Positioning

A COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT NEWSLETTER
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hen we began publishing Positioning 12 years ago, we knew it would become an important extension of our firm. We are proud to have served corporate communications well through Positioning, Positioning Online and our search work for more than 13 years. Please join us in celebrating by perusing this “Best Of” issue, compiled from favorite columns of the past.

Hiring

The hiring process marks the beginning of a long-term investment—in terms of time and money—in the right candidate for your company.

Experts point to a number of reasons [interviews are successful:]

• Evaluating a department and then focusing on the kind of person and personality needed. An evolving department often calls for different things than a first-time function.
• Properly preparing before conducting the interview, including reading the candidate’s material. What do titles mean in other organizations? Does the candidate supervise staff? Budgets?
• Asking open-ended, situational and not easily anticipated questions. Candidates are forced to reveal themselves, rather than simply recite the expected answers.
• Listening to the candidate, and allowing lulls in the conversation.
• Projecting confidence in your colleagues and the interview process, and the ability to move it along swiftly without seeming desperate.

After the Interview: The Follow-Up

Although a post-interview note has become more or less mandatory these days, those hiring public relations/communications professionals expect a letter underscoring the candidate’s skills as a communicator.

Executives admit that even if an individual is not hired, an effective letter (or a poor one) often leaves a lingering impression.

A good letter gives an employer a second chance to think about the candidate’s job qualifications.

• The letter must be reflective of the interview.
• By gaining a sense of the interviewer, one can discern the proper tone and formality of the letter. The formality of the interview also will have a bearing on whether the note is typed or handwritten. One caveat in taking the handwritten route—make sure it is legible.
• Include something that may be beneficial to the interviewer, but don’t use the hard-sell approach.
• Keep the letter short, conversational and grammatically correct.

Retention

Make the right hiring choice and the employee will stay with you. Do the hard work up front, not later.

Candidates who are truly top talent want to be wanted. But, not by just anybody. They will examine you and your business just as closely as you examine them and their resumes. They will be asking tough questions, both of the HR professionals who play a key role in the hiring process and, ultimately, of the person who will be their immediate supervisor. 

Making a time commitment at the start of a new employee relationship, and maintaining an awareness of what top candidates want and need, will result in a hiring choice that promises not only success in the short-term but also that sought after long-term relationship.

While it is obviously impossible to attract the best people without competitive compensation packages, strong training and development programs and a good reputation, those are not the ties that bind employees to your company. What makes them stay is usually just one thing: their manager. People are loyal to people, not to companies.

Both corporations and agencies say they pull out all the stops in retaining quality employees. That’s hardly surprising in light of the economic reality that says that losing a top employee can be an expensive proposition.

Many companies have chosen to address the needs of employees before they get the itch to move on. This includes, in some cases, the adoption of preventive philosophies rather than reactive responses (i.e. counteroffers). A substantial salary increase may retain a wavering employee but for how long until the next offer? Throwing money at an employee to keep him or her can also cause a dangerous precedent.

Still, some firms do know how to attract and keep good people. How do they do it? By winning their people’s loyalty every day. They realize that people in the communications industry crave communication. That employees want to have a sense of belonging. That they want to feel part of the firm’s goals and business strategies. That they are appreciated. That they have a future with the company. The companies that are winning the talent wars provide training and professional development for their employees. And they don’t let top talent sit too long in the same job. They make talented people feel appreciated and at home.

It is far easier, far less expensive and far more beneficial to [all] relationships to keep a constant employee base in today’s volatile business environment.

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Tell us your story!  This issue marks the return of one of our best-received sidebars, a “Worst Ever Interview” Contest. If you were the interviewer or interviewee and have a story, humorous in hindsight, we’d like to hear it! Best stories will appear in future online issues. We can use your name, or keep your submission anonymous.

Please e-mail your stories to positioning@heymanassociates.com.

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ositioning Online made its debut in 2000 and with it came “News from the City,” a forum for discussing communications in Manhattan.  The most poignant topic, and most well-received across the country, was lower Manhattan companies’ accounts of continuing their communications operations after 9/11. We were fortunate to have four communicators contribute their companies’ stories, which originally appeared in our August and October 2002 newsletters. Excerpts follow, and can only approximate the impressive full articles.

