University Business - July 2007 - (Page 96)

END NOTE Information Please! Here’s how one institution has helped turn employees into brand ambassadors. By Paige Booth C OLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY administrators simply can’t be everywhere at all times, ensuring the right things are said and done. We need help from the troops in promoting the institution’s brand, and that requires keeping employees well informed. At St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, we subscribe to the “everything speaks” model. Everything on campus—from the smile on the receptionist’s face and the bright flowers lining the walkway, to the cleanliness of cafeteria utensils and the maze of phone loops—says something about your institution. While faculty members form the heart of an institution, don’t underestimate the significance of your staff. Receptionists, groundskeepers, and others in supportive roles are often the first people with whom prospective students interact, and poor initial contacts with prospective students result in institutions losing an average of 12 percent of enrollment, says Neal A. Raisman, founder and president of the customer-service consulting and research group AcademicMAPS. EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES Effective internal communication ensures consistency in the institution’s message and empowers employees with information they need to become brand ambassadors and help achieve goals. Furthermore, it enhances the sense of community on campus and conveys an atmosphere of openness that tells employees they are part of the institutional family and deserve to be kept apprised of “family matters.” At St. Edward’s, we have developed several communications tactics to keep our people in the loop and show them they are vital to our university’s mission. • A daily e-newsletter. A few years ago, • A communications campaign. To keep students, faculty, and staff apprised of our master plan progress, we launched a “Change Is Good” communications campaign. Construction signs, a once-a-semester newsletter, and special events are used to explain projects reaching completion. Each medium features our mascot wearing a hard hat and giving a thumbs-up to the phrase “Change Is Good.” • Invitation-only meetings with Employees are the president. When our president announced plans to double part of the enrollment and add several new institutional buildings, some members of our university community worried it family and would negatively impact our small, deserve to be close-knit, personalized offerings. kept apprised To reassure people that St. Edward’s would remain true to its heritage, we of “family launched “Conversations with the matters.” President,” a monthly opportunity for the president to meet with small groups of employees to explain stra• The President’s Meeting. To celebrate tegic priorities and each employee’s role in who we are, each semester St. Edward’s them. Every benefits-eligible staff member conducts this campuswide meeting, its pep is invited at least once a year. rally spirit drawing record crowds. Staff, Valuable information also flows in the faculty members, and students gather to other direction. By attending these meethear a report from President George Mar- ings, our marketing staff learns what’s on tin, meet new employees, learn the latest the minds of employees and gets story university news, and preview new initia- leads and other ideas. tives, such as advertising campaigns. • Repeating good news. Accomplishments • A digitally printed employee newsletter. should not be shared once and forgotReadership plummeted when we switched ten. We get the most mileage out of our our monthly photocopied employee news- school’s good news by repeating it over a letter, Hilltopics, to an Acrobat PDF file variety of channels, including newsletters, posted online each month. We soon re- letters, websites, the local press, and other vived it as a full-color, four-page newsletter media—devising creative ways to make published each fall and spring to coincide sure it reaches the target audiences. with the President’s Meeting. It is our vehicle to recap employee news and feature Paige Booth is vice president of Marketing at St. departments that support the university’s Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. She joined strategic goals, and digital printing keeps the university in 2000 after spending 15 years in corporate marketing communications. it affordable. when our Marketing office surveyed employees, they let us know they were receiving too many university e-mails and suffering from in-box bloat. We responded by forming a daily e-newsletter, Horizon, for faculty and staff. It allows us to compile various broadcast e-mails into one package and keep employees posted on university and work-related news. universitybusiness.com 96 | July 2007 http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - July 2007

Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
People Watch
Sense of Place
Marketing
Viewpoint
Human Resources
Money Matters
Financial Aid
Community Colleges
Seeds of Scandal
Controlling the Flow
Special Delivery
Presidential Progress
Best Foot Forward: SOX and Financial Standards
Business Technology
What's New
Calendar of Events
Direct Connect
End Note

University Business - July 2007