Claire Goring, global head of internal communications, Dentsu Aegis Network

“In a global advertising group with 27,000 people in 123 countries comprising over 70 brands and agencies, our vision, ‘Innovating the way brands are built’ has international resonance. Our values were relaunched in 2014 as part of the successful merger and integration activities of Aegis Media by Dentsu Inc (Japan’s advertising giant).
Celebrating the uniqueness of our individual brands, many of whom have their own values, is an important part of our DNA. At a group level, our values are shared globally and in many cases are replicated or similar to those already in existence in our multiple brands and agencies. Since our values underpin culture and behaviour, we opt to talk about examples of them in the way we work, attract the best and brightest to work for us and ultimately build trust with our clients.”

Phil Oddy, internal communications manager, Liberty Ltd
“Communicating a brand’s vision and values isn’t about rolling out a one-hit campaign, or producing a smart launch presentation. You should be using your vision and values as the underlying tone for all of your communications. Whether it be the content on your careers website, what is covered in your staff induction, highlighting what great looks like in a performance review, or outlining the reasons behind a business decision, your communications should continually relate back to what the brand stands for, as well as its end goal. Make sure the communications are regular and consistent and you will soon have employees making decisions based on the what the brand stands for and what is going to have the greatest impact on the business achieving its vision.”
 

Mairead Anderson, internal communications manager, UK & Ireland, Fujitsu   
“Involvement and interaction are key to buy-in. We started by asking our employees to help draft values and behaviours. This ensured buy-in from the beginning. We devised a board game, with counters and cards, and asked our leadership team to organise sessions with their teams where they played the game, and encouraged people to think about their roles and how they lived these values today, or how they would begin to live them. These sessions were fun, engaging and well received. We also made a video for each of the values, featuring a member of the leadership team taking about what the value means to them. Our employee recognition scheme awards are aligned to the six values and we will shortly have lanyards available with the six values inscribed on them. A simple, but effective way to keep the values in full view on a daily basis.”

Joanna Nurse, head of internal communications, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

“At King’s, it’s all about living the values, as well as understanding and accepting them. Doctors and nurses are busy people, so we had to make a robust case for taking the time to live our values. We collected strong case studies to support our communications strategy, and gave staff opportunities to come together and share their experiences of putting the values into everyday practise.
We focused on face-to-face communications and discussions, as well as our usual written communications channels.”

This event featured speakers Christina Fee, communications consultant at Bupa and Toby Jones, internal communications manager for the Rugby Football Union.