EDAC Delegate Kit and brochure: design, layout and copyediting by Simone Hoedel

The EDAC (Economic Developers Association of Canada) Conference was held in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in September, 2007. Here is a link to my work.

I was part of the team that put together the well-received EDAC Delegate Kit packages, and the EDAC Brochure. Layout and design by Simone Hoedel, using Adobe InDesign, Photoshop.

Our team members include:

-Ron Monette, SAF Agribusiness Development Specialist
-Verona Thibault, Executive Director, Saskatchewan Economic Development Association, or SEDA
-Leah Jensen, On Purpose Marketing

-plus many others at SAF and RECD

The images in the brochure belong to many different photographers. I adapted both documents from a previous design by (Green Apple Design?), especially the cover, to keep some consistency with previous marketing materials.

Downtown Eastside Stories: Spirit of St. Francis Inspires Atonement Sisters

In 1992, when I volunteered at Women Against Violence Against Women, which was at the time located in the heart of the seedy downtown eastside in Vancouver, I got a first hard glimpse at the gritty lives of some of the people who lived and worked on these streets.

I went to Journalism school in part to describe the human side of this downtrodden neighbourhood. My goal in writing, taking photographs and interviewing, was to understand WHY people end up down here.

By SIMONE HOEDEL
(published July 1996 in BC Catholic)

People spill out of the packed St. Paul's Church on East Cordova Street and file around the corner into the basement lunchroom of the Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement.

There the sisters and Franciscan monks in their brown habits and Knights of Columbus in full regalia chat with families, children, elderly people and the poor of Vancouver's downtown east side as they load their paper plates with fruit, sausages and pastry tarts.

They are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the opening of the Sisters' mission in Vancouver, where some 700 people a day come for soup and sandwiches.

Dayle Moseley, of the Downtown Eastside Residents' Association, claims the area has the poorest median income in Canada. About 60 percent of the population rely on social assistance and live on Skid Row because "they can't afford to live anywhere else," he said.

Sister Carmel Finelli SA, director of the mission at the corner of Cordova and Dunlevy Streets, said that although the sisters and friars also operate a men's clothing room and a day treatment program for sobriety, "basically, we can offer only food." The people need a lot more services, she said.

"The Sister's Place" got its start in 1926 as a Japanese Catholic Mission in Vancouver's Strathcona district, an area which had a high concentration of Japanese immigrants. The sisters evangelized by offering instruction in English. The work was begun by Kathleen O'Melia, a "staunch convert" from Anglicanism, who later became Sister Mary Stella SA.

In October of the same year, four Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement arrived from Graymoor Garrison in New York. The sisters had experience working with Italian immigrants at Saint Clare's Franciscan Mission in New York City.

World War II challenge

By the following year, according to Atonement Society reports, the little mission on Cordova had 266 children registered in Sunday School. The sisters were also visiting homes and hospitals, feeding and clothing the poor, taking care of the sick, preparing children for First Communion and instructing the Japanese in religion as well as English.

Because of the sisters' success, a second Japanese Catholic mission was started in 1931 in Steveston (south of Vancouver in Richmond), where another Japanese immigrant community was growing. Later the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement arrived to help the sisters.

Their greatest challenge came with World War II.

Historical material in archives reveals the tone of that time: During a reception on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, soldiers rushed into the hall warning of an ensuing blackout, one of many to come.

For the safety of the Japanese, a curfew was put in place by a government security commission working out of the daycare building.

After war was declared on Japan, all Japanese within 160 kilometers of the Pacific coast were ordered to move inland. Nine thousand Japanese Canadians in Vancouver were forced to give up their homes, businesses and possessions and evacuated into ghost towns like Greenwood in the interior of the province.

Some of the sisters went with the Japanese. Those who remained in Vancouver continued to work with the poor, including those who took over the jobs left by the Japanese, including immigrants from the prairies who came to work in the shipyards.

After the internment of the Japanese, the Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement were forced to reevaluate their mandate.

Archbishop William Duke wrote to Mother Monica of the Mission Dec.1 1942: "The war upset the work here and we are waiting to see what will happen before making any adjustments."

Eventually he gave the sisters permission to start a day nursery for white children "on account of your apostolate to the Japanese being interrupted."

During the 1950s, an informal lunch program evolved for the "poor unemployed men," although the Franciscans had been informally feeding the needy since the tough times of the early 1930s.

By 1955, the sisters were feeding 200-300 people a day. Today, they feed up to 700. A few years ago, it was as high as 1,000, but Sister Carmel said other agencies in the area have alleviated the burden somewhat during the last two years.

The sisters' lunch program is run to a large extent by volunteers and donations. lndividuals, companies and parishes donate food, and volunteers help prepare and distribute 1,500-2,000 sandwiches a day.

Wallace and Pauline Eng, who belong to the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu-Chi and own a farm in Surrey, have donated produce to the sisters for the past three years.

"We know this is a good place because they help needy people every day," said Pauline at the celebration May 18.

Clair Hoye, who has volunteered with the sisters for 13 years, makes sandwiches every morning. "The food lines aren't getting any smaller," she said. "The number of people lined up on the street is increasing. More needy people are trying to make ends meet."

Archbishop Adam Exner OMI of Vancouver, who celebrated Mass for the occasion in the diminutive St. Paul's Church on Cordova Street, said the spirit of St. Francis inspires the sisters' work.

