Turning Your PR Machine Inward: Why Employees Deserve Media-Quality Storytelling

“Stories have to be told or they die; when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.”

-- Sue Monk Kidd, author

Companies devote much time, effort and money to telling their stories to customers, shareholders, their communities and through the media. 

So why does Internal Communications so often feel like an afterthought, a “check-the-box” activity with less creativity, passion and flourish to remind employees “why we’re here”?

Even when chief marketing and chief communications officers acknowledge that super creative storytelling about their own companies’ employees, products and services can increase morale, improve productivity, attract better talent, give staff the permission to innovate, strengthen the culture, etc., ask yourself: does it feel like lip service?  Do employee surveys about how employees feel about the company tell you that they are made to feel important or valuable?

Treat Employees like . . . Media?

While the economy may be at an inflection point, unemployment is still just over 4%. The current news cycle, replete with all sorts of bad news, doesn’t change the fact that your employees have options.  Worse, they just “phone it in.”

When was the last time CCOs talked to their COOs or CEOs about the high cost of turnover or middling employee morale?  And when was the last time your intraweb featured a truly remarkable or interesting story about the people, products and services that distinguish your company?  

What if you treated your employees’ stories the way external communications approach the media, if not better, seeing that many firms (including you, Tier 1 suppliers) have gone “dark” with external storytelling?

Turning the External Newsmaking Machine Inward

Telemetry has been applying creative story mining, story development rigor and creativity for years.  We’ve already created an external publishing juggernaut for campaigns with 

Capital One, CarGurus, GreenCars, TrueCar, and Hearst Autos. However, we have also brought our brand journalism playbook to create employee stories. By acting as an in-house newsroom, we don’t just push messages at your team, but engage them as collaborators in crafting your company's story through their stories, in and outside of work.

The first thing an employee sees in the morning is their home screen; in most cases, at large corporations, that home screen is their intranet. When companies evangelize high-quality, interesting stories about the people they work with, employees become more engaged, which can lead to all the positive business outcomes outlined earlier (morale, productivity, decreased turnover, etc.). 

Survey Says: Your Intranet May Look Like an Afterthought

Telemetry recently conducted a series of one-to-one interviews with internal communication professionals regarding the quality of companies' intranet stories. The findings were varied, with 75% believing that internal storytelling leaves many employees feeling uninspired, indifferent, or even negative about their company.

If roughly half of your employees are unmotivated or disengaged, there's a high probability that great stories aren't being told through the current, passive mechanism of 'Submit Your Story Here.'  Someone has to chase these down, draw them out and develop them.  This newsroom model of employee comms empowers individuals to see themselves as more than staff.  Telling their stories gives them pride and equity in companies’ brands. Their passions, values and work amplify their companies.

We’d like to help you try to do this creatively and with methodological vigor.

Telemetry has developed and managed internal communications content strategies for many companies, from early-stage startups with a growing employee base, such as May Mobility, to large Tier 1 automotive suppliers with a global employee footprint of 18,000, like the IAC Group. 

Intrigued?  Contact me at craig@telemetryagency.com.