8:00 a.m.
Registration & Continental Breakfast

8:30 a.m.

Chairperson’s Welcome & Speed Networking

This fun and fast-paced forum is designed to provide you with a unique and fun opportunity to share your goals for this conference while getting to know your fellow conference attendees and their most pressing concerns.

David Moorcroft, Principal, Co-founder
Strategy2Communications
Conference Chairperson

9:00 a.m.

How To Engage Your Employees So That
Their Behavior Represents Your Values,
Mission, Brand And Business Strategy, And
Measure Your Level Of Employee Engagement

Creating an authentic brand goes beyond developing a catchy tagline or eye-catching logo.  An effective brand encapsulates an organization’s mission, vision and customer promise.  Employees can be your organization’s best brand advocate yet many organizations ignore leveraging this powerful marketing resource. 

In this session, you will hear how Meridian, Ontario’s largest credit union, successfully fostered a highly-engaged and enthusiastic workforce that not only advocates the brand but lives it with every customer interaction.

More importantly, in this session, you will hear how to measure how engaged your own employees are.  They too play an instrumental role in driving ROI. Since its creation in 2005, Meridian has aggressively grown its assets under management from $3 to $12 billion. Employee brand ambassadors were the secret ingredient that fueled this industry leading growth.

During this interactive session, you will learn how Meridian took five essential steps in creating an award-winning employee brand ambassador program, including how they:

1. Created a brand voice
2. Defined brand behaviors
3. Celebrated successes aligned to the brand
4. Created two-way communications programs
5. Managed and measured employee engagement

Scott Windsor, Vice President, Corporate Communications
MERIDIAN CREDIT UNION

9:30 a.m.

Leveraging Technologies To Meet Your Internal Communications Goals

Reduce, reuse and recycle isn’t just a mantra for going green. Integrated technologies and communications tools will make it easier to get your communications job done efficiently and maintain your messages throughout.

Online media can be used to engage staff, stakeholders, and even politicians who are already online and can be merged with your print tools and even your electronic media campaigns. All it takes is a little creativity.

In this session, you’ll hear some ideas and tips to bring creativity and energy to your internal communications and link it to your external tools, such as:

• Selecting the right online tools for your organization and for the message at hand
• Making efficient use of your content

Take a step back to the basics of communication and use this session to help spark some imagination and creativity at the same time.

Mike Spear, Director of Corporate Communications
GENOME ALBERTA

10:00 a.m.

Questions, Feedback, and Collaboration

10:10 a.m.

Morning Refreshment & Networking Break

10:30 a.m.

Building Your Internal Brand To Motivate
Employees, Develop A Positive Culture And
Create A Winning Organization

Canada has been one of the fastest growth markets for American Express' international business. It's no coincidence that the company also ranks high in its internal employee engagement scores and has received external recognition as one of the best employers in the country.

American Express Canada places strong emphasis on building employee engagement and runs a robust employee communication program that considers its own people as a key target audience.
During this session, you will hear about the strategies and tactics that have helped build a winning organization at AMEX Canada. In addition, you will gain valuable insight into:

• Building employee engagement, commitment and motivation using a focused internal communications program built around your core brand philosophy
• Applying the principals used in building your external brand to developing a clear proposition for internal audiences that supports the development of a positive culture and winning organization

Jolene Sonshine, Manager, Public Affairs & Communications
American Express Canada

11:00 a.m.

Executives Go Digital -- Surefire Strategies That Motivate Company Leaders To Participate In Your Electronic Internal Communications Initiatives

Company leaders are integral to internal communications. And so is digital media. However, internal communications pros need proper tactics, tools, training, timing, and insight into the mind of the boss to successfully bring together company leaders and digital media -- and help executives skillfully and enthusiastically enter the electronic age.

Digital media has made the jump from frivolous, fleeting, social media for the Millennial Facebook Generation to an accountable, lasting, business platform that’s required for every executive’s communications arsenal.

In this session, you will learn strategies and tools that will help you show busy executives what’s in it for them, i.e., efficient, hard-hitting, and even some free-of-cost platforms for imparting strategy and vision, for reaching employees globally, and even for high-touch employee recognition.

We’ll discuss simple, compelling, and measurable tactics for converting doubters, the time-pressed, and the hesitant with effective tailored programs that enable them get the word out more pervasively, timely, and clearly than via traditional channels alone -- and enjoy the experience to boot.

Take this opportunity to learn universal applicable experiences of robust and successful executive digital internal communications campaigns, including how to:

• Demonstrate return on investment: How digital media is worth executives’ time and energy
• Determine the right software for the job depending on your own digital-media fluency, your budget, your audience (and the digital media silver bullet)
• Engage, motivate and address inherent human need for status, recognition, prestige, and attention:  Social media + a professional setting = ideal venue for employees to gain respect of the boss (and for the boss to gain respect of employees)
• Establish a brand that employees want to “follow”; maintaining a consistent, authentic executive voice; encouraging employee and executive two-way dialogue via electronic media
• Improve, monitor, measure, and refine the effectiveness of your digital communications

Nicole Rutledge, Digital Executive Communications Specialist
Philips Healthcare

11:30 a.m.

