The Situation

A global leader in the field of consumer healthcare research, development and manufacturing decided to launch a Six Sigma process improvement program. The company leaders needed to introduce Six Sigma enterprise-wide to thousands of employees, working in multiple countries, speaking different languages.

The Challenges

The company’s employee population was not ready to embrace Six Sigma – few employees showed an interest in it and many were outright cynical about the initiative. The company’s leaders needed help communicating the benefits of Six Sigma and getting their employees to align their behavior with Six Sigma practices. What’s more, the internal Communications team had their hands full and wasn’t able to dedicate the resources needed to drive this initiative.

The inTalent Solution

The inTalent team knows that the primary rule of effective communication is “Know Your Audience.” Therefore, their first step was to survey the company’s employees to determine what they already knew, and believed, about Six Sigma. “We found that most people didn’t understand what Six Sigma is, and the impact it can make. The employees felt it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. How could the company translate Six Sigma to other languages when they had trouble making it accessible in English?”

This information was key to allowing inTalent to build an internal communication campaign that would not only educate employees, but also change minds about Six Sigma and convince employees throughout the company to change their behavior accordingly. inTalent created a three-phase plan that strategically addressed and neutralized employee concerns:

1. Phase 1: Creating awareness (What is Six Sigma? How does it work?)
2. Phase 2: Building understanding, credibility and acceptance (How will Six Sigma help me in my job? Why is it good for our company?)
3. Phase 3: Establishing accountability and sustainability (What am I expected to do differently under Six Sigma? How can I ensure I am successful?)

For each phase, inTalent wrote and produced the collateral pieces, including targeted emails, FAQs and talking points. They also provided communication elements that could be integrated into the company’s existing vehicles to further drive sustainability.