Last month, Virgin Media and O2 joined forces as part of the biggest business deal of the decade. It’s been a whirlwind few weeks launching the Together Fund (our first gesture together is to offer grants to hundreds of local charities) and getting to know new colleagues. As the first month draws to a close, I’ve been reflecting and reminiscing about how things often come full circle.
While I was studying at university, many years ago, I went off into my final summer hols all excited about my newfound energy and passion for a career in CSR. Fresh off a plane from Beijing (where I’d been helping run a sustainability conference) I got in touch with O2, located near my hometown, to ask for some work experience so I could enjoy a glimpse of CSR in action from the inside of a bustling business. My time at O2 led me to write my dissertation: “The Internal Communication of Corporate Responsibility: A Case for Change.” I discovered it recently while unpacking the last boxes from moving house and enjoyed all the memories that came rushing back while flicking through it.
Back then, CSR was just becoming a thing; it was a corporate term and a department that was slowly becoming more commonplace in business.
My research, and those 10,000 words I lovingly bashed out in between nights out, highlighted how (back then) internal stakeholders had been neglected over external stakeholders, and the underestimated role that an employee could play in driving positive change. I was convinced internal comms could play a much more intrinsic role in embedding and delivering sustainability efforts. Little did I know that all these years later I’d end up working for Virgin Media O2.
Fast forward to today, and the subsequent sustainability strategies we’ve launched at Virgin Media (from our ‘5 in 5’ to our more recent, ‘Meaningful Connections Plan’), we now have huge momentum, engagement and action across the business. This is, without doubt, thanks to our internal comms team and the array of internal platforms and programmes to cascade information, helping to excite and enable our people to get involved.
With the support of our internal comms colleagues, I believe we’ve got more cut through this year than ever before – despite working virtually. Over the last couple of months we’ve posted a handwritten note from our CEO to all of our employees, we’ve switched to live videos and cardboard cut-out explanations on Facebook Workplace, and we’ve taken over a 90 minute internal TV show with our Executive team – dedicated to sustainability. I’m beyond proud of what we’ve achieved. Sustainability is helping to drive engagement and growth for our business, as well as enabling our people to create a long-term positive impact in the communities we serve and where they live.
My main reflection as to how we’ve achieved this is due to the relevance of our new strategy – it is deliberately entwined in our company strategy and purpose. As well as being relevant to our people and customers, it is also adaptable and broad - meaning teams can easily adopt and get behind the strategy. The second reason is that our leaders have invested in new internal comms tools and platforms, such as Workplace by Facebook, which have truly been a gamechanger for getting cut through and maintaining momentum. For example, our people (who now have five days paid volunteering), have been sharing what they’ve been up to in their community and it’s enough to inspire anyone to get involved.
It‘s now a case of accelerating positive change, not making the case for change! Here are a handful of additional learnings about the role that internal comms has played in delivering our sustainability goals over recent years:
It starts with a clear sustainability strategy that is simple to understand, jargon-free, aligned to your commercial strategy and purpose. It should come with both breadth and flexibility for each team to embrace – meaning it is relevant and everyone can get behind it
A clear, focused, strategic, long-term sustainability strategy provides clarity, consistency and confidence to comms (and marketing) colleagues – it means they’re more likely to embrace it as it’s around to stay
We started off by exciting and engaging our people through storytelling – but real change comes from creating tools (like our squad selector tool which helped people to understand their role in delivering our strategy) that enable your people to truly understand how they can deliver positive change
Positive change is created by having a clear vision that you never veer from, plus a lot of hard work and team play. It’s imperative that the vision is co-created by your people and customers to ensure its authentic and can provide a truthful and clear mandate on the positive role in society we can play
Now we’re finally together as one big Virgin Media O2 team, it’s fantastic to see the passion and drive for all things sustainability and internal comms at O2 mirrors our experience at Virgin Media. Here’s to a new, exciting chapter where sustainability can not only help unite two organisations and cultures, but offer a different way of doing business – one where sustainability becomes the single biggest driver for growth and is fully embedded across all functions and propositions.