Gallagher’s State of the Sector 2024 Breakfast

Speaker A: Fun.

Speaker B: All right, so we'll get things kicked off here. Just before we get started, I want to acknowledge that Toronto is on Treaty 13 and Williams Treaty territory, which is the ancestral homeland and original territories of many nations. This includes the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples. Today, the traditional meeting place of Toronto is still home to many First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples from across Turtle Island. We're grateful to have the opportunity to work in these communities. IBC Toronto, our hope is to do its part by starting honest conversations in its own circles and professional community to support a journey and a commitment to reconciliation. We want to learn and share more about how As professional communicators, marketers, and PR professionals, we can do our part to use the power of communication to help achieve the 94 calls to action outlined in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report. We acknowledge that IABC Toronto, as well as Contact Monkey and Gallagher, we're all quite early in our reconciliation journey, and we're committed to honouring, upholding, and uplifting the voices of Indigenous peoples within our communities. A lot of work to be done, and we commit to refining and continuing our reconciliation journey. Thank you everyone for joining us. We're excited to have this conversation. It's a triple threat. We've got 3 organizations that are bringing this to you this morning. So we have Contact Monkey is the gracious host for breakfast this morning, and they, their team was instrumental in putting a lot of this together. And in a second, we'll be introducing Jade here, as well as Gallagher, of course, who puts together the State of the Sector every year. So we're looking forward to sharing some of the insights that we found out this year and things that are topical and a lot of people are thinking about. And of course, IBC Toronto. So IBC Toronto is the world's largest communications, professional communications chapter. for IABC. And we have, I don't remember the last count, I think it's about 750 members right now. And it's a vibrant community of communicators. And at IABC, we love supporting events just like this and sharing insights and talking about communications. So one of the things that we're talking about today is the state of the sector. So for a lot of people, Oh, perfect. Oh yeah, that helps.

Speaker A: Amazing.

Speaker B: I was really scared that I was on mute just now and I, like, I'd have to start all over again. So one of the things that we're talking about today, of course, is the State of the Sector. So for a lot of people in internal communications, you'll be familiar with the State of the Sector. It's been, you know, relatively seminal reading for our industry for quite a number of years. So if you don't already have a copy online, there's a QR code. So just scan that QR code and you can download a copy for yourself. And then for those of you here in Toronto, of course, we've got some hard copies as well. So have a look. It's chock-full of pretty interesting insights this year. And without further ado, I want to hand it over to you, Jay, to introduce yourself and your role here at Countact Yeah.

Speaker C: So I'm Jade. I'm ContactMonkey's Director of People. I have been here for just under 2 years, and we've grown our team since then by 300%. So my role has been lots of hiring, retaining employees, creating employee journeys for our new and tenured people. It's a fun job. It's a lot of work, but I'm lucky to work for a company that really believes in caring for your people. So I think where that sort of segues into ContactMonkey's brand and what we do for our customers it's that we believe in constant communication. We believe in tracking and measuring our communication across our team. I'm lucky enough to be able to take what I hear or learn from my leader and bring it right to my team constantly. So there's no sort of breakage in communication there as well. We're very transparent as a company, and that speaks to our brand and to our product.

Speaker B: Great. And I probably should introduce myself before I started talking. So I'm Chris Lee. I'm I actually wear 2 hats. So in my day job, I am Vice President of Employee Experience and Internal Communications for Gallagher Communication. And, but in addition to that, I also volunteer for IABC Toronto. So if you're not already a member of IABC, I strongly encourage you to join. There's a lot of great benefits, lots of great professional development opportunities within IABC, and there's lots of great events, not just this one, but we had a great holiday event actually here at the Contact Monkey offices as well in December.

Speaker C: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: And so lots of great opportunities to network. I've heard so many great stories of people who've found different successes and new roles and promotions through their connections at IABC. And I think it's a great way to connect. And in addition, we're just in the early throes of kicking off our recruiting process now for the next board year, which starts in July. So for all of you, if you haven't volunteered for IABC in the past, this is my call out to you. Just give me a shout anytime. I'm gonna start talking with people who might be interested in joining the board of directors to become a VP on the board. It's a great opportunity to hone your leadership skills and work with some amazing volunteers. We have some that are here today. We have former board members here today as well. And so I'm really excited to kick off this process this year. So if you're interested in giving back to the community and just looking for ways to build and enhance your career, that's the way to do it. So that's enough about me and my pitch for getting some volunteers for IABC. Let's chat a little bit, Jade, about— so you're with Contact Monkey. Can you just describe a little bit just quickly what, you know, what is Contact Monkey?

Speaker C: Yeah. So it's an internal communications tool where you can track, send, and monitor emails with your employees. What's beautiful about it is it's engaging. So it's not just, you know, the email that you send when you have time on the side to your people all at once. There is the option to respond to the email, to, you know, add stars based on the rating of the email. You can also— we also recently added AI tracking on our product as well, as well as allowing us to send emails that are personalized to the people that you're sending them to. So it's a much more wholesome experience versus, you know, your HR person or your comms person just sending an email out when the time feels right. So that is our— that's our product.

Speaker B: Great. And the other, obviously the other partner here is Gallagher, and that's who I represent. So Gallagher is a large employee experience and internal communications agency. Globally, we have about 300 people that are just dedicated to the craft of creating memorable employee experiences. And we do everything from consulting on strategy on planning, communications audits, to right down to the tactical where we have a great team of graphic designers, some brilliant copywriters and project managers and a great digital team. And recently we also acquired Simply Communicate out of the UK, which is a great digital agency that can help you build an optimal tech stack for your organization. And they would look at different partners that might make sense for you, including, you know, partners like Contact Monkey. So without further ado, let's jump into this. So for those of you that are not familiar with State of the Sector, we've been doing this, I think I just told somebody it was 14 years, but I'm reading the slide and the slide is always right. So it's 16 years we've been doing this for now.

