Transcript Internal Marketing

Internal Marketing
“Employee morale is affected by how much we
know about the company’s plans.”
98 percent of employees agree.
Key questions regarding
internal marketing
Where does it fit within an organization’s
marketing plans, or within its strategic plans?
Who should do it -- marketing, human
resources, public relations?
What can organizations learn from each other?
What does the diverse literature say?
Definitions:
 Selling the firm to its employees (Grönroos, 1981)
 The process of attracting, developing, motivating, and
retaining qualified employees through job-products that
satisfy their needs (Berry & Parasuraman 1991)
 Building customer orientation among employees by
training and motivating both customer contact and
support staff to work as a team (Kotler & Armstrong 1991)
 A process by which employee satisfaction is leveraged to
positively impact the bottom line. Satisfied employees
strengthen relationships among all critical stakeholders.
(Williams, Business & Economic Review, 1997)
Definition -- (Joseph 1996)
The application of marketing, human resources
management, and allied theories, techniques,
and principles to motivate, mobilize, co-opt and
manage employees at all levels of the
organization to continuously improve the way
they serve external customers and each other.
Effective internal marketing responds to
employee needs as it advances the
organization’s mission and goals.
Customer- and employee-focused
It demands an integrative approach
Internal customers -- the idea that
organizational departments serve each
other
It encompasses all employees
Carlzon’s ‘moments of truth’ shaped by
employees by the way they:
look
act
talk
interact with each other
including facial expression, demeanor and
personality
Good internal marketing
programs depend on:
Recruiting the right people
Training them
Motivating them
Communicating with them
Co-opting them (getting them to buy into
the organization and its plans)
Changing Workforce
Employees viewed as assets, not costs
People will have 4-6 careers in lifetime
More than half of women with babies are
working
More women are starting and running
their own businesses
Trends of Internal
Communications
Few companies develop a strategy
Failure in over 80 percent of cases involving
announced change
Biggest symptom of failure - lots of
inaccurate, negative rumors
Second symptom - learning about change
from press
Trends of Internal
Communications
Employees are insulted when a less ‘rich’
channel is used
Management does not adapt message to
different groups
Employees react negatively to use of
buzzwords
Great differences between literal meaning,
intention and effect of overly positive
messages
Time Spent by PR Department
on:
Media
10%
Employees
35%
Government
25%
30%
Investors
Companies not doing
Enough
Employees don’t believe what
management says.
Are not sufficiently informed.
Change not communicated well.
Management does a bad job of explaining
reasons behind decisions.
Communication is not timely.
Management Excuses
 Don’t have time
 Haven’t gotten information self
 Fear reactions, leaks, uproar
 Won’t give away power
 Haven’t gotten message of what’s expected of
them
 Are not evaluated on their communication
abilities
 Get no rewards for communicating
 Don’t see how it is useful
 Under-evaluate employee’s information needs
Employees Want Top
Management to:
 Inform them ahead of time
 Care about how they really feel
 Give their supervisors enough authority to get job done
 Make a strong commitment to serve the customer
 Have the ability to solve major organization problems
 Run a socially responsible organization
 Provide new products and services to meet competition
 Place more emphasis on quality than quantity
Manager’s Communication
Obligations
 Carry information from top
management
 Explain
 Listen
 Get feedback from
employees
 Take information from ‘down’
to ‘up’
 Active role in spreading
information
 Sell ideas
 Motivate, inspire and
encourage personal
development
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Profile and market units
Speak at meetings
Negotiate
Give feedback, criticism and
praise
Speak personally with staff
Solve conflicts
Set demands
Explain and defend
unpopular decisions
Carry out periodic
evaluations of employees
A Good Communication
Climate
Instructive
Informative
Advising
Contributive
Participatory
Communications Strategy
Nature of
Change
Organizational
Dynamics
Employee Differences
Organizational Culture
Organizational Climate
Strategy
Time
L. R. Smeltzer, An Analysis
for Announcing Organization-Wide
Change, Group & Organizational Studies,
Vol. 16, No. 1 March 1991.
L
Goal
E E E E E
Power Structure
Tannæs, 1992
Communication
Structure
Focus
What is size and nature of work force?
What does the work force think of
organization?
How satisfied are employees?
What employee communications exist?
How effective are communications
tools?
Are there special employee relationship
programs?
Communication Objectives
Increase employees’ knowledge
Enhance favorable attitudes toward
employer
Get more adoption by employees of
behavior desired by management
Make employees spokespersons for
organization in community
Receive more employee feedback
Media Capacity & Communication
Characteristics
Media Characteristics
Media Richness
Capacity
Medium
Feedback Cues/Channels Intimacy Language
High
Face-to-face
Immediate Multiple
Personal Natural
visual, audio
Telephone
Fast
Audio
Personal
Natural
Written, addressed
(letter, memo)
Slow
Limited
visual
Personal
Natural/
Numeric
Written,
unaddressed
Very slow
Limited
visual
Impersonal Natural/
Numeric
Low
From R. Daft and G. Huber, How Organizations Learn:
A communications framework, Research in the Sociology
of Organizations, Vol.. 5, 1987.
Prescriptions for Managers
Face-to-face: non-routine and difficult
communications
Memos: routine, simple communications
Discussion & Meetings: make presence felt
Rich media: implementing strategy
Multiple media: critical issues and need to get
message heard
Evaluate appropriate technology
Media
Bulletin boards
Displays and
exhibits
Telephone hotlines
or news lines
Inserts in paychecks
Internal television
Speakers bureaus employees to
community groups
Films
Video cassettes
Meetings
Teleconferences
Audio-visual
presentations
Booklets, pamphlets,
brochures
Evaluation
Communication, Retention, Acceptance
of Messages
Co-orientational Evaluations
Human Relations Audits
Communication Satisfaction
International Communications
Association Audit - extensive use of
network analysis and interviews
How Leading Companies
Communicate
Chief executive as
communication
champion
Match between words
and actions
Commitment to 2way communication
Emphasis on face-toface
Share responsibility
Bad news/good news
ratio
Knowing customers,
clients, audiences
Employee
communication
strategy
A business marketer can
develop a really hot system
to market their product, but
if they have not taken time
to build in an employee
communications plan, the
marketing effort is dead in
the water.
Gegenheimer, C. L., “Include employees in
marketing”, Advertising Age’s Business
Marketing, July 1998.