Canada Post and CUPW: when internal communications go external

photo from canadapost.ca

A story in today's Winnipeg Free Press about how "[t]housands of Christmas packages sat undelivered in the former downtown post office as late as New Year's Eve," according to a union official (were all or most of those packages mailed before the Christmas delivery deadline? We don't know...), appears to be the latest shot in the Canadian Union of Postal Workers' (CUPW) campaign to embarrass Canada Post into backtracking on a new initiative to have postal carriers carry more mail on their routes.

Unsurprisingly, some letter carriers don't like the initiative, which requires them to carry a heavier load -- and which, according to the head of Winnipeg's CUPW local Bob Tyre in an interview with the National Post, "obscures the feet from view, causing falls and injuries, and results in back and neck pain."

The Art of War

I have no connection to Canada Post or CUPW, but here are some things I think we can assume the union knows and is willing to use to its advantage:

• its employer's business has dropped since the rise of electronic communication;
• holiday gift packages and greeting cards represent two of the remaining personal communications many Canadians tend to rely on the postal service to deliver;
• the on-time delivery of those parcels and envelopes is a high-stakes matter to Canada Post's consumer clients;
• Canada Post's business clients are fighting huge message overload as they vie for their customers' attention during the holidays -- so the flyers and direct mail they pay Canada Post to deliver on their behalf is crucial (to them), too.

In the National Post story, Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton suggests the union didn't attempt to raise its concerns privately before going public: "There are other avenues where the union could address their concerns, make their views known without hurting or impacting service to Canadians and the businesses that depend on us.”

Dysfunctional relationships over the holidays aren't just at family dinner tables

From the outside, we can't know how this all went down - but we can reflect on the effectiveness of open, two-way dialogue between employers and unions.

An unfortunate fact is that sometimes, companies have to make changes that employees don't like.

And in my experience, management doesn't like to have to make those decisions either. I've worked on a number of communication strategies for layoffs and office closures in my time, and have never once seen an executive happy (or even neutral) about having to do it. They hate it.

The significant human empathy part of it aside, management also knows that happy employees are productive employees. Even if you believe management only cares about the bottom line, you have to recognize that executives are well aware that in the long run, the bottom line benefits from happy employees (and is hurt by unhappy ones).

But if the company's management has analyzed the situation and the unpopular change is the only way it can see achieving long-term success -- which, as Hamilton points out in the National Post, means continued jobs for employees in the first place -- then it's what the company has to do.

One thing we do know: having the spokesperson for the employees' union tell the public through the media that the corporation "doesn't care if they don't cover all their routes anymore," as CUPW's Bob Tyer is quoted as having said in the Winnipeg Free Press, doesn't help build customer confidence. Canada Post's customers have alternatives; I'm sure Mr. Tyer's members hope his words don't send those customers to the competition, reducing demand for their services (and, therefore, their jobs).

It takes two

If a company has a healthy, productive, two-way relationship with its union, it's in a far better place to begin communicating a change employees won't like, because employees aren't immediately on the defensive, thinking "management only cares about making money and doesn't care about us." When corporate communications are open and effective in helping unions and employees see the rationale behind corporate decisions and their long-term benefit, there's a far greater likelihood of acceptance and cooperation (even if the news hurts).

One way a company can help build that kind of cooperative sentiment is to involve employees in the decision-making process; there are always options, and involving employees and/or the union in determining how to implement a change can help build relationships and buy-in.

But that doesn't mean it's all up to the company to make two-way dialogue happen: it really does take two. When a union deals openly and in good faith with the employer, the employer can be more confident in communicating openly and cooperatively with it. When it doesn't, it's tough for the employer to take the leap.

If you don't have both sides working toward productive two-way communication, you get the kind of headlines we've been seeing about Canada Post.

When a newsman sounds like a PR guy

I caught a great interview marketing 2.0 expert Brian Solis did with Dan Farber, Editor-in-Chief of CBSNews.com, about how news organizations have to evolve their approach to their business given the rise of social media.

Here it is, from Solis' (R)evolution series which, in Solis' own words, "connects you to the people, trends, and ideas defining the future of business, marketing, and media."



I shared this link with my colleague, journalism instructor Duncan McMonagle, saying "this newsman sounds a lot to me like a PR guy."

Duncan's reaction: "Uh oh!"

Smart strategy is smart strategy, no matter who's doing it.

"Dark side" jokes aside, Farber makes a lot of statements about what news organizations should be doing in the face of growing competition from Web-based media, which my PR students here at Red River College will tell you are basic tenets of good public relations.

For example, he says CBS News works to ensure its content can be found "where people are congregating." This requires research to determine where your audience is, what its preferences are, and how best to reach it.

PR people have been doing this for decades: understanding the principles of persuasion, we know we need to position our messages such that they offer something our audiences will value, and in ways that make it easy for our audiences to access them.

