Thank you for smoking

Image via Wikipedia

I got an employee email today at work advising me that smoking would no longer be allowed at the loading dock of my office building. That’s fine, because I don’t smoke.

But I was amused to read that “cigarette dispensers” had been placed at another entrance to the building as an alternative. Perhaps free Marlboros or Camels are a new employee benefit.

Mad Men on Millennials

Don Draper as played by Jon Hamm. Image via Wikipedia

I admit it. I’m a fan of “Mad Men,” the hit drama on AMC.

Last night’s episode was one of my favorites since the infamous John Deere episode last season. There were many scenes to like, but my favorite was when Don Draper, the partner in the advertising agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce lectures Peggy Olson, a 26-year old copywriter who reveals that she is upset that she didn’t get any credit for her role in a Clio-winning campaign for the floor polish Glo-Coat.

Leveraging Social Media Inside Your Company

My colleague Jennifer Sniderman is part of the team who manages our internal communications at Sprint. One of her more compelling projects over the last several years has been to integrate social media into those employee programs. For example, our corporate Intranet is combined with employee generated content from our own internal social media platform, which is known as Sprint Space. Employees have their own blogs inside the company’s firewall where they write and comment about what’s going on in the company and the industry. The best blogs posts from our workforce are posted on the front page of our Intranet home page.

One thing I believe has been critical to employees adopting Sprint Space is that our executives are not driving it down the food chain. Instead employees are connecting with peers and what they write and create is engaging executives and co-workers at all levels in the company. To be honest, because so few executives have established Sprint Space blogs, the site has more credibility with rank and file employees. It’s also growing organically.

Jennifer recently spoke to a Ragan Communications conference about the goals of Sprint Space and her team’s strategy in creating it and growing it. Check it out.

Best Practice in Announcing Bad News

The folks at FedEx have figured out a smart way to engage employees and media at the same time when they need to announce bad news. Take this blog post by CEO Fred Smith announcing pay cuts for management and a suspension of their 401 (k) match.

Campbell’s M-m-m-misses the Point

The Campbell Soup Co. distributed this guide to employees to help explain changes to the company's Intranet.

One of the most useful newsletters on internal communications comes from Davis & Co., a New Jersey-based employee communications consultancy. Their latest issue has an item that misses the mark though.  In it, they highlight how their client, The Campbell Soup Company, was launching a new Intranet and needed to familiarize employees with its features.