Learn how Inova Health Northern Virginia’s largest non-profit healthcare provider is engaging and connecting with both remote and front-line employees. Inova’s 20,000 team members serve more than 2 million individuals annually through an integrated network of hospitals, primary and specialty care practices, emergency and urgent care centers, outpatient services, and destination institutes. Effective strategies and solutions will be share from his experiences working at Inova as well as hospitality organizations, such as The Ritz-Carlton and Carnival Cruise Line, to engage widely dispersed front-line employees

Key takeaways:

• Framework for strategies designed to connect with front line employees
• Live examples of proven methods to drive employee engagement among all stakeholders
• Leverage a blend of traditional channels and emerging technologies to create a strategy that works for your organization

Hear how Acuity Brands, the largest lighting manufacturer in North America and a global organization with 13,500 associates, is reaching its deskless workforce, increasing associate/employee engagement, and increasing Glassdoor scores by:

• Hosting listening sessions to find communications opportunities
• Identifying different communications needs and channels for different employee segments
• Using text messages and social media recognition to drive better employee engagement

Leave with practical advice and key steps and tactics you can use to engage your own deskless or hybrid workforce.

Details Coming Soon!

The global pandemic caused many governmental entities to pivot to remote work and teleworking. Layer that on top of those employees who don't work at a desk or are not tied to their cellphones - the question arises - how are we communicating with all of our employees?

This session will unravel the mystery of cross-agency communication using different mediums to ensure that information is shared and feedback is heard.

• From in-person sessions
• videos
• newsletters
• emails
• mailers
• social media 

How are you communicating with your workforce?  Let's talk about communicating.

Employee Relations activities are designed to build sound relationships between an organization and its employees. Employee Relations is a critical element in fostering positive opinions and behaviors of employees as ambassadors for the organization. 

Relationship: A relationship is a connection or association between entities. Human relationships are often described in terms of interactions, transactions, influence exchanges or shared communication between individuals or groups. 

Consulting skills: Experts agree that these skills are imperative for consulting on public relations programming: 

• Creativity to offer new solutions, new messages and options

• Good communication skills: written, verbal, electronic, online

• In-depth knowledge of the issues to be addressed

• Respect for the individual/group requesting a consultation 

• An understanding of the importance of confidentiality. 

Negotiating Skills: There are three critical elements that are always present in negotiation this session will cover: 

1. Information

2. Time

3. Power

The key point about these elements is that they are your perceptions and may not be reality. Your ability to negotiate improves as you believe you have the power to influence your environment, your employee and your world.

Details Coming Soon!

It’s become evident, now more than ever, how vital internal communications has become in the success of many organizations. However, old habits die hard, and we’re seeing internal communicators are now responsible for business outcomes that have traditionally been limited by the status quo. The IC professional is now at the intersection of business strategy, employee experience, culture building, technology, and communication production. This shift is new for many organizations and will take long term commitment to achieve an ideal state.

Pinaki Kathiari, CEO of digital communications agency Local Wisdom, brings together four IC superstars who have joined new organizations within the last year. We aspire to empower internal communicators and have seen an opportunity for IC pros starting at new companies to shake it up and help influence change. With great power comes great responsibility, but great responsibility needs to also come with great power. With that in mind, our panel will focus on key strategies and actions to build credibility, gain influence, command respect, and drive results. Join us as we talk about how to flip the table and set ourselves up for success.

Moderator:
Pinaki Kathiari | CEO, Local Wisdom

Our panelists:
Lara Smith | Director of Communications, Somatus
Kristin Cooke | AVP Communications Manager, Citizens
Nponano Maikori | Senior Manager Internal Communications, Glassdoor
Johnathan Goldberg | Communications Consultant, Local Wisdom

Throughout the pandemic we’ve seen an increased focus on voice of the employee as companies seek to connect and communicate with their people. However, true listening goes far beyond regular engagement and pulse surveys – it requires a commitment to ongoing conversations and then taking decisive action to help improve employee experience.

While this may, at first, seem overwhelming, when organizations implement a Listening Program they benefit from clear objectives, systems and processes for listening and analyzing inputs, and a roadmap for taking action. The outcome is a genuine, consistent pulse on the voice of the employee that can inform business decisions across the organization.

In this session, participants will learn:

• What an Employee Listening Program is and why it’s important
• How to set SMART objectives that will create clarity and consistency for stakeholders
• How to build a cross-functional team that lightens the load and strengthens the program.
• New ways to listen that engage employees and co-create solutions
• How to analyze and act on what you’ve heard to truly improve employee experience.

Hear how Altria, a Fortune 200 company headquartered in Richmond, Va., is moving from a largely in-office workforce to one that supports hybrid working. The pandemic presented an opportunity to embrace working when, where and how employees like and creating a culture that supports flexibility. While early on this journey, they’re learning a lot and putting those learnings into practice.

Employees expect to have the same tools and technology at work as they do in their personal lives. Hear how Asbury Communities developed a communications strategy that relied heavily on an employee app to reach its largely non-desk workforce and engage employees at all levels in multiple locations.

Prepare yourself to:

• Generate buy-in for an employee app
• Measure impact
• Identify opportunities to use the app to not only make employees more productive, but to also save them time.
• Discover champions to manage local communications

With teams and leaders existing together in different environments- both live and virtual- the simple power of connection may be one of the strongest forces keeping employees engaged.

This interactive session looks at three Rules of the Game for cohesive in-person and virtual communication, helping you foster professional relationships and re-build trust with the authenticity that your teams expect.

Erin Watson, Director Of Client Experience at Game On Nation, is an expert on team connection and workplace climate, sharing an easy-to-follow three-part framework that you can use to immediately improve group dynamics, workforce morale, and overall team buy-in.

The human body relies on internal organs in performance of vital functions. When two or more of these organs work together, they become a part of a body system. Internal Communications is the “heart,” the functioning organ responsible for effective communications amongst employees within an organization. How do you keep the heart healthy and communicating with all the other organs? The early stages of the pandemic when teleworking became the new normal,

teaching us that the heart needed more innovative methods and strategies in communicating the inner workings of why organs exist. Our employees are the most vital resource of showing the heart, in human form. Hear the City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management’s plan to strengthen the heart, internal communications through the organ structure of employee engagement and inclusion.

Including ways to help you:

• Connect-how does the heart (Internal Communications) engage employees?
• Inform- methods and tactics used to keep the “heart” connected to the vital resource, employees.
• Engage- how do you keep the heart healthy for the vital resource?

You've submitted your biggest internal communication challenges, you've continued to submit questions over the past 24 hours, and this is your opportunity to get answers to those questions.

With an expert speaker panel with a variety of experience levels—you're bound to takeaway practical ideas that will immediately enhance your internal communications strategies.