8:00 a.m.
Continental Breakfast & Networking

8:30 a.m.
Chairperson’s Opening Of Day Two

Chris Gay, Principal
BRIDGE CONSULTING
Conference Chairperson

8:35 a.m.

Simplifying Your Communication Using The Latest Social Media Tools To Transform Your Internal Communication Function To Increase Its Impact On Delivering Business Results

ConAgra Foods’ internal communication (IC) function is in the midst of a major transformation that will better position it to drive improved business results and add more measurable value to the company. The IC function has stripped out time and cost-depleting work of little value so it can focus its efforts on helping the company connect employees directly to the financial and operating strategies of the business.

As a result, the IC function has helped strengthen leaders’ communication skills, and increased the effectiveness and impact of communication channels in engagement and behavior change.

During this innovative session, you will learn how the new IC function can:

• Simplify the communication experience for employees: reducing the number of communication channels and migrating to an Enterprise Social Networking approach using Yammer
• Foster two-way communication and executive visibility: leveraging social media to drive immediate conversations around real business issues and harness the power of crowdsourcing and ideation. Leaders empower employees through their blogs, online chats and real-time recognition.
• Improve leadership communication competence: incorporating communication expectations into performance and employee engagement measures by delivering highly-interactive leader town halls using Yammer, and engage leaders in a private social group with “Smart Talk” resources to help them improve conversations with their teams
• Generate real-time news and information: adapting ConAgra Foods’ communication practices to align with how employees get information every day in their personal lives—customized and in real time

Susan Christensen, Senior Director, Communication & External Relations
CONAGRA FOODS

Erin Grotts, Communications Professional
CONAGRA FOODS
Twitter: @eringrotts

Sue Christensen, Senior Director, Communication & External Relations
CONAGRA FOODS

9:05 a.m.

How To Create Strong Employee Engagement Among Your Individual Brands & Educate Employees To Cultivate The Enterprise Brand

Scripps Networks Interactive is the leader in lifestyle media in the home, food, travel and entertainment categories. Delivering content across a host of media platforms, their brands – flagship among them HGTV and Food Network – connect with viewers to provide relevant ideas, information and solutions every day, everywhere. Through its corporate social responsibility and diversity and inclusion efforts, Scripps is committed to making a positive difference for those they come into contact with every day.

Like many corporate entities made up of strong individual brands coupled with rapid growth, Scripps was struggling to create strong engagement among employees outside of the core brands for which they work, as well as educate employees to cultivate broad enterprise understanding. They had wide gulfs of awareness and empathy along with siloed thinking and action. What they didn’t have was consensus on what the brand was and how to direct employee engagement. In response, the Employee Engagement team came up with a multi-tiered brand infusion program to change that.

In this session, you will learn in detail on how they concepted, built, launched and tracked the success of several of their key programs, including the: Food Network Kitchen Cafeteria and activities; HGTV Home Studio indoor and outdoor design work and activities; & brand engagement activities including Cupcake Wars, Design Star, Scripps Got Talent and “the Insider” contest.

These initiatives have helped decrease recruiting time, increase retention, increase enterprise understanding scores and created a lot of great memories, and is sure to leave you inspired!

Jerilyn Bliss, Vice President of Corporate Communications
SCRIPPS NETWORKS INTERACTIVE, INC.

9:35 a.m.

Idea Exchange: Questions, Feedback, Collaboration

9:45 a.m.

Morning Refreshment & Networking Break

9:55 a.m.

Brainstorming Session: Engaging 21st Century Employees

Discuss what tools you are using in your organization successfully to inform and include your employees in the day-to-day tasks of your organization. Share common obstacles you have overcome in getting your employees involved.

10:25 a.m.

Inspiring And Connecting Your Employees To
Your Employer Brand: How To Build A Full
Platform Of Social Media Tools To Engage,
Inform & Align Employees To The Organization

As one of the largest US health system’s with 46,000 employees, 16 hospitals and 400 physician practices across metro New York, North Shore-LIJ is a talent magnet for a diverse range of front-line employees - from physicians, to nurses, administrative professionals and every support associate in between. With more than 8,000 new hires joining the company annually, the majority of whom are Gen Y "Millennials", there's a unique opportunity to connect employees to the organization’s mission, vision, values and purpose and engage them as brand ambassadors from the very beginning.

But, as with most large organizations, the onboarding and management of new employees is laborious and doesn't lend itself to a very engaging experience. With the belief that everyone from a potential candidate to a seasoned employee should be actively engaged with the employer brand, vision and values, and have an outlet to connect with the company, North Shore-LIJ built a full platform of social tools to engage, inform and align employees to the organization - even before they start working.

In this session, geared towards any communicator involved in Employee Communications, you will learn how to use practical tools to engage new hires through social media and storytelling, specifically:

• Why it’s so important to connect with employees early, and often
• How to leverage digital and social tools on a budget
• Tricks to making homegrown communications impactful, such as videos and blogs
• Strategies to help motivate resistant stakeholders to invest in social media
• How to leverage internal “champions” to boost social media engagement

Ally Bunin, AVP, Internal Communications
NORTH SHORE-LIJ HEALTH SYSTEM

10:55 a.m.

