Posts Tagged ‘Amy Schwinge’

Early Employee Involvement Impacts the Brand

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

By Joe Bogardus

Last week my colleague Amy Schwinge had a great blog post titled “Don’t Forget the Employees.” It was a piece on how employee communications impacts a company’s bottom line.

Humbly, I will try to build on Amy’s excellent ideas using a real-world, real-time experience in which MBWC is currently engaged.

The agency has a client that is considering re-launching its brand. They are insisting their company employees be involved in this process. This involvement is something we would normally recommend, but the insistence the client has exhibited on this matter is laudable.

The company is in the service industry. They believe, and rightfully so, their people are their brand. We are in the process of developing a battery of qualitative and quantitative research studies relative to brand messaging and other insights that need to factor into the process. Our first studies will involve individual and group interviews with key personnel in the company to grasp their understanding of the brand. This exercise will not only be informative to us but also will act as an ownership-building activity for the company’s employees. They are going to be involved in the process right from the start and will be informed as the process continues.

In her piece, Amy stressed keeping employees informed about critical company matters. We are presently fortunate enough to be working with a company whose management believes in this principle and is taking the concept an important step further by involving them in the development of the company’s brand re-launch at its inception.

The company believes if its employees feel fully vested in the process, it will positively impact their performance. With the company view that their people are the brand – and we know that brands are assets – this approach should support long-term revenue growth and corporate valuation.

It’s a great example of the two-way communications Amy references, and it’s gratifying to see this process happening first-hand, starting right at the beginning of a major company initiative.

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Don’t Forget the Employees…

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

 By Amy Schwinge

Some companies overlook the importance of a key audience: their employees.  This week’s post will focus on how the employee communications aspect of public relations impacts a company’s bottom line. 

Believe it or not, shareholder returns for organizations with the most effective employee communications were 29 percent higher from 2002-2006 than firms with less effective communications, according to a recent Watson Wyatt study. 

A great deal of research has been conducted related to how employee communications really affects a company’s bottom line.  You would think that common sense would say that well-informed employees would be more productive than less-informed employees, similar to how happy employees are more productive.  Surprisingly, many organizations fail to grasp that wisdom and put it into actionable results.

I had the opportunity to work with T.J. and Sandar Larkin (her name is really Sandar; this is not a typo) when I worked at Boeing and at General Motors.  The Larkins have conducted decades of research on how employee communications impacts productivity and the bottom line. 

I particularly remember how their research showed that rumors negatively affect the bottom line.  Usually, rumors run rampant when there is a lack of information or major uncertainty within an organization.

At Boeing and GM, internal communication was tracked as an organizational scorecard metric that was based on the results of employee surveys.  These metrics measured if employees were aware of key messages in addition to employee perceptions.

Since employees serve as ambassadors for an organization (however formal or informal that role might be), they should know the company’s vision, mission and key objectives.  In addition, employees should be communicated with first regarding a major change, or they should at least have access to information at the same time as media are notified. 

Forbes.com recently reported on the results of an employee survey that found 87 percent of employees thought organizational communications were one-sided and focused on positive information. 

With that statistic in mind, two-way communications processes must be included in the communications strategy. Organizations must remember that it is imperative to listen to – not just talk “at” – employees and take action to respond to employee concerns as appropriate.  Also, the good, the bad and the ugly still needs to be communicated openly and accurately – not swept under the rug.

“Keeping it real” in terms of responding in a sincere and authentic way to employee concerns will boost management’s credibility with internal stakeholders, and in the process, facilitate employees’ trust in their employer and positive attitudes toward employees’ role in the company’s success. 

So, the final take-away here: remember your employees!  Communicate with them AND listen to them; act when appropriate.  It will only help your bottom line…

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Putting the “Relations” Back into Media Relations

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

    By Amy Schwinge

We hope you have found our blogs focusing on media relations for the month of May useful and interesting.

Not trying to toot our own horn (well, maybe a little), the team at Mary Beth West Consulting is honored to have received multiple awards from the Public Relations Society of America this spring, including several for media relations and related strategic communications tools.

I thought I would share a little background on what we did to receive some of these recognitions, particularly with respect to managing media relationships effectively.

As a first example, we kicked off our public awareness campaign for the Blount Education Initiative (BEI) with a news conference.  On that front, make sure you have content to support inviting media to a news conference.  In this day and time of limited budgets and resources, the last thing you want to do is ask a journalist to leave the office for a news conference if what you have to share could be sent via an e-mail. 

The BEI news conference was appropriate, because we had newsworthy – and rather detailed, statistics-driven information – to share, along with introductions of the leaders driving BEI’s mission to make education the local community’s top priority.  We released compelling results of a new survey outlining current perceptions as related to education and quality of life for the area.  We also introduced the media to the “faces” of the Blount Education Initiative as they explained the reason and need for BEI’s existence along with a summary of BEI’s strategic plan.  This news conference also allowed us to meet many of the journalists face to face with whom we would be working during the public awareness campaign.