Speaker A: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: And it's evolved quite a bit. I think the conversation about internal communications has evolved as well. I think once upon a time, and I see people who have been in the profession for quite, quite some time, and I, I, it's really evolved from thinking about it like tactically and in terms of what channels we're operating on to a very different role that we all play as communicators in organizations where it's not just, you know, make this look pretty and then, you know, send all email, send an email to all employees and press send, our remit has increased and increasingly our organizations are, have been relying on us to be more strategic in the way that we think and more mindful of what our organizations do and the role that we can play. So I'll talk a little bit about that. The survey itself, Now it's grown to— there's 2,300 organizations that are represented now in the State of the Sector, and half of them are here in North America. And then we have about 40% that are in Europe, and then the remainder we have globally. And so there's a great cross-section across different industries, different organization sizes, different budgets, all shapes and sizes are represented here. So looking to dive into some of the themes that we saw. So Jade, we— there was 4 themes that we looked at and are covering off. So one of them is the role of communications in delivering business outcomes. And what are, what are, what are some of the things that we as communications professionals can do to ensure that we're playing our role to not just communicate in terms of small-c communications, but What kind of connection points are we making to help our businesses and our employers grow? The second thing, of course, is metrics. And, you know, right off the bat, you talked about that, Jade, which is, you know, metrics is really— it's the love language of C-suite. If you want to catch their attention, you better come armed with a dashboard of metrics to help you tell your story. And so we'll talk a little bit about that. The third theme is leveraging technology. And Jade, you mentioned AI. What is that? Is that something that— is that new? Is that— are people talking about that?

Speaker C: I keep hearing about it.

Speaker B: Yeah. So we'll talk about AI. So don't worry. There's gonna be a section on AI. I know that's top of people's minds. And then the last piece is leadership and the role that leadership people managers play in communication. So we'll talk about some of the insights that showcase a little bit about what kind of role that people managers and leaders play, and we'll share some of our thoughts on, on how we leverage leaders in our own experiences. So we're gonna get right into it, and let me just move this a little bit out of the way here. So the first thing we, we looked at, Jade, was the purpose of internal communication. So it's a, it's a question that we ask every year. We wanna know, for your organization, what's the primary purpose of communications? And fairly consistently, we find that culture and belonging has always been a priority, as well as strategic alignment. Jade, is that consistent with what you're working on at ContactMonkey?

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker C: If I don't, like, if I don't, as an employee, feel like I belong to the org, I ask, well, why do I care? What's in it for me? And I think as communicators as well as HR people, if you don't treat your people like your customer, they're all of a sudden disengaged. So I know closely that our CS team treats our customers very kindly and they're very, you know, gentle and coddling. So when I think of my role in a communications role, I have to be the same or else my employees will just disengage. So not surprised to see the uptick or how important that is for communicators. It's important for me as an employee also, as my own employees.

Speaker B: Yeah. No, I love that, Jade. I, I think one of the things with the employee experience, I think over the last decade or 2, there's been an increased focus on connecting employees to purpose, right? There's, what's that book? Simon Sinek's book, Start with Why. And then I, I can't remember who I was talking to, but there's even predating that, there was a seminal book by a psychiatrist named Viktor Frankl called Man's Search for Meaning. And it really just, right?

Speaker A: Isn't that a great book? Very heavy book.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a heavy read, but I think it really comes down to human nature, which is I think we're at our best when you have that strong sense of purpose, when you can see the summit and you know what that looks like. And I think at organizations, it's really important that we as communicators, we never lose sight of constantly connecting our employees to what their purpose is and what the organization's vision, mission statement is. It can't just be words on a wall or a poster anymore. It's gotta be— there's gotta be a meaningful connection.

Speaker C: How are you living those values?

Speaker B: And how are you living those values, right? So I think it's just so important that you finish that check and you make sure that these aren't just words that people know by rote, but what are the ways and the activities within organizations that you're really bringing that to life? One of the things that we also found was that in our— this year's State of the Sector, we found that there was a pool of survey respondents that reported into communications on its own, and then there was some that reported into to HR. And what we actually found was that there was twice as many communicators that were focused on things like managing risk if they were reporting up into HR than they were reporting into just the corporate structure. So is that a focus at all for you, Jade? I mean, it's focused, but like how big of a focus is it?

Speaker C: Yeah, I do play both of those roles today. So absolutely, like we have to make sure that our teams are staying compliant. And the best way you can do that is constantly letting them know what we have to get done by what So it's not the glorious part of HR. It's actually kind of like the sort of like, oh, you know, you have to do it, but it has to get done. And the way that I do that is honestly, it's constant emailing. It's talking to my people leaders and saying, don't forget, this is due this day. Remind your teams. It's being in people's faces as many avenues as you can. So for us, that's Slack, it's email, it's more Slack, it's tapping shoulders, it's talking about it during all hands. It's asking our leadership team to talk about it in all hands as well. But yes, that is a big part of my role too.

Speaker B: Oh, great. Great. So we also took a look at what are the top priorities for communications teams. And there's, there's really no surprise on the top spot here. So the top priority for communications teams was engaging teams on purpose, strategy, and value. So this is really in line with what we're talking about. And there was a 12% increase in respondents that mentioned engaging teams around purpose, strategy, and value. But there was also an 8% increase in enhancing leadership visibility, which jumped up a couple of spots. And so now when you look at number 3 and 4, we'll talk about this a little bit more, Jade, but enhancing leadership visibility and enhancing people-manager communication now are top 5. And is that something that, Jade, at ContactMonkey that you see as something that you spend a lot of time thinking about?

Speaker C: I do. At my previous org, we really believed in that mentality of enhancing leadership visibility. And I brought that as much as I could to Contact Monkey. And the reason why it's like when you think of, I don't know, like a little kid and Santa Claus, if you don't see Santa Claus, you're all of a sudden kind of disengaging with the whole idea. It's like, oh, I don't see this person, so I don't really believe in or care about it. And it kind of is the same with your leadership team. If you don't see your CEO, you know, speaking to you, asking questions, doing AMAs, doing listening tours, Whereas you're like, you know, I don't trust this person. There are secrets happening behind the scenes and I'm not into it. So I think keeping it authentic and real, although hard to do and very tactical if you're doing it right, is incredibly important for your people. So yeah, I'm— the uptick, I think, is an example of Gen Zs and millennials saying, I need to see the honesty behind this because I wanna be a full engaged employee. So it's exciting. I think it's, it's wonderful to see that we're keeping it real.

Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. And I agree with that. And I think one of the things with people managers in general is when you think about how people progress in organizations, typically if you have a team, you'll have the person that typically gets promoted is the one that has the most experience and the most knowledge and likely deserves a chance to be a people leader. But often they're not always the one with the most natural leadership or communications acumen. So when things get really, messy within an organization, this team might go to this person regularly, or in team meetings, this person might be more vocal. So if you want to look at promoting the person that deserves it because they have the experience and the knowledge, I think organizations have to be willing to commit resources to make them a more effective leader and more importantly, a more effective communicator.

Speaker A: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: Another thing that we looked at in the state sector was the barriers to success. So we looked at, you know, what are some of the things that, you know, get in the way of us as communications professionals to do our jobs as well as we can and as effectively as we can. And we see this year over year, the number one challenge for us in the communications industry has been lack of time and capacity in my team. So Jade, I know you're a small but mighty team. Are you finding that that's the same thing for you? Is that, does that get in the way of you being able to achieve all the things that you wanna achieve?

Speaker C: Yeah, and I think it goes back to focusing on what matters and again, measuring the output of what is most important to employees. So we can do 1,000 things all the time, but prioritizing of what our employees are listening to, what they have to know right now is kind of how I sort of strategize my communications efforts. These are people, lots are coming at, things are coming at them constantly. So I think just keeping it very clean and clear and communicating often and early is the best way to do it. And not too much fluff. People don't respond well to fluff. So yeah, my team is tight, but we just keep it like just what we need to have out, we bring out, and that's, that's about it.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's a great, that's a great approach. And it, and it's no coincidence too, if you look at this slide, that number 2 is disengaged. employees. I think there's, there's probably a relationship between not having the time and the capacity, because then our, our, our jobs start to become more tactical and transactional because you don't have enough time to really zoom out and, and see the bigger picture.

Speaker A: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: The other, so this pie chart here in the upper right-hand corner, we also looked at budgets. So what kind of budgets are organizations dealing with? And one of the things that we're finding is You know, we're looking at a good half of organizations expect it to remain the same. 17% of organizations think that their budgets will actually be cut this year. And I'm a little bit confused that 22% just don't even know what it is. And I think that that's an opportunity for communicators to have more meaningful conversations internally about what's going on, what some of the planning looks like. So we'll talk about that. But the first theme that we'll dive into, Jade, is delivering business outcomes and our role as communicators and what role that we play within organizations to play a role in helping to shape our business that we work for and the success of that business. So we looked at the main topics that that typically get communicated. And again, strategy, vision, purpose, it's a number one topic. But we also looked at it in terms of employee understanding. And one of the things that I found interesting, Jade, was if you look at the top 3 topics here, it's strategy, vision, and purpose. That's not a big surprise. People with change activity and business performance, these were the top 3. But then you look at employee understanding, And it's really underwhelming, right? So the 3 most important things and the things that we communicate about the most are actually among the topics that are not very well understood by employees. What, what is the disconnect, do you think, Jade, on this?

Speaker C: I think so. Earlier in the slides, you talked a little bit about people sort of having a loss of attention. Like, it's just, they're kind of like, oh, I read a first sentence and now I don't care anymore. So how can we make our comms more impactful and more punchy? And also speaking to people who perhaps aren't in that realm all the time. So we have engineers on our team, people in product, and I often say to them, like, tell me what you're doing as if I'm 6. Hard to do, but keep it super, like, short, snappy, and impactful. So I'm retaining that information because when I'm seeing this number, people obviously aren't.

Speaker A: Right. Yeah.

Speaker B: No, and I like that. Just tell me like I'm 6. I guess it's a great It's a great approach. And the reality is a lot of us work for employers where the product or the service, it can be quite complex. So I, I don't think the idea, Jade, is that we have to be experts in the, in the ways that our product leaders are or, you know, people within our organization are. But one of the things that I always think about with us as communicators is I always love thinking like journalists. And the reason why I say that is when you think about what journalists do, they're constantly— they have sources and they're constantly looking for what are the stories that are happening. And they've got in every sphere of society, they've got different contacts that they know they can rely on. And I think it's important for communications professionals internally to think in the same way. So as opposed to waiting for the next communications project and being reactive, being proactive and finding, you know, quote unquote sources within different key areas, whether it's operations, IT, obviously HR, product sales, and just get a pulse on the organization, connect with them regularly and just get the inside scoop so that way you can be a little bit more anticipatory, especially in larger organizations. I think it's important to know and I think it's probably a little bit easier to do that in a smaller organization, right, Jason?

Speaker C: I mean, give— sometimes yes, sometimes no. I'll be quite candid here. There was a moment last year when we asked the team, what are ContactMonkey's goals? And they were kind of like, not really sure, like, you know, to hit a certain ARR. And I thought, oh my God, we're missing something. So it goes back to telling that story and educating your people of what are like on the granularly. Yes, we're looking to reach a certain ARR, but on the micro moments, what are we doing as a team separately to reach that goal? So I think, yes, educating your people on different sectors of the business to reach the fundamentals are really, really important. And so, yes, we're not perfect, but I totally agree with what we're seeing here.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, and the other, well, the other thing that I like too about this journalism, sort of where we can learn from journalism is also thinking like an editor. So editors are constantly thinking about what is my readership or what are my viewers, what do they care about, what's interesting to them, and not just simply seeing what the news is and delivering that, but trying to find compelling ways to get people's attention. I think in, in communications, it's tempting, especially when you're time poor, to just get the message out, make sure that we spell checked it, the grammar is good, it's on brand, and not finishing the job by looking at it in terms of, you know, are my employees really gonna give, you know, like a, are they gonna care about this content, right? So I think that's another area that I think is an opportunity for communication.

