David Radcliffe's neck: IABC Europe Excel Award winner talks about engaging employees and reaching out to other cultures.

To understand the secret behind Excel Award winner David Radcliffe's passion for employee communication, we have to go back to his childhood and a busy street in London. On their way home from school, David and his brother regularly met Mr. Joseph, the elderly Jewish owner of a bookstore. Not only would he help them to get into their building, but he would also check what they had learned in school. One day, a big black car came speeding down the road, nearly hitting Radcliffe. Mr. Joseph, who caught the boy in time, remarked: "You know, young David, one day you'll have a big black car like that. Always stop for people!"

Radcliffe has not forgotten his old friend's precious advice. He is now the chief executive of the U.K.-based Hogg Robinson. With 7,500 employees and 3,000 offices in 200 countries, Hogg Robinson is a leading provider of corporate and employee services, as well as Europe's third-largest international travel management company. Its businesses offer outsourced pension payments, employee benefits consulting, corporate event management and e-commerce. And it was Radcliffe's interest in his employees' needs and his dedication to internal communication that landed him the first IABC Europe Excel (Excellence in Communication Leadership) Award, presented in early December in Brussels, Belgium. His ease with people was clearly evident at the awards dinner, joking at being in a room full of communicators: "It is like meeting a hangman. He looks at you and says that you've got a really nice neck."

Asked what the award means to him, Radcliffe does not hesitate to put it in perspective. "What really pleases me is that the award should go to the company," he says. "I have stolen all the ideas from the people who work for me. I may have added one or two myself. But all I have done is make it happen." Radcliffe believes that a company gets free ideas from every employee. And when an organization succeeds in harnessing those ideas, it not only gets a lot of free advice, but also creates a culture of exchange.

Creating powerful platforms

Radcliffe digs for those ideas in both formal and informal discussion platforms. He spends two days every six weeks meeting with employees in their offices around the world. "Rather than going around one of our buildings with 200 people, I am better to get 20 of them for an hour and say, 'Ask me questions,'" he says, explaining that those 20 will then relate their conversations to the 200.

He also meets regularly with 12 people from throughout the company. They fly in for a few hours to discuss different matters with him and other senior directors. The participants are guaranteed confidentiality. When Radcliffe became chief executive in 1997 and launched this initiative, most of the questions were about local issues and tended to focus on the individual, such as "Why is my manager never talking to me?" "Why am I never given a chance to talk about my career?" or "Why are you being unfair to that person?" Today, the comfort level has improved so that people's concerns are now more about the company and its acquisition plans and growth prospects. "This happened because the local issues have already been dealt with," says Radcliffe, citing yearly staff appraisals, Internet-based feedback programs and internal publications that cover these areas.

Radcliffe attended the IABC award dinner in Brussels on a stopover to Australia. "Next week, I will see three locations in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. I will be having lunches, breakfasts and dinners with everyone to make sure that they have time to talk to me. It is a week of my life--wasted or well spent?" he muses, but he already knows the answer. When he leaves, he says, those employees will say, "The chief executive actually listens to what I have to say."

Cross-cultural communication 

Another program Radcliffe is proud of is interchange. "No matter where I went, I used to hear, 'Why aren't there more chances to work abroad?'" he says. That was when Hogg Robinson came up with the idea of inviting employees to apply for a "job" in another country. They usually stay for a month, experiencing a different culture and learning to work in it. (For more about Interchange, see "Communicating with the Chief Executive," right.)

Radcliffe also leads Business Travel International (BTI), a corporate travel management company that is partially owned and managed by Hogg Robinson. BTI recently set up majority-controlled joint ventures in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. BTI Jin Jiang is the only corporate travel management company to have obtained licenses to do business in China's major cities--a vast advantage in a country whose corporate travel market has experienced double-digit growth in recent years as a result of both direct foreign investment and the expanding domestic economy.

As CEO, Radcliffe made sure he learned about China's culture as well as its business prospects. "China's culture is much older than any other, so they've got to have something right," he says. "Go and find out what that is, and then blend it with what you want.... When you go into a different country, with all the best technology in the world, you still encounter a huge history, and that means that different people have different needs." Radcliffe's mantra, he adds, is "never assume you have the right answer."

Despite his earnest attempts to understand other cultures, Radcliffe admits to some hilarious cross-cultural situations. At one dinner in China, he recalls, he was giving a speech and thanking his host, the mayor of a big town, from "the bottom of his heart." When Radcliffe got back to his table, the mayor looked concerned and told him that he was sorry to hear that Radcliffe had heart troubles.

