Inside: Exec + Internal Comms, Truck Drivers 🚚, Intranet Screenshot, Monsters
Insider Comms for internal comms
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🚪Insider Comms: scroll down for a peek at ConocoPhillips’ intranet homepage.
1. A Short History and the Future of Employee and Executive Comms
Fifty years ago employee communications was little more than “employee recognition.” Today, argues David Murray, executive communications has emerged and melded with internal comms.
The futures of both professions are intertwined.
“I’m hoping the next decade will see the further integration of internal comms and executive comms,” he writes, “because I think that might self-actualize some of these institutions, putting corporate bosses in more frequent and continuous touch with their own people, and thus more in touch with themselves, and forcing them to compellingly and continually explain the company’s place in the moving marketplace and the roiling world, and demonstrate the two things anyone wants to know about their leader:
Are you a decent person who I can trust to lead us humanely? and
Are you a special human being who I can trust to lead us well?”
Read David’s brief history of employee comms and his hopes for the future (ProRhetoric)
2. How Internal Comms Can Help Retain Fleet Drivers
The trucking industry faces the same talent retention challenges as every other industry. The first line of defense in retaining top talent, says Rachel Lovell, VP of people operations at the trucking company Milan Express, is clear and consistent internal communications.
Jeremy Reymer, founder and CEO of DriverReach, a recruiting and retention platform for truck drivers, adds:
“Anytime you have a lack of clarity and purpose, if that’s not cleared up across departments, you’ll start to see people growing in different directions. Leveraging technology can help make sure that there’s open communication across the company. Whether it’s through internal communications systems, such as Slack, Teams, Zoom, etc., or having an open dialogue within departments when positions are being created—these strategies play a huge role in smoothing out those operations.”
Other tidbits on keeping truckers in sync with corporate HQ:
Get leaders involved. Over-communicate on job responsibilities so drivers know what is expected of them.
Explain the company culture and why the culture is designed the way it is.
See things through the eyes of the drivers.
Pro tip: Milan Express uses WorkHound to access real-time, daily data on the driver experience so they can see areas for improvement.
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3. Communication Is Fundamental
What you do—what we do—matters. Take it from Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape and legendary venture capitalist.
It’s not so much what is lacking in the incumbents. It’s more the importance of communication as the foundation of everything that people do, and how we open up new ways for people to communicate, collaborate, and coordinate. Like software, communication technology is something that people tend to pooh-pooh, or even scorn—but, when you compare what any one of us can do alone, to what we can do when we are part of a group or a community or a company or a nation, there’s no question that communication forms the backbone of virtually all progress in the world. And so improving our ability to communicate is fundamental.
4. Industry News
Intranet design winners were announced by the Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g)
🚪 Alas, only one intranet screenshot is shared (from ConocoPhillips, click here for the full scroll)
Zoom will acquire a German startup to bring real-time translation to meetings (TechCrunch)
Simpplr, the intranet platform, just raised $32 million in a Series C round (TechCrunch)
Working from home increased the energy consumption per employee at gaming giant Ubisoft (Axios)
Writer, an AI tool, can police offensive language in written text and suggest adherence to corporate style (Axios)
5. Monsters at Work
Twenty years(!) after Pixar debuted the original Monsters, Inc., Disney+ is bringing a cast of new monsters to the small screen — and putting Mike and Sulley in the managers’ office (NYT).
Of course I’ll be watching closely for tips and best practices on how to communicate with a monstrously diverse factory workforce 😉.
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Disclaimer: Besides running Mister Editorial, I work in employee comms at Splunk. The views in this newsletter are my own.