualitative interviews, 29 comprehensive case studies, and quantitative data from over 700 HR and communication professionals.
Developing a Communication Toolkit for Managers written by manager communication expert Andy Szpekman, explains the three steps for creating the ultimate practical toolkit: planning, leading and engaging employees.
Further reading
Top Tips – Persuading the boss to take comms seriously
Comedy comms – I've run away to join the circus
Q&A – How will you connect with generation Y?
Vote for your favorite blog for communicators
Melcrum Blog – 17 July 2007
Weekly rhythm predicts employee attitudes
Internal Comms Hub – 16 July 2007
Employee newsletters – best practices
Communicators' Network Forum – 13 July 2007
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About
Melcrum
Melcrum is
a research and training business, expert in all aspects of
internal communication. Through our global networks, we connect
more than 18,000 professional communicators in sharing what
works. We produce benchmarking research, periodicals, reports,
membership websites and CD-ROMs and run training coures,
conferences and workshops.