Valuing people in their jobs

Radcliffe's great sense of humor is a powerful ally in the pursuit of a corporate culture conducive to openness and better communication. "The best way is to treat other people how you like to be treated yourself. It is not rocket science, is it?" he says. Many communicators, hard-boiled by years of fighting with boards insensitive to internal communication, might answer that it can get pretty close. But this does not seem to be an issue at Hogg Robinson. "If you have to have things in the company that are not nice, the thing to do is to explain why you have them. At least then everyone understands," he says.

Employee feedback, through Hogg Robinson's many internal communication programs, is critical. "If people do not understand what we are trying to do, then my whole desk is a waste of time," Radcliffe explains. "This is why spending time on communication becomes very important."

Radcliffe believes that employment in a company is very much like marriage. If the feeling of security is there, if the employees feel that the company is successful and treats them fairly, then people feel good. "Most human beings want recognition," he says. "They do not want to have to worry whether they are valued in their jobs." In fact, statistics in the U.K. show that 82 percent of employees leave their jobs not for money but because of a lack of recognition. "Recognize people first and they won't go looking," Radcliffe suggests. Among Hogg Robinson's initiatives to support that sort of recognition is one that encourages employees to nominate their colleagues for a thank-you letter signed by their manager or Radcliffe himself (see "Communicating with the Chief Executive," above).

Mastering change

Change and reputation were high on the list of topics discussed at the EuroComm conference, where Radcliffe received the IABC award. Like the other companies represented in Brussels, BTI has been dealing with significant global change. Over the past three years, increasing oil prices, continued terrorist threats, turmoil in the Middle East and a global economic downturn have all played a role in the evolution of BTI's business. "When you manage a business that is going through enormous change, it is very easy to misunderstand what communication is," cautions Radcliffe. "You have to get people involved in what is going on. If they can ask questions, they can understand what is going on. That's proper communication.

As to corporate reputation, Radcliffe is convinced that integrity is key. "I do not believe that you need to be dishonest in business. You might need to be clever occasionally, or economical with the truth, but you don't need to be dishonest," he says. A company also has to have self-belief: "If communication plays a large part in establishing whether you are successful, then you are a company with self-belief."

Of course, people are crucial, too, he adds. "If people feel good about the company, then that company is good."

RELATED ARTICLE: Communicating with the chief executive.

David Radcliffe and his team at Hogg Robinson have put special emphasis on employee communication with a variety of programs. He personally spends on average two days every six weeks visiting corporate locations both in the U.K. and overseas. In recent months, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Stockholm, Helsinki, Moscow, Melbourne, Sydney, Paris, Grenoble, Singapore, Milan and Frankfurt have all been on his itinerary. He shares feedback from these visits with Hogg Robinson's employees via an internal newsletter. To complement this program, employees from across the organization are frequently invited to join Radcliffe and his senior colleagues for lunch in the company boardroom.

Another Hogg Robinson program is called Thanks and is open to all staff who want to express their appreciation for a colleague who has worked particularly hard. Nominees receive a gift and a personal letter of thanks from their director. Last year, some 40 employees received the award. Each month, the outstanding nominations, selected by a Thanks panel, are further commended and receive a Thanks again! award, which includes a letter of recognition from Radcliffe. In addition, they are invited to an annual event that crowns the Thanks recipient Employee of the Year. Prizes for this event include airfare plus hotel accommodations and spending money.

In 2003, Hogg Robinson piloted Interchange, a staff exchange program that gave 12 employees the opportunity to spend one month working abroad in a location of their choice. Last year, staff members were able to apply for one of the 20 specially created Interchange jobs, which are based on temporary business roles across the company network. Interchange is open to all employees who have been with the company for at least two years and provides successful candidates the opportunity to experience different cultures and learn about industry nuances.

The 2005 Interchange Selection Committee has chosen 20 applicants out of 250; placements will take place throughout the year, including a business travel consultant from Hamburg moving to Shanghai for one month.

Understanding that "not everyone feels they have to work 24 hours a day," Radcliffe also introduced E-Mail Free Friday to help create a more relaxed working environment and promote personal communication. Each Friday, employees are encouraged to focus on traditional forms of communication and pick up the telephone or walk across the office to speak to a colleague, rather than use e-mail. It also prevents overeager employees from e-mailing last-minute requests on Friday afternoon, forcing their colleagues to prepare a response over the weekend.--S.C.

Silvia Cambie is a communication consultant with Cambre Associates in Brussels, Belgium, and a board member of IABC Belgium. She can be reached at [e-mail].