Andrew Buckley, a Non-Executive Director on our company board recently visited our Communication and Engagement team as part of NTW Solutions’ programme of director visits. For a team that usually spends its time organising these visits for others, it was a slightly unusual experience. Andrew heard about the breadth and depth of the work of the team in supporting the company to achieve its aims.
The team began by talking Andrew through what Communication and Engagement actually does. They explained that while producing emails, news stories and content is part of the role, communications at NTW Solutions is seen as a strategic management function. They focus on helping solve organisational problems and collaborate with every team across the company to improve understanding and support better decision-making.
Andrew heard about the scale of the work the team does which includes managing key channels such as the weekly Essentials email, the monthly Team Brief, the intranet and the NTW Solutions website, as well as social media. They also talked about how they support our staff engagement systems, including forums, surveys, staff recognition such as our Everyday Hero scheme and of course, the director visits themselves.
The team focus on where communication can add value, including the financial savings coming from a campaign to reduce printing, and especially colour and single sided printing. They have worked with every team to ensure that common queries are answered on the intranet to improve customer service but also to free up staff to tackle more complicated queries.
They also work to improve marketing our services and have increased sales in our cafés through promotions of everything from toasties to fish and chip Fridays. Revamped promotions and a multi-channel marketing campaign for our Lease Car scheme led to record take up of our special offers.
The discussion also focused on how communications gets involved when something isn’t quite working, or teams need extra support. This includes efforts to help boost company recruitment. The team have revamped our job descriptions into attractive recruitment packs written in engaging and accessible language. Through trialling new and innovative ways to promote jobs on social media there has been a 61% increase in people clicking through to our job adverts in the last year.
To support new starters and managers alike the team have built an online system using SharePoint which guides people through both the induction and probation process. The system replaces ad hoc local paper based systems with an integrated platform that collates the responses and sends them straight to the Workforce team, cutting admin tasks out of the process.
Another example showed how communication can help reduce confusion and save time. The team explained how feedback from colleagues in CNTW showed they were unsure which part of NTW Solutions they needed to contact. This led to the creation of an AtoZ of NTW Solutions which lists all our services alphabetically, so people don’t need to know about our structure to access what they need.
The team are passionate about genuine two-way communications and listening to our teams is a key part of the role. They ensure that the company never shies away from receiving feedback, and how that’s especially important when the feedback is tough to hear and requires reflection and change. The team facilitate a wide range of feedback mechanisms to ensure views are heard and valued.
Throughout the visit, the team emphasised their focus on supporting teams do their job, whether that’s by improving understanding, smoothing a process or helping colleagues feel more connected. Andrew welcomed the opportunity to see this work up close and left with a strong appreciation of the breadth, impact and strategic value of Communication and Engagement at NTW Solutions.
