An overlooked ally
Works councils in Europe: an opportunity for IC You’ve worked on an initiative for weeks. Near the launch date, you’re on a planning call with your international support team, and someone in Europe asks, “Have you cleared this with works councils?” You wonder, what’s a works council? If you don’t know the answer, I’ve […]
“Thanks for having me!”
I am a regular guest on podcasts, webinars and blogs. Below is a selection. If you’d like me to contribute to any of your channels, please get in touch (contact below).
Shining a light on shadow localization
Independent channels for local comms are inevitable. Can we improve quality and reduce rogue messaging? We know “shadow IT” to be the technical workarounds that people devise without the approval of the IT department, like a WhatsApp group that employees use for work topics. “Shadow localization” is a close relative. Local workplaces devise their own […]
The Corporate Newsroom is Dead
Photo by Kevin Grieve on Unsplash If we’re serious about Diversity and Inclusion, we need to enable other voices I was once talking with a woman who grew up in Romania, and she was telling me about how people there used to regard the news. She told me that before 1989, hardly anyone believed state […]
Rest of World tells USA: we don’t care about your bracket
In the next few days, a much-loved national basketball tournament will start in the US, and on countless conference calls originating there, the first few minutes will be spent talking about scores and how participants’ predictions are faring in the local office pool. They call their selections their ‘bracket.’ Many people’s bracket will be ‘busted’ […]
Corporate goals vs. local realities
In global companies, there’s frequent tension between corporate functions and local business units. In formal communications, the corporate office may stress the company’s purpose and mission, safety performance, or its commitment to sustainability. Yet when local leaders communicate with employees, they talk about what drives performance metrics (and their annual bonus). Drivers for local businesses […]
Culture is local
Corporate communication departments often cite company culture, thinking it something that everyone feels. They should give that a rest. We must be careful not to confuse company culture as it is expressed in the head office with a global corporate culture. Despite the appeal of a unified corporate culture, national culture still matters more. When […]
Is your company really “English only”?
This post is an adapted excerpt from my new book, Localizing Employee Communications: A Handbook (Content Wrangler/XML Press, 2020). Many companies rely on English as their corporate language. But is it really working? Whenever I’ve seen measures of engagement with digital corporate channels, employees outside the home office aren’t paying those channels much attention (to […]