9/11: The Lessons Learned
ROBERT DENSEN
Senior Vice President & Director of Corporate Affairs
OppenheimerFunds, Inc.

It’s great to have plans and precepts, but you must be responsive to specific circumstances.  In this case, it was important to remember that we were in the midst of a national crisis with international implications; we were obligated to pick up the phone every where and every time it rang.  At the same time, while we lost space and possessions, we were an extraordinarily fortunate company: all 598 of our World Trade Center employees were safe. Our communications needed to be infused with twin senses of perspective and gratitude.

A crisis is not the time to find out how good your staff is. A large part of our ability to function so well in the aftermath of September 11 goes to the quality of our people and to the large measure of esprit de corps across functions.  In Corporate Affairs, we are committed to the company – and to each other. Whatever needs to get done, frequently irrespective of function, we get done. We share space as easily as we share ideas. And we have an abiding commitment to get this company back and beyond – and to share our learning along the way. 

Communicating September 11^th
I. STEVEN GOLDSTEIN
then Vice President/Chief Communications Officer
Dow Jones & Co.

It was a beautiful morning and business as usual, but only for a moment.

Everyone at Dow Jones realized that the most important thing they could do was provide news to the people of the world in a time of crisis and great loss. Looking back, our strategy–which was developed as events unfolded–was three-fold: make sure our employees were safe and find a way to effectively communicate with them; let the public know that we would publish on September 12 and every weekday thereafter; and to emphasize that Dow Jones is a global company with a global newsgathering operation.

A Company’s Values Put to the Test
PETER THONIS
Senior Vice President, External Communications
Verizon Communications, Inc.

The terrorist attacks last September 11 confronted Verizon with the worst physical disaster in telecommunications’ more than 100-year history.  All three attacks – at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Western Pennsylvania – occurred in Verizon’s service territory.

Tragically, three Verizon employees – two at the World Trade Center and one at the Pentagon – were among the victims who lost their lives in the attacks.

The unprecedented dimensions of this crisis presented an extraordinary challenge to the Verizon Public Affairs and Corporate Communications team.  In addition, as one Verizon executive put it, “the whole world was watching” to see how Verizon would respond to the crisis.  We had to respond immediately, with no margin for error.

We are proud of all that we were able to accomplish, although our pride is tempered by the grief and anger everyone feels over the senseless, tragic loss of so many lives.

We’ve also learned a valuable lesson about how to handle a crisis: Let the actions of your company speak for themselves.  There is no need to seek accolades if you are doing the right thing.

FRANK J. VACCARO
Vice President, Strategic Communications & Editorial Services
American Express Company

In communications and indeed throughout the company, the first priority was to focus on employees and determine their well-being.  The emotional, cathartic [all-employee town hall meeting just nine days later, hosted by Chenault and organized by the communications team,] was a chance for employees to gather strength from coming together, sharing expressions of loss and remembrance and learning about how the company was helping its affected employees, customers and the New York community to recover.

The November announcement that American Express would be returning to its corporate headquarters building in Lower Manhattan brought a new set of communications challenges.  All employees needed to be kept abreast of construction and security issues, plus transportation access and environmental quality.  The communications team delivered regular updates by e-mail on the wide range of issues pertaining to the return to corporate headquarters, including news about the World Financial Center (WFC) neighborhood.

American Express is proud to be back in Lower Manhattan.

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Heyman Associates is among the nation’s leading executive search firms specializing in placing senior-level executives in corporate and marketing communications, public affairs, internal communications, public relations, investor relations and other closely related positions.

Clients include Fortune 500 corporations, professional services firms, public relations agencies, major non-profit organizations and universities.

As a thought-leader, the firm regularly makes presentations about communications industry topics and trends, focusing on the views of senior-level communications professionals and other corporate senior management.

For additional information about Heyman Associates, including Positioning archives, log onto www.heymanassociates.com.

© 2004 Heyman Associates, Inc.