IMPROVING INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS IN THE FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCYS JOINT FIELD OFFICE LATIMER

IMPROVING INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS IN THE FEDERALEMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY’S JOINT FIELD OFFICE

Holly LatimerOct. 13, 2012

Internal CommunicationsKent State University

Problem Statement

When reservists, full-time and other employees respond to

a disaster, chaos often exists. To improve communications,

strengthen continuity and build camaraderie, senior

leadership tasked external affairs, the public relations

branch at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s joint

field office, with creating an internal newsletter.

Although the newsletter offered information about a

specific program area each week, it did not build the

camaraderie or provide the information needed by employees.

The newsletter was often not read and basically considered

another nuisance email rather than a piece of

communications that would offer information valuable to

employees.

To address these issues, the research project looks at

ways to add to and improve this communications tool so that

it will be not only informational, but also provide a one-

stop information resource for employees who have questions

about programs that affect them within the field office.

In addition to improving the newsletter, offering place

on the intranet for employee feedback and offering an

information resource for all employees on the intranet would

make things easier for employees and reduce frustration at

problems such as employee travel payment, time cards and

other issues addressed by employees and leadership.

Summary of Research and Reflection

When approaching this assignment, research was conducted

that examined internal communications and items that would

improve employee communications through the internal

newsletter and a centralized site for feedback and questions

and answers through the intranet.

In the “The Changing Role of Internal Communications—The

Expert’s View,” the authors looked at how companies are

using email to communicate with employees and how

organizations needed to develop an internal communications

program from the top down to keep employees engaged and not

alienated.

Sam Marshall looked at how internal communications was

moving from the role of content creator to facilitator in

“The Changing Role of Internal Communications.” As employees

are looking for less of an edict from management and

communication and more of a centralized place for

communications, offering more than just a newsletter or

email will help employees stay engaged.

Proctor and Doukakis examine how internal communications

can help employees through times of change in “Change

management: The role of internal communication and employee

development.” In the disaster field office for Hurricane

Isaac, many changes are being implemented whether it is from

how equipment is distributed to how people are reimbursed

for travel expenses. By offering improved internal

communications, employees could become more comfortable with

these changes and have a better understanding of the

process.

In “What is Internal Communications?,” Hopkins describes

internal communications as the conversations businesses have

with their staff and those the staff have with each other.

In the current format of internal communications, the staff

members are not really having a conversation with each other

—at least not on any official channel. Instead, most of the

staff discussion is amongst themselves with as much

misinformation as correct information. Offering a central

communication source would provide less misinformation.

Bloch looks at how to engage staff with more creativity

using more than just an internal newsletter in “Internal

Communications: Beyond the Newsletter.”

Rabinowitz discusses how to monitor and improve internal

communications in “Promoting Internal Communications.” He

encourages improved internal communications with in an

organization and the exchange of ideas and opinions within

the organization.

Finally, a blog, “Internal Communications Solutions” on

SnapComms looks at why effective internal communications is

important and how it can increase the operational

effectiveness of the organization.

Identification of Causes To Be Addressed

The causes to be addressed in this research are an

improvement to the internal newsletter as well as expanding

internal communications to a source such as the intranet.

The current internal newsletter is a one-page email

newsletter that distributed each Friday. The newsletter

offers one story on one program area. The newsletter is not

widely read as it is just one more “all-hands” announcement

distributed to all employees through one of the leadership

assistants.

Employees receive several of these messages per day about

policy changes, parking, travel payment, meetings and any

number of other topics.

By adding some of these messages into the weekly

newsletter, employees may be more likely to read not only

the newsletter, but also the other memos. The newsletter

would be a one-stop source for this information.

In addition, by offering the employees a central location

for feedback, leadership might learn more of what is going

on and how employees think operations could be run more

effectively. At the end of each disaster, a RAMP meeting is

held with each section and each section makes

recommendations that could be beneficial on future

disasters. By offering the employees an opportunity to speak

before this meeting, employees will have the chance to make

suggestions and changes before the completion of disaster

operations.

Currently employees have a feedback box on each floor of

the office, but because of the locations and strategy used,

employees do not necessarily use the boxes to reach out to

leadership. Additionally, employees have all-hands meetings

where they can question senior leadership face-to-face.

However, this has limited success because the meetings tend

to be long and boring. Many employees leave before the

question-answer session begins

Through these two projects, employees will be better

informed and be better engaged in the disaster process.

Although these two steps are just a beginning, they would be

a major step in adding a new layer of internal

communications at the joint field office.

Internal Communications Objectives

The objectives for this internal communications program

are

To engage the audience and create camaraderie among

employees.

To provide employees a place for information that will

help them do a better job in their daily assignments.

To provide a resource site for employees to ask

questions and have questions answered. Employee

interest in internal communications can be measured by

questions or comments on the program.

To reduce the email traffic for all-hands information

and provide a centralized information source. Providing

a central information source would reduce the time

wasted by employees reading multiple emails.

To provide a template for future internal

communications within the disaster field office

operations. If this program is successful, it could

become a staple in inter-office disaster

communications.