"St. Francis recognized that everything he had was a gift from God," the archbishop said in his homily. "He had a very special place in his heart for the poor."

"The sisters have not only experienced the gift of God, but also recognised that it is a gift to be given," he said. "They have shared their gifts with the poor."

Downtown Eastside Stories: Dinners Warm Empty Stomachs

In 1992, when I volunteered at Women Against Violence Against Women, which was at the time located in the heart of the seedy downtown eastside in Vancouver, I got a first hard glimpse at the gritty lives of some of the people who lived and worked on these streets.

It was shocking to find out later a member of my own family ended up living in the heart of the worst part of the district.

I went to Journalism school in part to describe the human side of this downtrodden neighbourhood. My goal in writing, taking photographs and interviewing, was to understand WHY people end up down here.


By SIMONE HOEDEL (published in the Voice, Fall 1993)

It's Thanksgiving on the downtown east side in Vancouver. On this sunny day, street people are lined up on Cordova Street around the block outside the Union Gospel Mission, near Oppenheimer Park.

They're here for the food: a hot turkey dinner with dressing, mashed potatoes, carrots, gravy, pumpkin pie and coffee.

But first, each group of one hundred people is led into the chapel for a church service. The group, mostly Native, sat with their heads bowed until the folk songs are over. From there, they are led to the spotless dining room next door.

Brother Daniel is a Franciscan friar, a brother in a Catholic order, who manages the daily sandwich line two blocks west of the Mission on Cordova at the Sisters of Atonement. The Sisters feed 800 to 1,000 street people a day.

Brother Daniel says most of the people on the streets are addicted to alcohol and drugs and can't manage their own lives. A large number are mentally ill. Many more are elderly or street kids. A lot of the people in the food line-up are trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty, crime, and substance abuse. Most live in cockroach infested hotel rooms and rooming houses that don't have kitchen facilities. That's why they use these soup lines.

The standard rental rate for a hotel room on the downtown eastside is $325 a month, exactly what welfare allows for accommodation expenses. The remaining $210 is supposed to pay for all other essential living expenses, which for many includes not only food, but a drug or alcohol habit, and cigarettes.

Rich MacHale, who lives at Salvation Army's Harbour Light Center on Cordova Street said that 75 per cent of the people on the streets have drug or alcohol problems. MacHale said he lost everything because of his alcohol problems and ended up living on the outskirts of skid row in Vancouver.

"When you have nothing, your self-esteem is low. How do you go and apply for a job when you don't have any clothes?" MacHale said.

Three blocks east of the Harbour Light, members of the Quest Outreach Society prepare turkey dinners in the basement of St. James Church. The organization, which serves about 6,000 meals a week to the homeless in Vancouver and Burnaby, is staffed by volunteers.

Jim Georgica, a volunteer with Quest for the past year and a half, has been living on the streets for more than 25 years. He was put in an orphanage in Saskatchewan for a while when he was ten years old and said he never really got over feeling rejected by his mother and stepfather. Running away from home at 15, it wasn't long before he had an alcohol problem and was spending six or seven months of the year in jail.

When asked if he will ever see a time when he is out of this rut, Georgica answers with a quote from a George Thorogood song .... “I’ve been down so long, it seems like up to me.”

Cooperative Directors Handbook

I designed, laid out and copyedited the Cooperative Directors Handbook in early 2007 for Wayne Thrasher in the department of Regional Economic and Cooperative Development (Saskatchewan).

Speech to repeal Agricultural Societies Act in Saskatchewan, by Simone Hoedel

Thank you Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, at the end of my remarks, I will move

Second Reading of The Agricultural Societies Repeal

Act.

Mr. Speaker, the Agricultural Societies Act was first

drafted before Saskatchewan became a province.

Since then, Saskatchewan has developed a much

more advanced economy. As such, the Act no longer

reflects the current activities of Agricultural Societies

in Saskatchewan.

The Saskatchewan Association of Agricultural

Societies and Exhibitions, or SAASE (SA-see), has

been responsible for overseeing the operations of

agricultural societies in a director role.

For the past four years, SAASE has been reviewing

the current Act to include needed changes and

updates.

Mr. Speaker, because of major changes in the roles

of SAASE, the provincial government, and the

University Extension Division, a large number of

changes and amendments to the Agricultural

Societies Act was required.

Therefore, in 2005, SAASE proposed to its member

Agricultural Societies that the Act be repealed, and

they agreed.

Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food and the

University of Saskatchewan, who are both SAASE

board members, agree the Act should be repealed.

Mr. Speaker, the Agricultural Societies Act was last

amended in 1978. At least 26 amendments or

changes are needed to bring the Act up to date.

Moreover, several provincial Acts already exist that

may provide and make loan guarantees to agricultural

organizations and associations.

In the absence of the Agricultural Societies Act,

agricultural societies can apply under the Non-profit

Corporations Act to form legal entities.

Mr. Speaker, SAASE is a provincially incorporated

non-profit association made up of elected and

appointed representatives of member Agricultural

Societies and Exhibition Associations.

The Association has its own bylaws and regulations.

SAASE also includes representatives from the federal

and provincial governments, and the University of

Saskatchewan.

If the Agricultural Societies Act is repealed, the

University of Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan

Agriculture and Food could still retain its membership

on the SAASE board if required.

Mr. Speaker, the decision to repeal the Agricultural

Societies Act follows extensive consultations.

These consultations to review the current Agricultural

Societies Act began four and a half years ago,

through the Saskatchewan Association of Agricultural

Societies and Exhibitions.

