A brand is the sum of one's emotional and rational relationship with a product...or a workplace. So, just as with product branding, Workplace Branding influences, shapes, and strengthens the relationship between employer and employee. And the stronger the Workplace Brand, the better the business results.
We begin by defining the challenge with you. We set the scope of the project based on planning workshops, interviews with senior management, and a review of your business strategy and metrics. Our specialists help senior executives identify the core workplace attributes that define success in your enterprise. And we help you see it all through the eyes of employees.
We articulate both the Workplace Brand you have and the brand you want using tools like associate interviews, focus groups, and surveys. Then we turn to the full breadth of creative and strategic communications assets and change management to help you close the gap between the culture you have and a culture that inspires winning behaviors and outstanding performance.
workplace and marketplace brand integration
What's the difference between your workplace brand and your marketplace brand? Unless the answer is "not much," it may be time to bring the two into alignment. When your reputation in the market rests on the performance, behavior, and attitudes of your associates, there's no doubt in the minds and hearts of your customers as to your brand: it's your people.
At Cyto we understand that painful gaps between what your customers expect and what your employees deliver can be devastating.
Our program begins with a collaborative scope and project design process including executive interviews and workshops to quickly set goals and objectives. We turn to primary research to assess behaviors and attitudes of both employees and consumers. These attributes are then articulated and the gaps defined.
Using the most appropriate media Cyto vividly illustrates the attributes of both brands to senior executives responsible for the development of strategic priorities and performance metrics. We then help you develop and implement Communication and Organizational Development plans to firmly align workplace operations and behaviors with the customer expectations created by your marketplace brand.
Solutions may take the form of hiring protocols, training materials, team development workshops, or employee incentive programs. Plan effectiveness is measured against the objectives and goals set forth in the project design.
change management and strategy rollouts
Change happens. New leadership, new market conditions, new technologies, and new regulations bring significant change...and significant opportunity. Yet success depends on your associates' ability to comprehend the implications of change - on strategy, business process, and performance - and translate that understanding into new behaviors.
Whether you use a Balanced Scorecard, Six Sigma, ISO, or your own strategic model, Cyto helps associates through a continuum from awareness to action. We consider the organizational norms that influence progress, and work collaboratively with you to craft a strategic and creative communications and change management plan to accelerate the adoption of behaviors more clearly aligned with new corporate priorities.
The Communication and Organizational Development plans created and implemented might include the development of collateral materials; launch events, executive speeches, incentive programs, or training. Yet no matter the medium, the first goal will be bring relevance, focus, and understanding of change to all your associates. The second will be to transform that clarity into action to improve operations and outcomes.
enterprise integration (mergers and acquisitions)
Few business transactions present the kind of opportunity created by a merger or acquisition. Fewer still present a greater communications challenge.
Once the decision is made to combine enterprises, the decisions as to how can spell the difference between notable success and costly failure. While analysis and audits can clarify the fate of operational units, locations, and the design of org charts, the successful integration of business processes, operations, brands, and corporate cultures, rests largely on the company's ability to communicate.
Cyto works with an organization's leaders to select and shape the communications priorities to accelerate integration.
We begin early to identify stakeholders, objectives, and impediments to success. We collaborate to set the scope and direction of the project as well as metrics for effectiveness.
Communications planning may include mapping each Workplace Brand and casting a vision for an integrated brand. It may focus on building awareness and support for new conditions and expectations.
Implementation might include the design and execution of events and activities or the creation of web-based and or print tools to communicate new strategies, standards, processes and benefits. We may help craft executive speeches and presentations, and work alongside M&A project leaders to address issues and bottlenecks.
In all cases, our goal is to develop communication programs that help organizations fully realize the economic benefits of enterprise integration.
Whether you call it restructuring, downsizing, right-sizing, layoffs, or reorganization, a significant change in the configuration of your workforce is challenging on many levels. Not the least of which is communications.
When change involves the reduction, relocation, or reassignment of staff, the cost savings of such efficiencies can easily be threatened by losses in productivity and retention.
Cyto develops announcement messaging and contingencies to address concerns of internal and external audiences. We match messages to the most appropriate and effective communications channel. And we help leaders anticipate and plan for the operational implications created by altered stakeholder attitudes and behaviors.
As with every Cyto program, we work collaboratively with you on scoping and project design. We often coordinate our efforts with marketing and corporate communications.
The program may call for primary research (focus groups, surveys, or interviews) into stakeholder attitudes. It will certainly involve communications planning and the comprehensive management and execution of internal and external stakeholder notification. And if restructuring is to be effective, it will entail communicating the new vision and behaviors to those who remain.
mission, vision, values development
If an organization has a soul, it is most certainly its mission, vision, and values. And when these become more than static ideals, they can be the guiding principles for business success - the "reasons why" - and core attributes of a powerful Workplace Brand.
Cyto works with senior management and associates at many levels to help develop, articulate, and communicate these vital elements.
We design the engagement with you, helping decision-makers understand the structure and utility of mission, vision, and values so that yours can be created and expressed with authority, confidence, and enthusiastic buy-in.
We interview executives, associates, even customers or strategic partners to discern and map the behaviors, strategies, and goals these elements must embody. We incorporate facilitated off-site meetings, retreats, or workshops, and create a narrative and graphic record of progress toward the finished product.
Once developed, your mission, vision, and values are put to work throughout your organization through strategy and communications to reorient associates to the new direction. We use creativity and design to bring life and emotional connections to every element and to help associates incorporate them into daily behavior and decision making.
