Melcrum Blog A Parallel Universe - In Which Non-Wired Employees CAN Be Reached

Let's imagine for a moment that I'm a truck driver, making deliveries for a logistics company.I'm having a busy day, I'm tired, and I'm behind schedule. In spite of this, I'm driving towards my final drop-off, and I pass an internet café. I stop my truck, pull in at the side of the road, and pay a couple of pounds of my own money to use the internet so that I can log onto my company's intranet site remotely. There's a nice article there about fuel-efficiency. As I read, I reflect upon how much of a priority fuel efficiency must be to my corporate leaders, and how much time the communications team must have spent crafting this compelling message.Hold on, that doesn't sound right...Let's imagine instead that I work on a production line. At the start of my day, I'm given a 4 page paper pamphlet regarding safe working practices. Whilst the rest of my colleagues begin work, I sit down and spend 10 minutes carefully reading it cover to cover, appreciating the time and effort to which somebody in the communications function must have gone to produce a pamphlet like this. Then, enlightened as to safe working practices, I carefully fold the pamphlet, return to my locker to stow it safely away, and finally go about my tasks, taking a completely new - and much safer - approach.Hmmm... something's not quite right in this parallel universe!A Challenge As Old As The HillsThe fact is that non-wired employees are hard to reach - and their behaviors are harder to influence. God knows, it's hard enough trying to reach and influence wired employees, and at least we have a direct line to them via their desktops. What's more, communication with non-wired audiences is as old as the hills - and we've been hearing that it's always been hard.Of course, in many cases we're reliant upon line managers and supervisors to pass messages on to employees (check out our research on effective manager communication). But how can we in communications do a better job of direct messaging to non-wired employees?Here are a few of the coolest ideas we've heard from your peers:Use external social media for internal communication"We wanted to try to set up some new social media channel to communicate with NW employees. We figured there's no point trying to bring a horse to water - instead, we brought water to the horse, and used the channels they're using anyway - facebook and youtube. Initially, we had some reservations about privacy, but we quickly realized that in an organization of our size whatever we communicate internally will go external anyway - there's no firewall around the company."SVP Group Communications, Facility Services CompanyCommunicate with families as well as employees"We found that in spite of various newsletters and notes via payroll, a significant number of employees still hadn't signed up for their full benefits package. So we began communicating certain aspects of the package directly to their spouses, who also had a vested interest in their benefits packages. We saw a marked uptick as a result, and have now started to take a similar approach to safety communications - we think that having your wife telling you to be careful at work is much more powerful than your manager, or some newsletter!"Director, Corporate Communications, Beverages CompanyLearn about the company to get something fun"Some of our production workers play online computer games on their lunch breaks. So, we decided to install extra computers for them to play in one of our sites. The catch? They have to take a 2 minute interactive quiz on the company's priorities and goals to get 20 minutes of gameplay. We've only done this on a really small scale, but w're thinking of rolling it out a bit more."Director, Internal Comms, Manufacturing CompanyHow have you thought outside the box to reach and influence your non-wired segment? If you've done something cool in this space, let us and your peers know in the comments section below. Large Inline Image Sticky at Suggest Reading No