At the Association’s 2005 Annual General Meeting,

members generally agreed that the Act did not

accurately reflect its role.

So, SAASE proposed to its members that the

Agricultural Societies Act be repealed.

The SAASE Board of Directors represents all

provincial agricultural societies.

The repeal of the Agricultural Societies Act will also

affect four other Acts: The Auctioneers Act; The Cities

Act; The Municipalities Act; and The Credit Union Act.

Consultations with the Department of Justice have

provided recommendations and changes to these

affected Acts.

Mr. Speaker, the Repeal of the Agricultural Societies

Act would bring Agricultural Societies into the twentyfirst

century.

Therefore, I move that The Agricultural Societies

Repeal Act be read a second time.

Thank you.

SAF Internal Communications Strategy, part 2 (Created by Simone Hoedel, March 28, 2007)

Internal Communications
Interview with Peter Mayne (transcript)
Previously Manager, Internal Communications
Now in HR: Organizational Culture
March 19, 2007
By Simone Hoedel

Peter: Culture is very relevant to employee communications especially.
I will also be working on what is called the employee experience, which is pretty much everything that touches the employee. I want to design it so that we attract the best people, keep the best people and create an environment where they can be their best every day. I’m working on Workforce planning strategy stuff that HR department do.

We have a broad Internal Communications strategy that sets our priorities for our employee audience.

Some of the key things we want to achieve are helping employees understand where the business is going. That’s the biggie right there: getting employees engaged, coming to work to give it their all. If they understand what the business is about, what the business strategy is about, where it’s going, and how they connect to it. That makes a big difference in engagement. That’s where we put a lot of our time and effort is explaining the business strategy and helping people find that line of sight to the strategy and to our customers.

And the other piece is just making it easier for people to do their jobs. So what kind of information do they need to go about their daily work and make it easier for them?

And thirdly, would be just giving people the information they need to know about things like benefits and performance reviews and all that stuff that makes up the employee experience. There’s a list of about 17 of what we call drivers, things that affect the employee experience. Things like do they have the resources to do their jobs, do they perceive that they have career opportunities, are they satisfied with their pay, their work/life balance, does their manager do a good job in coaching and motivating them.

The other key thing we want to achieve through our broad communications strategy is building in two-way communication between employees and management. People are more likely to feel engaged if they think that senior management is good at what they do, have a vision for the organization, and care about the welfare of employees, care about what employees think.

We’ve done a fair bit to build those two-way links between employees and senior leadership.

1) SMT Exchange: Senior Management Team
Program where people can submit questions about business, or policy or whatever is on their mind. The question goes into a mailbox, and then we get it in Communications. We submit it to the senior management team and one of them will answer that question. Whoever is the most appropriate senior leader. They will write the answer to that question, and the answer will go directly back to the person who asked it. And the question and the answer gets posted on the internet for everybody to see. So it’s just a way to get answers from senior management, and building that two-way communication.

2) The SMT Dine Around
Every month, two SMT Members will hold a luncheon. It’s open to all our staff in Regina here, which is almost half the company. The invitation goes out via our Thursday morning email bundle, which goes out to our corporate office. People can respond to sign up and up to 12 people can go on each lunch.
It’s an opportunity for one of the SMT Members to host a lunch with 12 employees, and to just engage them in dialogue about what’s going on in the business, get to know them, and build up some rapport. It just makes our SMT’s seem all that more human and approachable, and breaks down barriers.

3) SMT Dialogue Direct
A program where we take SMT Members, whether they’re traveling around the country, or whether they’re here in Regina, we organize it so they can attend some sort of employee meeting that’s already ongoing.

For instance, our HR Department has a monthly meeting. We might arrange for one of the senior management to drop in on that meeting. They would have a bit of the agenda to talk about who they are, what they do and answer some questions. For the back half of the meeting, they might just hang out and observe, and find out what’s happening in our part of the company.

So again, it’s just another way to get people connected to senior management.

4) AgriCulture contributes to that as well in that sometimes we have features in AgriCulture on a Senior Management Team member, or we quote them in articles. But I wouldn’t say that’s the primary focus of AgriCulture.

When we started AgriCulture about 3 years ago, really the focus of it was to build community across the organization. We’re a widespread company: we have 100 offices across Canada. About 500 people are here in Regina, and about 700 spread across the other 99 offices. So this is a national newsletter that goes out to everybody. So the intent was to solicit stories from people in various areas, you know, what’s going on in Quebec, what’s going on in Ontario. So people can really get to know their colleagues across the country, and find out what’s happening.

We did that for a while, and it was pretty good. But what we found in our research though, we did some research of the employee body last summer. We asked them about all the different communications vehicles we have, everything from the internet, to AgriCulture to SMT Programs to our employee conferences, and we wanted to know how effective these vehicles were in helping people do their job.

I guess we were a little bit leading in the way we phrased that, but we in communications need to help people understand where the company is going, and to make it easier for them to contribute, do their job. We found that the things that were deemed most effective were the informal communications channels, for example face-to-face with my manager, talking to colleagues, the informal stuff. AgriCulture came in below the half way point, in terms of a list of what was effective for people.

So we thought it was time to have another look at what we were doing with that newsletter, what the focus of it is. We’ve got these articles across the country, which are turning into not quite babies and bowling scores, pretty soft content. We want to re-focus the magazine to focus on business issues. More focused on where the company is going, what the big projects are, and always trying to build in a link as to what does it mean to me as an employee.

