Last week we were delighted to receive an invitation to one of the events we’d helped to create for an international insurance company. The events are touring Britain and beyond, but we visited one in Gloucester, UK which was a great opportunity to see our theme and tools in action – and to gauge the audience reaction for ourselves.

The overall theme was ‘weather’ …this year has been stormy for most of us, but this company is looking forward to a brighter outlook and the events reflect that. They’re not complacent though…there’s always room for improvement and we created a giant magnetic weather map for an activity to get the audience to rate their feelings about core strategic issues. They place weather symbols representing their mood, from ‘stormy’ to ‘sunshine’ on the map as well as writing their thoughts on cards that will be collated later. This activity is followed by a debate about the issues.

The weather themed presentation is delivered by a mixture of senior leaders supported by two films. The first has a serious message – in ‘View from the Floor’ Senior Leaders interviewed employees about their opinions on the positives and negatives of working for the business and their hopes for the future. The second is the grand finale –a celebratory music video in which loads of employees from across the company dance, sing and generally ‘rock out’ to Katrina and the Waves ‘Walking on Sunshine’ – we saw for ourselves what a big hit it is and the hope is that it will spread virally to any employees who missed it and may even be used as a recruitment tool!

We enjoyed ourselves, but the best thing is receiving positive feedback from our client who says: ‘The weather theme was a great concept and well received by everyone… We were pleased with the final result…and the ideas and support we received from the Loop. We look forward to working with you again.’

It’s good to know that Britain’s other ‘PM’, Lord Peter Mandleson, puts a high value on internal communication and even makes employee engagement central to his strategies for bringing the country out of recession.

The Secretary of State has written the foreword to a report commissioned by the UK government entitled ‘Engaging for Success’ which looks at the many benefits to business of a happy workforce.

He says, ‘This timely Report sets out for the first time the evidence that underpins what we all know intuitively, which is that only organisations that truly engage and inspire their employees produce world class levels of innovation, productivity and performance’.

And the in depth research, carried out over a period of eight months and examining hundreds of cases, categorically endorses the theory that employees who feel valued and listened to will be motivated and perform better. The report says that ‘employee engagement is the difference that makes the difference – and could make all the difference as we face the realities of globalised competition’. It cites Tesco, Google and O2 amongst the extremely successful companies whose achievements can be directly linked to employing people that feel informed, appreciated and respected, and urges other companies to follow their example.

It’s an eye opening read and of great value to Senior Leaders and Communicators alike. The report can be found at: http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file52215.pdf

Quotes © The Crown