Speaker C: And like, full circle, like treating your employees like your clients. Like they're all doing the— they're supporting this one business together. They have one mission in mind. How do you get them to think and, and to believe in the same sort of compelling info? So, yeah.

Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. So this whole point about, you know, having a seat at the table, I don't know if I love this, this language, but it is something that as communicators, we, we always struggle with. And I think I think depending on your approach to communication, so there's 2 ways you can do it. Either you're a doer and you wait for instructions and then you just do it really, really well, or you're being more proactive about understanding what's going on in the organization, like I said before. And what it does is I think communicators always have a seat at the table. I think the problem is communicators get a seat at the table sometimes really late in the game where leadership's already talked about it. It's been, it's been, you know, you get a fully cooked idea. By the time it gets to your desk and it's now, okay, we've got it, here's the messaging, can you make it sound good? And then just send it out to all employees and I'll leave it to you to, is it email or whatever the right channels are? And I think that's where communicators should really think about how they can get a seat earlier at the table when the conversations are happening earlier so that they can be part of that conversation. So that if there's a big announcement about, for example, let's say that an organization, they have to cut back on bonuses this coming year. And the earlier that you know that, you can also be anticipatory about, wait a second, this might not be a good quarter to share this kind of information. Or there's a big segment of our employee population where this could actually be really damaging, this kind of news. They depend on this. And so those kinds of insights are really important to be able to bring to the table. And the earlier you can get to that table, And the more that you have at least a sense of what's going on and a flavor for what's going on in the organization, I think the better.

Speaker C: Like, just to piggyback on that, I think we should look at communicators as they're like the partner in navigating through crisis. So versus like, oh, you'll have me at the very end when we need you. It's like, no, they should be your partner, your friend, and helping you. So switching that mentality of like, oh, they're, you know, at the bottom of the list. No, they're here to, to, to guide and to support.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: No, absolutely. And one of the things that we looked at was, you know, in these different kinds of roles that we play as communicators, one way that we show up as communicators is in a supporting role. And it's more that idea that we're, we're a doer. And so everything's gonna be correct, but Yeah. There's still room for us to add even more value to the communications process. Then there's advisory and strategic. So advisory is a little bit more evolved where we have more meaningful insights about our employee populations and the channels that are most effective in our organization. And then there's really where you want to get to, which is more of that strategic partner like you are, Jade. with your leadership and you have an opportunity to have more meaningful conversations. And, you know, we're gonna talk a little bit later about people managers, but I think people managers are actually a really important part of this. I think they can make or break good communications. And so getting people managers on the same page, I think, is really critical. All right. So we talked about change a little bit, and the top changes that were planned for the year were systems and technology, culture change, and the brand and offering change. And I know, you know, your organization is going through lots of change. It's growing very fast. What's your experience right now in terms of what change looks like at ContactMonkey and some of the things that you've had to communicate with your broader team?

Speaker C: I feel like I never know what's next, even though I feel like I know enough, I never know what's next. So what served me well, and I'm still learning it, is like communicating early and often, always. And that's what I try to trickle down to my own teams as well. Like, don't keep it close to your heart unless it's very, you know, confidential. But just let's keep talking about what's going on. Let's lead our teams through change. We had a big, lovely investment back in December, which was, you know, exciting, but also in some cases kind of shocking. And people were like, what does that mean for us? So talking through that throughout the process was important for them. And in the end, like, our team stayed on board. We, we had, we lost nobody, which is fantastic. We have a very low turnover, but I think it goes back to just, we're just so honest here.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And our CEO, Scott Peelsticker, who's traveling today, he would totally emulate that comment. So he's just a very honest, this is how it looks, pragmatic leader. And that really has served the way this company works.

Speaker B: That's great. You know, one of the things that strikes me about your team is it feels like it's a psychologically safe environment.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Where people can have a voice, right? And so I think when it comes to change, human nature is people don't love change for the most part. I think some people thrive in it, but it's that old book, you know, Who Moved My Cheese? Like, I think every time there's a violent movement of the cheese, it, for a lot of people, it's hard to make those And so I think with change management, I think it's easier if you're in a psychologically safe environment where people feel safe to voice their concerns and even challenge leadership and ask them tough questions. And I think it's, that's an important part of a culture that is change ready and future ready. The next piece here is looking at, you know, some of the types of of documentation that teams have in place. And what we find is strategic communicators are gonna have different types of documentation that I think are really important. So one is, you know, having a crisis communication plan or process. I think especially when you look at the, what happened 4 years ago when the pandemic first hit, I think those organizations that didn't have a crisis communication plan in place were exposed because even the most prepared communications teams, I still remember that March, April, May of 2020, and you're getting conflicting information and always there's just new developments. And it was a really interesting time in our history.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So I think that's one of the pieces. But we also looked at, of course, 46% have a channel framework. And to me, this is more— to me, this is a foundational piece. You have to have a channel framework, or— and it doesn't have to be a lengthy tome. It just has to be a one-page idea of what types of communications and for what types of scenarios am I using different kinds of channels? And I think it's really important. And we have, you know, people here who do this. I see Priya is here and she does wonderful work in helping organizations as well understand what kind of channels are optimal. We have a team that just, they're just nerds about doing channel audits and communications audits. And then, you know, going back to more of that strategic piece, looking at a strategic narrative, I think it's important to have something that has been intentional and well thought out and well articulated as well as we looked at 31% have an employee value proposition, which for me, I, I think is a disappointingly low number. I think, you know, understanding what your employee value proposition is and having everybody on the same page, I think is, is really important. Wouldn't you agree?

Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. And like, I'm thinking right now, like, you have to know your people and what they expect from you. And back to that pandemic moment, that was the time I think in my HR career where people were texting me me. I never had before. They would just Slack me, and Slack was still available to us, but they were still texting me. They're looking for like a closeness. And I think we had a chat, you and I, earlier about, you know, texting your employees versus emailing versus Slacking, whatever the case is, DMing might look like. And it's knowing what your people need in this time of crisis, having to be spoken to.

