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Casting my eye across the map of our region, which stretches from Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya, through Russia and Poland, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, to China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Australia, I ponder how best to engage Unilever’s 70,000 employees to help double the size of the business by 2020, without increasing our environmental impact.
As a business communicator who provides internal communication support to the leadership team of Unilever’s “growth engine” region—which includes Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Turkey, and Central and Eastern Europe—I know that combining strategic direction with tactical excellence is vital. Truly listening to the business and incorporating what you learn into a strategy and action plan that stands up to the scrutiny of colleagues at all levels is an opportunity that comes with great responsibility—and one that requires a positive, action-oriented mind-set and tenacious commitment.
Internal communication is a driver of employee engagement, meaning that its objectives focus on making sure your colleagues know, think, feel and do what is required to deliver excellent business performance. But how do you do this when your colleagues are vast in number, spread out in location and diverse in cultural make-up?
According to Closing the Engagement Gap, the Towers Watson Global Workforce Study (2007–2008), “Engagement is the extent to which employees ‘go the extra mile’ and put discretionary effort into their work—contributing more of their energy, creativity and passion on the job.” Engaged employees are critical to business success. There is a proven correlation between high employee engagement scores and strong business performance. The level of engagement also impacts talent retention.
Against that backdrop, there are three steps to ensuring that your employee communication has the right impact:
- Do your research and get to know your employees.
- Create a compelling, multi-touch-point communication environment.
- Foster communication capabilities across the business.
As business communicators, we know the value of adopting a marketing approach to understand the people with whom we are communicating. In a multinational organization, it is also critical to identify the opportunities and potential barriers that cultural and geographical diversity can present. Colleagues are situated in particular business sites and countries that have their own cultural and socioeconomic dynamics; they belong to business areas that have their own sub-cultures; and they are individuals with their own communication preferences and motivations.
We only need to look at anthropologist Geert Hofstede’s model on the five dimensions of culture, or anthropologist Edward Hall’s thinking about how culture affects employee engagement to understand the importance of thorough quantitative and qualitative employee analysis as the basis of any employee engagement strategy.
The insights revealed by such an analysis will highlight not only global communication opportunities, but also potential issues that may hinder your organization’s communication success. Following are some points to keep in mind as you implement programs based on your analysis:
- Communication channels need to reflect the communication cultures inherent in different countries.
- The language used needs to be appropriate; this includes tone of voice, in both verbal and written contexts, as well as imagery. In an international business environment, it is inappropriate to use images of soles of feet, bare arms, thumbs-up gestures, etc. Images of African-Americans are usually not accurate reflections of Africans living and working in Africa; images of Nigerians cannot be used as proxies for images of Kenyans; images of Chinese, Indians or Japanese do not reflect the full geographical spectrum of Asian people. People in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Nepal and the Philippines, for example, are all very different.
- Time zones and work weeks vary across the world. In our part of the Unilever world, we manage live audiovisual interactions Monday through Wednesday because the other days of the week are the weekend for some groups.
- Technical infrastructure also needs to be considered. There is little point in offering employees a multi-megabyte video to watch online when only a few colleagues with strong broadband connections can access it.
A dynamic, global communication environment should foster a culture of give as well as take, not two-way, but multi-way communication. Create opportunities for all employees to share and access best practices, ideas and thought leadership, no matter where they are located. Engage them in mentoring and collaboration programs that span borders. Allow them to ask questions and offer their perspectives. Communication should be a common denominator that integrates and builds on the strengths of diversity—shaped to be organizationally and personally appropriate, while respecting cultural differences.
The impact and success of an effective global communication strategy can be measured against the metrics of employee engagement scores, financial results and talent retention figures. However, to confirm the invaluable return on investment that communication plays in the employee engagement arena, you must demonstrate the specific, tangible contribution that this critical function makes to the overall performance of the business.
Helene Bradley-Ritt is Unilever’s internal communications director for Asia, Africa, Middle East and Turkey. Her 17-year international career spans broadcasting, management consulting and in-house corporate communications. In her current role, Bradley-Ritt provides business partnership support to Unilever’s leadership team for Asia, Africa, Middle East, Turkey, Central and Eastern Europe, to drive business performance by using communication as an enabler of strategic employee engagement. |
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