Radio messages for teamwork

Call it a desperate bid to reach out to its employees or an innovative way to connect with its youthful workforce used to listening to FM radio, India's IT major HCL has come up with a novel concept"" a radio newsletter.

Getting employees to go through the pages of newsletters apprising them of the developments and goals of an organisation is a challenging task for most HR departments.

And HCL Comnet too, specialising in infrastructure management, has been at it for some time and claims to have tried different methods in the past, but to no avail. Now, with a newsletter in the format of a radio, the company claims to have finally cracked a creative route to connect with its 2,200 employees.

Appropriately inaugurated by Radio Mirchi's youth icon, "Ulta Pulta" Nitin, this Thursday, the first-of-its-kind radio newsletter will have serious corporate news cleverly packed around entertaining items.

Unlike an ordinary radio channel, this one will play pre-recorded messages related to the company's latest happenings, news, and also provide an interactive platform to employees to communicate within the company.

All this information will be packaged with popular songs and played as CDs at breakout areas like canteens and lounges. Employees can also access it through the intranet on their desktops.

Taking a cue from popular programmes on FM channels, the "newsletter" will have shows like Janta ki Awaaz (talk by employees), a spoof on Babbar Sher, and a countdown of the five hot tracks intermittently breaking into, say, a talk by the top brass of the management.

"Communication is one of the most critical things in the industry. And we've been wanting to do something really different to connect with our work force who are mostly in the age bracket of 25-26 years," points out J Kalyan Raman, vice-president, human capital management at HCL Comnet.

Refusing to divulge the expenses outlined for this creative initiative, Raman maintains it's the most cost-effective way to employee communication with a fun element.

The CDs will initially be updated every fortnight and then, eventually, on a weekly basis. The company also plans to launch an internal RJ hunt among its employees countrywide.

A 100 per cent subsidiary of HCL Technologies, HCL Comnet has been addressing the growing demand for cost-effective management of technology infrastructure across geographically dispersed locations.

With a mission to develop innovative solutions for enterprises worldwide, the company plans to expand its employee base to 3,000 in the next nine months. And with the right motivation, such targets should be a cakewalk.