So we’re in the midst of changing that right now. We don’t have the regional editors
anymore. We are going to ensure the stories reflect the different parts of the company as much as possible, but it won’t be as literal as it used to be. We’d try to get a story from each region.

Customer experience is one of the big things right now. We did a story on one of our
offices in Abbotsford, some of things they’re doing to create the customer experience in their area.

We have a large communications area: 12 people, plus in-house creative design department, have our own in-house print shop. We have an editor, one staff member, a part of their job is to be the editor of the newsletter. We also set up an editorial board, mostly people across the division called Strategy, Knowledge and Reputation. It includes our Corporate Communications Group, our Brand Group (advertising, creative, and publications). We don’t have on that board people from across the business. If I were there, I would be wondering if maybe we should.

The editorial is board is a good idea. There’s two ways to look at that: one, you would have people basically from the communications area, because they are working with clients from across the organization, and they have a good feel for what’s going on out there. The programs and issues out there that deserve to be profiled. Or you could have people from across the business part of the editorial board. So they directly bring in different perspectives from different parts of the organization of what people need to know about.

The advantage of that is rather than just have one person as an editor; you have a broader range of perspectives. It’s like a reality check to make sure you’re covering what’s important. Your editorial board would meet well in advance of every issue, and decide: what are the issues we need to cover in this next issue. And then they would hand that off to the editor and he would decide what those stories would look like, and assign people to research them and write them. And those are internal people and each person would have one or two stories.

I read some great research recently in Communications World. It was an article by T.J. Larkin, and he was talking about the three main channels of communication. There’s print, there’s electronic or online, and there’s face-to-face.
The print channel is really great for new and complicated ideas. If you’re like me, if someone sends you an email or document that’s a little bit weighty and you want to study it, the first thing you do is print it out. People find it hard to absorb new information online. Print is really good for things that are complex, new ideas.

Online is great for information retrieval, like when people need to search around for information on, for example, pay scale or pay and benefits. And online is also good for immediacy: it’s so quick to get something written and published. You know, print takes forever.

The advantage of face to face is in situations where you need people to do something differently. Change management, where you are trying to persuade people to adopt a new way of thinking, or new way of doing something. Because you’ve got the power of people being right there, talking to the person, persuading them.

So the three all work together, but in our research, and this is not new at all, when you ask employees how they like to get news about something that is happening in the company, they like to hear it from their supervisor, face to face.

What really works well is having the CEO, the head guy or gal, announce the change at the broad level, and then connect it to the business strategy. And here’s why we’re doing this. And then have the direct supervisor follow up with their teams, and say here’s what it means to you.

I’d say we’ve got a little work to do on our face to face channel. We do a decent job on it, if we’re making an announcement on, let’s say, pay & benefits, we’ll send something out ahead of time to the managers, with some key messages, here’s why we’re doing this. And then it goes out to all the employees a little bit later. So the managers have a little bit of a head’s up and can support the change.

Ultimately we’d like to go further down that road and provide speaking bullets, more support materials for our managers, so they can get out there and talk to their teams about the stuff that matters.

Simone: Can a Newsletter have an equal amount of Human Resources top down sort of info and the People’s Choice type material so popular with staff? There seems to be almost a conflict of strategies here.

I think the two can co-exist. You can mix corporate messages with some staff type news. A neat way to mix them too is when there is a change being announced or some corporate news, to be able to tell the story through the experience of one person, like TV journalism.
Rather than just announce a change, find a person who’s affected by that, and write a story around them and the issue. If there’s a way to do that top down corporate type news, but put some colour into it by interviewing some people, that warms it up a little, makes it more relevant.

If you’re doing a business story, if you tell it through the lens of how is this going to help our clients?
I think there is room to tell stories about people too. That’s what makes it interesting. People love to see photographs of themselves, and their colleagues. We have our employees submit photographs, or if we’re out interviewing, we’ll take a digital camera and shoot them. For the cover shot, we have a professional photographer we use.

You might want to think about some sort of feedback mechanism, so people can send in comments or ask questions.

Cross-promoting is good too. An article in your newsletter, might be a survey or poll where we drive people to (my I-net) to read more about this topic, or to vote or answer a poll question. On the internet, you might promote the newsletter when it comes out, by putting in a little teaser about one of the stories. To reads more, pick up or click here to read the new newsletter delivered today.

A readership survey would be a good idea too. It could be paper-based: just insert it in all the newsletter and people will fill it out and drop it in the internal mail. Or you could drive people to the internet to fill out a survey. Or deliver a survey to everybody’s inbox. Are you familiar with Survey Monkey? It’s an online Survey tool (surveymonkey.com), free to use, although it takes a little bit of learning to learn how to build a survey. Then you just send a link to people, they click the link, takes them right to the site, they fill out the survey, and it automatically tabulates all the results for you.

Once you’re clear on what the objective of your newsletter is, then you can measure and see if you’re meeting those objectives.

SAF Internal Communications Strategy, part 4 (Created by Simone Hoedel, March 28, 2007)

Internal Communications
Interview with Josephine Bricic (transcript)
Director of Internal Communications, SaskTel
March 21, 2007
By Simone Hoedel

Simone: What Internal Communications strategies have been successful for SaskTel?