Speaker B: Yeah. You know, it's, I think text. So we'll, you'll see in a, in a later slide as we dive into the metrics, that text messaging is extraordinarily effective. However, it's very invasive, right? So it's something that, again, without a channel framework or an understanding of when to use what kind of channels, it can very easily get abused. And you'll have different leaders coming to you saying, I want to send a text message to everybody about this, that, and the other thing. And eventually it becomes another channel that's easy to tune out. I remember there was an episode of The Office where Michael Scott, he was trying to get his senior vice president's attention. His name was David Wallace. And what he would do was text him and text him 911. I need to talk to you immediately.

Speaker A: Oh, no.

Speaker B: And then all it was, was he was just trying to find out if he can get budget to plan a party or something like that. So he's a great example of what not to do all the time. Like, he's very instructive in that way. But it just goes to show that there are channels that are effective, but it doesn't mean that you wanna use them all the time. You wanna go to that well.

Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. The next thing we'll talk about, and we're just— this is a great segue, is the metrics themselves. So let's go into the metrics. So one of the things that we looked at was what is getting measured. And so it's encouraging to see that, you know, reach is probably the most basic of the metrics. It's a bit of a vanity metric in that it doesn't— it tells you something, but it doesn't really tell you the most important thing, right? So it's telling you that you are getting to your employees. But more importantly, I like, Jade, these 2 middle ones, which is understanding as well as behavior change. There's really no point in communication at all if you can't demonstrate that it is creating understanding amongst your employees and it is leading to meaningful behavior change. So it goes right back to that initial insight that we talked about, which is these things that are important and are communicated often, which is purpose, strategy, vision, values, change, they're not being understood well. So going back to what kind of communicator are you? So if you're a supporting doer, you're going to be focused more on metrics like reach. But if you are truly a strategic partner in your organization, you're going to want to find different ways to measure understanding and behavior change. The other thing that we looked at was, you know, what do you use the metrics for? And this is where we can kind of solve for our initial barrier to success, which is resources, capacity, and you're not going to get any help in those areas without a metrics package to support your business case, right? So it's one thing to say, yeah, I just never have time to do this, this, or this. But if you can't demonstrate in a meaningful way with numbers, you're going to have a hard time demonstrating. So one thing that people do try to focus on is a return on your investment. So when you put out communications, What type of return are you getting on that? But just this last piece where I, I do think there's an opportunity for communicators is this is also your opportunity to request investment so that you can invest in important tools, whether it's, you know, ContactMonkey, whether it's valued consulting partners and different vendors, or of course to build your team and grow your team with more strategic thinkers and people who can really help out with that.

Speaker C: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: So I think this is an important piece here to think about. And then of course listening. So I think it's important that we look at different ways. I think one of the dangers with email itself is that it can be just this very easy top-down, one-to-many broadcast channel. It doesn't give employees a lot of opportunities to start a dialogue. And I know, Jay, That you and your team and the broader team here spend a lot of time thinking about, you know, what are meaningful ways that we can start that conversation with employees?

Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. And like, what's so interesting about listening is we all know to do it, but we're all kind of bad at it. So it's like asking yourself, okay, what am I missing in this story? How can I listen better and respond better? So an example, we just did an engagement survey across our team, and I made sure to say to the team, I will have results for you by March. And if I can't do that, I didn't do my job properly. And if I don't do my job properly in the future, they'll never ever give me responses again. That's just not what we want here. So surprisingly, we're very— not we at Contact Monkey, but humans are poor at listening. But how do we become better? It really is taking the feedback and making action versus just sitting on it. Yeah.

Speaker B: No, I think you said it just bang on, Jade. I think, you know, I see consulting partners and industry colleagues It's, it's so important to educate our clients about, yes, do an engagement survey. That is a great tool, but then to do the proper follow-through. So I, I've seen a lot of clients before they engage us where they'll do the engagement survey and they're asking employees to spend significant time. Like, I mean, their time for it.

Speaker C: Communication.

Speaker B: Just like we are in communication. So they spend, you know, 15, 20, 30 minutes doing, and And really meaningfully thinking about, you want them to do some of the open-ended questions and really put in meaningful thought into this. But as an employee, or even me as a consumer in general, if I'm ever asked to do a survey, I wanna know what the results are. I wanna know what did we all say as an organization? And then more importantly, what are you doing with this? And I think it's important that there's more transparency with organizations to say, say, okay, so we don't have the budget. We, we heard you and you said this, but I think it's just as important for organizations to be transparent and say we don't have it this year, but we're gonna, we're gonna try to make a plan for it so we can do something for, you know, Q2 of 2025 and just being really communicative about what you plan on doing with that. And I think it's, it's just so important to do this.

Speaker C: I think like treating your, your business as like a product roadmap in so many ways. Like it's not gonna happen this quarter, but perhaps next quarter or next year when we have XYZ in place. place is super important. This is also your employees, like, are your customers. This is also a business.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. We have a client where they, their team on a recent survey talked about, you know, we don't feel like we can talk to our leadership because we don't think action will happen. And so we're just engaging with them now to learn more about that. But I think psychological safety, just going back to that earlier theme, I think is, one of the areas to look at. So for those of you that are more interested in learning about psychological safety, there's a Harvard professor, Amy Edmondson, who wrote a book called The Fearless Organization. Thank you. Thank you, Alicia. So it's a great book. And if you're a non-reader like me, there's a TED Talk as well that's really—

