How can you get staff to feel seen in your communications?

Farra Trompeter: Welcome to the Smart Communications Podcast. This is Farra Trompeter, co-director and worker-owner at Big Duck. In today’s episode, we’re going to ask the question: How can you get staff to feel seen in your communications? And I got this topic from talking with my friend and client for the past three years, Raine Martin, and wanted to share it with you all. So let me tell you a little bit about Raine. Raine uses she/her pronouns and is the chief advancement officer at Brooklyn Community Services, or BCS, where she oversees fundraising, communications, community and corporate engagement, and marketing. Raine has 20 years of experience in nonprofit development and communications, including work with The Urban Assembly, the Apollo Theater, Hudson Guild, and the Prospect Park Alliance. She earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and serves on the board of the Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Raine, welcome to the show.

Raine Martin: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Farra Trompeter: So, you know, I think in framing this conversation, people might hear, “How do I get staff to feel seen in my communications?” and think of external communications, but I’d like to focus on internal communications. Raine, you’ve worked at organizations with small, medium, and what I’d consider huge staff sizes, and often I have found the bigger the organization, the more likely it is to work in silos with so much happening that most of the other staff have no idea about. I’m curious: when I talk about big organizations working in silos, does that sound like a movie you’ve seen, and what comes to mind for you when it comes to just generally dealing with silos and nonprofits?

Raine Martin: Yeah, it’s a movie I’ve seen many times. I’ve starred in a few of those films. Most commonly and in particularly in larger multi-service agencies. I find that program staff are siloed, and they’re not always just siloed from, like, the administrative staff or the leadership, but they also tend to be siloed from other program staff. And this hinders sharing resources that would benefit program participants or clients. And it also makes staff feel disconnected from the true mission of the organization. They’re locked into kind of what their program is or what their role is, and they don’t truly feel connected to, like, the larger mission or the larger purpose. They don’t feel seen or heard in decision-making, in addressing challenges or problem-solving. And even when it comes to, like, program and fundraising strategy, they often feel completely disconnected and left out and unheard.

Raine Martin: I feel that sometimes they feel cut off; you can feel cut off from the larger administration. And what often comes up surprisingly for me is how much that staff is interested in knowing more about or being connected to the board. Which is also something that, without proper internal communications, like you know, you often have no idea who the board members are or who the leadership of the organization is. And staff are on the front lines day to day. They’re constantly being approached by people who want to know more about the organization, and when they have like a limited amount of information, they can’t tell the full picture, they can’t tell the full story of where they work for.

Farra Trompeter: Yeah, I want to build off that last piece of what you said where we often see that with messaging, big organizations, the staff in the afterschool program have no idea what the staff in the health program are doing or even when they’re not multi-service like yours, maybe just different departments, and so they’re either describing 20 different organizations or just not able to bring people to more deeply engage with what the organization is doing. So those are lots of challenges with internal communications, but let’s flip it. What are some opportunities that you see with internal communications in nonprofits? Why is this something organizations should care about?

Raine Martin: I’ve seen how internal communications improves program delivery. It improves collaboration across programs. It improves staff morale, and it helps the entire organization, particularly the staff, feel connected to the bigger picture and the bigger mission. Surprisingly, internal communications actually improve external communications. The more that you know is the more that you can share, it’s the more content that you can generate. It’s more like narrative and more stories that you can tell about the organization and the work that it’s doing. It helps to improve fundraising. The more that you know, it’s like the more where you know where the gaps are and the opportunities are, and you can connect people to different resources, to volunteers. You can boost community engagement through internal communications and partnerships. I mean, it really does support your overall communications when there is really great and tight internal communication.

Farra Trompeter: You’re making me think of, you know, watching TV in the Eighties when they would have the big beam across the sky. “The more you know,” right?

Raine Martin: Yes. “The more you know, the more you grow,” or something.

Farra Trompeter: Exactly. Raine and I are often exchanging memes related to being joyous Gen Xers. Well, over the years, BCS, I know, has done a lot of work to improve internal communications, and I’m wondering if you could, for folks out there who are listening and trying to imagine “How do I staff for this? Where do I spend time?” Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like? What are some of that use of staff time? What are some tactics that you’ve done? What does this look like in practice?