How To Enable A Smarter Workforce Through
A Social Business Adoption Strategy

According to Gartner, 80% of social business efforts will not achieve intended benefits through 2015.  Companies that fail at implementing a successful social business strategy do not typically fail for lack of implementing technology, but they do fail because of cultural issues. This means that the leaders of social business initiatives need to shift their emphasis away from deciding which technology to implement. Instead, they should focus on identifying how social initiatives will improve work practices for both individual contributors and managers. They need a detailed understanding of social networks: how people are currently working, who they work with and what their needs are.

We are social beings by nature but to change the culture in an organization, employees need to learn how to use the new tools gradually or they may not learn how to use them at all. Employees will not use something unless there is a clear and real benefit to them.

Organizations must develop a social media strategy that gradually introduces social media practices into daily practices.  From creating social business vision to appointing social champion and recruiting social ambassadors, organizations must have an adoption strategy that makes social business part of the culture. 

Key takeaways from this session will include how to:

• Transform a workforce under immense change to embrace a new way of communications and create social connection
• Use a social business framework to build trust in a changing workforce
• Understand the challenges of changing a culture to embrace social connections
• Implement social communications themes to engage your workforce

Michael Anton, Communications and Social Media Consultant
IBM GLOBAL BUSINESS SERVICES

11:25 a.m.

Idea Exchange: Questions, Feedback, Collaboration

11:35 a.m.

Strategy Shouldn’t Be Shelved: How To Engage Your Employees And Bring Your Strategy To Life

If your employees can rattle off your organization’s vision, that’s great, but do they know how it’s going to be achieved? Today’s leaders realize that even the strongest of strategic plans are dependent on employee execution. So how can we, as communications professionals, bring business strategy to life? In a word, storytelling. While the format of a strategic plan may be in slides and bullets, there is a narrative behind the charts that guided its creation. Our job is to ensure that narrative emerges from the pages and is used to engage employees. 

After Exelis, a Fortune 500 defense and aerospace company, spun off from ITT Corporation at the end of 2011, they were at a critical juncture when they needed to engage employees and ensure they understood where the company was going and how they could help get the company there. Specifically, the Electronic Systems Division has a very diverse portfolio, including jammers, radars and satellite communications systems, and this diversity—coupled with significant leadership changes in 2012—left employees struggling with understanding their direction and how they fit into the future.

To help assert the leadership of the new division president and provide the direction employees were hungry for, they distilled the 100+ page strategic plan to one, two-sided “Strategy Snapshot” and created several tools to support it. Before the start of this initiative, only 35% of employees were familiar with the strategy, and since the introduction of the Strategy Snapshot, 95% of employees said they found the piece helpful in understanding the Division’s capabilities and goals/strategies.

During this session, you will hear the story of how Exelis brought their strategy to life, including:

• Questions your communications should answer
• Tips on communicating strategy
• How one size doesn’t fit all
• Which audiences can benefit beyond employees
• Engaging employees in the front end as well at the back end of strategy

Courtney Reynolds, Director, Communications
EXELIS (Electronic Systems Division)

12:05 p.m.

How To Align Your Employee Engagement Strategy With Your Organization’s External Brand

Nationwide Children’s Hospital is recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of “America’s Best Children’s Hospitals.” They are committed to extending their brand of “Everything Matters” to the way they communicate with and engage their employees.

During this session, you will hear about the strategies and tactics that have helped build a winning employee engagement program at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. In addition, you will gain valuable insight into how to:

• Conduct a comprehensive communication audit, including an in-depth look at the needs of your diversified audience segments
  
• Develop a holistic message and channel strategy, with a focus on storytelling and customization for various work environments
  
• Define a holistic, yet personalized, executive communication strategy to increase leadership visibility and enrich employee engagement
  
• Engage employees in a new strategic framework designed to further organizational growth and national acclaim, while recognizing the employees that are critical to that success

Daryl Barker, Marketing & Public Relations Manager
NATIONWIDE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL

Chris Gay, Principal
BRIDGE CONSULTING

12:35 p.m.

Idea Exchange: Questions, Feedback, Collaboration

12:45 p.m.
Chairperson's Recap: Key Takeaways And What To Do When You Get Back To The Office

We’ll recap the highlights of the past two days and ask you to share key insights and next steps with the group.

Chris Gay, Principal
BRIDGE CONSULTING
Conference Chairperson

1:00 p.m. 
Close of General Sessions

Complete your conference experience with
Post-Conference Workshop D!

Take the information you gained from the general sessions and focus on your individual needs and applications. You will leave this hands-on workshop inspired and ready to embark on your own social media journey.

2:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.:
How To Build A Compelling Internal Branding Strategy, Develop More Effective Messaging And Motivate Your People To Deliver On Your Organization’s Brand Promise

Please click here for more info!