Speaker C: Oh, thank you.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's— I read audiobooks, so I don't know if that qualifies as reading.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So let's talk about technology and then we'll round out the conversation. But obviously we kicked off things a little bit, Jade, with AI. So this survey was— is taken late in the fall. And so some of the metrics, I will always say that especially in the area of AI and technology, it's rapidly changing, right? So when we looked at how people prepared organizations were. I think there's still— organizations are still trying to figure out what— how can they leverage and harness this tool. And so 29% said that their organization had guidance on when and where to use it, which is kind of encouraging. That's 1 in 3 that already have a plan for this. 1 in 5 are saying that the organization provides AI training or resources. I think this is a great, great starting point because I think one of the things that we are going to talk about a little bit in a minute is there's an intimidation factor as it relates to AI because you don't want to mess it up. It's a cloud-based tool. So anything that goes into it, there's no real assurances about the security of the information. So without education, you may risk having employees use it in ways that put your organization at risk. And then when we looked at what tools people are using, so now AI is obviously trending very very strong. But personalization and hyper-personalization is still quite strong. And I think that's still an area for a lot of organizations to look at, continue to build on, because I think it's important that we're respectful of employees' time and we look at opportunities to personalize.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Like, I think when I get emails that have my name in them or, like, suit my sort of my interests, I'm gonna open it right away. And if we're inundated with tons of emails constantly, the ones with, you know, they're pulling me out, I'm like, yes, I'm gonna read that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So incredibly important.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that hyper-personalization, you know, when there's strong algorithms that already know how to do it, like, I know for me, I get caught up in TikTok. They just know what I love. And so I don't know, I don't know what it is about me, but I love dance videos.

Speaker C: Oh.

Speaker B: And I love the ones where they, like, they do it really slowly and they do the steps and then they do it in fast motion. So I'll try to do it slowly. And the conclusion for me is I'm just a terrible dancer. But But yeah, like, I think having that personalized experience, because I think that's what makes TikTok so addictively powerful, is it's different. So what your TikTok stream will look like is very different than mine, unless you really like dancing as well.

Speaker C: I don't have that on my TikTok.

Speaker A: No, no.

Speaker B: So, but I think this, this to me is, as communicators, we always, you always hear the term consumer-grade experiences. And so we do have to think about about what does it look like to build experiences that are right for employees at that individual level. The attitudes, I think, are gonna continue to change and evolve over time. So I, I think this was the first year that we asked this question, but we wanted to find out how people felt about AI. And so about half were pretty enthused about it, but the other half were either terrified resigned to, you know, Skynet is here and it's taking over the world. What, what do you have a pulse check on, on your broader team on how people feel about AI?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Well, like, I think demographics also play a big part in that. Like, our team ranges between, like, between 30, 35. So they're, they're quite young, and they're excited by AI. I wonder if those who are resigned or not or terrified are thinking, is there job loss involved? Is that why I should be scared of it? But right now, our team is pretty pumped overall.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I, I always like think about AI as, you know, you've just inherited an intern with no experience and unlimited capacity and unlimited access to resources. And so when we think about capacity being an issue, I think it behooves all communications teams to understand how can I use AI in a way that helps with productivity and helps us achieve more Because it is potentially a very powerful tool. But again, going back to it does require education because it's also potentially a dangerous tool.

Speaker C: And like on your intern comment, like, yes, the intern's not perfect right away. That's okay. So you can take in what they have written down and you can refine it better, which is fantastic and an opportunity for people to work faster.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, exactly. I'm gonna, because I'm just mindful of time here. It's been a, it's been a great discussion. But the other thing that we always look at in the data sector, and this is even since we started this 16 years ago, is of course what channels are organizations using? And one of the ones that is always top billing, of course, is email. I mean, email is, you know, something that everyone relates to. We all get it. And one thing I was encouraged by is, yes, it is the number one most used channel, but its effectiveness isn't quite on the same level as some of the other channels.

Speaker A: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: I was encouraged this year, actually, they've increased quite a bit. But when you look at other channels, especially live one-to-one types of meetings are more meaningful. And I think even here, those of you that are here in Toronto that are joining us live, I think, you know, there's, it's a different kind of an experience. But with email, Jade, what do you think is leading to the effectiveness not being quite as high as some of the other channels?

Speaker C: It's just, we need difference. We need to be surprised and delighted. Like, I think about when I see the word comms champion, I'm thinking, okay, who here is a culture champ? And how could they— what if perhaps an email comes from them versus always from me or my people and culture coordinator? That looks so different and more interesting and just something new. So I think melding both of those personalities together could be really exciting.

Speaker B: Yeah. And it's the same, like in marketing parlance, it's influencers, right? And I think internally it's understanding who are your internal influencers, who are your culture champs, and how can you leverage them? Because people will listen. It's that same idea that I was talking about with teams is this person might get promoted to that leadership position, but this person over here has a lot of influence, right? And so just kind of understanding that and understanding how to harness them.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker B: Exactly. So we looked at channel change and satisfaction. And, you know, we looked at the fact that 1 in 3 are still dissatisfied with their channel mix. And I, I gotta think, Jay, that that's also a function of just not having a channel framework or strategy or just doing the work so that you're more meaningful about what channels you're using, right?

Speaker C: Yeah. It goes back to measuring metrics, like what's sticking with people and what should you be introducing to help have more sticky content with your people? So is it, is it email? Is it audit listening? Is it having culture champs sending out messages to people? What does it look like? So I think that's perhaps what's happening here is we're just not really seeing the return on trying different ways of speaking to your people.

Speaker A: Agreed.

Speaker B: And I think, you know, it's one of the important pieces of documentation, but this always goes back to the importance of having well-articulated, thought-out plans. And you just even go back to the email example. I think a lot of people say, oh, I don't want to send out another email. And it's mostly because you don't have a good plan in place. When do you use email? and just looking broader at how your organization uses email. So what happens is your inbox just ends up being this triage unit that every employee just has to try to kind of manage and kind of figure out what are the code reds that I have to get to from my manager, from my clients, and then, you know, what messages tend to fall to the wayside, like HR messages and things like that.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So it's, it's, it's a reality, but it's something that we have to be mindful of being Being choosy about how we use these and, and planful. And so, and again, having the right kinds of tools and technology to help you understand what that would look like. So let's just finish off the conversation now. So we'll spend a little bit of time just talking about people managers. I found, Jade, this, this stat was really disappointing to me. So When you look at how many managers are evaluated on their ability to be effective communicators, 56% of people in the state of the sector said they do not measure their communications prowess. I don't know about you, Jade, but I find that is disappointing.

Speaker C: You know, totally. And actually, it's so funny. This is so topical. This year is our first time I added a communication and collaboration section on our matrix for our employees because of like this reason. I'm like, are we measuring how they're talking to their team? I don't think so. And then we're a communications company. We should be. So I was in that bucket, I would say last year. This year I'm not.

Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, it's funny, I, I, I would even say, I would even go even farther and just say it's, it's gotta be the top skill that people managers really should have. If, or maybe, you know, it's gotta be top 2 or 3 anyways. And so it goes back to most experienced, most knowledgeable. But I, I think we have to, in organizations, figure out different ways to hold people managers to a higher standard. Right? You know, earlier in my career, I spent time in lots of different organizations because I was just trying to find the right chemistry with the right kinds of leaders that I found inspired me to believe in what I was doing in my role. And you'd be surprised at how few of those people really exist. And I think it's more and more an opportunity for our organizations to really think about how do I get a better quality of people managers and leaders? And so it's no, it's no surprise that there's a correlation. So if you look at those people managers that were evaluated on comms, they're much more likely to be meeting and exceeding expectations. In this case, 65%.

Speaker A: Mm-hmm.

Speaker B: Versus if you're not measuring comms, what do we have here? 74% are below expectations. So it's a bit of a tell in terms of what that opportunity is. So that wraps up the formal parts. I know I'm spilling over in terms of time, but I'm just— I do want to open things up for any questions that people have or any kind of feedback or comments. So I'm going to just open up here on the Q&A. So, and then, so maybe we'll start there and then we'll bring it to the room here. Got a question to present. Oh, yes. Yeah, go ahead, Brenton. Yeah, sure. Jesse, do you want to maybe manage for everyone? Yeah, just a few questions from online. Mirko is asking, what are your thoughts on audience segmentation when the comms team's capacity is limited? Is it realistic to craft a target mess— is it realistic to craft and target messages to segments of your IC audience? Yeah, so I think it's always important to look at, even if it's broad brush strokes, how you can segment your audience. And to your earlier point, Jade, about having that personalized experience where I think the more you shoot out information that's just simply not relevant to large parts of your employee audience, the more likely it is that they're gonna be tempted to tune out some of the messaging that comes from corporate or from HR or internal communications, right? So I think even if you are strapped for time and resources, I think it's important to, even if it's big chunks in terms of sectioning out and segmenting your audience, looking for opportunities to do that.

Speaker C: Yeah. Back to the AI conversation, leveraging the option to personalize your emails.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: That is, yeah.

Speaker B: Even, yeah, even some basic things like, yeah, just having name personalization, I think goes a long way. But I, I think even looking at your your audience segments and looking at by department, are there different divisions that this kind of messaging is going to be more relevant for? So, and I think it's just something that organizations more and more should look at being more meaningful about. How do I properly segment and personalize messaging? That was our only question online, but we—

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yes, Priya.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker A: You've been doing the Gallagher Student Sector for a long time.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And that manager communication has come up again and again and again and has not changed.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And I think that one of the things, it's, are we talking to the right audience? I'm starting to realize that sometimes internal communication professionals are sometimes resistant to driving some of the changes that need to happen. And I'm finding that talking to leadership Is making a difference. And I'm curious about, are there plans, are there things that Gallagher does to start having conversations with leaders in order to drive the change downstream? Because that's who owns the budget, especially when you've got communication professionals who don't even know what their budget is.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, I, I, I couldn't agree more, Priya. And I, I think it's, you know, some of the things that we talked about here is understanding how to talk to leaders first and foremost. And a lot of sort of small-c communicators, what I've been finding in my experience is that they're talking the wrong talk with leaders. So they get really tactical and granular about impressions and click-throughs and things like that. When leaders, that's not what they're the most interested in and they kind of don't care. What they really care about is is that earlier slide that we looked at, Jade, which is, is this affecting behavior change? How are you figuring out whether or not this is affecting behavior change? And once you can start to talk that language, and it's kind of arming communicators and teams across every organization to understand how to have those, and then those kinds of conversations. Then the other piece that we talked about a little bit earlier was internal networking and understanding the value of, you know, who do you know within different parts of organization. And, you know, ultimately leadership's gonna be one of your big clients. And so you already have a relationship with them, but turning it into a 2-way relationship where it's not just a reactive relationship, where you're being intentional and you're setting up and being proactive about having regular meetings with different pockets of leadership so that you can be a little bit more I always use the word anticipatory. I don't even know it's a real word. I've just been saying it all my life. But anyways, it captures what I'm thinking about, which is how do you get yourself in a position where you can be more able to anticipate what's happening within an organization? So yeah, Priya, I totally agree with you. I think those conversations with leadership are important, but it also means that you have to have the right level of what am I gonna say to leadership? And I don't know that every communications team right now understands how to talk to leaders. We're so good at what we do in terms of the tactical and granular, but we don't know how to translate that to that next level. Yeah, another question online, Chris. Asma wants to know, what are your— what are some methods that can suggest to effectively measure understanding and behavior change? Yeah, that's a good, good, good question. Jade, do you have things that you do here in terms of measuring understanding?

Speaker C: Yeah, well, like, we're, we're a small team. We're about 100 people. So it goes back to really just asking, like, upfront, like, do you know what's expected of you in this performance review, you know, cycle? And if I hear people like, oh, I don't know the dates or why we're doing this calibration on this time, it's like, okay, let's talk about it. But we're a small team, so it's a little bit different. It really is just like getting feedback and And just tapping people's shoulders constantly. And if I notice, like, you know, a late response to something or, you know, someone not filling out a certain form, I'm like, oh, you didn't get that. Let me go talk to you directly and figure out what's going on. Yeah.

Speaker B: And the other thing that I think is really important, and it goes back to what you were saying, Priya, which is, are we communicating with the wrong people? Sometimes your internal clients are the wrong people to really evaluate, is this communication I'm about to send out effective? a lot of times they're gonna be subject matter experts. So for example, in HR, I wanna communicate about our benefits and our benefits manager wants to say all these different things about our benefits plan. That's a very specialized knowledge. And so it may, it might make sense to them, but I think our role as communicators to make sure is, is it gonna make sense to, you know, this person, the VP in finance, or is it gonna make sense to this person who's a barista or, you know, like it's just understanding, And it goes back to talk to me like I'm a 6-year-old, or would my mom understand it? And it's the same thing that, again, we talk about journalists and editors. It's what they do is they want to make sure that it's as universal in terms of how people can understand it as possible. But I think just being mindful of who's going to be receiving that. I guess we have time for one more question. Or Alicia? Yes.