Sounding even more like a PR guy, Farber also says his business is "all about building relationships now, and trying to engage people."

There was a time when "newsmen" created the news, put it out there, and their audiences simply consumed it. They didn't have much choice: as Farber himself points out, there weren't nearly as many sources for news back then.

But as we all know, the same isn't true today: news comes at us from all angles. It isn't all credible, and it isn't all accurate, but it's there, and it's competing for our attention. The challenge for professional news organizations like CBSNews.com is to break through the noise and protect their audiences from their hundreds of online competitors.

Selling the news isn't much different from selling anything else.

Whether you're selling dog food, a political candidate, a non-profit as a good cause, or your news organization, the best way to build support and loyalty is to build relationships.

Our audiences in 2010 live in a world of unending messages -- coming at them from all sides, at all hours, in every format.

How to break through it all?

First of all, put your messages where your audiences are (for example, Farber knows his audiences use Facebook and Twitter, so his organization maintains profiles on both, with more than a million and a half followers). Don't make them hunt around to find you - they won't. They don't have time. And there are millions of other messages out there, ready to distract them if they try.

Secondly, engage with them. "Engage" is quickly becoming one of those throwaway words that lose their meaning in marketing blather - but its fundamental message is key. (It's also the title of Solis' most recent book.) Loyalty is built on give-and-take, two-way relationships. Give your customers the opportunity to get involved in what you're doing rather than simply watching you do it, and they're far more likely to stick with you.

Mainstream media outlets have a big job ahead of them, as our attention spans grow ever shorter and the media landscape fractures further.

In the long run, I'm betting on journalists like CBSNews.com's Dan Farber.

Deadlines matter

Here's the headline on a story in today's Winnipeg Free Press:

Really.


The story says that, under a new provincial policy effective February 1, 2011, [high school, I assume] teachers in Manitoba "will be allowed to dock students marks for late or missing work."

Congratulations (better late than never!)

In the Creative Communications program here at Red River College, where I teach PR, many instructors have a zero tolerance policy on late assignments. If it's due by 9:00 and you hand it in at 9:01, it's late, and you get an F -- even if the work is brilliant.

Harsh? Maybe. Do we need to do this to instil professional attitudes towards work? For some students, you bet we do. (The others are well-organized, and would hand in their work on time whether there was a strict deadline policy or not.) Either way, we're generally the last stop between these students and the professional workplace; it's a far less painful lesson to learn here than out there, where it counts.

There's a bit of a learning curve on this one with some people, and I don't blame them: I blame the system that has raised them to think deadlines are optional. I can't tell you how many students who've entered our program with undergraduate degrees in hand, have told me they've never been penalized for late assignments.

What's the big deal?

The big deal is that, once you get into the working world (in PR, but I'm sure in many if not most other professions), deadlines matter immensely. And if you haven't had to train yourself to organize your work and manage your time, you're going to have a tough go of it (and potentially lose some great opportunities) because you're unreliable.

The 6:00 news can't start at 6:02.

A proposal due at 2:00 won't be accepted at 2:01.

A job interview may well be cancelled if the interviewer enters the lobby to greet you and finds you're not there on time.

As it happens, I was writing this post as the "Solo PR" chat (a forum for freelance PR folks) was happening on Twitter. Here's one tweet that turned up on my desktop as I was writing:

Even when your deadline doesn't involve a timed broadcast, or an acceptance deadline for a proposal, or an important interview, in PR you have to be on time for everything.

Why? It's not just about showing that you have your act together and are reliable: it's also about showing that you recognize the value of other people's time.

Want to be taken seriously and have credibility as a professional? The first step is to be on time. Always, with everything. Being late for a professional commitment can be humiliating, I've learned (the hard way).

It's never too early

I could never quite believe our educational system had a policy against penalties for late submissions, but now that it's been overturned, all I can say is "phew." I realize that high school is not college or university - but it is where we're supposed to learn all the foundational lessons we'll need to be productive adults (besides the lessons we need to learn at home, that is).

While I'm not a science or math guy particularly, I fully appreciate the value of forcing students to get a well-rounded education before choosing a specialty to build on.

But if you want to know which topics I think are most vital to professional success, time management would be near the top of the list.

Maybe Twitter's "favorite" function needs a new name

Sarah Palin has been taking some heat this week for an offensive tweet which she appeared to have marked as a "favorite" on her Twitter account.

On Twitter, you have the option to mark a tweet in your timeline as a "favorite," making it easier to find again later -- much like a bookmark would for a website.

Here's Twitter's explanation, from its online "Help Center":

"Favoriting" a tweet can be really handy; I regularly mark tweets I want to come back to later on, usually because they contain information or links I think would be interesting for my students.