Raine Martin: The first thing that we did at BCS was survey the staff about how they currently felt about internal communications, what information they were getting, what information they felt that they were missing. Were they feeling like they weren’t being communicated enough? Were they feeling like there was too much communication? How did they receive communications? Are they primarily, you know, reading their email? Are they on their phones? So once you have that information, you can come up with the best systems that are going to work for the organization. So for us, it was an e-newsletter. Other organizations, instead of doing e-newsletter use simple workplace tools like Slack or, you know, those kind of instant messaging: Slack, Gchat to communicate to staff. We have a new executive director, and one of the things that we found that works really well is doing monthly video messages from her to the staff.

Raine Martin: She’s been on a listening tour of the different programs. So her sharing her experiences of the different programs, what she’s learned about the organization. It’s given her an opportunity to hear directly from the staff and map trends, address broader challenges that are happening across the organization. And the staff has really responded really well to that. It started off as her doing them kind of like one-off, when something came up, and now they’ve become monthly messages due to the feedback from the staff. We have an employment hub; it’s like that place where you fill out your time sheets, and there’s an area there for us to like store information and post things. So since everyone has to, you know, go in there and fill out their time sheets and track their benefits and such, it’s a great place to like put a lot of the important information that they need.

Raine Martin: We make sure that the tools that we’re using work for both big screens and small screens. So, because we do have staff that sit at computers all day, and then we have staff that’s out in the field that primarily use their phone. And I think that it is important when you’re thinking about internal communications that it’s not just one way. So previously, our communication was just like the administration or human resources talking to the staff. Now we’ve opened up a loop where there’s feedback so staff can, you know, comment and submit questions and submit things that they want to see in the newsletter or want us to address. We also make sure that we are asking staff for content for their programs that we can highlight. Is there a special celebration that’s going on? Did your program reach a certain milestone? Is there, like, a success story that you want to share? So that we’re making sure that we’re sharing that across all staff.

Raine Martin: We also have made a space for staff to share things that may be more personal or professional that are not necessarily related. So, you know, people sometimes want to share pictures of their new babies. Someone has gotten married, and they want to share pictures of their wedding. People have graduated or completed a certification or gotten a new degree, and they’re very proud of it, and they look forward to sharing these things with the staff. They are giving the kudos, and the congratulations, and the applause. These are things that create a comfortable and friendly environment where, once again, people are feeling seen, they’re feeling heard, they’re feeling like they’re part of a bigger mission, they’re feeling like they are surrounded by people who really care about them.

Raine Martin: Another tool that we have implemented is toolkits. So previously, because our staff were so siloed, people were using outdated logos, they were using the wrong colors, you know, the branding was all over the place, and we’ve created a toolkit that has helped staff access resources that they need with the proper branding and the proper language, the proper messaging. And it’s really helped unify the organization kind of under one brand. And it also has helped staff understand that they’re kind of not out there alone. If they need branding resources, if they need templates that they can come and they’re not sitting outside by themselves where they have to make these things themselves. There’s a centralized place where they have these things.

Farra Trompeter: That’s so helpful. You know, when we were preparing for this conversation, you spoke about how staff were more engaged, and you’re going to correct me here if I’m wrong, but I believe BCS has over 400 staff across almost 30 locations throughout Brooklyn. I just wanted, you’ll correct me in a moment, but also I just want to talk about the results. So let’s say people do invest time, and staff, and resources into internal communications. What can they expect will happen, or what results have you seen?

Raine Martin: That is correct. We have more than 400 staff members across 25 sites operating 50 programs all throughout Brooklyn. From one end of the borough to another. One of the things that I’ve noted in terms of like staff being more engaged is the staff now, as opposed to us constantly (and when I say us, I should stop and say I’m talking about my department, which is the advancement team. We are responsible for marketing, communications, fundraising, community relations, government relations). We are always kind of reaching out and hounding down the staff for things. And now we found that staff is actually reaching out to us to let us know what’s going on. So inviting us to things, sharing pictures and videos, and you know, things that were created in their programs, which is really, really helped bolster, like I said, external communications.

Raine Martin: I note that staff are more engaged with our pages on social media. They’re sharing things more often and commenting and liking things. When we share news out now, they’re asking questions, and they’re asking how they can be involved, and they’re asking, you know, kind of how they can support. We are celebrating our 160th year this year, and we created like a special 160th anniversary logo and we have templates for everyone and one of them is the signature block on your emails. I’m noting now that I see the email signatures now, like I don’t have to ask, I don’t have to remind people that they have an outdated email signature. I don’t have to reach out and say, “Hey you know, you need to update this.”

