Eduarda Hodgins, ABC, Director, Communications Weldwood of Canada Limited

1. You Want Me to Do What!Building supervisor support for face-to-face communication in a dispersed workplace Eduarda Hodgins, ABC, Director, Communications Weldwood of Canada Limited Ken Milloy, President, Strategic Connections Inc. IABC International Conference Los Angeles 2004

2. What we will outline for you • Why Weldwood needed to develop the program • What we learned was needed and how we addressed those needs • The impact the program had

4. Delivering value to customers through operational excellence • Essential that employees understand our business… • And how they contribute to the achievement of our goals

5. 2001 3.17 2003 3.27 2004 (fall) 3.47 Gallup’s Q12 engagement survey tells us how we are doing… (5.0 is maximum)

6. True engagement begins with the supervisor / employee relationship • Approximately 250 people • 95% while male; well educated • Non-union – supervise unionized, mostly male employees • 10+ years experience on average • Supervisors because of technical expertise…not people skills

7. Centralized communications function Small department – multiple issues (!) Annual communication plan linked to business strategy endorsed by President Communication audit revealed: - strong integrated print/online tools with good readership and excellent marks for value - Misalignment in tool/messaging - Insufficient face-to-face interactions Communication at Weldwood

8. The Project Driven By… • Response to multiple communications issues • Desire to move communications from one department’s role to “everyone’s job” • Requirement (and pressure) to improve Gallup Engagement Survey score • Face-to-face interactions mandated by senior management to bridge gap in Gallup score

9. The bottom line… Frontline supervisors capable of and committed to embedding a culture of engagement…to maximize our ability to achieve our strategic business focus

10. We set some specific goals • More than 80% of supervisors say the understand engagement and role of one-on-ones • More than 80% of those trained report having effective one-on-one’s • .20 increase across Weldwood on next Q12 score

11. RESEARCH DESIGN TEST EVALUATE DELIVER Early explorations made it clear that an ‘off the shelf’ program would not meet the needs of supervisors

12. If you want me to do that, then I need… • Clear understanding of what engagement is and how it will benefit the organization • Improved interpersonal/ communication skills • Connections – with peers, best practices, ideas, …

13. And the challenge at hand was even more complicated… • 250 people…many moredifferent needs • Varied understanding - context & need • Questions regarding senior support • Task view - to improve GES results • Time constraint - impact production goals However, we also found that they would be very supportive if the potential was real.

14. We needed to develop a session that balanced flexibility and logistics while providing an experience that modeled engagement

15. “…Teach him to fish and he will eat for life….” We modeled the session design so as to model the ideas of engagement from start to finish: Involvement Feel Flexibility Self-exploration

16. The day was fairly standard in terms of the agenda • Welcome / Background / Overview • Exploring Engagement • Expectations and Logistics • Skill development / enhancement • Resources and tools • Self-assessment and evaluation

17. The first step was to have them look at the business, its challenges and the potential of a culture based on engagement The Business Goals The Business Environment Engagement Behaviours Experience

19. One-on-Ones: Definition and Logistics • Provided a definition • Set out guidelines • Allowed dialogue to enforce self-design

20. Communication & Interpersonal Skills Development • Active Listening (all session) • Difficult/negative people • Effective questioning • Getting past superficial conversation • Balancing inquiry and advocacy • Moments of awareness • Constructive openness • Avoiding long to do lists • …

21. Learning through experience, observation and immediate feedback • Small group exploration • Identify core element of strategy /tool being discussed • Fill in blanks where items missed • Role playing (groups of 3) • employee, leader, observer • small/large group debrief

22. Beyond the Workshop – integrating resources for supervisors • InfoNet Engagement Centre • best practices • planning tools • skill reference sheets • Managers as the medium • Each other

23. Self-Assessment • A simple self assessment form • 3 point scale • need to improve • feel competent • area of personal strength • Encouraged each person to focus on no more than 2 “need to improve” areas

24. We knew we were on the right track when at 8:30 one morning a Union Leader said…. “I am hear to listen to what this is about and to hold management accountable – I do not like where this is headed and don’t trust the intent.”

25. And followed that up at 3:45 with… “I stand corrected…This is exactly what we need to do – I will be meeting with our members over coffee and lunch to tell them their participation is essential.”

26. 9 months later - Survey Results 97% understand process/intent of engagement 96% understand how one-on-ones build an engaged workforce 90% say they are doing one-on-ones 88% say course was valuable 60% rate quality of one-on-ones excellent or very good

27. 9 months later - Survey Results More training required! Listening, negativity, planning Agreement that one-one-ones help employees feel more engaged! Multiple success stories shared by conducting one-on-ones