Wardrop’s Intranet news program has been successful at meeting the engineering firm’s key communication objectives, says Shayne Smith, Wardrop’s CEO. Keeping team members informed through an innovative means of communication is at the forefront of these objectives, he adds.
Before launching its online news program in September 2007, Wardrop used an internally-produced print piece to communicate company and employee successes.
However, producing the print piece internally meant that team members were responsible for writing stories detailing personal and corporate achievements. The process was time-consuming, notes Smith. This led the organization to look at new ways of keeping staff members in the fold.
Smith conducted several information sessions throughout the organization to see where team members were doing in terms of gathering and reporting information beyond respective their offices and divisions.
“It became evident that we were not doing as good of a job as we could telling the success stories and the issue stories around the company, so certainly our objective was to establish better connectivity across the organization and make everyone feel part of the company,” says Smith. “As the company grows . . . maintaining a strong culture of communication is always one of the biggest things.
“(The news program) provides staff and management at all levels with a vehicle to carry their message forward, so a lot of the folks who are rolling out corporate programs and things like that (have) a much better way to communicate their strategies and progress that they’re making,” says Smith.
To help meet its communication objectives, Wardrop decided to utilize an externally body to publish its latest news through the company’s Intranet site. This idea meets another of Wardrop’s communication objectives: delivering staff members and management news in a manner that is “more interesting than e-mails,” says Smith.
Smith, along with Wardrop’s vice-president of business development Greg Turchyn, say the biggest indicator that the online news program has been successful at meeting the company’s communication objectives is the feedback received from team members.
Smith says he often receives positive messages from staff members who are happy with stories they’ve seen on the site.
Turchyn echoes Smith’s sentiments.
“I’ve been getting a lot of positive comments from employees across the company,” says Turchyn. “I think one of the key things that they see is the fact that a lot of the stories are being generated by themselves (and) it’s a corporate avenue for sending corporate messages.”
To learn more about Wardrop, visit the company’s website at http://www.wardrop.com.
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