Recommended Proposal

With more than 1,500 employees spread across 44,000

square miles, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s

Joint Field Office is trying to connect people working in

the field and in the office through a centralized internal

communication source.

The employees comprising the office come from a variety

of backgrounds and offer many different specialties that are

used to help provide services to natural disaster survivors.

In an effort to engage and unite this ensemble of

employees, an internal newsletter with one positive program-

oriented story per week was created. However, employees

still receive regular all-hands internal emails with

information that may be of importance to their positions.

To create engagement, the internal newsletter should be

expanded and an intranet resource for information should be

established.

As Bloch 1 suggested, the internal newsletter should

offer a weekly summary of all internal email traffic. This

way if an employee misses an email during the week, he or

she will be able to get the information in the employee

newsletter. In case someone misses a newsletter, the

newsletter and other vital information should be posted to a

site on the intranet.

This site would also have a place where employees can ask

questions about policies and procedures or view frequently

asked questions.

Rabinowitz said “Internal communications is a lot more

than people talking to one another. It’s the life blood of

any organization, the way in which everyone gets the

information she needs. It means that anyone can easily get

his question answered, as well as that no one gets left out

when there’s a birthday celebration for a staff member.”2

He goes on to say that effective internal communication

can improve the effectiveness of an organization and get

problems out in the open. Rather than having people

discussing problems with travel reimbursement or having them

resubmit information several times, having an effective

internal communications plan where issues are addressed

would cut down on employee alienation and on time wasted re-

doing forms because of missed emails or miscommunication.

By offering employees detailed information in the form of

the improved employee newsletter and offering a centralized

location for information, Rabinowitz says this is “a way of

getting large amounts of information to people so they don’t

feel left out, and at the same time give them the choice of

how much of that information they want to digest.”

A blog from SnapComm also stresses the importance of

having a centralized information source rather than multiple

emails with information. “Research shows that it takes 64

seconds for staff to refocus and get back into the work they

were doing before an email interruption. Randomly sending

out ‘All Staff’ group emails (IT outages, general news and

administration, marketing and HR updates etc.) can

detrimentally impact staff workloads and stress levels.”3

By combining the information into a centralized product,

the blog said employees will spend 80 percent less time

reading this source than all-hands emails. This blog also

encourages the use of the intranet as an information

resource. Rather than going back and looking through older

emails, a topic-based intranet resource could save time and

confusion when a question needs to be answered.

Grossman Williams and Castro also show how just receiving

emails from senior leadership can lead to problems. “When

times are tough, simply firing out top-down email

communication is bad for morale. Employees are worried about

their jobs, and concerned about their role. They feel

alienated from senior management, and don’t feel they’re

being listened to.” 4

Keeping the staff informed through a communications plan

will help promote conversations between informed staff

members rather than uninformed staff. By informing the

staff, Hopkins says they will be better engaged and will

want to come to work and contribute to the organization’s

success.5

Based on this research, adding more content to the weekly

employee newsletter, reducing the amount of all-hands emails

and providing a resource for questions and frequently asked

questions as well as forms and back issues of newsletters is

suggested for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s

Joint Field Office for Hurricane Isaac.

Anticipated Consequences

In implementing a strong internal communications plan for

the joint field office, increasing information in the

internal newsletter and offering a better feedback program

for the employees, one of the anticipated consequences is

that an employee will have to dedicate more time to internal

communications. With the reduction in staffing that occurs

as disaster operations continue, this will be an obstacle to

the plan. In the beginning of the disaster, eight full-time

writers were a part of the team. At this point of the

disaster, four full-time writers and one part-time

writer/part-time social media specialist remain.

If this obstacle can be overcome, another possible

obstacle will be technology. The computers at the field

office are only equipped with Microsoft Word rather than a

layout program. A program such as InDesign would be helpful.

However, it is doubtful that the program will be purchased

for this purpose alone.

Another possible consequence would be the use of the

Intranet at the field office level. The field office

generally does not have its own intranet portal. It would

use either the regional or headquarter portal for

information. This would possibly reduce the employees desire

to comment or make suggestions because their responses would

not be restrained to the field office, but would be shared

with either the regional or headquarters staff as well.

Although the possible problems have been addressed, the

positives include better employee interaction on several

levels. By offering the employees an opportunity to provide

feedback, they will feel their opinions are valued. By

offering the employees a central messaging service such as

the internal newsletter, they will feel better connected and

will have only one resource for information rather than

having to gain information through several resources sent

throughout the day.

In addition to the above suggestions, another way the

internal newsletter was presented to employees was by making

copies of the newsletter and placing these copies in binders

in the various break rooms. If someone didn’t read the

newsletter from their email, they could look over the past

and current newsletters while at lunch or break.

Feedback Obtained

Although my supervisor was impressed with the idea of

expanding the newsletter to provide valuable information to

employees, it was decided that because of time allowances

the product would stay as is. However, the proposal is

slated to be presented at the RAMP meeting that addresses

needed changes and lessons learned from the disaster.

Information in this research project will be used to make

the presentation during this meeting. The reasons for why

the internal communication needs to be improved at the joint

field office will be presented and hopefully, based on this

research, internal newsletters and other communications will

be improved during future disasters.