Josephine: Well, I’m not sure if you can call them strategies or philosophies, but: Employees First. So for any communication, say for you at Ag and Food, for any policy direction that might impact them, we want our employees to know first, at a minimum, the same time as external. After that was implemented, we stuck to it. I think that’s important component.

We’ve tried to provide context on the communication now: information overload. In the past, anyone could send an email to anyone. We changed that – we centralized that – we do that.

Simone: So you centralized that. What do you mean by that?

Josephine: Only Corporate Affairs, that’s us, and IT, can send out emails to the whole company. That’s a small example of context. But an important one, I think. There’s prioritization to it, there’s a publication rigour to it. What’s important, what’s not. So that was fundamental: we’ve done that for a while now.

So – employees first, context, really trying to use the right medium for the right audiences. Really trying to target that. Now that’s an ongoing thing. That’s not always as easy, and you would know that.

So really trying to figure out: what is the newsletter for? What is the intranet’s purpose? What’s the broadcast email system for? What do we want to use streaming video for? Face to face? That kind of thing. So we really try to hone that, the last little while.

We wanted to ensure also that every medium or message is integrated in a way. Let’s say, we announce an expansion of our cellular network somewhere. We would probably use a variety of medium, but we want the key messages to be the same, in a way. Whether it’s someone on the front lines, they’re better equipped to sell it, or something to general employees, or to managers, or to the media, insist on continuity and consistency.

We have been trying to do Consistency Context: Collapsing the gap between upper and rank and file. Technological ?

We have an open forum to the President, where they can ask questions: his video-streamed monthly addressees to employees. Gives updates on things. Not live video, we could do that, it’s a little more complexity in that though. Webcasting with 5000 people: Complex. No – he does a monthly broadcast of the same topics. He reports on certain metrics to the business, and then adds material. But it’s every month. And, anytime, people can ask him questions on his website. So there’s more accessibility. So that’s a change.

So those are some foundations and principles, really, for me. It’s really funny that you called, because we were just looking at some different things like, how do we want to treat face to face? Because of email overload. One of the principles for me has always been face to face: very valuable. How are we using it? And we use it in a variety of ways. Today, the President goes out, he does a sort of employee roadshow, we do it for other significant things. We’re also doing it for our leadership team, the management team. It’s an annual thing. We just finished up a day and a half of face to face. There’s a variety of face to face. So we want to evaluate them: is there redundancy? Are we talking about the same things? Is it effective?

Simone: Evaluating strategy or evaluating people’s competency?

Josephine: Both. I think people misuse it. But it’s important. And people are feeling saturated by meetings as well. Are they good at conducting meetings?

To us, though it’s an acknowledgement of the 5000 employees, it’s a distributed workforce. It’s an acknowledgement that not everyone is a knowledge worker, not everyone is fixed to their computer: important: Important with email, important with internet, important with our newsletters. Print remains important.

We stopped sending out a print newsletter a while ago, to leverage the internet, quite frankly. We do a weekly newsletter. I’ll get into the mediums we do weekly. We do a minimum twice weekly broadcast emails to all employees. We change our internet main page a minimum of twice a day, with new items. The problem with those mediums is inherently there’s an expectation they are going to be timely.

When I say print remains important, though, we’re not using it. We know there’s a gap. We always do an annual communications survey for our employees. We know for front line, those in the fleet, or those that are servicing customers online on the phone, they’re not going to have the luxury that you or I have to go check something out. To read about our colleague in the newsletter, or to read about the strategy. So we’re mindful of that and we want to look at it in a new way, I guess. I don’t have a solution, yet I just know that it’s something that’s on the radar for this year.

So, primary communications tools:

• the internet;
• broadcast emails, Net Notes, is what we call them: we issue them to all employees, and we also issue them to management only;
• we also have streamed video updates of the President and CEO;
• along with his website.

Other things we’re testing right now
• corporate television in our head office
• screen savers for different things
• we’re testing monthly quarterly management conference calls with the President and CEO
• establishing an employee 1-800 emergency line. In the past, if we had a situation, let’s say, you couldn’t get into head office. We wouldn’t have a good way of reaching everybody. Sometimes it’s looking at old tools for a new purpose. We’d send a talk-mail out to everybody. And there was concern about the maintenance lists etc. So we’re looking at a 1- 800 line where people would phone in, and if there was nothing, they’d get a message, there’s nothing, or whatever that may be. If it was for example the Royal Bank not being able to process your pay stubs, we had to (devo?-ate) to something. Looking at other ways to get the info out.
So really we’re in a phase of evaluating each piece for its maximum benefit. You’re not just doing a whole bunch of stuff for the sake of doing it. And not just (dismissing?) it in print. Utilizing, thinking about where it works best. So that might give you a picture of just the overall.

Newsletter:

It’s been five or six years since we took over all emails. We wanted to put some context in. Your bake sale or mine didn’t have the same weight as benefits information for all employees, or an expansion or a strategy. You do need an editorial view on that. Because everyone will think theirs is most important. It’s inevitable. And the reason we did the newsletter is to channel some of that, you know, so and so is the Woman of the Year, we have that balance in our newsletter, we have a minimum, there’s always a business side of it in our newsletter.

Simone: Newsletter aligned with your corporate strategy?

Josephine: I think so. When we talk about corporate strategy and what we’re trying to achieve, let’s say, for metrics. We profile our products and services. We had developed a framework for that. Submissions, what the newsletter focuses on. You know our values are certainly about teamwork, mutual respect, excellency, you could argue any of those individual profiles are all about that as well.

