Seeing the Big Picture
For Co-operative Financial Services, we designed and delivered an award-winning campaign to communicate the organisation’s strategy.
The centrepiece was a Big Picture visual metaphor, which was used as the basis for team discussions across the organisation. The aim was to help employees understand the new vision and strategy, and work out what they needed to do differently to play their part in making it happen. That visual concept has been used ever since as the basis for updates on progress and to continue to engage employees in the journey.
The programme scooped a Communicators in Business (CiB) award of excellence for communication of business objectives/vision and values.
Measuring effectiveness
One of our early assignments for CFS (as it was then called) was to undertake a regular survey to measure the effectiveness of communication in the organisation.
We put this in place when CFS was formed – a period of great change for the organisation and for the communication team, who introduced a new magazine, video, team briefing and intranet. We did the first poll immediately before the programme to launch CFS to employees to provide a benchmark. Then, every quarter, we conducted telephone interviews with employees from all areas of the business and at all grades. The results provided a clear indicator of the effectiveness of communication channels and campaigns, and were used to shape future communication activity.
Wide-ranging support
The work described above is just a small part of what we have delivered for Co-operative Financial Services over the years. Other work has included:
- delivering our How to Be a Better Communicator communication skills workshops to a large number of junior and middle managers
- designing and running major conferences for hundreds of staff
- producing a range of printed communication materials
- advising on the development of the employee magazine
- producing an employee annual report.
