Humanization 101: Your Organization’s Story is People

Posted by: John Doucette, Senior Communications Analyst

I’ve encountered a number of internal and external communications publications marred by acronyms, jargon, design that over-reaches, and poor writing that delivers information about programs, events, and policies in terms best left to vacuum cleaner assembly booklets.

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you have, too.

By the same token, I’ve often been pleasantly surprised by editors, writers, photographers and designers making smart choices that serve their military or corporate community audiences, as well as other audiences that also may encounter the content.

I’ll give a couple of examples of a smart decision: incorporating employee spotlights into internal and, as appropriate, external products. And, so I don’t continue to type the soul-crushing word “products” until my fingers tear up and your eyeballs bleed, we’ll call internal communications products what they are, at heart: stories.

In the cases I’ll outline, part of telling the organization’s story is a demonstrative act. You show what you are by showing the work of your people. This is done, among other ways, via an employee spotlight.

Some examples are simple Q&A spotlights of an individual employee: name, job, hobbies, what do you do in the company, what do you do in the community, etc. And a picture. Always have a picture of the employee.

One example below serves both internal and external audiences with a multimedia spotlight of employees discussing themselves, their work, and how this ties into the organizational mission.

To further preface this, let me note that I used to edit a shipboard newspaper, and I’m as proud of that work as I am of anything I’ve done in civilian journalism or for Vox Optima clients.

So I’m sad to say I was too dumb to ever institutionalize my first example: the down-and-dirty individual spotlight. So elegant in its simplicity. Hard to beat.

I’ve noticed “Employee of the Month” or “Sailor of the Day” features in several publications, including USS Enterprise’s award-winning paper, The Shuttle. Here’s a recent example, also available at the carrier’s website:

This form works in print and online. It could work in video, too, in the form of a quick Q&A or B-roll matched with words of the worker. If released externally, such stories humanize your organization. Internally, they highlight divisions within the greater organization by focusing on an individual, teaching others about an aspect of the company they might not otherwise learn.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a Scottsdale, Ariz., auto auction house accounts payable staff accountant with only four months on the job explaining your dream classic car is a 1965 candy apple red Mustang convertible with white top and interior.

Or a city planning technician in Virginia Beach, Va., who works with developers on names for new streets and addresses.

Or a Fort Collins, Colo., sales and marketing director for a technology solutions firm in the handheld and wireless communications industry that happens to have an awesome name.

Or if you’re a worker for a non-profit or not-for-profit organization, such as St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., being featured in a neat multimedia presentation that uses your voice and photos as a testimonial.

Okay. I’m belaboring the point with mad linking. I will try to stop doing that so I don’t anger this fine blog’s editor, John Barnett, a.k.a. The Voxecutioner.

I’ll wrap up with a list of points that may be obvious to some and less obvious to others. Spotlights should be regular features in newsletters, custom publications or online outlets for these reasons:

• They demonstrate the value of an organization’s people.
• They demonstrate an organization’s values.
• They humanize the organization.
• They build esprit de corps within the organization.
• The content is relatively simple to produce.
• The content is not dependent upon an event or programmatic announcement.
• They have an internal communications value, showing roles and areas of an organization that not all within it may understand.
• They have an external communications value, as appropriate, because they show the worker’s pride in the organization’s mission and efforts to support it.

I recommend you take a look at St. Jude’s site. Their employee spotlight is very simply and effectively done. It’s a professional product that transcends internal communications and becomes an external public and community relations tool that speaks to the ethos of the research center.

On the page itself is the feature, with multimedia presentations that are played by clicking on an image of a face beneath the main player. Classy, simple, and effective, with great images and audio.

Sure, there may be a place for stock art and repetition of corporate messages.

However, the best images of your work is found in the faces of workers, and just a few of their words about what you do can speak with power and passion about your mission.

Both in and outside your house.

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