HCW Benefits Blog

Contributor:
Chris Tutino, Communications Specialist
Hill, Chesson & Woody

As a professional communicator, I always wonder how my messages are received, or if they’re even received at all. I’m a member of a professional communicators group and one of our recent lunch events was held at one of the most iconic companies in Research Triangle Park.

As I stepped into the bathroom during a break, I was immediately greeted by a combined public and company-facing memo that discussed how a team within this company did such a great job developing a new service for one of their customers. The piece named the workers, the customer and the function of the service.
From the information I gathered in that brief moment, I learned 6 things:

1. This is a cool company.
2. This company wants its employees to feel good about their accomplishments; they recognized and rewarded them, publicly, for a job well done.
3. This company develops good things for their customers.
4. This company is based on innovation.
5. The company’s memo served as an internal newsletter to communicate a new development that occurred in a different area of the company.
6. You can use the bathroom to deliver key messages to your employees.

It never really crossed my mind to use a bathroom as a communication channel before. Of course, I then dismissed the idea completely until this article showed up in my inbox yesterday, titled, “It’s O.K. to ‘Stall’ Employees.” It includes the author’s top “Tips for Best Results with Bathroom Benefits Communications,” that talk about the actual location and suggested height for postings, the type of holder for the communication, and a lot more. By the way, it’s written by an SPHR.

Makes me wonder what we’ll title our bathroom communications piece …