In global companies headquartered in the US, internal communications can feel alienating rather than engaging for employees located in other countries. When all or most of the members of the internal communications team are based in the US, it can be difficult to bring visibility to the people and accomplishments of offices around the world.
Tribe's solution to this, which has worked well for a number of clients over the years, is to form a global editorial board with members from each office, country or region in the company. The members don't need to be communications professionals; they can be people from any function in the company. The more important qualification is that they have relationships with people in different functions or teams so that they can help identify potential news stories and/or the employees to interview on various topics.
The time commitment required for members of the editorial board is minimal. We usually ask for a monthly or quarterly meeting, depending on the cadence of internal communications, but the meeting typically lasts 20 minutes or less. For instance, if the theme of an upcoming newsletter or intranet feature is innovation, we'll ask the group if they can think of examples of innovation they've seen recently in their region. One person might suggest a new feature being added to some proprietary software, another might mention an upcoming product launch and a third might know about an innovative solution an employee applied to keep volunteer efforts going despite COVID. We'll ask for contact information or introductions to the people they think should be interviewed for more information on those topics.
Know what you need from the editorial board before the scheduled meeting, so you don't waste their time. It's always a good idea to ask the group if there's anything going on that they think other employees would be interested in, but the primary goal of the meeting is to find employees to feature for topics you've already identified. Of course, the best editorial plans allow for flexibility, so if something more timely comes up, your editorial plan can be adapted.
It's also helpful to let the editorial board know what's on deck for the next meeting. Perhaps your editorial plan calls for featuring an employee who exemplifies one of your values each month. You might let them know, for instance, that next time you'll be looking for employees who are great examples of the value of teamwork. Or maybe the next month you hope to cover sustainability efforts throughout the company, and the board members can ask around for examples of that, bringing those ideas back to the next meeting.
True, this is one more thing to add to their list of commitments which probably does not fall within their job description. But there's satisfaction in helping to bring visibility to one's peers, and there's also the benefit of developing relationships with other board members around the globe. We've seen close bonds develop between employees who'd otherwise never have had a reason to know each other, and that in itself helps the company be a little less siloed.
Remote or hybrid work arrangements make it even more important to bring visibility to employees throughout the company. Without the editorial board, internal communications can too easily be focused primarily on executive leadership, with far less visibility for the people doing the day-to-day work of the company. And without the spontaneous water-cooler interactions employees enjoy in the office, we particularly need internal communications to help keep the culture vibrant and open windows into geographical and functional silos. (For thoughts on For more on how an employee magazine can help build culture, see this article on Ragan.com. And for help getting an internal newsletter off the ground, you might like this article, also on Ragan.com.)
Interested in developing a global editorial board to help your communications be more inclusive? Tribe can help.
