Looking for a fresh challenge for 2011? Take a look out some of the latest career opportunities on the GCN Careers page. Recently posted positions include:
> Deputy Head of Internal Communications, Geneva
> Senior Internal Communications Manager, Geneva
> Communications Manager, Zurich
Good luck!
As in this blog we have spoken a lot about Employee Engagement in the past, I found a new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit on the subject most enlightening. It clearly signposts a disconnect between the boardroom and the rest of the organisation when it comes to understanding and acting on engagement issues.
According to the report, more than 80% of top executives across Europe and the Middle East view disengagement as one of the three biggest threats to their business. Yet, during the survey, almost half of these executives (47%) admitted that they do not discuss staff engagement issues in the boardroom.
Perhaps even more worrying was the report’s finding that many senior executives appear to have a fundamentally flawed view of what – and who – influences the levels of engagement within their organisations. For example, just 13% of C-suite executives believe that line managers and middle managers are chiefly responsible for staff engagement – this despite the raft of evidence pointing to line managers as being the key to morale and productivity.
Perhaps the most enlightening statistic to emerge from the report is the fact that nearly half (47%) of the senior executives surveyed believe that they are personally responsible for generating the levels of employee engagement in their firm – a view that is shared by only 16% of senior directors outside the C-suite.
Paul Lewis from the EIU, who edited the report, said: “this research strongly suggests that many, though certainly not all, CEOs retain an unrealistic and over-optimistic view about their own impact when it comes to staff engagement.”
An important point to bear in mind when building a business case for engagement related campaigns.
Melitta
Authors of a new report warn financial services communications professionals that they cannot rely on regulation alone to restore trust in the sector.
The ‘In Banks We Trust?’ report reveals how the UK financial services sector believes it needs to further re-build the confidence of the general public and evaluates the role of communications and the media in achieving this goal. To investigate the issue, 164 people in the sector were surveyed and a number of high profile financial sector professionals interviewed.
The results show 60% of respondents believe that regulation will not be enough to restore confidence and pride in the UK banking industry, demonstrating the need for financial institutions to take a proactive approach to turning around negative sentiment.
Despite a lack of certainty around the value of transparency, 58% feel that corporate communications is key to improving the reputation of the sector. Only 3% believe financial services companies have done a good job in communicating their dual responsibilities to shareholders and customers to date. The research also revealed that the majority of respondents (65%) feel the media plays an active role in fuelling and encouraging negative sentiment towards the sector.
If you would like more information or a copy of the report, you can send you request to: alysha.smith@hotwirepr.com
Melitta
To discover how popularity and influence correlate, the Social Computing Lab at Hewlett-Packard’s research arm analysed 2 million messages on Twitter.
While measuring popularity proved straightforward: it’s simply a case of looking at the numbers of people signed up to follow a specific person’s or organisation’s messages, determining influence was more tricky.
To measure influence, the researchers hypothesised that users of Twitter are the more influential the more they manage to get their followers to pass on messages. Surprisingly, the results showed that the correlation between popularity and influence is weaker than one might expect.
If you want to know who has the most influence in the digital world, you can
read the full article on the Economist Blog >
Melitta
In a recent article, William Trout, director of internal communications at the U.S. bank BBVA Compass, raised some interesting questions about the future of the Corporate Intranet given the emergence of collaborative Web 2.0 technology and mobile ‘smartphone’ devices that enable the distribution of content remotely.
In the article, Trout suggests that to keep in touch with employees, organisations need to free the bulk of the Intranet from the desktop and work towards creating the exciting and engaging experience that corporate users deserve.
Melitta
Ahead of tomorrow’s Round Table: Doing business in India, of which we are the media partner, I found an interesting entry on the Melcrum blog about communicating with a global workforce, with a focus on cultural differences between Asia and the West.
In another interesting article on the subject of multi-cultural communication, Domna Lazidou, visiting lecturer in culture and communication effectiveness at Cranfield School of Management, shares her recent research into the issue and highlights the importance of being able to identify cross-cultural issues in the workplace, especally for communicators.