Questions, Feedback, and Collaboration

11:40 a.m.

Internal Communications Challenges and Solutions:
Benchmark With Your Peers

This is your chance to discuss with fellow attendees and speakers what your most pressing internal communication concerns are and what solutions you hope to gain during this training.  We will address the group’s list of issues and questions throughout the conference.  All participants will be encouraged to contribute to the discussions.

12:15 p.m.
Lunch On Your Own -- But Not Alone!

Join a group of your colleagues for lunch with an informal discussion based on an internal communications hot topic. Take this opportunity to join others in a small, interactive group setting to network and brainstorm solutions to your most pressing internal communications concerns.

1:45 p.m.

How To Tell If You Hit The Jackpot With Your Employee Engagement Campaign

RBC is one of the most respected banks in the world, one of the ‘Best Workplaces in Canada” and is considered one of “Canada’s Greenest Employers.” The company launched its flagship donations program, the RBC Blue Water Project, in 2007 and hosts an annual “Blue Water Day” to engage 80,000 employees globally in the cause. 
 
In 2013, RBC Blue Water Day achieved record employee engagement results, thanks to a creative campaign concept, clear goal-setting, and a robust employee communication program, with measurement embedded into almost every tactic.
During this session, you will get a behind-the-scenes look at how you can achieve this milestone, including how to:

• Engage an integrated working team from across the organization for maximum impact
• Craft ‘tiered’ communications and toolkits for easier buy-in
• Borrow social media tricks to enhance your data-collection process
• Prove that employees ‘got’ your message

Lynn Patterson, Director, Corporate Responsibility
RBC

2:15 p.m.

How To Engage Employees to Accomplish Strategic Goals

Tired of job expectations and standards of success being all about how busy we are?

Hear about some innovative research into many employee surveys that reveals what really drives engagement and productivity.

See how a focus on the “vital few accelerators” has significant impact on enhancing employee morale and encouraging more discretionary effort to accomplish the organization’s strategic goals.  Now, our time-oppressed workforce can edit their “To-Do” lists to retain only those activities that create positive energy by recognizing and appreciating what is working (success), which produces greater engagement and momentum for change; ultimately achieving “breakthrough” increases in organizational results. 

During this session, you will learn how to:

• Use an appreciative inquiry-based approach to new and ongoing work
• Drive outcomes of employee engagement and leadership effectiveness
• Apply the “vital few accelerators” on-the-job to accomplish strategic goals

Jim Trinka, PhD, Executive Director, Leading EDGE
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

2:45 p.m.

Questions, Feedback, Collaboration

2:55 p.m.

Afternoon Refreshments & Networking Break

3:15 p.m.

Internal Communications Challenges & Solutions:
Benchmark With Your Peers

This is a follow up exercise to discuss with fellow attendees and speakers what your most pressing internal communication concerns are and find solutions to common problems. We will address the group’s list of issues and questions throughout the conference. All participants will be encouraged to contribute to the discussions.

3:45 p.m.

Is Your Communications and Collaboration
Platform Delivering Real Business Value?

Intranets have been the backbone of information and knowledge sharing for years. Lately they've even evolved into enablers of communication and collaboration.  But are they doing the job they should?

This session will focus on understanding what the gold standard for intranets should be and how intranet owners can overcome many common challenges.

You will learn ideas to help you determine:

1. Is the money that you're spending on your communications platform delivering real business value?
2. Is your intranet truly a place where employees go to get work done and find the people and information that they need? Is it one that they would miss desperately if they join another organization?
3. What constitutes success for your intranet?
4. What role is the intranet playing with other organizations to transform culture and business process and help drive efficiency across large organizations?

In this successful case study example, you will hear the innovative approach to intranet strategy and governance that was taken at EXP Global to help employees connect and collaborate. You will walk away with new insights by applying their intranet building process and final product to your own strategy.

Doug Caldwell, CIO
EXP GLOBAL

Shannon Ryan, President and CEO
NON-LINEAR CREATIONS

4:15 p.m.

Questions, Feedback, Collaboration

4:25 p.m.

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS: Ask The Experts Panel

Don’t miss this opportunity to get expert advice on your most pressing issues. Several of today's speakers will be on hand for a lively discussion and debate of today's hot topics and biggest challenges.

5:00 p.m.
End Of Day One

5:15 p.m.

Networking Reception: Please Join Us!

We invite you to join us for a drink as you relax with your peers. All conference attendees and speakers are welcome to join us for this special opportunity to continue connecting, collaborating, and learning. Don't miss this chance to benchmark new ideas over complimentary drinks!

Sign up during the day for dinner with a group. Take advantage of Toronto's fine dining while you continue to network with your colleagues.