But no we don’t say, Josephine had a baby the other week, congratulations. We don’t do that. The lightest we go, we have classifieds that are on there. Which is a draw, I’m not going to lie to you.

• Right now, we have on our cover this community project, where we’re donating supplies to a project in Tanzania. SaskTel does work in Tanzania, through its international subsidiary, so there’s a connection there.
• We’ve done a quick story about the leadership conference, our management conference that just took place. A summary.
• We also did Big Shots Big Saves, 25th annual SaskTel Hockey Tournament.
• Do you have ISP? Employee designations.
• We also have a series of columns, one’s called Safe Space. Because safety’s an issue.
• We have flashbacks, where we regurgitate old newsletters, old stories that we’ve had.

If you think of the Globe and Mail, the National Post, CBC, there is levity to it. There has to be moments of, whether it’s flashbacks or timelines or contests, you need to have – what would make people read it? You want to have compelling content, well written material and stories. But you have to have the flexibility to write in a way – I say this to my team all the time – you have to write it so we would want to read it after hours. Or readership – it shouldn’t just be Corporate Babbling. (Pablum?) And then, if you don’t have that, it doesn’t matter if it’s a ?, no one will read it. You know, you need that.

So that’s kind of my underlying philosophy, treat employees first. They know first, but you also treat them with respect. You write some things, you communicate it in the best way possible. Because they deserve that.

Simone: What are your objectives with internal communications?

We want our employees to be overall, knowledgeable about the business, and their role. We want them to be ambassadors. Now these are lofty.
We want the program to be high caliber, reflecting best practices.
We want to ensure the mediums in our communications processes help people do a better job of communicating to our employees, and achieve business goals. Measurable, difficult, but we have some specifics on that. We can see some metrics and some of our tools. So it’s nothing really grand.

Simone: How do you measure how you’re doing on your goals?

Josephine: Well we did an annual survey, specifically on communications. We do an employee engagement survey, through an agency which ranks communications as strong. We have other things, they look at all of our mediums, and we generally rank fairly high.

The A+? Yeah, they look at all the material that we send out. That’s in addition to say, you look at the metrics of the website or the readership hits, or the number of contributions. We very rarely do searching for stories. People feed us content. I mean that’s one measure. There’s specific ones that are ? that my team has, but you can always ? a measurement certainly. Because communications is one of those very ubiquitous things. Just like advertising, can you really say you’ve effected much of a change? It’s hard, but we can for certain things I think.

I explained the fundamentals we hold true to, and we increasingly want to educate employees on the business, because they’re part of the role in achieving it. They need to know the strategy. And we’ve been plugging away at that all along.

We want to enable people to be better communicators, in whatever way we can. Just as we spoke about people not being able to facilitate meetings. Communication is part of that. People often think that communication is just the communicators’ jobs, not theirs. I don’t know if you find that where you work, but I think it’s just kind of human nature sometimes. When really it’s management competency. We’re trying to coach people on that too.

The average age of our work force is 43. Due to the nature of the industry, we have a stream that come into marketing, a stream that are technical, the engineers; just the nature of the industry will draw younger people into it. But the other thing I should say as far as a principle to the program is, despite this, or regardless, we look at the demographics as important, that’s why you have the flashbacks, your history. You have to be balanced about it, it can’t just be the new and groovy people. You have to respect the people who have been three, that are there.

Face to face is important, but time is precious, so you better make that face to face worth people’s time. What is it you want to address face to face? What is your objective? Where are the gaps? Whether it’s face to face or otherwise. You need to know what each channel will be used for, potentially, or what it is you need to get out there on a regular basis. You need to find what needs to be sent out regularly, where are those two way communications that you want?

Special projects, you always analyze. Say Sask. Ag and Food goes in an entirely different direction, you’ll probably utilize the full depth and breadth of all the communications mediums that you have. But building credibility with the internal program will mean some regular methods of communicating. And that people can communicate to you. I think that’s important too.

(See attached: sample of SaskTel’s online newsletter, Ink.)

SAF Internal Communications Strategy, part 3 (Created by Simone Hoedel, March 28, 2007)

Internal Communications
Interview with Wendy Johnson (transcript)
Leader of Corporate Development in Communications and Public Affairs
March 21, 2007
By Simone Hoedel

Wendy: What we’re looking at now is developing a whole new internal communications program that aligns with their strategic priorities and the feedback that we’re getting through an employee communications analysis or audit. And that involved focus groups, as well as a survey, as well as best practices, a literature research. We have the findings from that audit, and I’m now working through the executive and manager presentations, two hour presentations to report the findings and to find solutions that are workable, that serve our staff across the province.

We have a diverse staff, we have staff in power stations and operating crews, and head office and so forth.

Simone: How are communications working now, among staff?

Wendy: What we’re finding is the primary focus will be more effective face-to-face communications. Not necessarily more, in some cases, yes more, but definitely more effective.

Simone: How would you do that?

Wendy: We’re talking about communications in its broadest sense; we’re talking about the ability to give clear direction, the ability to provide feedback, the competencies around listening, and the competencies around ...a culture change in terms of more direct communication.

We definitely have email overload in the corporation, there’s no question about it. Both at the manager level and at the working level, people are finding that email is being used when people would prefer conversation, but because of time pressures and other reasons, (email is used). Email is usurping and undermining our ability to communicate effectively with one another. So we just have to get out and talk to each other. That’s one finding.

