44 Team 2023

Our regular look at some of the top news, views and opinions from around the wonderful world of IC…

Awareness days, weeks and months are great for internal comms. They’re perfect for the promotion of important issues across a business, and a great way to help clients connect with their people. They include themes such as Stress Awareness, World Book Day, Pride and Earth Day to name just a few.

On 8 March, it was International Women’s Day – something most businesses are happy to get behind. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate the fabulous women in their workplace?

If you’re an IC professional, you may have even helped your clients celebrate using this year’s theme #InspireInclusion.

But was that really this year’s theme?

Well, if you were steered towards the self-proclaimed marketers of International Women’s Day, then yes it was.

But if you follow the theme promoted by the United Nations, this year it was actually ‘Invest in women: Accelerate progress’.

So what is going on here?

It’s a pretty surprising story.

The fact is that the International Women’s Day website – the one you’re likely to have seen with all the logos and women making heart signs with their hands – is owned and run by a self-appointed marketing agency with absolutely no affiliation whatsoever to the United Nations.

#InspireInclusion has been dreamed up by a team  who have decided it’s a great way to commercialise the event. And to be fair, they are doing a pretty good job – if you Google International Women’s Day, it’s their site that’ll come straight to the top.

If you want more info on how we’ve been fooled, you could do worse than read this LinkedIn post by Clare Josa. And check out the comments and replies – if you fell for it, you’re definitely not alone.

Time to ditch employee surveys?

There are some interesting thoughts on employee surveys from author and IC expert Kevin Ruck.

He questioned whether companies should think about ditching them in favour of giving people the chance to express their views on digital platforms.

“The potential use of internal digital platforms for hearing employees’ concerns and ideas is significant. But can (or should) we wean organisations off the annual survey?” asked Kevin.

He said that, maybe, instead of using internal digital platforms as a broadcast tool, we ought to be using them as way of listening to feedback. And he says the fast-developing AI tools for analysing employee voices could be a shortcut to generating what he calls ‘deep insights’.

And the Oscar for title design goes to…

Finally, this one’s a bit niche, but a nod to our brilliant design team here at 44 – and all of the other fabulous graphic designers working in internal comms.

London design house ‘It’s Nice That‘ has posted an article celebrating the fabulous work of those people that create film titles.

They ask, ‘Should there be an Oscar for title design?’. And the answer is obvious. Maybe we should start a campaign. It’s really all about brilliant communication.

Any thoughts this month’s topics? Drop us a line or comment below, and we’ll be back with more IC news next month.