Enjoy complimentary coffee, tea and continental breakfast as you meet your fellow attendees.
Sign-in, pick up your materials and enjoy a continental breakfast before we start the day.
Be sure to stop by and visit your sponsors!

Welcome to the 9th Annual Strategic Internal Communications conference. In this fast-paced forum, you'll get to know your fellow peers, their biggest internal communications challenges, and a few fun facts.

The last two years have taught us plenty in the realm of strategic communications and streamlined many of the procedures and norms we grew accustomed to in our roles pre-pandemic, and today’s world looks much different than what we were accustomed to two years ago. In the era of WebEx, Zoom, MS Teams, remote work, virtual interactions – how do we ensure a top-down, bottoms-up approach to strategic alignment that helps drive business initiatives and keeps all stakeholders focused and moving in the same direction with the education and empowerment to go out and execute our strategic communications goals?

One key is remaining hyper-focused on cross-functional orchestration, ensuring all parties have insight and education into the company’s vision for success, and as communicators, we are often the central nervous system that touches all other functions within our respective organizations. It’s important that we are educators of and advocators for our strategic goals. So how do we achieve this level of orchestration…

Key Session Takeaways

1. We must be more than just communicators – we strive to be strategic partners to our internal and external stakeholders to help realize the company’s vision and goals
2. In a hybrid workforce, we must emphasize the top-down, bottom-up approach to make smarter, well-informed strategic decisions that take into account field and home office variables
3. We must maintain ‘thoughtful nimbleness’ with our strategies and our approach to achieving our goals

The moment you announce an acquisition--or any major change in your company--your company culture immediately changes. We'll share our insights and deliverables on how we supported employees before, during and after the announcement of an acquisition, including many of the deliverables and new tools communications we set up.

Throughout our case study, we’ll share many examples, insights and lessons learned, including:

• Ideas on how to announce any change within your organizations
• Detailed example of our communication change plan
• Insights and examples into ways we announced changed other than email
• Sneak peek at our “postcard” campaign to unite our teams
• Ideas and tactics that helped us get leader buy-in across the company
• Some of our roadblocks and how we pushed through them
• What’s next for us as we continue to move forward

Enjoy complimentary coffee, tea, and other refreshments as you network with your peers.
Visit your sponsors to check out some of the latest tools and innovations supporting internal communications.

Over the past 90 years, focusing on customers and valuing people have helped Nationwide become one of the largest insurance and financial services companies in the world. Technology Adoption Enablement Toolkit rollout for Digital Workplace Technology space at Nationwide shaping the future of the internal user experience no matter where they log in from.

Key Takeaways:

• New ideas for designing products and services around the associate experience
• How to differentiate operational and adoption metrics
• Tactics for driving adoption, using a tailored approach
• M365 Tookit Integrations

At Vista, remote-first working enables team members to work when and where they do their best work. Over the past two years, we’ve invested in the team member experience to unlock life-work harmony, improve the new-hire experience, boost productivity, and drive more efficient communication. As we emerge from a pandemic-induced remote-forced state, In-person interactions and events are becoming increasingly critical to remote-first team member collaboration, connections, and creating a strong sense of community.

This session will cover:

• Insights on why we invested in internal events while going remote-first
• How we aim to increase collaboration, connections, and a strong sense of community for remote-first teams
• Thoughts on creating a thoughtfully crafted attendee experience for in-person events
• A few things to keep in-mind as you bring teams together again at scale

With numerous communication channels and countless ways to share information, it's easy to overwhelm employees with messages that are indiscernible from noise. At the same time, internal communicators face a barrage of communication requests from business partners and leaders every day. With everything IC folks juggle on a given day, developing a custom communication game plan for each request is daunting.

In this engaging breakout, Pinaki Kathiari, CEO of digital communications agency Local Wisdom, takes the concept of restaurant combo meals to internal communications, empowering business partners and leaders to choose from "pre-packaged" communication plans that match their needs. Think of it as a “Communications Combo Menu,” a tool that helps internal communication teams and their business partners conveniently and quickly define a communications plan based on the messaging, urgency, and channels at their disposal. This framework can speed up processes, manage workloads more effectively, and start with a foundation of best practices.

You'll walk out of this interactive session with:

• The value of packaging your communication solutions
• A way to identify and create your comms combo meals
• A plan for integrating those into your process and making the most of them

Just in time to get you ready for lunch ☺

Reservations have been made at a number of local restaurants.
Don't miss this opportunity to have lunch with your peers at a local Boston hot spot!
**Everyone is financially responsible for their own lunch.

In the world of employee engagement, there are few topics as critical and dynamic as the language we use to communicate inclusively with diverse employee groups. Using inclusive language is a great way to show, not just tell, your organizational values.

In this interactive workshop, communications and DEI expert, Farida Habeeb, Ph.D., will break down why inclusive communications matter—and what kinds of language you should (and shouldn’t) use in your employee communications.

Come ready to ask questions, push back, and learn!

The nation's leading and largest value-based kidney care company is going to share with you how to build your own team of internal communications ambassadors.

This session will share :

• Establish Areas of IC Focus
  • From the Top, Across the Org, and On the Ground
• Get Leaders Bought In and Doing Your Work For You
  • Effective Leader Comm Tools
• Spotlight Success to Build Ambassadors
  • Online Promos

With the variety of internal communication tools available it's hard to navigate and choose the one that is best for your organization. In this fast-paced session you'll have the opportunity to see 5 demonstrations of top internal communications tools of your choice.

We'll alert you when it's time to switch—grab a sweet treat on your way.

• The Employee app
• Simpplr
• PoliteMail
• LumApps

Planet Fitness is an American franchisor and operator of fitness centers based in Hampton, New Hampshire. 2,000+ clubs making it one of the largest fitness club franchises by number of members and locations. Their mission is to enhance people's lives and create a healthier world. The PF Purpose strategy guides this employees in three areas that are  fundamentally interconnected.  This session will use innovative internal storytelling to create employee branding and marketing opportunities that support the "Judgement Free" atmosphere. 

In this "no-pressure" setting, you'll be able to ask your most pressing questions and receive honest feedback from your peers.

Moderator: Ann Melinger, CEO | Brilliant Ink

theEmployeeApp

More panelists TBA!

Don't stop the conversation!

Join us at the lobby bar as you network with your peers and sponsors in the adjacent at the #ALI_IC reception.

Participate in raffles, sign-up for dinner with your peers, and get your vocal cords ready for the Annual Kung-Fu Karaoke Party!

Want to keep the conversation going? Join a group of attendees for dinner at a local Boston hot spot.
Sign-up with an ALI team member to join a group at tonight's dine-around. Reservations have been made.
**Everyone is on their own financially.

For some this may not be your first time—for others, you're in for a treat.

Join #ALI_IC veterans LocalWisdom in this annual Karaoke outing.

We expect to see videos and hear stories tomorrow from those who participate.

Named "Best Karaoke Bar" by Boston Magazine - come experience why we are a local favorite!

Hong Kong Boston | Home Of The Bowl

65 Chatham Street, Boston MA 02109