Ukraine, jobs, Uber values
Insider Comms for internal comms
🇺🇦
Given the events unfolding in Ukraine, it feels so trivial, somehow inappropriate, to send this weekly dispatch about nothing, really, when there is a war.
Truth is, for most of us on this list, life continues mostly uninterrupted. As I’ve said before, even during the most historic events the majority of us continue “dully along.”
Again I turn to Bruegel’s masterpiece “Landscape With the Fall of Icarus,” a depiction of Icarus’s plummet into the sea. (His legs are all we see on the right side of the painting.) Dramatic and tragic as it is, Icaraus’s drowning goes unnoticed by normal people trying to live their normal lives. The artwork is immortalized in W.H. Auden’s poem “Musée des Beaux Arts,” which opens with:
About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
When there is catastrophe I often turn to these works of art for perspective. In the painting a farmer, a shepherd, and a fisherman go on about their business without heed to a supposed calamity, because they have to. And so do we.
We go on because we have to.
It’s not too late to say something
Other news
➗ Interact Software’s new ROI calculator showcases the value of employee experience software and the financial impact of an intranet (Digital Journal)
👟 Starting May 3 most Nike workers will be required to be in the office three days a week, with the option to work remotely the other two days. Nike also continues to "pilot" a full-time remote schedule with some workers. (Insider)
🚪 Instead of “exit interviews,” try “stay interviews,” which can make the employees who remain feel more understood—and committed to the company. (WSJ)
🗞️ The Comms Avenue is a newsletter for internal comms pros based in Africa. (The Comms Avenue)
Two weeks ago I asked if you were interested in seeing job postings in Mister Editorial.
The vote wasn’t even close. By a margin of 28:1 you overwhelmingly voted to see open roles in our industry.
🤔 Apparently a lot of you are looking for your next opportunity.
📣 If you are hiring, share the info with me (hit reply) and I’ll include the link in future dispatches.
You’ll reach 2,000+ internal comms pros (and counting!).
The latest:
Bloomberg - Managing Editor - Employee Communications Platforms (NYC)
(I once held this very job. Can’t recommend the role, team, and company enough.)
Heifer International - Director of Communications (remote U.S.A.)
Integral Communications - Summer 2022 Internship (remote and NYC)
(I’ve done some great work with these fine, cutting-edge communicators.)
Kellogg’s - Internal Comms Manager (Dublin)
Meta (née Facebook) - Internal Comms Manager, Central Products (San Francisco)
Oxfam International - Head of Internal Communications (Nairobi, preferred)
I see you*
Every other Friday I get lab work done at the hospital. (My chemotherapy goes through the end of March, for those keeping score.) Every visitor and hospital worker must walk past two huge boards (above) that recognize outstanding employee achievements and how patients (customers) rate their experience.
I participate in the surveys, which are sent to me after some visits.
I love that the hospital isn’t afraid of putting their “net promoter scores” (for lack of a better phrase) front and center so everyone can see how they’re doing. And I love that successful employees are made highly visible.
It reminds me of a time I visited JPMorgan’s HQ in Manhattan. Projected on the wall behind the reception desk in their vast lobby were similar celebrations of employees who had gone above and beyond to help customers succeed. Every employee, customer, and recruit walking in the door couldn’t miss the broadcast.
💭 What can internal comms do that celebrates employee achievements in a public way? Why not, for example, put that intranet article on your company blog to show people outside the org who and what you value?
Bonus: Your employees—i.e., your best advocates—will share the news on their social networks, which is an easy, free, authenticate way to spread good news about your company.
*That’s a hospital pun, folks.
Uber values
Above is a still from the Showtime limited series “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as fallen CEO Travis Kalanick, gives a hint at Uber’s 14 company values.
I wonder how many of those values are still around…
Don’t have Showtime? Read the book the series is based on: Super Pumped.
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Disclaimer: Besides running Mister Editorial, I work in employee comms at Splunk. The views in this newsletter are my own.