Best practices for Internal Communication
The winner: IRMA, Denmark
Irma is a Danish grocery firm with nearly 1.700 employees spread across 70 supermarkets and several administrative offices. Despite its broad geographic reach, 93% of the company's surveyed employees indicate that the company's management is approachable and easy to talk to, while 83% agree that management always informs them about important issues and changes.
How do the company's managers sustain this high degree of credibility in the eyes of employees? By gathering frequently with employees at all levels, communicating through a variety of programs, and reaching out constantly for input and ideas.
This open, receptive management style starts at the top: Irma's CEO, Alfred Josefsen, is charismatic and understands the value of leaving his office once in a while. Josefsen can regularly be found wandering the halls of the headquarters and, more importantly, the aisles in the stores, speaking directly to the employees on the "front lines" and hearing first-hand about issues facing employees and customers alike. Other communication practices include:
- A weekly newsletter, which provides business information, including a summary of the previous week and an overview of the near-term future.
- Senior managers regularly pay visits to stores and, on a yearly basis, work for 1-2 days in the stores as "interns".
- Every morning, all stores receive information on the previous day's revenues as well as other data; these figures are displayed on each shop's blackboard, showcased for all employees.
- "Strategy Days" where several hundred store-level employees are invited to come together for three days and share ideas in large- and small-group forums.
"[Irma is] a nice and open workplace with great opportunities to be heard and to express one's self," says one employee. "There are high levels of information, a commitment toward employees, and managers who are easy to talk to."
|
