How Motorola uses social media to manage information overload

By Natasa Lucic

Communication overload is a popular topic in current online forums, journals, and academic articles. It is one of the biggest challenges that modern employee communicators face, as they try to balance their roles as corporate messengers and enablers of employee engagement. These communicators are tasked with delivering the corporate updates from top management while trying to capture the attention and interest of fellow employees without overwhelming them with too much information.

On top of this, a new set of online communication tools such as microblogs, RSS feeds, wikis and communities are gaining presence in today’s internal communication plans. Companies like Microsoft, Intel, and Sun Microsystems have paved the way, yet there are many other companies that are just catching up. Large, traditional corporations with centralised, top-down communication are trying to understand how social media tools can benefit communication flow within their company.

My challenge: to determine the amount of communication overload Motorola is experiencing and how the company can successfully implement specific online communication tools to help reduce that problem.

The study I conducted used a combination of an online survey and interview questions to gather insights about Motorola’s internal communication channels and their effectiveness from the point of view of the employees. An online survey looked at the degree to which employees are overloaded with e-mails and how familiar they are with the current social communication tools available internally. More focused interviews were conducted to understand what caused communication overload, what types of communication are considered the most important, and what types of communication channels employees use the most.

As with many large organizations, one of the most prominent sources of communication overload at the billion-dollar global telecommunications company is e-mail. All kinds of information and requests for action are received through this channel. Motorola’s senior leaders use it to announce business updates and organizational announcements, while local communicators use e-mail to send updates on facility events.

Intranet communications

Motorola’s intranet is a combination of portal based news delivery and a self-serve collaboration platform – the two mesh in a number of ways, one of the keys being through the use of RSS (Really Simple Syndication). The primary benefit of RSS is that it can aggregate news (and other) updates from various internal/external web sources. At the time the study was done, there was a low awareness and adoption of RSS technology among the general employee population, and especially amongst people posting local news to decentralised / localized intranet sites.

Blogging

There are several social media channels that have recently gained visibility at Motorola. Blogs are being used for various purposes including small team management as well as larger-scale communication from team leaders to their teams. The growth of blogs connects with several recent efforts by employee communications to replace e-mail newsletters with a blog or some other online tool.

In addition to blogs, a great number of communities are being developed. Teams that need more collaboration to share knowledge or ideas use communities to set up a virtual area for updates, event calendars, polls and various links. Motorola also has introduced an internal microblogging service i to enable more informal conversations, questions and thoughts to be shared internally.

What the numbers revealed

The findings of my study were not so surprising and can be summarized as follows:

•    On any given day, more than 30 percent of respondents had at least 30 unread e-mails, while more than 40 percent of respondents spent more than half their day on e-mail.
•    25 percent of participants were aware of the internal proprietary social networking tool (similar to Facebook), while only 9 percent of participants indicated that they were familiar with the internal microblogging tool.
•    Employees are open to using new technologies but need help to understand them better.
•    Some employees are satisfied with updates sent via mass distribution (e-mail) as they appreciate the push, but there are those who find it too much to deal with in addition to all other communications with which they must contend.
•    More than 70 percent of participants strongly agreed that they would be able to manage their communication overload if fellow colleagues followed sensible rules for communicating (e.g., applying e-mail etiquette).
•    To adopt social media tools as primary communication channels, the company would need to encourage more self-service in terms of finding and pulling the communication that employees need themselves.
•    To make specific tools such as microblogging successful, leaders who use them need to have an authentic voice.

While my study looked at one specific example of communication overload at Motorola, the empirical findings can be extended to other companies with similar challenges. Reducing information overload and improving communication effectiveness is not something that can be done overnight. Employees and communicators are accustomed to the traditional and online communication channels but need to really understand how to use them effectively.

Microblogs, RSS feeds and the like may only be successful if their purpose is clearly understood. My study revealed that although a number of respondents admitted that they are not familiar with the latest social media and communication tools, they are open to trying them themselves. Here are some recommendations for implementing online communication tools effectively:

1. Get manager support

No matter how powerful online communication tools are, they cannot get much traction without support from management. The best way to encourage employees to start using new communication tools is to get management on board and help their employees in the transition.

One of the recurring themes in my interviews was that some employees did not use the available social collaboration tools simply because they were not a priority outlined by management. This is a classic example of leading by example and management needs to be aware of this. Taking into account that most managers today have full schedules, a good start would be to encourage them to use the simple tools, such as microblogging – something that does not take a lot of time to learn but can make a big impact.

2. Deliver more effective training

To increase understanding of how and why to use the online communication tools, training is vital. Realizing how using certain tools can help reduce e-mail and offer a more convenient means of receiving information, can go a long way in increasing their adoption. For example, employees who are well-versed it the use of RSS can use the feeds to consolidate all their news in one place, instead of receiving multiple e-mails on each headline.

Trainings can go beyond traditional classroom type sessions and be delivered in the form of short videos, quick user guides and tips and tricks. Likewise some personal “handholding” can make a significant impact on some audiences. By going through the basics of why and how certain tools are used with practical examples, employees will be more inclined to continue using them.

3. Acknowledge the e-mailers

As much effort is placed on the latest social communication tools like RSS feeds, there are, and there will be still those who prefer to get updates pushed to them via e-mail. During my study, this was a common theme in several interviews. Currently, e-mail is still a very effective channel for distributing important announcements, especially as there is higher likelihood that they will be read. Nevertheless, there is plenty of value in presenting all other updates using alternative social communication tools, especially as it can help reduce some inbox clutter!
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About Natasa Lucic

Natasa is an employee communicator and intranet content manager at Motorola. She supports Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) employee communications and the development of Motorola's global intranet website. She is a recent Master of Arts in International Business graduate from the University of Applied Sciences, Mainz, Germany and is looking forward to pursuing her IABC accreditation.

Come hear Natasa present at our upcoming simplysummit in London.