Read Donna’s insights and advice for communicators >
Melitta
The winners of the seventh Italian Hallvarsson & Hallvarsson Webranking Awards, were recently announced in a ceremony in Milan. With Eni, an oil and gas company, taking the top prize for the third year in a row with an impressive score of 87.75 out of 100. Hera, a small multi-utility company, came a close second.
Hera also received the Transparency Award for their efforts to provide stakeholders with accessible information in close to real time, such as in the publication of interactive annual reports within hours of board approval.
Other particular prizes were awarded to Edison, for innovation, and Piaggio, for demonstrating the best improvement after moving up the rankings from 61st to fifth place. Here are the top ten:
The Top 10
1. Eni (87.75 points)
2. Hera (86.75)
3. Telecom Italia (86)
4. Pirelli & C. (83.75)
5. Piaggio (81)
6. UniCredit (80.25)
7. Snam Rete Gas (76.75)
8. Assicurazioni Generali (72)
9. Luxottica (69.75)
10. Cir (68.75)
Melitta
The AMEC Communication Effectiveness Awards took place last night in central London. AMEC’s annual awards celebrate the importance of media measurement and evaluation to successful communications.
Hill & Knowlton Communications and the Ex Libris Agency were the big winners of the night, picking up the Judges’ Platinum Award and the International Members’ Award respectively, as well as collecting Gold in their individual categories. Another significant winner was Echo Research, who won a total of six awards.
For a full list of winners, visit the AMEC website >
Melitta
The third annual ‘Rising CCO’ survey has revealed that corporate and brand reputations face greater risk from online threats today than ever before.
The survey, conducted by global executive search firm Spencer Stuart and global public relations firm Weber Shandwick, revealed that while 34% of global chief corporate communications officers (CCOs) report that their companies experienced a social-media based reputation threat during the past 12 months, just as many (33%) say they are not prepared for managing these types of online reputational threats.
Interestingly, or perhaps consequntly, of the CCOs surveyed 54% cited new/social media experience among the most important qualifications for tomorrow’s communicators, showing that CCOs worldwide are preparing to meet the social and online media challenge.
In addition, the firms behind the survey expect social media/blogging to be the fastest-growing function in communications departments in the next 12 months, having already risen dramatically from 28% in 2008 to 41% in 2010.
Read more of the survey’s findings >
Melitta
Thank you to the some 40 participants who attended today’s lunch seminar on Innovative Fundraising Camapigns.
A special thanks to Emilia Casella from the UN World Food Programme who introduced us to a particularly interesting (and successful) fundraising campaign: Free Rice.
Through her presentation Emilia demonstrated how, by thinking differently about our challenges and the way we use technology, it is possible to really engage people and reach out to new audiences.
Free Rice is a simple yet innovative campaign that enables people play an online vocabulary game and, each time they get a correct answer, donate 10 grains of rice to the World Food Programme (WFP). To date, more than 4.3 million people have been fed for a day thanks to the campaign, which is growing stronger by the day.
The www.freerice.com stats are impressive. The site attracts 1.2 million unique players each month, with 9% of players returning more than 200 times!
While it’s online and fun nature has enabled the WFP to reach out to younger audiences and sensitize them to the core issues around hunger and poverty, the average player is 18-35 years old, female and with an interest in education.
It’s key success factors appear to lie in its simplicity of use and its ability to empower individuals to make a difference. However, it has been the ability of the WFP team to think creatively about how they use the free rice application and concept and drive traffic to the WFP website that has really made the campaign a success and made it a sustainable source of funding for the WFP.
Members invited to join the GCN Free Rice group
One of the features of the Free Rice site is the ability to play as a group and Emilia has kindly set up a group for GCN members (and their friends), so why not sign up to the GCN Free Rice Group today and see how much rice we can donate before our next event – which will be an evening apero early in December, watch this space for more details coming soon.
A few photos are available through the GCN Flickr page.
Look out for our next event, an evening networking apero in December!
Glenn, Patricia, Melitta and Vincent