8:00 a.m.
Registration & Continental Breakfast

8:30 a.m.

Chairperson’s Welcome & Speed Networking

Become acquainted with your fellow conference attendees in this fun and fast-paced forum!

Allan Steinmetz, Founder and CEO
INWARD STRATEGIC CONSULTING
Conference Chairperson

9:15 a.m.

Chairperson’s Presentation: How To Operationalize Employees To Understand, Be Motivated, Inspired And Engaged Through Effective Internal Branding, Messaging And Fresh Creative Ideas

Companies are losing millions of dollars of potential revenue by not having an engaged workforce which translate to poor customer experiences. Looking at research and data can illustrate why employee brand engagement should become a corporate imperative. By building a case for employee brand engagement it will help companies cut back on unengaged workforces and poor customer experiences.

In addition, exploring how organizations can take advantage of new ideas in internal branding planning that yield stronger employee engagement and commitment that ultimately saves time, money and effectiveness. The benefits of using these new approaches are: more enthusiastic employees, greater understanding of the company's vision, improved commitment and new employee behavior that supports the company's goals.

This presentation will present new ideas and frameworks for:

1. Illustrate a process for building an internal brand strategy and communications plan
2. Project management ideas
3. Enrolling internal stakeholders and building consensus
4. Measurement tools

Allan Steinmetz, Founder and CEO
INWARD STRATEGIC CONSULTING
Conference Chairperson

9:45 a.m.

Your Opportunity To Ask Questions

9:50 a.m.

How To Attract & Retain Top-Performing Employees:
Building A Company Culture That Makes "Cents"

Rewind 13 years ago to when Assurance was just like every other independent insurance brokerage. Nothing set them apart, including their financials. If they wanted to survive in this cutthroat industry, they needed to realign their focus and rethink their communication strategies and tactics. That's why they transformed the internal culture and profitability of Assurance through a brand overhaul and created a best place to work environment.

With over 25 awards on their shelves, Assurance’s ability to leverage employees and make them the face of their brand is what catapulted their success in creating and promoting a best place to work culture.

The concept sounds simple enough, but on the whole, businesses worldwide have had a rough go the past few years with layoffs, budget freezes and smaller profit margins. With the economy limping along, many organizations feel they can’t afford to invest heavily in employee benefits, perks, celebrations and culture to attract and retain top-performing employees. What many executives don’t realize is that company culture makes cents – meaning the long-term financial benefits far outweigh the initial expenses associated with forming a company culture that’s also a best place to work.

During this session, you will learn how Assurance invested in and built a brand around their employees by:

• Creating a work environment that employees are happy to be a part of
• Giving employee’s rock star status and what do rock stars want more of? - publicity and recognition
• Initiating wellness programs that decrease absenteeism rates, improved overall productivity and have a long-term impact on health insurance costs

10:20 a.m.

Your Opportunity To Ask Questions

10:25 a.m.

Morning Refreshment & Networking Break

10:45 a.m.

Digest Session: Your Conference Goals

This is your chance to discuss with fellow attendees and speakers what your most pressing employee brand engagement concerns are and what solutions you hope to gain while here.

11:15 a.m.

Infusing Social Media Into Your Traditional Employee Communications Program: How To Drive Team Engagement At Every Level Of Your Organization

Over the past 87 years, Grainger has established itself as a leading distributor of the products businesses and institutions need to keep their facilities running. Their tag line, “For the Ones Who Get It Done”, reflects the passion their 18,000 employees around the world have in serving customers and communities every day and during emergencies.

The company serves customers through multiple channels – branches, the phone, and online. To have empowered and energized team members at every level, Grainger has
used multiple vehicles over the years to highlight the company’s vision and celebrate team members who get it done. Over the past few years, Grainger has used social media vehicles internally to advance the dialogue.

Don’t miss this inside look at how Grainger communicates to its employees in the United States. You’ll see how your organization can also:

• Use social media vehicles in conjunction with face-to-face and other communication channels
• Set the right expectations with leaders and employees
• Celebrate community programs and events using social media to further employee engagement and the internal brand

Anjali Reddy, Director, Internal Communications
GRAINGER

11:45 a.m.

Your Opportunity To Ask Questions

11:50 a.m.

Building Internal Brand Awareness In A Competitive Market: How Special Events and Organizational History Can Bring Employees Together

The Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University is Georgia's first and only Cancer Center designated by the National Cancer Institute. This designation marks Winship as one of the top cancer facilities in the nation. Winship earned this designation in 2009 and again in 2011. Atlanta is a highly competitive health care market with several hospitals and hospital systems competing for the attention of Atlanta's 5.5 million people. Many of these hospital systems began building and advertising their cancer treatment services beginning in 2005/2006. In addition, since Atlanta is a hub for Delta and other airlines, out-of-state facilities such as MD Anderson, The Mayo Clinic, and Cancer Treatment Centers of America have begun heavy advertising campaigns in the Atlanta market. While the name Emory is very well known and carries good recognition, studies showed that the name "Winship Cancer Institute" had only a 2 percent name recognition in the Atlanta market.

