Building Your Brand from Within:

The Power of Employee Engagement

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Building brands from within takes intense focus on your people.

It is clear that internal marketing must precede external marketing since it makes little business sense to promise the customer a level of service that the firm’s employees are unwilling or unable to provide. - Philip Kottler

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Consistent behaviour cannot be prescribed, nor can cultures be assigned. Cultures are more amorphous that this. Consistent behaviour can be nurtured, however. By nurturing a few desired behaviours, a sought-after organizational culture is more likely to develop. - Patrick Harris

Ekins

Discovery is at the heart of our University

The Nordstrom Way

Motorolans

Proctertized

The HPWay

IBMers

BlueShirtNation

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Easy for companies with an intense focus on the bottom line.

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Not so easy for academic institutions.

• Run like a small city with utilities, classrooms,housing, food service, communications

•Profit and competition not central to the operation

•Shared governance with faculty

•Stronger allegiance to work unit – esp. hospital

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Prescription for Success:

Discovery is at the heart of our University

• Committed Leadership

• Strong HR and Communications Leaders

• Intangibles

• Willingness to stay the course

Uniquely Washington - a test case

• Benchmark survey of organizational climate

• Cross-functional teams to interpret and recommend

• HR and Communications develops tools

• Provost champions change

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Discovery is at the heart of our

University

www.washington.edu/discovery

Process steps:

Discovery is at the heart of our University

• Survey the population

• Form teams to evaluate results

• Address needs with management tools

• Develop the communications plan

• Communicate, communicate, communicate!

But you can’t stop there --

• Commitment to organizational change

• Long term budget commitment

• Measurement and adjustment

• Senior Level personal leadership

Discovery is at the heart of our University

The UW’s issues:

• Leadership and decision making transparency• Shared institutional values• Employee engagement and morale Job satisfaction

RecognitionWork / Life balanceCareer/leadership development

• Provision of resources• Diversity climate

Discovery is at the heart of our University

The Communications Plan:

1. Personal appearances by senior leaders

2. Web and Print materials

3. Video and Blast email

4. Unit and employee engagement

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Personal appearances:

Town meetings

Annual address

Board of Deans

Staff meetings

Cross functional team meetings

Annual all staff lunch

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Web and Print

• Discovery Website

• LCVI Website

• Discovery Flyer

• Framed Poster

• My Team Is Great Poster

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Discovery is at the heart of our

University

Being Public World Citizens Celebrating Place

Innovation Academic Community Discovery

Video Productions

WordPress Blog

• Feedback loop

• Organizational thermometer

• Response metric

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Unit and Employee engagement

• The employment lifecycle

• Professional development

• Recruit message carriers

• All campus lunch

• My Team is Great!

Discovery is at the heart of our University

All Campus Lunch

Discovery is at the heart of our University

My Team is Great!

Discovery is at the heart of our University

http://www.washington.edu/discovery/myteam/

Campaign Planning

First year – • Introduce the Vision and Values and Uniquely Washington statements• Gain management buy-in from academic and staff units• Develop internal set of message carriers• Respond to findings in the LCVI survey

Second year – • Explore the Values• Empower front line managers as message carriers• Build consistency in the messages across units• Encourage team building and managing by the values

Third year – • Study results of the new LCVI survey – make course corrections• Inject Vision messages into multiple points on the employment life cycle• Deploy manager’s toolkits with Vision video examples and meeting scripts• Develop faculty leadership training

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Key Messages

We walk the walk –

• Senior leader transparency • Invite comments• Consistent communications

Core values told by employee voices

We are all connected

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Discovery is at the heart of our

University

Top 10 Recommendations• 1 – Survey faculty and staff attitudes first to develop the baseline and work plan.

• 2 – Engage a senior leader to be the champion for internal branding

• 3 – Get help-create a cross-functional team that represents thought leaders across campus

• 4 -- Use the voices and actions of employees to tell the story

• 5 -- Evaluate your communications channels – how do you reach all employees effectively?

• 6 -- Create the buzz, enlist managers as message carriers

• 7 -- Have fun, use your organization’s urban legends to reinforce the brand

• 8 -- Survey often, and correct the course if you need to. Keep the champion engaged.

• 9 -- Celebrate employee success, and share the word

Discovery is at the heart of our University

#10:

Enhance, adapt, preserve --

This is not a campaign, it is cultural change

Discovery is at the heart of our University

We are all Connected

Some thoughts about the future

• How’s your intranet?

• Can you make use of social media?

• What can we learn from our students?

• What can we learn from each other?

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Discovery is at the heart of our University

Some useful books:

“Pour your heart into it” - Howard Schultz (1999)

“Light their Fire: Using internal marketing to ignite employee performance and wow your customers”

- Susan Drake, Michelle Gulman, Sara Roberts (2005)

“Groundswell” - Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff

Discovery is at the heart of our

University

Slides will be available on:

LinkedIn - Harry Hayward - slideshare