1. How to Communicate with Remote and Unwired Employees
Off the Grid:
How to Communicate with Remote and Unwired Employees

2. Panelists Felicia McLemore, APR Global Senior Director
Corporate Relations
Marriott International, Inc.
Shannon Lopez
Global Director
Internal Communications
Marriott International, Inc.
Kate McClain
President
McClain Media LLC
Meagan Price
Communications Manager
Marriott International, Inc.
Thanks for joining us! We’d like to introduce ourselves: your moderator for today’s presentation is Felicia McLemore. [Felicia’s bio here]. Your panelists include Shannon Lopez [Shannon’s bio here]; Kate McClain [Kate’s bio] and Meagan Price [Meagan’s bio]

3. Off the Grid: How to Communicate with Remote and Unwired Employees Session Objectives
Examine the evolution of our workplaces and work practices
Discuss diversity in the workplace and accommodating the needs of multiple generations while maintaining employee engagement
Recognize and understand the struggles of off-the-grid colleagues
Group discussion - best practices and innovative solutions for communicating with this audience

4. Communicating Off The Grid Challenges Abound!
To get us warmed up, we’d like to share this YouTube video of how the world looks to those of us who are faced with the challenges of working off the grid every day

5. Workplace Evolution
It’s worth spending a few moments to talk about how the workplace has evolved since the industrial revolution.

6. Today
This probably looks more familiar to most of us. Much of our sales force; those who work from home – or a remote location, such as a coffee shot. Could we see a show of hands of those of you who work remotely – at least part of the time? Gallup statistics estimate at least 37% of US workers telecommute – some on a regular basis.

7. Generational Diversity in the Workplace
We don’t like to paint groups of our colleagues with a broad brush, but since we’re talking about changes in our workplaces and work practices, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the fact that most of us our working with four – sometimes five generations.

8. Engaging Difficult-To-Reach Audiences
We’re interested in knowing how many of you are responsible for engaging employees who don’t sit in front a computer all day – likely, don’t have a company address, and probably don’t have easy access to your company’s intranet.

9. Group Discussion: Best practices, tips, tricks and communication magic
When possible, face-to-face is still always best
Live and broadcast Town Hall Meetings
Live and virtual lunch and learn meetings
Spend time with your off-the-grid colleagues
Where are the gaps?
What are most effective ways to engage them?
Though face to face communicating is and probably always will be best – it’s the most consuming and therefore, expensive solutions. Town Hall Meetings are fabulous, especially when the message comes from the top dogs. Lunch box – or departmental meetings is an alternative, but cascading information is legendarily inaccurate.
As a communications professional, make it your business to do some primary research – in order words, ask your remote and field employees about what works and what doesn’t. And lucky for us, we have Meagan Price here with us today to offer some insight.

10. Group discussion: Best practices, tips, tricks and communication magic
Make the message sizzle
Make it worth the employees’ time
Make it worth the company’s investment
Other considerations:
Multiple languages
Multiple geographical locations
Company culture, standards and policies
As communicators, we have a responsibility when engaging employees to make sure that the time amount of time we’ve called them away from a task is commensurate with the value the message provides

11. Group discussion: Tips, tricks, best practices and communication magic
Make technology work for you. Consider using:
Mobile devices, apps
Skype for Business
Text, Twitter – other social media solutions
Electronic message boards
Third party

12. How do you know you are successful?
From the beginning, set goals
Use benchmarks
Collect feedback - talk to your audiences
Do some primary research – in order words, ask your field employees what they think?

13. Questions and Discussion
We want to hear from you. What are your thoughts? Questions?