In working to build Winship Cancer Institute’s brand awareness (on a very limited budget), formal and informal surveys among Winship's growing faculty, nursing and administrative staff indicated that there was very little recognition of who Robert Winship was and why it mattered that the facility was named after him.

This session will highlight how you can engage leadership to build internal brand awareness and reinforce how:

• Traditional and non-traditional communications tools involving leadership result in a better understanding of the goals of the organization
• A clear articulation of who you are and what you stand for benefits your entire organization
• Building a strong internal brand ambassador program that includes special events can increase reach into a highly competitive market
• Empowering staff at all levels to be creative brand ambassadors helps to build loyalty and retain and attract talented people

Vincent J. Dollard, APR, Associate Vice President, Communications
Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center
WINSHIP CANCER INSTITUTE OF EMORY UNIVERSITY

12:20 p.m.

Your Opportunity To Ask Questions

12:25 p.m.
Lunch On Your Own -- But Not Alone!

Join a group of your colleagues for a themed lunch with an informal discussion surrounding an employee brand engagement hot topic! Take this opportunity to join others in a small, interactive group setting to network and brainstorm solutions to your most pressing employee brand engagement concerns.

2:00 p.m.

Digest Session: Connect The Content

We’ve heard from a number of speakers, now we’d like to hear from you. Network and discuss with fellow conference attendees and speakers what communication tools you’re using to help your employees connect with your brand and where you have found the most success.

2:30 p.m.

How To Gain Senior Level Support For A Transformation Of Your Internal Communications Function That Creates Cost-Saving Improvements While Connecting Employees

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. It’s a strategy that improves organizational performance by focusing on customer requirements—from the marketplace to the workplace.

Endorsed by the CEO and leadership team, 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 line managers create significant improvements in safety, quality, yield loss, warehouse damage, productivity and turnover -- the IC function’s primary goal: create big dollar improvements at the least cost.

During this innovative session, you will learn how the new IC function garnered support from the company’s senior leadership team and line managers throughout the company while:

• Re-inventing its business by shifting its focus from output to business outcomes
• Prioritizing work based on the value it can deliver to the enterprise
• Building new skills and knowledge among function employees
• Adopting open book management principles to better connect employees and their work to the financial goals
• Organizing and delivering work as an internal consultancy
• Creating business- relevant ways to measure success
• Integrating with other functions, including HR

Teresa Paulsen, Vice President of Communication and External Relations
CONAGRA FOODS

Jim Shaffer, Leader
JIM SHAFFER GROUP

3:00 p.m.

Your Opportunity To Ask Questions

3:05 p.m.

Afternoon Refreshment & Networking Break

3:20 p.m.

How Social Media Can Turn The Traditional Enterprise
Portal Upside Down

Whirlpool Corporation, a global leader in the home appliance industry has been a leader in innovation space for more than 10+ years. With regional innovation teams working throughout Whirlpool's Global footprint the company faced the challenge of connecting teams, sharing the tools and information necessary to drive innovation, and embedding best practices throughout the Globe. From the need to continue to strengthen innovation practices, Whirlpool and Rightpoint developed the iHub (Innovation Hub), as virtual library and connection point to engage with the internal target audience. Less than a year into the launch Whirlpool has learned some lessons, faced some challenges, and begun to see how iHub will help to shape the company's innovation communities' future.

This session will lay out a model for the next generation Social Intranet environment and share approaches to make it truly social through advance sharing and curation capabilities. You will hear how Whirlpool engaged their employees and drove user adoption using social computing inside their four walls.

Laura Christman, Global Innovation Manager
WHIRLPOOL

Jeff Willinger, Director of Collaboration, Social Computing and Intranets
RIGHTPOINT

3:50 p.m.

Your Opportunity To Ask Questions

3:55 p.m.

Digest Session: Your Experience With Employee Brand Engagement

Thinking back to the presentations you’ve heard, and your personal experience, discuss with your fellow attendee’s and speakers an example of the most successful employee brand engagement you’ve experienced with your employees.

4:25 p.m.

How To Engage And Motivate Employees When Faced With New Competition

Royal Mail (the British Postal Service) has over 360 years of corporate history. It is well respected globally, and is the United Kingdom’s most trusted brand. As a state-owned business, it employs over 180,000 people – delivering to EVERY home and business in the UK, every day.

In 2006, the UK postal market was open to competition for the first time ever. Competitors invested in delivery networks and started selling solutions at lower cost – cherry picking the lucrative clients.

In the face of this new competitive environment, Royal Mail needed a way to engage and motivate their workforce. Seeking to make their employees ambassadors for the business, they decided that a new sales lead referrals program was the way forward. The aim was to boost morale and identify possible leads to give Royal Mail the competitive advantage. They called it the "Watch and Win" program.

In this unique international case study presentation, you will learn about:

1. The brand development and the launch processes
2. How employees were energized and motivated
3. How ordinary postal workers became brand ambassadors
4. How success was measured and how employees were rewarded

Christian Petersen, Sales Referrals Manager
ROYAL MAIL

Carol Whitworth, Creative Director
HOME

4:55 p.m.

Your Opportunity To Ask Questions

5:00 p.m.
End of Day One

5:05 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 networking. 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 Chicago's fine dining while you continue to network with your colleagues.