Hedgehog Hall of Fame: RWE npower renewables - Team Briefing On Demand

Company: RWE npower renewables Campaign: Team Briefing On Demand Category: Internal Communications Campaign of the Year - South - Shortlisted Objective Internal Communications plays an integral role for RWE npower renewables (RWE NRL). Proactive communication is key to conveying our business strategy, company culture and values to employees, as well as offering them the opportunity to provide feedback – so directly contributing to the company’s performance. Ensuring our employees are up to date with what is happening within the company, our goals, development and our progress, can sometimes be challenging especially given that we are part of one of the leading developers of renewable energy across Europe and within the UK; our regional offices are spread right across the UK with our UK head office in Swindon. Given the rapid growth of our business, the pace and demands placed upon our employees, we have introduced a brand new approach to internal communications, with the objective of ensuring that every single employee receives a thorough business update every quarter – at a time and place convenient to them. Strategy & Target Audience  Our target audience is our entire UK workforce, including employees across our ten regional offices as well as those who work remotely and at home. We are also targeting employees based in Europe, providing them with an important update on our UK activities – the UK has a major strategic role in the achievement of Group objectives. We initially carried out an employee survey. We assessed current views of internal communications’ channels which included intranet, email, plasma screens in offices, information cascaded by managers and line managers and Team Brief – a face to face business update delivered to employees, by a senior manager. Team Brief was typically delivered on a set date at 10.00am across all UK offices, once per quarter. Team Brief has been very popular but the challenges of a busy and sometimes remote workforce meant improvements and enhancements were needed. Our survey showed that despite many employees attending a Team Brief over a six month period, 42 per cent of employees said that workloads and location constraints prevented them from attending a Team Brief on a regular basis.  In essence, up to half of the workforce is missing our quarterly business update (in the UK, some 225 employees). Action Acting on the results of our survey and feedback received, we have refined and improved the existing Team Brief process by: • Maintaining face to face quarterly briefings delivered by senior managers, at all offices • Introducing a new Team Briefing On Demand.  Every quarter, the Team Briefing content is now presented and recorded on camera, creating a film which is available to all employees via our Intranet. In addition, we have made a Podcast version available, plus an audio only version, for those employees who spend a lot of time in the car. Results Team Briefing is one of the most important internal communications tools at RWE NRL and has become a familiar and recognised internal event on a regular basis (since late 2009). Building on its existing strengths and acting on feedback received, we have made Team Briefing On Demand, making it now available to every single employee, anytime, anywhere. This not only helps our work force keep up to date with the companies’ activities and progress but also provides the opportunity for the Managing Director to directly address every employee, and other senior managers with an improved consistency of message delivery. Team Briefing is also available to our employees right across Europe which helps them to understand the UK business. Team Briefing on Demand is proving to be a huge success amongst employees, enabling them to feel engaged and involved. What our staff are saying: “I found team briefing on demand very convenient and informative. Thank you for taking the time to develop it.” “I thought TBOD was well presented and comprehensive. I think it is a great idea to make this available and hope you continue producing it”. We are really pleased with the initial reaction to Team Briefing on Demand and encouraged by the suggestions from staff as to how it can be developed. We feel this is the start of a journey and we are committed to further evolving Team Briefing on Demand. Team Briefing is pivotal due to its combination of corporate and high line business messaging coupled with updates and news and topical events that are occurring across the company. We will continue to evaluate and improve our Internal Communication Channels and Team Briefing on Demand. The PRmoment Golden Hedgehog Awards 2014 are now open for entries. Here are this years updated categories.