There is a willingness to try new technology.

I guess I should back this up one step further, we did in 2006, our HR group led an employee engagement process at SaskPower. Out of those focus groups came a finding that we needed to do a better job of two way communication. At the same time the communications and public affairs dept worked to (defining?) an audit, so the two linked nicely together. So then we said, what exactly is meant by two way communication, and how does that fit in to improving the internal communications environment as a whole? Are we talking about face to face, are we talking about
technology-based two way? Because that finding can mean different things depending on what the need is. So we indeed found out that the critical area was indeed face to face, supported by a willingness to try new communication methods.

Simone: What about online Communications?

Wendy: That’s what people are saying. We still have to do more delving into that, and decide what we’re going to do with Blogs and Wikis and Podcasts.

Simone: What do you think of these new technologies?

Wendy: We are going to cautiously take a first step forward and do a pilot around one of the initiatives. I’m not going to go whole-scale here, because they have to, as you know, be managed so carefully.

Newsletters used to be the new exciting thing 20 or 30 years ago, and everybody wanted a newsletter. Well now everybody wants a Blog, but to what purpose, and who’s going to maintain it, and all of that stuff. And not to lose sight that they’re one tool in the toolbox. What generation of employees do Blogs appeal to? For example, all of our operating crews don’t sit on a computer all day long, they’re out in the field maintaining power lines. So there’s all that segmentation to consider as well in terms of what you’re choosing to reach to whom at what time at what preference they have.

Back to face to face, we’re going to be considering some communication coaching across the levels, and this is certainly working in with programming that HR would lead. So it’s a cross- functional effort, and that’s why I say it’s communication in its broadest sense. Not something the communications department is SOLELY responsible for or can achieve.

Simone: This includes basic communications skills such as listening and delivering feedback?

Wendy: You bet. And supported by a toolkit for managers around messaging, and not tightly scripted messages so it sounds like corporate speak. The key need for communication here in our corporation is information to help me do my job. And so, face to face is preferred. So when I say the delivery method is face to face, the communication need is clearly really boils down to will it help me do my job? Because I don’t have enough clear information and clear direction and clear authority
to do what I need to do.

Simone: We’re redoing the old newsletter, and we’re trying to balance some of the People’s Choice type material with material focusing on management strategy and communications.

Wendy: And that comes back to some of our findings, too, where we took our HighLines publication from too much of a “personal interest” story newsletter: no link to strategic communications, or company directions to a more strategic publication. But we went too much the other way, and when we tried to introduce more of the personal interest, by that I mean, people are really interested in knowing what their colleagues are doing, both on the job and beyond the job. More of community involvement, that type of thing. Well, even when we tried to do that, because there is a perception out there of what it is now, people are not reading it. Well, some people are reading it, but not enough to justify it.

Simone: That’s my fear it will be perceived as a corporate type communications tool.

Wendy: Well, here’s what I’m going to do with my publication, and it might work for you as well. I am going to fulfill what the employees have said is their preference. Getting somebody out there and gathering those personal type stories. The strategic direction type of messaging, and again, I’m not going to take people back to the personal interest type of publication, that speak to people and their colleagues across the corporation in terms of what they’re doing. And I would call it a re-balancing. I would perhaps take the President’s Message out of that publication, and give her
more profile through other mediums, through face to face meetings, that sort of thing.

So not forgetting the strategic angle, but in terms of what I want to do now with the publication is re-focus and re-balance the content there. And then, how do I serve that strategic, that need for people to be linked to the business, and to our direction as a whole. And maybe do something like a big picture publication that would support the President, the VP, the managers out there, talking about strategic direction.

What I’m thinking about doing is not trying to have a publication serve both needs, because it’s not working the way it should for us.

So, for you to take a publication that was really popular, it may serve counter to what you’re trying to do.

I could add something about our EIN, or what we call our Intranet, we’re looking at a whole renewal of our Intranet, based on that idea that: I need information to do my job. Reorganizing the content, search engines, and then refocusing it on people needing that info to do their job. You might want to consider, if you don’t have the resources to do a full analysis, on just what employees are preferring, just get their thoughts.

Do a mini-survey to help point you in some direction. That would be helpful in making these decisions. And what kind of vehicles would work where? What their perception is. You could even ask a simple question, if there was one thing you could change about (internal) communications, what would it be? I don’t know what your resources are to do a survey, but even five or six questions will help point you in the right direction.

SAF Internal Communications Strategy Part 1 (Created by Simone Hoedel, March 28, 2007)

Communications Challenge

In 2005, a staff survey was conducted at Saskatchewan Ag and Food to measure employee engagement. The results of the survey demonstrated a need for better internal communication between employees of various levels and locations. The survey also showed a need to inform employees of the department’s strategic plan, so that all employees were instilled with a sense of how their work contributes to the Saskatchewan Ag and Food’s overall goals and objectives. A communication plan is necessary to address the department’s Internal Communication needs.

Strategic Communications Considerations

SAF employees are part of a large, widely dispersed group with diverse communication skills and needs. A challenge exists in assessing those communication skills and needs, and providing information that addresses the knowledge and information gaps. There may be differing perceptions regarding what kind of information is necessary to pass on to employees.

Budget considerations and current time constraints are ongoing concerns with regards to creating a sustainable internal communications plan.

Research

In general, survey results indicate that employees are happy with their work, with their contribution to the department, and the level of communication. However, as mentioned previously, a disconnect exists with regard to the ability to appreciate key messages, whether they stem from above or below.

