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ENGAGING REMOTE AUDIENCES IN CONVERSATIONS WITH LEADERSHIP A programme of work with Oxfam’s Leadership Team Saskia Jones, Head of Communications Engagement, Oxfam

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ENGAGING REMOTE AUDIENCES IN CONVERSATIONS WITH LEADERSHIP

A programme of work with Oxfam’s Leadership Team

Saskia Jones, Head of Communications Engagement, Oxfam

OXFAM: Who we are

We won’t live with poverty

Credit: EPA / NARENDRA SHRESTHA.

Who WORKS FOR OXFAM?

• 5,000 staff

• 30,000 volunteers

• 50 countries

WHAT’s MY ROLE?

Head of Communications Engagement: managing Oxfam’s brand,

communications strategy, internal communications and translations teams.

Page 5

Our challenge

A recent staff survey found that while

staff were passionate about Oxfam,

they were feeling disengaged with

leadership.

The CEO asked us to provide a

communications solution to help

address this problem.

Our communications challenge

• Hard to reach audiences

• Huge range of diverse

communication channels

• 3 business languages

• Siloed working culture

• No global channel that allows

dialogue with

staff, apart from

email

We needed to break down barriers and open up communication between

leaders and 5000 employees in 50 countries.

Page 7

Strategy & implementation

We’re moving from cascade to

conversation

We want to foster global conversations

amongst staff

Specifically, we want to give staff an

authentic connection with our leaders

Page 8

Research & planning

We researched game-changing ways of

engaging staff with leaders.

We tested ideas with a representative sample

of staff

We know staff want authenticity, and leaders

want inspired employees.

Based on our research there were two key

ways to achieve this:

•enabling a conversational approach

•allowing it to be unscripted

And the best way to reach our diverse global

workforce was to do this through a digital

platform.

Page 9

THE ANSWER

The answer was an

unscripted online platform

called ‘Ask me Anything’.

It was about shunning the

simplicity of monologue and

embracing the unpredictable

liveliness of dialogue.

It was real and transparent –

no sugar coating, no script.

Page 10

How it worked

Ask me anything

Based on the popular Ask Me

Anything on reddit.com. Leaders

invited anyone to ask them anything.

Vote for your favourite

Staff could also vote for the questions

they most wanted to see answered.

Global relevance

Because the forum was online,

people could take part right around

the clock. And the site was run in 3

languages.

Page 11

Ask me anything: aims

Our objective was to empower the Leadership Team to connect with staff on

a more informal level, answer their questions and learn what’s important to

them.

We set ourselves an ambitious target – to get 500 staff online in under 3

weeks – which is 10% of staff globally.

Mark Goldring Olga Ghazaryan Tim Hunter

Page 12

Strategy & implementation

Small budget - we got the platform at a very low price and ran it

ourselves

Fast response – we went from initial idea to launch in a month

Reaching our target audiences – champions made all the difference

Creative promotion – from straight adverts to blogs

Page 13

How it worked

Short videos

The site was open for 3

weeks, and then the top 5

voted questions were

answered in short videos by

the directors.

These were a huge hit!

Page 14

How it worked

Unscripted live sessions

There were then 3 on-line ‘live

Q&A’ sessions with directors,

where they answered questions

for 30 minutes flat with no warning

and no prep.

Page 15

HOME PAGE

‘ASK ME ANYTHING’ RESULTS

We monitored the site daily and sent top-line stats to the Leadership Team

each week, spurring them on to keep participating. Using Google Analytics,

we were able to tell how many people were online for the live Q and As.

Ask me anything: results

Page 17

“Just a quick note to give my support

for the AMA sessions. I would guess

that what they symbolise

(approachable leadership) is of greater

value than the actual content of the

conversations, on a personal level I

appreciated the opportunity to ask

Mark a question and would like to see

Andrew Horton in the hot seat!”

Holly, Shop Manager

“Love the fact that Mark and the

directors were up for this. It's a new

way to have a conversation. I feel like

Mark is now more approachable.”

Ben, IS staff.

Ask me anything: results

Staff submitted a huge range of

questions for the directors, from ‘What

is our audience segmentation strategy?’

to ‘Do you have a pair of lucky pants?’.

Page 18

‘ASK ME ANYTHING’ RESULTS Ask me anything: Key learnings

What we learnt:

• Be brave, try out new things

• Don't control conversations

• Make leaders part of the

crowd

Page 19

THANK YOU

Page 20

CONTACT

Saskia Jones,

Head of Communications Engagement

Oxfam GB

Twitter: @saskiahjones1