How Do You Improve Your Comms? Check out These Insights from Engage 2023

One of the great privileges of working for Poppulo is being part of a team that brings together some of the world’s best workplace communicators who generously share their expertise and insights at our annual conference, Engage.

This year’s event was yet again packed with great speakers on topics that impact internal communication professionals everywhere.

In fact, there was so much to take in, so much of real value, that it’s helpful to revisit at a more leisurely pace in your own time.

You can do that by checking out this Executive Brief which my colleague Christine Kendall has curated from the Engage 2023 sessions: Unlocking the Power of Employee Communications: Key Takeaways from Engage 2023.

Here’s a taster of what you can expect:

• The Big Picture: Where Comms Stand Today.Ghassan Karian shares super-interesting findings from a major piece of research by UK-based Ipsos Karian and Box.
• Proving the Value of Comms Through Measurement: In her session, Winning Combination: How Personalization & Analytics Drive Impact, Sally Jackson, the Sr. Manager of Content and Channels at National Grid, emphasized the importance of not only tracking quantitative engagement data like open rates, click rates, and page time, but also regularly collecting qualitative feedback from employees through engagement surveys, targeted surveys, and employee focus groups.
• Connecting Comms to Business Strategy: In their session Making Comms a Strategic Function for Your Executive Team, David Hart, former Head of Comms, at Coca-Cola HBC and SABMiller, and Joss Mathieson, Chief Encouragement Officer at Change Oasis, emphasized the importance of understanding the strategic goals of the business and clearly linking your comms initiative back to those goals.
• Strategy and The Importance of Data: Dodi Axelson, Head of Communications at leading life sciences company, Cytiva, gave a fascinating presentation into how strategy, data, and personalized comms played a critical role during a period of transition at the company: Embracing Strategy—How Data Led Cytiva to Revise Their Communications Approach.
• Strategies for Reaching Disconnected Workers: Tony Stewart, Head of Digital at scarlettabbot discussed the importance of knowing your audience and making content relevant to them, in his session Prioritize the Possible—Creative Ways to Engage Your Deskless and Disconnected Workers
• Developing an Employee Value Proposition: Here, Sarah Whitmore, Group Head of Talent at DS Smith, and Yvonne O’Hara, Head of Internal Communications at NatWest Group, explore the importance of developing an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) to align with the employee experience and help attract and retain talent. Especially those hard-to-reach employees, in their session, Closing the Gap: How to Turn Your EVP Aspiration into Employee Experience Reality.
• Future Trends to Look Out For: There’s no getting away from Artificial Intelligence, is there? Whether or not you’re ready, AI has arrived and there’s no going back. In his session The Future is Here—What AI Means for ICTeams, Jared Curtis, Sr. Director of Corporate Communications at Maximus outlined how the Maximus team has adopted AI as an ethical communications tool, with very practical insights into how he and his team leverages it to improve their comms.

And finally, Engage 2023 answered a question we’ve been asked many times here at Poppulo. As a company whose customer roll call is an A-list of the world's best and most successful companies, how do we approach our internal comms with our own people?
To find out, take a look at this short behind-the-scenes video—A Day in the Life: Poppulo’s Approach to Comms.

We think you'll find it interesting!