For LeConte Wealth Management, we met with members of the media individually whenever possible to introduce and recommend LeConte as financial experts on a host of topics and advocates for financial literacy.  We also shared numerous consumer finance issues-driven news releases to spread the word.

As a third example, we had a dual strategic plan for national publications and local coverage for Todd Richesin Interiors, and we didn’t have the luxury of meeting the national media face to face.  In order to cut through the clutter of other media pitches received by such publications as Traditional Home and House Beautiful, we launched our relationship building with editorial decision makers by carefully ascertaining what specific types of projects and design personalities they were covering and queried them on both subject matter and information-receipt preferences they found useful.  We then sent photo-intensive information kits about Todd and his work, including written “case study” profiles of his work style and individual approach for each project.  We were able to forge relationships with local media and national publications alike, resulting in Todd receiving a great deal of local and national coverage, such as:

  • An eleven-page spread highlighting one of Todd’s projects in Key West, Fla., in Traditional Home (June/July 2010 issue)
  • Traditional  Home (March 2010 issue): “20 Young Designers to Watch”
  • House Beautiful (December/January 2010 issue): “Next Wave of Top 20 Designers”

Collectively, these examples show that each client is different, so a different media relations approach is warranted for each.  Don’t try cookie-cutter formulas; they don’t work.  Remember, it is called media “relations” for a reason; you must take the time and effort to establish genuine relationships with your media contacts, focused with their own audiences in mind.

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Achieving Work-Life Balance

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

By Amy Schwinge

What is your definition of work-life balance ?  I think before you can achieve work-life balance, you have to define what it means to you.  Work-life balance is a relative term that can mean different things for different people.

First of all, I would recommend identifying the priorities you want to achieve in both your personal and work activities.  Then, focus on those priorities, and plan the rest of your life around those priorities.

Many of you probably are thinking that this is easier said than done, right?  Well, it’s a start.

I like to follow the advice of Albert Einstein who said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

I would imagine that most of us are moving rapidly in this day and time, and the balance is more like a juggling act.  The key is to channel that movement into your top priorities.  Whether your priorities are balancing family, work, volunteer activities, religious activities or school, list your top priorities of each, and attempt to achieve those goals in a manageable schedule.

According to worklifebalance.com, “Work-life balance does not mean an equal balance. Trying to schedule an equal number of hours for each of your various work and personal activities is usually unrewarding and unrealistic. Life is and should be more fluid than that.

Your best individual work-life balance will vary over time, often on a daily basis. The right balance for you today will probably be different for you tomorrow. The right balance for you when you are single will be different when you marry, or if you have children; when you start a new career versus when you are nearing retirement.”

For me, I strive to exceed the expectations and goals of our clients and my manager at work while spending as much quality time as possible with my family in addition to teaching online classes from time to time.

Recently, I had a Daughter-Mommy day with my five-year-old, and in her words, “It was the best day ever.”  We went to lunch together, her gymnastics class, then shopping.  While at the mall, she asked if she could get her ears pierced—kind of out of the blue.  Whenever the subject of getting her ears pierced had come up in the past, my husband and I always told her it was her decision IF and when she wanted to do it.  So, she did get her ears pierced—with no tears surprisingly. She was on top of the world, and so was I. We had a great rest of the evening as a family when my hubby got home from work. I definitely achieved my family balance that day!

What are some examples of your work-life balance?

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Corporate Social Responsibility Makes a Difference

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

By Tyra Haag and Amy Schwinge

“No company can exist in a vacuum.” 

That’s the message Scripps Networks President John Lansing sent to attendees at a recent Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) meeting on Corporate Social Responsibility.  Lansing’s message was simple — keep a community healthy and you promote better employees, potential employees and a strong community.

Lansing’s main points included:

  • Success as a business is intertwined with employees and community
  • Businesses should be altruistic in nature
  • Keeping the community around you healthy is the true Return on Investment
  • A community is special because it’s intentional

Scripps Networks even gives their employees paid time off (PTO) to volunteer, which does not count against their vacation or sick days. 

Of course, this concept is nothing new to the folks at Green Mountain Coffee Company. In fact, the company gives employees 52 hours of paid leave each year to volunteer in any way they choose (in addition to their PTO, sick or vacation leave). 

Green Mountain Coffee Company also produces an annual Corporate Social Responsibility report every two years, and nearly half (45 percent) of all the company’s waste is recycled each year.

Green Mountain Coffee Company’s two main concerns are social responsibility (hunger / poverty reduction) and environmental responsibility (solid waste / energy use reduction).  The company even allocates 5 percent of their pre-tax earnings to these causes. 

Businesses have the power to be a positive change agent and Green Mountain Coffee Company is hoping other businesses will join in their efforts.

The bottom line:  make a difference and make a profit.

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