It does not, however, mean these tweets actually are my favourites. I might just as easily mark a tweet I disagree with as one I agree with, if I think it illustrates something interesting.

So for me, tweets marked as "favorites" are not to be interpreted as the ones I like most, or the ones I most agree with. Rather, they're tweets I happened to see when it was inconvenient to follow links or to note them in my book for later, and to which I want to return later. That's it -- there's nothing more to be read into it.

In Sarah Palin's case, she is reported to have explained, it wasn't even that: she wasn't aware of the "favorite" function at all, and the tweet was marked by accident. In an email to ABC News' Jake Tapper, which is quoted in The Washington Post's Politics and Policy blog, she said:

"Jake [Tapper], I've never purposefully 'favorited' any Tweet. I had to go back to my BlackBerry to even see if such a function was possible. I was traveling to Alaska that day...it was an obvious accidental 'favoriting,' but no one can mistake that Ann Coulter was obviously being tongue in cheek with that Tweet..."

This explanation sounds reasonable to me - especially since the "favorite" button only appears when you roll over the tweet with your cursor. Even Rachel Maddow, who I don't think anyone would consider a blind supporter of Sarah Palin, agrees.

While Maddow is talking to media who are jumping all over Palin for this, I do think there's a disconnect between what Twitter planned for "favorites" to be and what they have actually become. Tweets we want to save for later might or might not be tweets we particularly like or agree with.

My advice?

Keep the function, but re-name it "bookmark." Same convenience, less opportunity for mis-reading intentions!

On Twitter, building it won't make them come

I've had a few conversations with communicators lately about communication strategies they've built or are building (around specific issues, to publicize events, to attract attention for an announcement), and in which they're identifying Twitter as a tactic.

When I ask how they're planning to use Twitter, they often say something like "Well, we'll set up a Twitter account, and then we'll send out our messages."


It's not as easy as that.

I wrote a post last month called What Twitter isn't, in which I talked about how best to approach tweeting (if your intention is to use Twitter for PR).

What I didn't discuss in that post, though, was when to set up your Twitter account, and how to use it.

When's the best time? A year ago. When's the next best time: now.

If you have any intention of using Twitter to communicate with your audiences (that is, once you've determined that your audiences are or will soon be using Twitter), establish your presence there now.

The day you have a message to share with your audiences is not the day to set up your Twitter account. Why? Because on Twitter, you need people to have chosen to "follow" you to get your messages.

On day one, there's a relatively limited number of people you can email to say "Hey, come follow me on Twitter, here's my @username" -- and frankly, you could just as easily share your messages with those people by email. Will those people follow you immediately? Who knows... and you're too busy getting your announcement out to really think about it too much.

If you set up your account in advance, you have the time to begin building your audience before you need it.

Because Twitter makes it so easy for users to share interesting tweets with their own followers through "re-tweeting," your "followers" list can grow quickly... but only if you're tweeting things others want to hear. If you tweet something I think my followers would value, I'll re-tweet it; then, they may check out your profile and decide to follow you themselves.

Followers follow for a reason.

People are busy. There may be some who follow you because they feel they should (because they have some more personal connection to you), but most will only choose to follow your tweets if your tweets offer them something they value.

Have a quick look at the small portion of my Twitter timeline from this afternoon, shown above.

Notice anything?

Each of those tweeters has provided a link to something they felt might interest their respective audiences.

You sometimes hear people say all you get on Twitter is "I had a nice sandwich for lunch" or "I need to change the oil in my car," and that it's a waste of time. My answer to that is that if you're following people who offer nothing more than daily inanities, it likely is a waste of your time.

But my next suggestion would be to stop following those people, and follow others who tweet information that has some value for you. It's not as though every tweet needs a link to something else; personal perspectives and observations can be valuable, too!

Just make sure yours offer something your audiences will want before you send them.

Think of your Twitter feed like a storefront.

Building a store on a busy street isn't enough to guarantee sales. If you want people to come in and buy something, you need to put something in the window that'll entice them.

Our PR and Ad majors did a short customer behaviour research project in a local shopping mall last week, and saw evidence of exactly what I'm talking about: retail customers respond to displays that promise something they want (whether it's a particular product, or a sale, or an experience).  Put something in the window they'll think is interesting, and they're far more likely to come in.

What does retail consumer behaviour have to do with Twitter?

Everything! Because retail consumers are people.

We need to stop thinking as though human nature is somehow left at the door of the office (or wherever you're not using your mobile device). People respond to what interests them, whether it's in a store or online. They will volunteer to hear a sales pitch (i.e. walk into a store or follow your Twitter account) if they think there is something valuable to be gained there.

So, give them something valuable.

As soon as you realize Twitter is going to be part of your strategy, get on it and start using it. If you've determined that Twitter is right for your plan, you've obviously been thinking about your audiences -- so start finding and sharing information those audiences might find interesting. Follow audience members you know, as well as others who influence them -- odds are, they'll look at your profile to see who you are. If they like what they see (i.e., they see some value in your tweets), they'll likely follow back: and presto, your network is building.