Speaker A: Thank you for the great conversation. I'm wondering when you can't promise something, you had like a specific— you said to be specific in where you can maybe do that in the next quarter. What if you can't promise something? What are some tactics for that? And second thing, how exactly do you measure communication?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I'd say on the first piece, I'll talk to the first piece, Alicia, which is sorry, I'm just spacing out. What was the first question?

Speaker C: If you can't promise something.

Speaker A: Oh yeah, so yeah, there are other tactics that you use if you can't be specific.

Speaker B: Yeah, so I think it's really important for leadership teams to have. So maybe if people are saying we want like a parking lot, it might not be practical or it just might not be something that is a realistic goal. But I think it's important where— that's where I think communications can be more strategic and talk to leadership saying, but this is clearly something that is getting in the way of employees, you know, A, wanting to come into work. But if you can even demonstrate through metrics that it's actually leading to people not wanting to work here, or they'll choose to work somewhere else because it's just so hard to park downtown or those kinds of things. And so I think once leadership understands that, it's, you know, I think it's incumbent on them to find different ways that they might be able to accommodate for that. So it could be subsidies for public transit or different things like that, or maybe just more flexibility around remote work. But that's just a very specific example. But I think it is useful to have something that can at least make a little bit of a difference and see if there's ways to work around it. In the cases where nothing at all can happen about it as well, I still think transparency is useful. I think it's good for employers and leaders to just simply be real about it and just say, we heard you. Unfortunately, there's really not a lot we can do about this. And just be more empathetic about understanding how employees are. And this could be a good opportunity for leaders to send that message themselves individually and just connect and say, I know this is meaningful. It's just not practical or realistic for our organization. And in terms of measuring communications prowess, I think there's a lot of different ways to do it. Some of it is through, you know, survey data. So did you understand this? And when you're, when you're looking at your people managers, I think a lot of it is a combination of quantitative data like surveys and just saying, you know, how good is your, your manager at communicating different things that are happening in your organization and, and your level of understanding. But I always think that looking at qualitative tools as well, like focus groups, yields a lot of really interesting insights about, you know, where, what pockets of your organization is communications an issue, and then giving you some ideas about, you know, how to address those and being a little bit more specific and targeted around where some issues are. So yeah, there's lots of different ways to measure it. But it, you know, it usually just boils down to asking employees whether it's quantitative, qualitative, or otherwise. And I think that— yes, yes, Prachi. Yeah, of course.

Speaker A: So I think I'm curious to know your thoughts and experience about this. Often in small organizations or flat organizations where there are Very few people in the team, there is a bit of a territorial conflict between HR and the communications department when it comes to internal comms. So have you experienced that or seen that where you've worked in the past? And what do you think would be, um, an effective way to implement those internal communication strategies without disturbing the team equilibrium?

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you, you kind of wear both hats, Jane. So do you have a thought on that?

Speaker C: Me against myself? Well, I think, yeah, that's so funny you say that. So in my experience, my old place, I did have somebody who was a comms professional. And like, I always reminded that person we were having a conflict, like, we're on the same team. We have the exact same goal. Maybe my timeline's different than yours. Explain to me your why. And that's really it. It's like having some honest feedback, difficult conversation. And I tend to be quite nimble when I have to be and flexible. So I'm not like, I think at least difficult to work with. So just having a convo and knowing their why of why they want something at a certain time or how they want to say it. In the end, that is their profession. It's not like not— it's not mine. I'm more on the HR side. So Yeah. believing in your people and the work they can do for you. It's like, I think any org and having a leadership who, you know, doesn't trust their employees, like, no, this is their job. They came here to do that kind of work. So it's a culture shift, really.

Speaker B: And this is where I think that power of internal networking, I think, really plays in, because then it's just not like the only time they ever talk to you is when they want something. It's you want to cultivate and build relationships so that you can be more candid with each other. In my experience, I think HR is always well-meaning, but they tend to want to be in their communications, they tend to want to be comprehensive. And we always try to coach them to focus on being comprehensible. Like, just try to find ways, you know, employees don't always have all the time to read the entire 16-page PDF. So find different ways, you know, executive summaries aren't just for executives. A lot of us are time poor in our, in our roles. So finding different ways to structure your communication. So that there is that high-level version of it so you can get the key points. And then when you have more time or if you're really keen about it, then you can read some of the subtext and then, you know, link through to PDFs and whatnot. So you need to give them different entry points, but it's starting with respecting employees' time and understanding their own experience, right? And so I, we have so many clients where they just get so caught up in what they wanna say. And they're not really thinking about what do the employees actually really want to read and what do they have bandwidth for, right? So I think it's, it's really key.

Speaker A: Yes. Marilyn, wait.

Speaker C: When it—

Speaker A: to deal with employee listening, wait. Why am I talking?

Speaker B: Love it.

Speaker C: I love it. That's a good thing to say. Okay, stop yourself.

Speaker A: Wait. Why am I talking?

Speaker B: Marilyn, I'm gonna take that for me personally too, because sometimes I get excited. I get excited and I just, I become a chatterbox. So, but I think that's a really great way to think about it, Marilyn. Thank you for that.

Speaker A: I heard in a session at Deloitte that they use that as why am I talking to the cloud. It's a nice little acronym to keep here.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's amazing. So let's just wrap up. Thank you for those of you that stuck around. So on behalf of Contact Monkey, IABC Toronto, and Gallagher. Just really thank you for this great conversation. And for all of you here, thank you for getting up extra early. I'm not a morning person, so really appreciate everyone coming here to join us and for all of you online. And I hope you have an amazing day and week ahead of you. So thank you very much for joining us. Thanks, everybody.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: Yeah, thank you.