Case Studies - British Council

Objectives

The British Council is the UK's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities and employs around 7000 people in 191 offices in 110 countries.

Following the employee survey, the Internal Communications Team wanted to understand the communication needs of managers and key influencers in more depth so that they could better support them and further increase employee engagement. We agreed the following objectives:

  1. Provide insights on key audience groups: what engages these groups, how they would prefer to be communicated with, and the impact of their communication experiences on their sense of engagement
  2. Identify what is working for these groups and what is not in terms of engagement and communication and identify specific examples of positive and negative communication experiences
  3. Based on these findings, recommend practical steps to communicate better with each of these groups and increase their levels of engagement with the organisation; enable better tailoring and targeting in future communication from the centre.

Approach

Having agreed objectives with the British Council, we conducted ten focus groups with managers and influencers. Since employees are globally scattered, the focus groups were largely conducted by conference call. Our research report provided insights on their experience of internal communication as an employee and as a leader or manager, and on the impact of communication on their sense of engagement.

The report included findings on

  1. Awareness and understanding of direction, the Corporate Plan and performance
  2. Examples of communications that engage and that demotivate
  3. Channels of communication – what's working and what needs to improve
  4. Aspects of the culture of the organisation that hinder it from achieving its full potential
  5. The communication role of leaders and managers
  6. Priorities for improvement (suggested by participants)
  7. Summary of the key issues arising from the research

Outcome

Together with the Internal Communications team at the British Council, we identified five communication and employee engagement priorities that needed to be addressed across the organisation. This included areas such as communicating more regular and specific updates about how the strategic goals are being achieved, creating more means for two-way communication and enabling the organisation to learn from what is working well and not so well.

"We wanted to complete the research swiftly and Hilary worked with us to set up and complete the groups in just a couple of weeks. The research report provided us with valuable insights, ranging from some practical communications changes we could implement quickly to more fundamental cultural challenges. Hilary worked well with the internal communications team to identify the priorities that would have the strongest impact on communication and engagement. Hilary's history of working with other global organisations meant her recommendations were based on real experience."

Mark Herbert, Director of Communications at the British Council