The Tribe Report 5. The Non-Desk Worker Issue | Page 3

This issue is all about the non-desk worker, that elusive group that’s just more difficult to reach than the employees who are sitting right there in front of the computer all day. It’s also the first place we’ve publicly shared results of the national study Tribe conducted recently with non-desk workers in companies with 1,000 employees or more. The cover story of this issue will give you some of the highlights of what we learned from these employees who can be moving targets for corporate communication. The most unsettling finding, to my mind, is that these frontline and field employees interpret this absence of communication as a lack of respect. They see it as evidence that those in the C-suite don’t value them or their contributions to the success of the company. Some companies, however, are doing a fantastic job communicating with non-desk employees and can offer some great ideas that might be applied to your own non-desk population. In the Spotlight this issue, we have Eli Lilly and their methods of equipping immediate supervisors with the training and tools they need to communicate effectively with their non-desk workers, as well as ways to create two-way communication between these employees and their CEO. In our Best Practices feature, we take a look at how Walmart, the big box giant that employs one percent of the U.S. working population, approaches internal communications. In the Showcase, we share the magazine we developed for Embassy Suites as a culture communication accessible even to the backof-house functions without computer access, like housekeeping and kitchen staff. And our interview this issue is with Dr. Edgar Schein, the organizational psychologist who actually coined the term “corporate culture.” Read it all here, in the first issue of the second year of The Tribe Report. WINTER 2012 VOLUME TWO • ISSUE ONE What is Tribe? We’re so glad you asked. Tribe is an internal communications company working with national and global brands. We develop strategic plans, internal employee communications and engagement programs to build internal culture. You can see some of our work at www.tribeinc.com. If you’d like to talk about what Tribe can do for you, please contact Kara Bullock at [phone] or [email protected]. Editor Elizabeth Cogswell Baskin [email protected] Contributing Writers Kara Bullock [email protected] Lindsay Podrid [email protected] Alexis Snell [email protected] Tyler Hargrove [email protected] Alan Dixon [email protected] The Tribe Report is published quarterly by Tribe Inc., 2100 Riveredge Parkway, Suite 710, Atlanta, GA 30328. Subscriptions are free of charge but limited to a small group of professionals working in internal communications or brand culture for large companies. A digital version of each issue is available to the public at www.tribeinc. com/best-practices.html. For reprints, please call Tribe at [phone]. Produced and printed in the USA. ©Copyright 2012 by Tribe Inc.