CONNECTIONS An Edelman perspective on making meaningful employee connections that deepen engagement, build trust and accelerate business performance
IS YOUR WORKPLACE READY? Eight Important Lessons for Launching Workplace by Facebook With the global launch of Facebook’s new enterprise platform, Workplace, organizations are asking: “Can this replace our aging intranet?” “Will employees collaborate or share weekend shenanigans?” And, of course, “could this finally be the end of the dreaded ‘reply all’ email?” There’s no one right answer, of course, and every company needs to access its readiness individually. At Edelman, we have been beta testing Workplace since earlier this year. Now more than 80 percent of our employees, including CEO Richard Edelman, actively use the platform. More than 700 groups have been established across our global network and feedback from the pilot has been positive. We’ve learned a lot along the way, and we aren’t done. Based on our experience, here are eight takeaways for organizations to consider when launching Workplace:
1. Start at the end. The end goal, that is. Edelman launched Workplace to solve a specific problem: to unlock the knowledge that is all too often trapped in individual email inboxes. Who hasn’t gotten that shot-in-the-dark plea with “does anyone know where I go to find X” in the subject line? We set out to more readily surface expertise across the firm and bring our best collective thinking to clients. Of course, there are many other benefits – from reducing email clutter to fostering camaraderie and interactions with leaderships – but we started by first identifying a challenge to our business and positioning Workplace as a potential solution. That framing was critical to gaining leadership’s support for Workplace.
2. Influence the influencers. We first trialed Workplace during an annual planning meeting with 100 of the firm’s top leaders. This was after aligning IT, Internal Communications, Marketing and enlisting guidance from Edelman’s client-facing Employee Engagement and Digital teams. We then identified more than 100 highly networked employees with a high degree of influence within Edelman. These colleagues are often the ones responding to those “where do I go for this?” missives.
We trained these employees to be our champions for Workplace, since others naturally seek them out. We also assigned dedicated community managers for each group created. These internal influencers help source, create and moderate content on an ongoing basis.
3. Describe versus prescribe. While we laid out clear intentions and goals for various types of groups, each community has the freedom to use their space in a way that amplifies what they’re already doing. The 700+ groups set up since launch range from collaboration spaces for account teams to special interest groups who swap everything from local concert tickets to writing tips.
4. Focus on transformation.
cultural,
not
technical,
Since Workplace looks and feels like Facebook, our employees didn’t need much technical training. Instead, we focused on priming our culture for adoption in three key ways: First, we armed community managers with content well before launching their groups and readied senior leaders – from our CEO down – to use Workplace for communication.
© 2016 Edelman
Second, we offered guidance on when to use Workplace versus email. We encourage employees to use Workplace to invite others to interact with content, especially to solicit feedback and suggestions. We recommend email for urgent, highpriority messages that convey information instead of starting a conversation.
7. Empower teams with local autonomy.
Lastly, we kept it up past Day 1. Teams that received repeated, small group demonstrations and coaching have been more successful in adopting Workplace than those left to figure it out on their own.
8. Finally, keep it up.
5. Your news engine is hungry. Feed it. A restaurant with a sparkling exterior will fail if there’s nothing on the menu. Similarly, a platform is only as good as its content. Your internal communications must command attention to cut through the clutter of external news and social chatter. Will employees click on your content or the personality quiz in their external social feed? We developed a pre-launch content strategy for Workplace and approached it with the editorial discipline of a newsroom to deliver compelling content that invites interaction. For example, we know from employee feedback that our people take particular pride in hearing about our client work, even if they weren’t directly involved. We launched a #makemeproud campaign with the simple goal of encouraging employees to share client work that makes them proud. Teams have shared videos documenting everything from raising awareness of blood cancer in EMEA to championing diversity in Vancouver. It’s been great for employee pride and for our business, as account teams are tapping into expertise not just on the other side of the cubicle, but on the other side of the world. As one Workplace user put it, “I’ve learned more in 1.5 weeks about what Edelman actually does than in 2 years of working here.”
6. Lead through your leaders. We are experimenting with Live Video as an alternative to webcasts and a venue for executives to talk about key issues and trends with employees. We recently celebrated our 64th Founder’s Day with CEO Richard Edelman talking about the firm’s family heritage and his parents’ role in in shaping our company. Certainly, it’s important for leaders to actively engage on Workplace, but what they don’t do sends an equally strong message. We are encouraging managers to move from sharing news via email distribution lists to Workplace, which is an important cultural shift.
Each office within Edelman’s global network has its own unique strategy for Workplace that reflect local market, culture and team dynamics. Locations had the autonomy to stage their own launch events, while still tapping into globally available content.
A splashy initial launch will fade once the novelty wears off. Maximizing employee engagement with Workplace requires continuous content planning, leadership engagement, advocacy by internal champions, training refreshers and ongoing change management to reinforce key behaviors. As you consider whether Workplace is right for your organization, ask yourself: •
Do you have a solid use case or business problem that collaboration can help solve?
•
Is your culture ready for greater transparency?
•
Are leaders prepared for employees to have greater and more direct access to them, using channels other than email?
•
Can you identify influential employees to serve as in-the-trenches champions?
•
Do you have a content and channel strategy for reaching your various employee groups that Workplace will complement?
•
Can you commit to stocking your internal news pipeline with engaging content on an ongoing basis?
These are all questions we asked ourselves and help our clients plan for as well. With a thoughtful launch strategy, continuous content development and an engaged army of advocates, Workplace can be a powerful tool for connecting your employees and putting collaboration to work.
About Us Edelman is a Workplace Partner with Facebook and helps organizations engage their employees in Workplace. We help clients design launch campaigns, engage internal champions, create content that commands attention and identify opportunities for leaders to build stronger connections with employees. Beyond Workplace, our Employee Engagement team helps companies accelerate business performance, delivered by highly engaged and trusted employees. For more information, visit us at ee.edelman.com or follow us on Twitter at @EdelmanEE.
© 2016 Edelman