On-going programs and metrics keep your mission, vision, and values fresh and relevant.
Workplace safety, disaster preparedness, customer focus, diversity policies, compliance with a new regulations...When it comes to content your employees need to know, there seems to be no limit; quite unlike your time and resources.
Even the most stable, mature organizations are challenged ensure their associates are aware of and understand critically important policies, procedures, and sensitivities.
Cyto's approach achieves greater effectiveness by focusing your efforts on just the right points in the communications continuum.
We work with you to design communications strategies, products, and processes that focus associates' attention and behavior. We use creative approaches to materials and technology - from content management and online reminders, to role playing and on-site displays. All are designed to keep information and issues fresh and relevant.
retreats, executive off-sites, and planning
The facilitated, group decision-making process - often performed at a location away from the pressures and distractions of the workplace - can be a vital tool to help business leaders and organizations become more focused and effective. Quite frankly, a retreat also can be a complete waste of time.
That's why Cyto works closely with senior leaders to determine when such events are truly appropriate. We then collaborate to design the environment, goals, activities, assessment, and follow-up to make the very best use of participants' precious time and energy - and sponsor credibility.
Depending on the desired results, the scope can range from exotic retreats to facilitated half-day meetings for a small group or department in a company conference room.
Yet, no matter what the construct, Cyto employs creative and strategic facilitation to create powerful meetings and meaningful outcomes.
Cyto can coordinate facilities, accommodations, gifts, and downtime recreation, with meeting outcomes documented through a variety of media. We also can help you translate event outcomes into communication, organizational development and/or operational plans and evaluation initiatives.
cross-functional communication
"We don't communicate with each other!"
How many times have you heard that - from executives, functional leaders, division heads, and just about everyone in between? Operational silos that form around functional teams are both a source of frustration and barriers to productivity and synergy that spark innovation and success.
And because no two silos are alike, Cyto applies a variety of communication tools - group process, content management technology, creative services, and more - to help break down the impediments to enterprise-wide information and idea sharing.
Interviews with key leaders, associates, and other stakeholders (including internal customers served by different divisions) form the foundation for an environmental scan and needs assessment.
We then craft solutions collaboratively - establishing process or functional charters, negotiating leadership roles - in order to create Communications and Organizational Development plans that address your challenges.
The measures of effectiveness are likely to include standards, protocols, and metrics. Not to mention a marked decrease in the utterance of, "We don't communicate with each other!"
An organization's intranet can be one of its greatest resources for proprietary data, policy, and information. Yet too many intranets assume the character of the family garage: so full of randomly stashed "collectibles" that there's no room for the car.
If your intranet isn't the dynamic information and communication resource it was meant to be, Cyto can help.
We begin by working with you to set project objectives, timetables, activities and responsibilities. Typically, the key is governance and project sponsorship. We audit existing intranet content, while working with operational leaders to identify user groups. We facilitate input to generate, organize, and vet ideas to elevate the return on your intranet investment.
Cyto collaborates with IT and functional leaders to develop an architecture that meets the technical, functional, organizational, and communication objectives. The site structure may integrate features from search engine applications to Customer Relationship Management modules. Content Management is key so that the site becomes relevant and ultimately essential.
As the new site is readied for deployment, Cyto helps develop and implement a comprehensive communications plan and creative materials to promote awareness, understanding, and utilization. This may include user manuals, internal promotions, training, launch events, graphics-rich email messaging and more.
Cyto communications strategy and creativity can significantly and measurably enhance your human resource products, processes, and programs.
- Retention Programs
- The best programs don't just retain bodies. They retain the best workers by creating a self-perpetuating culture of loyalty, fulfillment, and advancement. We help you communicate the values, behaviors, and rewards that drive people to perform... and perform... and perform.
- Recruitment
- It may well be the lifeblood of any growing organization. Yet its success depends on how it's executed. From collateral and advertising, to your presence on the web, at job fairs, or within the everyday lives of your target audience, we create compelling work that attracts qualifications, not just resumes.
- Associate Referral Programs
- Your best recruiters usually are your own employees. But they need to understand the qualities and qualifications you're looking for, and feel good about the process before they refer an acquaintance. Because if they're not screening, you're fielding a lot of calls from Uncle Hank. And if they're not confident in your process, you're not fielding any calls at all.
- New Hire Orientation and On-Boarding Programs
- Want new employees to hit the ground running...in the right direction? Then you need orientation materials and concepts that do more than just download information. With Cyto, you'll help new hires focus, prioritize, and absorb new information better and faster. You'll be forging a new relationship strong enough to sustain you both through the challenges ahead.
- Benefits Roll-out
- Is it really a benefit if your employees don't get it, don't believe it's really available, or don't even know about it? We create communication for a variety of media - from printed materials to intranet content - to launch or increase associate awareness of those costly benefits and work/life initiatives designed to enhance retention and referrals.
- Work/life Programs
- Do your employees work to live, live to work, or even know the difference? And where do they think the company stands on these questions? Cyto helps you close the gaps with materials and initiatives that make benefits and other corporate work/life opportunities clear, appealing...and worth your investment.
- Attitude Research
- How well does senior management really know how they're regarded by the workforce? The better your knowledge and insight, the more informed your decision making. With Cyto's help, focus groups, surveys, and interviews can render the kind of insight you need to accurately assess employees' attitudes, awareness, and understanding of critical issues.