MARKETING & COMMS

How to Be the “Queen Bey” of Engaging Internal Communications

When Beyonce’s latest album “Renaissance” was released in July 2022, did you immediately think, “That belongs in our employee newsletter?”

If your answer to that question is no, then you may not be approaching internal communications with the same fun-filled engagement mindset employed by Andy Lyons and Diette Casey at Roper St. Francis Healthcare in Charleston, S.C.

Lyons, the corporate communications director, and Casey, the corporate communications manager, have dubbed themselves “Ambassadors of Fun” for the four-hospital, 657-bed health system—and it’s paid off. For the past three years, Roper St. Francis has been ranked as one of the top 150 places to work by Modern Healthcare—an honor based in large part on how teammates respond to engagement-oriented questions.

And during a live symposium at the Society for Health Care Strategy & Market Development (SHSMD) Connections Conference, being held Sept. 11-14, 2022, in National Harbor, Md., as well as in an accompanying podcast, the pair will offer secrets on how they keep the front line laughing, the senior leaders happy and engagement scores at an all-time high, along with practical tips for adapting their strategies to your own institution. They spearheaded a wholesale change at Roper St. Francis in the area of internal communications, which was a bit disorganized when they arrived.

“We had a beautifully designed magazine-style newsletter for employees that went out once a month in PDF form, but in between, communications was the Wild West,” said Casey, who along with Lyons joined Roper St. Francis nearly 10 years ago, both coming from the world of newspaper reporting. “Everyone was just sending whatever they wanted to communicate as they needed to, because there wasn’t an organized system for communicating with employees in a timely way.”

So, they set to work building that system, starting with a regularly updated Wordpress-based employee news site that they dubbed Vital Signs, followed by a templated format for regular e-news updates, which are usually sent two to three times per week. In addition, they made sure to make these communications fun with their own humorous touches.

“Andy and I both love the Olympics,” Casey said. “So, when we just had the Summer Olympics, you better believe that we had a Simone Biles–themed email. And several years ago, when Michael Phelps was winning all those golds, we had an email where we managed to tie internal messages that needed to be shared with the Olympics.”

More recently, they used that new Beyonce album—and the inspiration to get up and dance—to promote a newsletter story about the deadline to sign up for the system’s “Wellness Works” program and “save some bills, bills, bills!”

When employees were slogging through a tough transition to the Epic electronic health record for ambulatory care, a news update came with a “Good Will Hunting” meme depicting Matt Damon saying, “You using Dragon with Epic yet? Dr. O. says it’s wicked good.”

Fortunately, Dr. O.—the system’s vice president and chief medical officer for ambulatory care, Robert Oliverio, MD—shares a great sense of humor with Roper St. Francis’ other leaders, who good-naturedly participate in the communications team’s efforts.

“Last December, we did a holiday video with all of our senior leaders, where they put on headphones and sang a mashup of holiday carols like ‘Winter Wonderland,’” Casey said. “Then we did a recap of the year, which included more serious nuggets of accomplishments and thank-yous, followed by zany outtakes at the end. It wasn’t just a CEO sitting in front of a green screen talking about the year.”

Another video featured the system’s CEO, chief nursing officer and chief operations officer riding around the hospital campus in a golf cart, mimicking James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke” and singing songs like John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” while they provided the latest updates.

“It’s like dessert,” Lyons said. “Your internal comms can’t all be vegetables and protein. You need to serve up something sweet and fun as well. That could be a pop-culture reference, family photos from your team or a zany TikTok dance. Your messages can make work fun.

How can you become your own institution’s “Ambassador of Fun?” Casey and Lyons have a few tips:

• Be authentic and find your own voice. “What works for us might not work for you. This isn’t a copy–paste formula,” Casey said. “We love music and pop culture, so we do a lot of that, but if you’re not really into that, it’s not going to work. Find what you love and embrace and incorporate that.” Lyons added, “Ours has always been kind of a tone of gracious and kind with a little bit of fun and quirkiness and oddness like mixed in. But the more comfortable you are with your voice, the more efficient and effective you’ll be in sharing difficult news or telling employees what they need to know during difficult times. And that’s a great way to build and maintain culture.”
• Expect an evolution. “Your emails won’t go overnight from formal and structure to wild and crazy, and they shouldn’t. That’s not going to resonate with an audience,” Casey noted. “Take time to make it a priority and realize when you’re slipping into standard corporate communication.”
• Value transparency. Be the first to explain what’s happening to your employees. “They need to hear it from your corporate communications office first, not from the media, not from a friend or a loved one or a neighbor down the street,” Lyons said. “And transparency isn’t just sharing the bad news first. It’s also responding to any sort of feedback that you receive, like trying your very best to answer that question or address the issue of the day that comes up.”
• Be comfortable in blowing up your plan for the day. “I can’t tell you how many times Diette and I think we know what we’re going to share one day with our employees or our physicians, and we realize there’s this little fire burning over here,” Lyons said. “And we need to address that, and you’ll save yourself heartache and you’ll maintain the trust of your employees, and you’ll build culture if you jump on those immediate needs.”

How will you know you’re reaching people? You’ll see it in your views and open rates, according to Casey.

“Our Vital Signs website has seen an increase in views every year; last year, we had 775,000 views on that site with a health care system of 6,000 teammates,” she said. “And our open rate for employee emails—believe it or not—is 90%. People know that when they get these communications, they’re going to be fun and there’s going to be something valuable in them. And so, it all works together. Think of yourself in corporate communications as the keeper of your institution’s culture. It’s your job to set the tone of the organization and help people engage.”

This article features interviews with:

Diette Casey
Corporate Communications Manager
Roper St. Francis Healthcare

Andy Lyon
Director of Corporate Communications & Content Strategy
Roper St. Francis Healthcare

 

Learning More

• Register soon for SHSMD Connections 2022 in-person conference this September in DC and attend this breakout session, “How to be the Queen Bey of Engaging Internal Communications.”
• To hear more from Diette Casey and Andy Lyons via a preview of their presentation topic at this year’s SHSMD Connections conference, click here to listen to their recent SHSMD Rapid Insights podcast episode.
• Read this SHSMD blog post “Creating an Environment for Retention with Internal Communications”.