There are many nuances in the business strategies and organizational functions of Jackson National Life Insurance Company, a retirement services provider and one of the largest retail pension companies in the United States. To help employees better identify with Jackson's purpose, our internal communications team launched a program to shed light on how the company works through virtual teaching sessions. They started with their own team.
“We started team sessions right after we reorganized our departments,” said Erin Mercer, Jackson's director of internal communications. “Our team was a mix of people new to the industry and people coming into new roles from different parts of the business. We are in a highly regulated and complex industry. “In order to communicate effectively, it's important for teams to understand how their position fits into the organization's goals and the big picture of the project.”
Teaching sessions for internal communications teams explore topics such as product fundamentals and how your organization makes money. It also includes segments on how different departments work together and how each role fits into the company's strategy. This helps other departments instruct the team on what to consider when assembling the stories that matter to employees.
“From there, we thought about how we could make that information available to other employees as well,” says Mercer. “We conducted research to identify gaps in business understanding and considered how to address those gaps using content planning and storytelling. I realized that it was important for me to identify as a driver of company strategy and help them understand where they fit.”
Expansion across the organization
After testing this approach with internal communications, Mercer's team developed a strategy to use Jackson's intranet as a hub to establish departmental visibility across the organization.
This initiative describes what different departments are doing, identifies the leaders in those departments, and describes the problems they are working to solve. Each department focus is supported by multiple pieces of content. The “Understanding the Business” series includes longer feature stories that spotlight the “Day in the Life” of someone on the same team and unravel what this person's role means. Masu. Including any connections with business. The team will also publish special editions based on new workstream achievements, such as product launches and awards.
We've also been successful in designing content that addresses opportunities to deepen knowledge and understanding of related features and topics, and we've also been successful in connecting new projects to join our team, such as awareness celebrations like National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. It's successful. “As communicators, we challenge ourselves to understand how workstreams and projects connect to business strategy, and we help the rest of the workforce understand as well,” Mercer said. Ta.
This upskilling-based approach to business fluency creates new channels for assessing employees and reveals organizational structure all at once. By piloting this with internal communications capabilities, the team answered the questions they were wondering and positioned communications as a connector and influencer of awareness across departments.
The stories are published on a dedicated page on Jackson's intranet, creating a resource aimed at helping new employees learn more about the various departments. Mercer's team also created a process to consider which stories deserve editing, updating, or other changes.
Linking learning and development
After seeing early success with the strategy, the team worked with the company's learning and development team to simplify the concepts employees needed to understand to be more effective in their roles. We have created a series of short videos. The series, called “Business Insights,” repurposes content from the internal communications Teaching Sessions series.
In addition to this, Mercer's team is also building a leadership communications hub for employees at the director level and above to house resources for HR managers. “Evergreen resources such as elements from the Understanding series and key messages and templates will be placed in the hub to support more consistent messaging to employees,” she said. “These resources help leaders understand what these complex topics mean for their teams.”
To further support leadership messaging, the team worked with human resources to launch communication training for managers designed to improve their communication skills. This course is recommended but not required for managers. The team has received a lot of positive feedback on this initiative and is already working on a version designed for line-level employees. This version of leadership training examines the application of effective communication in daily work.
“The revised version will address how employees can frame updates for leaders via email, including using a guide to brand standards and principles to help employees improve communication,” Mercer said. Stated.
As this effort expands into more formal upskilling, the team will carefully consider which level each resource is appropriate for. Some sessions are used to train dedicated managers, especially when it comes to how to talk about the company.
“Training is another way we help our employees understand how our purpose and values ​​are lived out every day,” Mercer said. “It’s great to hear that people are excited about this and want their employees to take the training, but the training needs to be relevant to each student to support adoption and application. We recognize that there is.”
Mercer's team doesn't want to expose some tracks to their direct reports, so they're building specific services for all levels within the organization. “We hope this will help employees understand where they fit in our strategy and how they are connected, even if they are not in the same office. '' Mercer said. “We may work in different departments or even remotely, but we are all working toward the same goal.”
Learn more about how upskilling and business fluency are connected at Ragan's Employee Experience Conference, August 12-14 at the Four Seasons in Nashville.
Erin Mercer and Jackson are members of Lagan's Communication Leadership Council. Learn more about participating here.
