As we approach 2010 – the year that economists say will be a time of recovery and recuperation from one of the worst downturns ever - recruitment consultancy Xchangeteam gives a more magnified look at just how it is performing compared with 12 months ago.

On 2 June 2009 Aviva, the global financial services company, held its “Becoming One Aviva” (BOA) event.

Prior to this date the company had been known by a number of different brands around the world, including Norwich Union, Commercial Union and Hibernian.

The date became known as “BOA Day” - the day all the companies rebranded to Aviva. But how did it engage all its employees around the world? And how did the company utilise its existing comms. channels?

The western world-view of business can be somewhat simplistically summarised by the "3 P's" - process, people and pounds sterling - a business climate where the "bottom line" is delivered by process - worked by people.

The traditional project approach to change management sees it as a set of tasks that if executed successfully get a result. In other words the typical process-led approach, which has failed so consistently and so spectacularly over the last 20 years!

Frequently the driver for initiating change is financial - and processes are designed and put in place to deliver the financial benefit. However, 70% of the time it just doesn't work!

Social media tools are beginning to find favour in internal communications teams, according to a survey run in conjunction with the monthly CiB ezine.

Seventy three per-cent of respondents said they were now using some form of social media.

Typical uses included blogs and user forums, although Twitter and video is beginning to find favour, especially in PR and external comms campaigns.

During a presentation at a recent CharityComms seminar, design, branding and communications consultancy Small Back Room launched a brief paper on the links between internal communications, branding and managing change.

With so many internal communications practitioners involved in managing substantial change at this time, they wanted to provide some thoughts that we hoped practitioners would find practical, insightful and helpful.

The paper includes a brief change assessment that practitioners can use to help manage change, as well as guiding principles for developing engaging internal communications strategies. The change assessment can be used by individual practitioners or as a way of bringing a team together to consider how it might manage change.

Small Back Room has now made the paper available for CiB members and ezine readers

>> Download the paper (PDF format)

Globalisation and the interactive web are transforming the world of communication beyond recognition. International Communications Strategy is a new book by Silvia Cambié and Yang-May Ooi that examines the cross-cultural challenges facing the communication industry and offers experienced advice.

This scenario is played out every day in offices around the world. You get a hi-res image sent to you and have to use it in an intranet feature. But how do you get the best out of it and what are the tricks of the trade? Steve Nichols takes a look.

In their 2008 Q12 Survey of 1,000 employees in Australia, The Gallup Organisation found that 79% of workers were not engaged or were actively disengaged. Gallup estimated this represented a productivity loss to the nation of around $42 billion annually, which can be translated to lower potential profitability at the individual business level.

An engaged employee is passionate about what they do and will drive innovation to move the organisation forward. Actively disengaged employees are unhappy and don't really care who knows it - they will undermine what engaged people are trying to accomplish, says Susan Rochester.