Klavs Valskov pulls a 180˚ on Internal Communication at Maersk Line

CASE STUDY: FIELDTALK – ENGAGINGWITH A REMOTE WORKFORCE ATHOMESERVEBy Jo Cook, Head of Internal Communications and PaulHickson, Internal Communications ManagerIn 2010 HomeServe changed the way we talk to our people.We created a new internal voice and started to establish asense of community that linked to our service propositionas the first place people would turn for their homeemergencies, maintenance and repairs. It was clear howwe could do this with the employees sitting in one of ouroffices, but HomeServe also has over 300 engineers out onthe road, repairing peoples’ homes. The question quicklybecame “How do we effectively engage the employees whoare in our customers’ homes every day?”We worked withipadio to developthe answer –FieldTalk – aregular, tailored audio broadcast that connects every oneof our engineers with what we want to say and allows usto listen to what they want to say back to us. Furthermore,we can tailor the content of our broadcasts to respondto engineer questions and feedback. We can make suregroups of engineers hear the content that’s relevant tothem and best of all, it’s done with something we carry withus wherever we go – a mobile phone.FieldTalk is incredibly simple to use; it takes verylittle time and has the flexible controls for moderationof content, and we continue to receive expert, proactivesupport from ipadio.HOMESERVE’S TIPS FOR A SUCCESSFUL FIELDTALK1. Have a general section for everyone, in addition to regional or operational sections. As well as making operations more efficient,all levels of the management team can get involved.2. Use interviews for some of the content. Unless you’ve an expert speaker handy at all times, monologue is rarely fascinating,and dialogue helps the audience understand what’s being said. Why not have a member of the target audience act as a “guestpresenter” – perhaps you could do an X-Factor style competition to choose them?3. Really encourage people to leave feedback, and make sure it’s followed up on – fast. FieldTalk is all about two-way dialogue:staff should know that FieldTalk is the simplest, quickest and most effective way of getting themselves heard.4. Likewise, use the FieldTalk voting system to gather opinions on issues that really matter: e.g. focusing on “vote for yourpreferred location for this year’s annual meeting”, rather than “what did you think of the message?”.5. Keep FieldTalks short and sweet – a total of around seven minutes total is ideal.6. Keep them regular so that employees get into the habit of tuning in – weekly or bi-weekly is best. Gather the interviews andupdates a day in advance.7. Send out notifications of a new FieldTalk by text message – and why not send out a reminder a day later? Use the ipadio reportsto show who’s dialled in, and who hasn’t.8. Have people think about their spoken delivery – the trick when doing audio is to sound at least 25 percent more enthusiasticthan you would if delivering such a message in real life.9. When recording a FieldTalk, if you go wrong leave a short pause before starting again – this makes editing much easier.scm April 201229