If you tweet and no-one is there to hear it, you haven't gotten any closer to achieving your communication objectives.

But if you build a Twitter feed that provides value to the audiences you want to reach, they'll be there when you need them.

In which I predict the future

This week, we read in the Winnipeg Free Press about a telecom company error that had reportedly caused automatic calls made by the re-election campaign of Winnipeg's incumbent Mayor, Sam Katz, to show up on Call Display as having come from the home of an everyday Winnipegger.

Embarrassing mix-up, sure. (And to the former telco spokesperson in me, particularly interesting, since the reporter never mentions which telecom provider was being blamed, or gives that telecom company the opportunity to comment. Must remember to ask the Journalism instructors about that.) But it happens.

A discussion about the incident with my first-year PR class, though, got me thinking about the future of "robocalls," as folks around here were calling them.

Personally, I've always disliked them.

I haven't received any of the calls in question in this mayoral campaign, but I have received automatically-dialed, pre-recorded calls from federal candidates, credit card companies and long-distance providers, and what I can only guess are scams (telling me I've won a cruise).

As soon as I hear there's a pre-recorded message at the other end, I hang up. And if the caller has been (smart?) enough to tell me who's calling in the first few seconds of the call, I also think about how little I appreciate that caller's decision to interrupt whatever I was doing to listen to his/her message.

Interestingly, pre-recorded messages don't bother me at work -- but then, "mass voicemail" messages sent in the workplace are generally related to work, and are picked up at the receiver's convenience, so don't seem like such an interruption.

In class, we discussed why this might be: students called the pre-recorded message calls "shady" and "cheap" -- and "falsely personal," which I think is the bottom line for me. Despite the ever-widening range of mass media available to us today, the home phone remains (for now, anyway) a device for personal communication.

Who listens to these messages?

Well, political/PR junkies and journalism students, for one. After all, this stuff is all great ammo.

But otherwise, I'd love to see some actual research on who 1) listens to and 2) is persuaded by pre-recorded messages "pushed" at audiences through the phone.

I'd assume the target audience is people who aren't going online and "pulling" messaging from candidates' websites, Facebook and Twitter feeds (such as they may be, in the case of this particular contest), listening to candidates' debates posted on radio station websites, etc.

In the Lockstep crystal ball...

As demographics shift and the majority of voters move into "information pull" mode, I see "robocalls" going the way of the dodo bird as a campaign tool,

That's not to say campaigners won't look to "push" any messaging -- but I'll bet they'll be doing it through means that are less intrusive on voters' time, and in ways that allow more efficient dialogue between candidate and voter: I'll push this information out, but you can read it when it's next convenient for you. And if you have any questions or want to engage, I'll be ready and waiting -- when it's convenient for you.

The credit card companies and the fly-by-night long distance providers and the scammy cruise vendors may find it worth the risk to annoy customers who wouldn't have bought in anyway, for the chance at catching those who might.  But politicians seeking election won't, I don't think, have that luxury forever.

Social media have spoiled us a bit, in that we now have pretty much anytime access to pretty much everything. The more audiences come to expect to be able to receive information on their own time, the more anyone wanting their attention will have to adapt.

Why would a PR guy love teaching so much?

I love my job(s).

By day (during the academic year), I teach Public Relations to 100 or so bright, enthusiastic, committed students at Red River College. By night (during the academic year) and during the summer, I do freelance communications consulting. Before coming to Red River, and launching my consulting business, and having my daughter, I worked in corporate PR for more than a decade - and never once, for a minute, was bored.

I love every aspect of PR work: the diversity of people, the issues, the brain puzzles, the gratification that comes with success - even the parts that are sometimes uncomfortable and rarely but occasionally terrifying.

But I love teaching here at the college, too. On a recent drive home, I started to wonder whether it was unusual that someone who was so in love with PR as a career would so quickly fall in love with teaching.

Am I fickle?  I don't think so. I worked in retail in school, and I didn't love that.


So what do teaching and PR have in common?


A lot, I think.

To me, teaching and PR both:

1. require you to read your audiences, and challenge you to tailor your "pitch" to their interests and needs if you're going to be successful. 
2. require you to employ persuasion -- whether it's to influence public opinion or to encourage a student to recognize the value in the curriculum.
3. present you with challenges and puzzles every single day.
4. provide the opportunity to meet new people and learn about their perspectives. 
5. encourage you to take calculated risks.
6. force you to become a more efficient communicator, and a comfortable public speaker.
7. help you develop leadership skills.
8. demand that you be credible.
9. reward empathy, initiative, and extra effort.
10. allow you to be a life-long learner.

What's not to love?