Farra Trompeter: It sounds like people are doing things because they want to be part of the communications. They don’t have to be nudged; they don’t have to be reminded. This is the best-case scenario, right? We know with internal comms or even just in getting our brand to stick, we’re often having to go back to staff and say, “Hey, we’ve got a brand guide. Please use our templates. Hey, please update your email signature. Don’t use that quote anymore.” And it sounds like your team is really now taking hold of that, which is the best case you could hope for. And in fact, I think it’s just worth noting your advancement team that you work with and the time that I’ve known you has ranged from six to eight people. This is not a huge department. You know, you might have 400 staff, but such a small per cent of that is actually doing this work. So you don’t necessarily have to have, and trust me, six to eight people for doing marketing and fundraising may be big for some organizations out there, small for others. But just to note, this is doable. And in that spirit, I’m curious if you can suggest steps people can take to really boost their internal communications or, even more particularly, to get their staff to feel seen and, as you said, heard in what you’re producing.

Raine Martin: Yes. So the first thing, you survey the staff, and you find out where the gaps are in communication. What they feel like they’re not hearing enough of. What they’re hearing a lot of, but it’s not useful to them. What’s important to them? How do they receive communication? And you take that feedback, and you create systems of communication that kind of work across the organization. Every organization is unique, so what works for one organization isn’t going to work for other organizations. I’ve mentioned a couple of tools like newsletters, Slack, and video messages, whatever works across your organization. And I would also say, visiting programs and events to understand firsthand what is happening on the ground, where the gaps are, where the opportunities are. A lot of times, you don’t know what you’re missing because you just don’t know what’s out there. So making sure that you are involved with staff, that staff see you, that they know who you are, that they see that you’re interested in what they’re doing. I think that is one of the most important ways to kind of bolster communication internally and across programs.

Raine Martin: I mentioned the listening tour that our new ED is on. I think this is the first time a lot of people have seen an ED come to their program and sit and talk with them, and it really has increased engagement and boosted morale. I think once you begin to improve your internal communications, there are like some long-term things that you didn’t even really think about. Such as how much internal communication supports recruitment, how much internal communications supports staff retention, how much this supports people being kind of upwardly mobile in their jobs because they’re willing to stay and grow and learn more and develop new skills. Another thing that has come of our boosting internal communications, particularly when it comes to visiting programs and learning more about the staff, is that we now see opportunities where we can work with staff to create op-eds and get them published and find interview opportunities for them. Going back to earlier, where I said internal communications really helps external communications, I mean these are huge public relations opportunities that come from being engaged and engaging staff internally.

Farra Trompeter: That’s great. One of the things I’m hearing you say in that is, in order for staff to feel seen, they have to see you.

Raine Martin: Exactly.

Farra Trompeter: You, as a leader, you as a department head, you as an executive director, you as a board member even, you want your staff to feel seen, heard, and appreciated. Well, let them actually know that they are and show up where they are and take it in and listen. A lot of this I’m hearing from you too, is starting all of this work with research and listening and learning, before just putting something down.

Raine Martin: Exactly. That’s exactly it, and I’m glad you mentioned the board because including the board in our internal communications has also really worked well for helping staff understand who the board are, what they do, what their role is, why they’re important. Our staff often feel like we have these super-rich people on the board that are out there like, you know, puppet masters, and then they meet them or they hear from them, or we share a video message from one of our board members, and they are surprised at how relatable they are and how Warren Buffet is not on our board. These are regular people who care about the work that they’re doing and care about making sure that our staff is happy and making sure that ou programs are functioning and that our program participants and clients are happy.

Farra Trompeter: That’s great. Well, I’m afraid we need to wrap things up. If you want to learn more about the great work of Brooklyn Community Services, be sure to check out wearebcs.org, and if you’d like to connect with Raine, you can find her on LinkedIn. I’m going to spell her name because she has an E on the end there. So it’s R-A-I-N-E-M-A-R-T-I-N, Raine Martin. We’ll link to that. All of these things and more in the show notes, there’s lots of great things you’ve dropped that we can connect to about using branding and communications for recruitment and retention. You’ve talked about other internal communications; we’ve done other podcasts on this, so go to bigduck.com/insights to get links to more resources on these topics. And Raine, before we go, anything else you’d like to share? Is there one last piece of advice or thought you have on this topic?

Raine Martin: I just kind of want to double down on what you highlighted earlier. It’s that in order for staff to be seen, they have to see you. They have to know that this is not a one-way channel. Your being interested in them helps them be more interested in you.

Farra Trompeter: Great. Love it. Well, everyone have a great day out there, and let’s improve our communications both internally and externally. Have a great day.