Workplace journalism: The Story Board

I got a note the other day from Barry Nelson, a veteran communicator who has founded a new employee communications service that aims to fill a gap in what Barry calls "an overlooked category of content that I believe our fellow practitioners ought to be reporting in their internal media."

With Barry's permission, I'm excerpting from his note:

Here's my message: Employee communicators, striving to be strategic and avoid information overload, now focus pretty narrowly on covering their companies' major decisions, initiatives and results, plus a smattering of administrative or operational details that people need to do their jobs. (Of course the better programs also minister in some way to the needs of supervisors in their communication role.) And that's all fine.

Except that what sells papers (and books and magazines) in the external world is people's need for self-help tips about confronting the daily challenges of ... looking and feeling better, managing a relationship, grooving a golf swing, whatever. And in workplaces worldwide, you have millions of people going through pretty much similar challenges, such as coping with overload, getting along with co-workers and the boss, adjusting to change, deciding whether to invest discretionary time and effort (and how much) in the employer's cause, and so on.

These are personal concerns, off the radar of the typical employee communication agenda. But of course how they're decided, and how sympathetic and helpful an employer is to the plight of employees pondering them, can have as great an impact on engagement and retention and productivity as practically any of the "strategic" issues that hog our attention.

My new business is devoted to helping communicators address these kinds of employee concerns -- putting them in proper global context, and providing coping tips from both third-party experts and helpful voices inside each client company. You can check us out at thestoryboard-llc.com. And I hope you might invite your readers to do the same.

I like the idea of a service that provides content that is of interest to employees but might not be directly tied to the business. It's all about recognizing that people have a life outside of work, and doing things that enrich that life in some way. This shouldn't be the main focus of an employee publication, but it's a content option worth considering, especially when you can customize it to suit your local audience.

There are other similar ideas/services that come to mind, including Ragan Communications' First Draft, a kind of cut-and-paste service for busy editors. I talked with Barry on the phone and he says his concept differs in that he's taking a more journalistic approach, plus he's also offering accompanying managers' meeting guides, sidebars and illustrations.

Readers, do you think Barry's on to something here? Any suggestions for how he might improve or change his approach?

Comments

[Phil Douglis]

I've known Barry Nelson for 40 years -- at this point, I'd guess there are very few communicators out there with as much experience in this field as he has. Barry is known for substantive approaches to employee communication. His material has always been accurate, humanely presented, and timely. I would think that this new service would bear the same hallmarks: content over form, solid reporting, and comprehensive coverage with the support of visually literate photography. His new approach, as he describes above, certainly fills a niche. I wish him well.

Phil Douglis, ABC
Director, The Douglis Visual Workshops, Phoenix, AZ

Photojournalism columnist, IABC
Communication World Magazine.

[Kathryn Yates]

When Barry called me as an interview source for StoryBoard's pieces on Change and Global Teaming I was intrigued with his business idea.

We know employee commitment links to productivity. We also know that commitment takes both trust in leadership and strategic direction and an idea of how each of us fits into the bigger picture. That's what organizational communicators do (or try to) everyday. But we know it also takes a sense of place -- "culture" -- that comes from talking about the issues Barry and his team focus on in their articles.

I wish him the very best -- he deserves it.

Kathryn Yates
Watson Wyatt Communication
Global Practice Director

[Mike Klein]

I'd personally be a bit skeptical about a company-sponsored information/"journalism" not related to the organization's own agenda, mission, or objectives. There is considerable risk of it backfiring: an office I work with insisted on padding a publication with an article on safe barbecuing tips. I know BBQ is close to Ron's heart (as it is to mine--beef, not pork, please), but injection of peripheral material when there are real unaddressed strategic concerns of staff can breed cynicism and reinforce a downward morale spiral.

Proliferation of such peripheral stuff could also undermine the desire of internal communicators to be perceived as serious strategic players.

Perhaps the happy medium is to either create a separate vehicle distinct from that which is produced by strategic internal communicators--a section of the intranet, a separate periodical, or perhaps along with HR news.

But even though retention is a legitimate strategic objective, incorporating such content into serious internal comms activities strikes me as unduly risky.

[Shel Holtz]

Per Mike's comment, in general terms, I agree. However, Barry's offering adds a couple elements worth noting. First, Barry's vast experience would lead him to craft items that can be relevant outside the scope of a company's own agenda/mission/objectives. Barry's been at this a long time and from his own experience knows the kind of content that would work in this scenario and how to craft it in such a way that it would be useful and usable by organizations seeking to fill in some gaps in their communication.

There are plenty of generic topics that are applicable to internal communications, and anything a company purchases from a service like Barry's can be adapted to meet an organizaton's unique needs -- and probably faster than it could be written from scratch.

I like the idea.

[Barry Nelson]

I appreciate everyone’s input here and thank you all for your interest.

Let’s look at this "strategically." Of all the work factors known to correlate strongly with high engagement, only a couple relate directly to understanding the employer’s business model and strategy. The rest are personal issues, centered on perceptions of fairness, opportunity, and emotional support from one’s boss and co-workers. If communicators narrow their reporting efforts to conventional business issues (the stuff senior management and investors care about), I believe they’re missing a chance to make a difference in this other, probably more impactful realm.

To be clear: We are NOT urging internal communicators to cover matters extraneous to what’s happening in their companies. We’re advocating that they run at least an occasional story showing their companies’ empathy for the human anxieties of working in a modern corporation – and offering their people the advice of experts (outside and inside their companies) about how to cope and succeed.

I invite anyone who might think we’re offering the equivalent of barbecue safety tips to take a look at the sample stories posted on our web site (www. thestoryboard-llc.com), and decide for yourselves if this is relevant business content.

[Ron Shewchuk]

Thanks all -- glad to host this discussion.

We all know there's a constant danger of veering off course in employee communications, and we've been reminded for years to keep our content focused on things that support business objectives. But these days, an important business objective has to be helping employees lead more balanced lives. The support we offer might not be hard-wired to a specific goal like increasing production or driving sales -- maybe it's just suggesting ways to cope with stress, or manage money, or take care of one's ailing parents.

And I know this is self-serving (and Mike might have a beef with it), but even barbecue tips might fit into this kind of a mix, as long as it's not the only thing in the publication.

[mklein818]

Allow me to so a 180--Barry's stuff is fabulous. What's excellent about it is that it takes issues that staff may see as only prevalent in their own workplace or organization and put them into a larger, perhaps even a global context.

I think that the positioning Barry's taken also creates some other opportunities:

* customized articles to be deployed when organizations make certain common changes in benefits, working practices or structures (PPO to HMO in the US, silo to matrix management, demutualizing, etc)

* an exchange of employee publication articles on stock subjects to allow participants to seek external inspiration and also some external reference points.

Once again, I stand corrected. Well done. (or in Ron's case, a little rare in the middle).