CASE STUDY Pfizer's PR campaign „Openly about sex“ - PRO.PR

Internal communication in practice
Varteks - good communication between management and
employees brings improvements in business
.
by Nikolina Dežmarić Krofak
Head of Corporate Communications
Many European manufacturers and retailers had to
undergo the process of restructuring their business
in order to maintain their positions.
Varteks started creating a new business strategy in
2004. It was the first company in the Varazdin county
to found a Corporate Communications Department.
It followed this with a detailed communication
plan. Restructuring, confidence in management,
motivation enhancement, access to information
and strenghtening communication between
management and employees were the challenges of
this newly founded department. The Corporate Communication
Department took control of the mishandling
of information. It supplied all employees
with real and true information in order to prevent
pressure being put on the management over decisions
that had to be made.
Nikolina Dezmaric Krofak was the founder of the
Corporate Communications Department at Varteks.
With another two members she started the Internal
Communication project, based on several communication
tools. 3600 copies of the “Info” magazine’s
editions have been published. It is entirely made within
the Corporate Communication Department;
texts, graphic design, layout.
It is free of charge and is well accepted by all employees
as a source of true and current information.
Its content covers topics about business results, new
technologies, fashion trends, collections, reports
from the General Assembly, press conferences, production
and other topics of vital importance to the
company and its employees.
After publishing the internal magazine „Info“ , the
Corporate Communications Department created
the internal web site „IN“ as the fastest and most effective
access to internal information. Apart from a
display of documents and news, there is other interesting
content available.
The project „Management open days“, also initiated
by the Corporate Communications Department,
PROPR winter 2007.
Varteks is the leading and largest fashion company. In spite of its tradition and high
quality products, negative trends in production and clothes sales in European markets
have prevailed. These were caused by low quality clothes imported from the Far East.
brings employees closer to the management. That
means that each employee is entitled to ask the Board
of Directors questions, as well as talk to them
about eventual individual problems.
The „Management open days“project proved to be
very effective for it tore down the barrier between
the „untouchable“ Board of Directors and employees.
There are also „Info boxes“available for comments,
suggestions, criticisms and approvals written by
employees. It is worth noting that there have been
more approvals than criticisms collected. Our conclusion
is that the tools of internal communication
have turned out to be very successful sources of information.
The „Info“ magazine also launched a project titled
„The Best Varteks People“, which achieved good results.
Five Varteks employees were nominated by
their colleagues for „The Best Varteks People“. Their
extraordinary work results brought them this flattering
title. Since this kind of recognition was completely
new and unknown, the Corporate Communications
Department said that the participation of
employees in this project was more than satisfactory.
Winners were awarded by the Varteks CEO. It
was an injection of motivation to all participants.
For three years running, the Corporate Communications
Department has been using these tools of
internal communication, and they have been well
accepted by the readers. Before this magazine began
to be published, employees had been ill-motivated
and distrustful. Nowadays, when they are
entitled to speak out about their views and opinions,
their active participation in the creation of the
magazine has been highly noticed. Positive
changes in attitude
and mutual trust
have also been noticed
within other
departments’ communication.
In
the long run, we
plan to carry out
certain projects
in order to upgrade
basic com
m u n i c a t i -
ons.