Alison Welford: Hi, I'm Alison Wellford, and I'm the Site Communications Lead here at GSK.
Why did you require internal comms support? What challenges did you face?
Alison Welford: We needed internal comms support because we're a large manufacturing site with a mix of desk-based and shop floor staff, and it was very difficult to deploy our messages down to the shop floor, so we needed somebody to come along and help us to engage our staff and to deploy our strategy and priorities.
What made you decide to work with The Comms Guru?
Alison Welford: The reason why I decided to work with The Comms Guru is because I love their style and their enthusiasm, and Paul had a lot of creative ideas, and he's got a great team behind him. Their experience in internal comms was very evident, and they demonstrated a deep understanding of the needs that we had and introduced some brilliant and innovative ways to keep our staff engaged. Their attention to detail was meticulous, and they always delivered as agreed and on time. And what really impressed me is the fact that they took the time to get to know our leaders to understand what their needs were, so they could adapt the messages.
How did The Comms Guru develop you as a comms person?
Alison Welford: So working with The Comms Guru was also great for my development because I am new to the role as a communicator. So they helped me from organisational skills to creating exciting messages and adapt to the audience because what I have found out is that one message does not fit all. so you've got to develop your messages for the type of audience that you're communicating to.
How did you find the Internal Comms Health Check, and how did this help you?
So the Comms Health Check was really effective. What we did is we sat down and we did a channel mapping exercise. What this did was highlight the gaps that we had across site and where the comms weren't landing. After that, they carried out a number of surveys with our employees, including some small face to face leader sessions, which really helped us and close those gaps. So once we'd done this channel mapping exercise, Paul and his team went away and developed a strategy for us, which helped us to get fit, then get good, and then get great.
Talk to us about The Comms Guru and creative comms
The Comms Guru are creative geniuses when it comes to creating videos. So here on my site we have a monthly team brief called TouchPoint. And this is something that The Comms Guru actually developed and it's digital content in the form of a video. And what I usually do is throw all these ideas at them, and it just never ceases to amaze me that they come back with something so exciting and so engaging.
What was it like working with The Comms Guru?
So on a personal level, I have absolutely loved working with Paul and James. I love their creative ideas. They're always fresh thinking and they always take the time to understand what I need. And when I say that, and I think I've said this before, but I can give them an idea, I throw so many ideas at them and they just come back with what I need. It just blows it out of the water every time, and they are such a joy to work with. So thank you Comms Gurus. You're amazing.
If you could summarise your experience working with us in 3 words, what would they be?
Three words to summarise my experience with The Comms Guru, I'd say fresh, innovative, and fearless.