The intranet solution to offering feedback and

communications for employees is something that could not be

established for the disaster because of agency changes from

the regional to headquarter management. Again, this will

presented at the RAMP meeting prior to the closure of the

field office.

1 Bloch, Dan. Internal Communications: Beyond the newsletter. PRWeek. March 5, 2004

2 Rabinowitz, Phil. 2012. Promoting Internal Communications. The Community Tool Box, a Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas.

3 SnapComm. Internal Communication Solutions. 2012. http://www.snapcomms.com/markets/internal-communications-solutions.aspx

4 Grossman, David, Sean D. Williams and Elizabeth Castro. 2012. The Changing Role of Internal Communications—The Experts’ View. SmallWorlders.

5 Hopkins, Lee. 2006. What is Internal Communication? Better Communication Results. July 6, 2006.

Bibliography

1. Bloch, Dan. Internal Communications: Beyond the newsletter. PRWeek. March 5, 2004

2. Grossman, David, Sean D. Williams and Elizabeth Castro. 2012. The Changing Role of Internal Communications—The Experts’ View. SmallWorlders.

3. Hopkins, Lee. 2006. What is Internal Communication? Better Communication Results. July 6, 2006.

4. Marshall, Sam. 2011. The Changing Role of Internal Communications. Clearbox Consulting.

5. Proctor, Tony and Ioanna Doukakis. 2003. Change management: The role of internal communications and employee development. Corporate Communications. p. 268-277

6. Rabinowitz, Phil. 2012. Promoting Internal Communications. The Community Tool Box, a Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas.

7. SnapComm. Internal Communication Solutions. 2012. http://www.snapcomms.com/markets/internal-communications-solutions.aspx

Organization Background

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is a government

organization tasked with response to natural disasters in the United

States. The agency is invited to work on a disaster by the state in

which the disaster occurs.

If a disaster is deemed to be beyond the capabilities of the state

to handle, the president will declare a disaster and FEMA will help

disaster survivors through grants, housing assistance and

infrastructure assistance.

Although the agency has full-time employees at its headquarters in

Washington, D.C. and its 10 regional offices throughout the country,

the primary employees who handle disasters are called reservists.

Reservists are employees who are on-call to respond to disasters

across the country. They are often given less than 24 hours notice to

respond to the disaster area.

FEMA was created in the late 1970s by then-president, Jimmy

Carter. Throughout the years, the mission of the organization has

changed. After the attacks on the World Trade Centers and Pentagon on

Sept. 11, 2001, the agency was transferred to the umbrella of the

Department of Homeland Security.

The agency is best known for mishandling Hurricane Katrina and not

being prepared for the catastrophic damages caused by the storm.

Currently, the agency is working in the areas that were affected by

Hurricane Katrina more than seven years ago. Although the agency has

come a long way since Hurricane Katrina, the employees are still

working to improve and repair the agency’s reputation.

Capstone Project Outline

In my Capstone Project, I would like to look at ways to improve

internal communications at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s

field offices during a disaster.

In the beginning weeks of a major disaster operation, much

confusion abounds. Because of this confusion, mistakes are made,

people get frustrated and nerves get frayed. Offering a better

communication system would improve some of these conditions.

As a member of the external affairs team, our division is already

coordinating a one-page internal newsletter. To offer better

communication through the disaster operations, this newsletter should

be improved and extended to provide information that will be

beneficial to employees.

Also, information sent to the all employees should be concise and

offer important details that will help the employees perform their

jobs better. The information included in the newsletter would provide

details to help employees get travel vouchers prepared correctly,

offer information to help with processing of time cards, offer

training schedules and other things that will make life easier on

employees who are traveling away from home and working long hours in

less than ideal conditions.

In addition to this information, the newsletter would feature

stories on what is happening in the various departments, changes to

policy and jobs and other useful information.

Reflective Essay

As I complete this project and Internal Communications class, I

would like to say that I have learned many things about the subject.

As I completed research and prepared by project, I learned several

things about my organization. Although I have worked for the Federal

Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for three years, I have found it

to a constantly evolving organization. In the last year, the

organization has become more interested in engaging its employees and

keeping them informed.

The agency is trying to implement changes that will keep the

employees engaged and keep them invested in the organization. At the

joint field office level, one way this was done was through an

internal newsletter. The newsletter offered one story on one program

subject area each week. Although the newsletter was distributed to

all employees, it was not widely read.

To improve the readership and involvement of employees in the

field office, I proposed increasing the coverage in the newsletter

and offering information that was relevant to employees who are

working sometimes many hundred miles away from home.

The suggestions were considered by my supervisor, however, because

of a manpower shortage, the decision was made to keep the newsletter

in its current format without making additions of employee profiles,

information about travel documents and other information of interest

to employees at the field office.

Hopefully these suggestions will be passed along to the management

at the next disaster and they will be implemented. This will also

help to reduce the number of “all hands” memos submitted throughout

the day. Busy employees often overlook these memos and the

newsletter. In future disasters, hopefully something will be done to

continue to improve employee communications.