An article has been circulating its way around Vestcom. I found it on an associate’s Twitterfeed, who has been tweeting back and forth with the company’s official account. Dennis Smith, Director for Client Services at Vestcom (follow him @seawolf93) shared this article on his Twitter – “Dear CEO, it’s me your most valuable asset.” Of course, the title caught my attention.
The writer highlights the importance of internal communication in recessionary times, and the opportunities technology and the Web afford senior-level managers to “meet” their employees online. Vestcom is 25 years young and has seen fads come and go—we realize that the web isn’t going away anytime soon.
After reading it I couldn’t help but think how timely it was that I’ve decided to start a blog. As the article suggests, social media is the perfect vehicle for tearing down the walls and opening new lines of communication. It’s our belief at Vestcom that internal communication is a key contributor to the success of our company, which is why we take great pride in the job our Associate Relations team does in communicating with our 500-plus associates.
Here are the three goals we have outlined at Vestcom as important to our internal communication plan. We recently shared this with our associates in the May edition of Intercom, our internal newsletter:
- Keep our associates informed on how we are doing: financial information, progress on our strategic initiatives and other important topics. (Thanks to the hard work of our talented associates, we’ve been able to report resoundingly good news each of the last three years.)
- Provide a method for feedback and questions. Effective communication means listening as well as talking.
- Align our internal and external messages. Make sure that we are saying the same things both inside and outside the company.
I’d be curious to hear feedback from managers at other companies on these goals, and from our own associates. Knowing that communication is key to a healthy workplace, are these effective, realistic expectations? What types of internal communication problems has your firm had to address, in light of the recession?
