SCM conference

I was lucky enough to take two days out and attend and speak at the 2009 Melcrum Strategic Communication Management summit. Some of the highlights for me were:

• Wayne Clarke from Best Companies who gave a great definition of employee engagement as "doing things because you want to, not because you have to". He ended his keynote presentation by saying it boils down to the extent to which management share with and listen to their people
• Henri Forde from City and Guilds Group who told us how she and her team brought the strategy to life (plus of course her "Draw a pig" ice breaker!)
• Bob Keiller, CEO, Production Services Network who was such an inspiring leader and who, together with Georgina Turner, Head of Corporate Communications, told us how they truly "live their values" as opposed to paying lip service to them. This includes turning down contracts considered to be unsafe and sending birthday cards to all his staff
• Russell Grossman, Director of Communications at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills talked us through some great ideas about employee engagement. He asked us to think about communications as being about transferring energy and to question how many of our leaders are transferring positive energy. He also shared some of the highlights from the recent MacLeod report (a must-read if you haven't already), which he is involved with. Watch out for more news on publicity and events surrounding this
• Darren Briggs, Director Flametree, got us thinking about leadership communication and how we can nurture our leaders' strengths
• I really enjoyed hearing Stephen Martin, CEO, Clugston Group, who told us about his experience as an Undercover Boss on Channel 4. It made me wish more leaders would take the time out to find out what their employees really think. He sounds like a great and inspiring leader
• Sarah Cullen from Asda entertained us with their unique ways of communicating and engaging the Asda colleagues. Check out http://www.asda.com/greenroom to find out more

All the presenters were great and some useful themes emerged. I was part of a panel at the end of the conference where we answered final questions. We spoke about the trend in internal communications during this recession and everyone was in agreement that it's time to think about the essentials, how are we adding value and are we focused on the right things? Now's the time to really think about taking stock and reflecting on what is really going to make the difference to carrying employees with us as we turn the corner. What do you think?

Sally