On Thursday, July 10, the FPRA/CWC chapter offered a warm welcome to Lanette Hart, APR, CPRC at our new, beautiful meeting location--Bird Key Yact Club in Sarasota.
As the VP of Global Marketing and Corporate Affairs at Bank of America and the President-Elect for the state FPRA organization, Lanette says that no day is typical.
How do we manage change? It’s already tough. Managing the challenge of change increases in a global environment.
Bank of America is involved in mergers, entering new marketplaces and launching new products. With every change, one must ask what we want people to know or feel that they may not today. What motivates people to get on board? How can we maintain credibility, confidence in communicating?
According to Lanette, the audience that must come first with communications and change is the company’s own employees: they are major stakeholders. And increasingly, employee behavior determines the reputation of your organization. Managing change depends on how we inform, involve and inspire our employees, based on a proper understanding of what drives them and how they may react to new challenges. So, how is this accomplished with employees of companies that are positioned globally?
Cohesive global branding is huge…INTERNALLY, as well as externally. You must constantly infuse to your internal audience who the company is and what it stands for, while also making sure your employees feel good about coming to work and their roles within the company.
Every other year, a satisfaction survey for associates at Bank of America is launched. And most importantly, changes are made to reflect the wants and needs of survey participants. Employees feel empowered in their jobs and in having a voice that matters.
Promoting the brand uniformly—even in a global economy—is important. Staying sensitive to local trends and culture is also important. Think about the marketplace you’re going into. Give it a local feel and still maintain consistency in branding. Bank of America strives hard to be sure that the co-worker here in America and the co-worker in Asia feel the same about being an employee of the company.
The most sophisticated approaches to global communications…
- Understand how your employees communicate first. What is the best way to convey information? Sometimes you need to step back, do a little research, ask the right questions, and understand if our ways of communicating are still effective.
- Cascade your approaches. Understand who needs to know what. You have to pre-communicate sometimes. “I’m going to tell you something important.” And then, talk to the managers, executive leadership or HR managers. Give them the messages to share with others. So when the message reaches the masses, it is more meaningful and conveyed by the right person.
- Presentations are very effective when you need to get out a lot of information at once. Bank of America uses video conferences, audio conferences, and a knowledge channel for B of A employees. Video on demand is also used.
- Host multicultural workshops. You may find that what you think is cool where you live may not be so cool in other places.
What to watch for…
- Always avoid the “us” and “them” when you talk.
- Avoid “international” and use "Outside the U.S. (OUS)" instead.
- Engage your OUS partners in the STRATEGY, not just the tactics.
- Don’t assume you understand the culture and what they find valuable.
- Don’t ever forget to explain the benefits and the “why.” If you just drive out the message but never talk to people, you may not be successful in getting people on board with the change. Why is it change occurring? How will it help the company?
- Choose global vendors when you can.
- Customize your strategies. Provide a template, but allow each region to change as needed. DO balance the consistency with the customized strategies.
- Know the laws regarding language for the countries you do business in or have employees represented. (For instance, in Spain, Spanish is the law, but not in Mexico.)
- If you’re trying to communicate in a language you can’t read, it's necessary to have someone translate it to you so that it says EXACTLY what you want it to say…the same meaning.
- Try not to translate the NAME of your product…the slogans are okay to translate.
- Watch out for country seasons and holidays. For example, don’t roll anything new out in the UK during the summer—everyone is on holiday.
- Factor in the time difference for holding global meetings.
10 am here is 10 pm in Asia. If most participants are in Asia, take the hit and talk at 2 am here.
- Ideas and context may be different!! “Uncommon wisdom,” a Wachovia slogan translates to “dumb” in some regions.
Technology makes the difference. Lanette doesn’t often travel out of the country. She has co-workers that translate for the American team. These are very trusted individuals who make sure the words retain the exact meetings for the various regions around the world.
How many people does Lanette communicate with around the world on a weekly basis? It could be up to 200,000 depending on the message!
What about social media? Bank of America is very conservative and is cautious about social marketing, because the control factor for the message is relinquished. …In student banking arena, for example.
Lanette--many thanks to you for your world of communication wisdom. We're looking forward to your leadership in the coming FPRA year!
-Susie Bowie, CWC Emerging Communications Team