In comparison with overall Saskatchewan Public Service results, the Department scored significantly better in most areas of the survey. Key differences include areas with significantly higher ratings in: Leadership and Direction, Organizational Values and Behaviours, and Enabling Environment.

Research on the Communication Strategy included an initial meeting with Scott Brown, SAF Director of Communications, to discuss Internal Communications and the possibility of reviving the Insider Newsletter. Research interviews were conducted with Peter Mayne, Manager of Internal Communications, Farm Credit Canada (see attached PDF file), Wendy Johnson, Leader of Corporate Development and Public Affairs, SaskPower (see attached PDF file) and Josephine Bricic, Director of Internal Communications, SaskTel (see attached PDF file). A review of the information gathered from these interviews as well as a review of their respective print and online newsletters followed. A review of the employee survey and the previous internal communication strategy were conducted. Background research included a review of the old employee newsletter, the Insider, informal research on the general level of communication in the department. An online search provided some credible research on internal and organizational communication. Books, articles and manuals on Internal Communications were reviewed, including IABC’s “Inside Organizational Communication” by Al Wann. In addition, I contacted SAF’s Human Resources department for a possible joint collaboration on an Internal Communications Project.

Key Stakeholder Assessment

• SAF employees and management inside Regina/Saskatoon, and other Regional offices:
• employees in SAF offices are connected to SAFNet (our Intranet), and will have access to the online newsletter.
• SAF employees and management outside Regina/Saskatoon and other Regional offices:
• A small proportion of employees are “off the grid”, so to speak, and are not connected to SAFNet. They are, however, connected to SAF offices via email, and we would endeavour to reach them with an alternative version of the newsletter this way. For example, we could send them a small (file size) one-page email newsletter, based on the online version.

Communications Objectives

• Increase basic communication competencies across all levels of the department, including such areas as listening, speaking, giving feedback. Boost the number of occasions good communications practices are used;
• Increase two way and face to face communication across all levels of the department.
• Increase the number of occasions two way and face to face communication take place;
• Increase the number of occasions that senior management discusses the department activities with staff;
• Ensure that the right messages are getting to the people who need it.

Key Communications Messages

• SAF is committed to increasing the level of communication within the department;
• SAF is committed to sharing the department’s vision and shared values with its employees;
• SAF is responding to concerns in the most recent employee survey of declining levels of communication in the department.

Communications Action Plan

• Two way communication among staff could be improved by programs that link the Senior Management Group to employees. Suggestions include:

• opportunities for small groups of employees to go out for lunch with members of the SMG;
• allowing members of the SMG to sit in as guests at employee meetings; and
• creating an “Ask a question, Get an answer” program where employees can submit questions to someone in the Senior Management Group via a website contact form or via a suggestion box (cafeteria?)
• The creation of an integrated Internal Communications website, perhaps on SAF’s intranet, SAFNet, which would include a Web newsletter version of the Insider, as well as helpful features and information on topics relevant to internal communications. Topics could include speaking, listening, giving feedback, dealing with hostile clients, public speaking, and hosting effective meetings.
• The creation of a web-based Newsletter, an update of the Insider. The newsletter would include regular features such as Health and Safety, a Diversity Committee Report, SAF People, a SAFNet Report, SAFSA Report, an Event Calendar, Branch and Regional Updates. The newsletter would be produced monthly, with new and timely information uploaded on a regular basis. Email bulletins would be sent when new information or issues are available. The online Insider newsletter must have a contact form so people can be in touch with the editor or editorial board, to express their opinion, or to submit newsletter ideas or content. This contact form webpage contributes to the goal of increasing two way communications.
• The creation of a print and web-based manual called Basic Communications Skills: Best Practices (top 10). The Internal Communications Project team should consult with communication expert(s), in association with HR and SMG to identify the top communication issues at SAF. The department should ensure this manual is a part of every employee’s Orientation Package.

Pilot Project

The Internal Communications Project will study the possibility of including Web 2.0 technologies as a way to increase employee communication.

High quality Podcasts (or SAFCasts) can be produced with the help of the Communications Department’s A/V Division. Issues or topics of the interviews would be concurrent with newsletter. For example, a communications consultant can interview someone on the Diversity Committee on their most recent newsletter topic. Consultants can also interview members of SMG on Management communications or directives, members of the OH&S Committee on the latest OH&S issue, SAFSA, SAFNet, Branch Directors, etc. The interviews can be recorded on high quality equipment and converted to MP3s, which will in turn be made available on the Insider Newsletter website.

As part of this pilot project, the Internal Communications project team needs to conduct a survey to determine whether employees can or would use this Podcast technology. In order to receive messages from this channel, employees need the right technology, the interest, and a familiarity with Podcasting.

Budget

• Eight person hours per week, divided between the Communications and Human Resources Specialists assigned to the Joint Internal Communications Project; plus
• $3000 for printing and other related costs of the Basic Communication Manual;
• Total approximately $3,000 (not including employee time).

Evaluation

• Short and sweet yearly employee engagement surveys will be conducted, to assess increases in Best Practices in Basic Communications and the level of knowledge of Saskatchewan Ag and Food’s overall goals and objectives;
• Employee feedback (informal);
• Employee evaluations and/or exit meetings;
• Web site statistics for both the Internal Communications Project and the Insider Newsletter. Reports from website feedback.