Objectives:
To create and deliver an internal communications strategy facilitating greater understanding of the business across the whole firm, engendering pride and increased staff engagement.
What we did:
Rouse is a global IP consultancy with offices across 12 countries, including the UK, China, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.
When we began working with the firm it had no formal internal communications programme. There was a good informal system of face-to-face updates, conversations, ad-hoc emails and regular country updates but no vehicle for regular and strategic communication.
Whilst senior staff were well versed in the strategy and ethos of the firm it was unclear whether employees across all levels and in all offices had the same understanding of the brand values and vision.
We undertook a survey of all staff aimed at gauging understanding of the firm’s brand and strategy, views on internal communication as it stood, finding out what staff would like to know more about and how best they would like to be communicated with.
Aided by the results of the survey, along with examples of the firm’s existing communications, information on its values and strategy and an understanding of the firm’s brand look and feel, we drafted an internal communications strategy for Rouse.
The strategy covered an analysis of the staff survey findings and key recommendations on what information should be communicated to staff regularly, what the style and tone of this content should be and the most appropriate communications channels to use.
Working with a designer, we also came up with a look and feel for internal communications and created the programme to deliver this.
We worked with the Rouse IT and marketing teams to create an internal facing website using Microsoft Sharepoint that allowed easy posting of content and generated a weekly email summary delivered to all staff.
We now plan, draft and upload all internal communications content to the site, drawing information together through regular contact with the marketing team, IT, HR and senior management. Content includes interviews with the CEO, focus pieces on key clients, Q&As with people from across the firm and in-depth articles on what is happening in each of Rouse’s offices. There are also regular news pieces on social events, IT projects, client wins, awards and conferences.
The internal communications programme has since become a regular fixture with pieces attracting likes and comments from across the firm and Rouse staff contacting us with stories that they would like to appear.
We were recently contracted to continue delivering internal communications for Rouse.
