This episode features an interview with Natalie Ridsdale, Director of Internal Communications at Levi Strauss & Co. Natalie has spent the last 21 years refining her communication skills, starting out as a copy editor at newspapers and now managing employee experience at Levi’s. In this episode, Amanda and Natalie discuss how internal and external communications can work better together, collecting employee feedback, and how Levi’s is making space for employees to have tough conversations.
This episode features an interview with Natalie Ridsdale, Director of Internal Communications at Levi Strauss & Co. Natalie has spent the last 21 years refining her communication skills, starting out as a copy editor at newspapers and now managing employee experience at Levi’s.
In this episode, Amanda and Natalie discuss how internal and external communications can work better together, collecting employee feedback, and how Levi’s is making space for employees to have tough conversations.
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“My number one piece of advice when I talk to people is, don't ask a question if you're not going to act on the answer. People need to know that you're going to take this feedback and do something with it. So, if you're asking something that gives people a sense that you might take steps to address it and you never planned on it, I think you're harming some of that trust in the relationship between you and the people that you're surveying. So make sure that you're asking about things you're actually going to take action on.” – Natalie Ridsdale
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Episode Timestamps:
*(01:47): Natalie’s background
*(06:12): Segment: Story Time
*(06:34): How internal and external comms can work better together
*(07:49): Segment: Getting Tactical
*(18:05): Dos and don’ts of employee surveys and feedback
*(21:35): How Levi’s holds tough conversations internally
*(24:27): Segment: Seat at the Table
*(26:57): How Natalie recommends change to leaders
*(28:27): Segment: Asking for a Friend
*(28:44): Natalie’s advice to a first time IC leader
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Links:
Connect with Natalie on LinkedIn
Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn
Amanda Berry: Natalie, thank you for joining me today. How are you doing? I'm great. How are you? I'm generally good. Thanks for asking. I wanna start off and learn a little bit more about your background. You work for, to me, one of the biggest brand names in the United States, maybe even across the world, Levi Straus, everyone knows what that is, but gimme some highlights of your background that got you to, to where you are.
Natalie Ridsdale: Sure. So I started off in newspapers and I have to say, I think everyone should have to start their job in newspapers. It is the best bootcamp ever. You get to learn editing from people around you in a way that you wouldn't just in a, in maybe a corporate setting. You definitely get comfortable with deadlines.
I had like three or four deadlines. I had to meet a. And then today, when I have to send an all employee email and everyone else is freaked out about having to send to 9,000 people, or what have you, I'm like, okay, this is much less stressful than having the front page of a newspaper be in front of an entire town.
So it was definitely a good way to start my career. I made some of the best friends I've ever had there as well. And then, you know, I'd like to say. I've never really done the same job twice, but they've always involved words. So from newspapers, I worked at a PR agency and did copy editing there. I ended up working at a magazine cuz that's what I got my degree in and that's what I've always wanted to do.
And then I worked in a corporate job doing communications more toward clients than employees. and then this job opened up here at Levi's and it really does come down to relationships in this business, which I'm sure, you know, the chief communications officer who had just started with somebody I'd worked with at the PR agency I worked with several years ago and she reached out about this role and it was a little bit of a leap of faith because I hadn't done this exact job before.
But she felt I had the skills for it. And so I ended up here and I just absolutely love it. So, you know, it's all about building those relationships throughout your career because you never know where the next job's gonna come from. That's
Amanda Berry: right. That's right. How was that transition from copy editor to leading internal coms?
Talk about that transition.
Natalie Ridsdale: It was quite a bit different in some ways, but in many ways, the principles of communication still hold, right? So I feel like my editing skills, my writing skills, my ability to turn things run really quickly have been invaluable here, but obviously the content is quite a bit different.
And so I really love what I do now because. I love being able to connect with the people that I'm communicating with, like on a face to face basis. So when I'm writing these emails, I'm writing internet posts, you know, it's not just going out to the public to people. I don't know it's going to the people that I actually get to work with every day and interact with.
And that's just sort of a special relationship that you end up having in this role. And the other thing that's been super fun for me in this role. Getting to create sort of a corporate voice and really sort of getting. Be more conversational. We like to call it cheeky. Not cheesy. We try to be funny when we can, but it's, doesn't have to be as dry as like a, as a straight up media post or, you know, editing in a newspaper.
So that part has been really fun as
Amanda Berry: well. Yeah. Kinda loosening up. Not so formal. Yeah. When you talk to employees can be a little more fun and informal, I guess. Yeah. So tell me about your current role director of internal communications at Levi Strauss and company. You mentioned 9,000 employees. Just walk me through some of that, the big rocks that, that you're move in there at
Natalie Ridsdale: Levi, if you're looking at our corporate population, which is in my role, who I primarily communicate with, we do have obviously retail employees and we have some distribution that our employees and we have people who are focused on those groups, cuz they have different communications channels and needs.
But for the most part I'm focused on. Communicating with all corporate employees through email, through the internet, through our meetings that we have, and basically anything that's coming from a corporate function to most employees, whether it's finance facilities, security, you know, I do the crisis communications for employees.
Obviously that's been like two years of crisis lately.
Amanda Berry: I'm hearing that across the board from everyone it's just been crisis, crisis, crisis. I
Natalie Ridsdale: know it's just, is it ever gonna end? And then, you know, partnering with facilities on things like return to office, which obviously has been a really big focus lately.
So I have that angle of my job and then I also do some executive communications. So I support our general counsel and then also the it function.
Amanda Berry: Let's move into our first segment story time. Welcome
Natalie Ridsdale: to story. Time, story, time, story time. Let me give you a story time. You have a,
Amanda Berry: a long background in external communications.
You talked about newspaper. I wanna first talk about, because this is a bit of a rub sometimes in internal coms. Like now that you've seen both sides of that coin, how can internal and external work better together?
Natalie Ridsdale: I mean, I think what you have to acknowledge is. All external is internal and all internal is external, right?
Like you have to assume that anything you say to employees will be shared broadly, and you have to assume that all employees are reading the news and seeing what's out there. So we try to take an integrated approach when we need to communicate something and look at end to end. What are we telling employees?
What are we telling externally? How can we give employees maybe a little bit more context in color so that they understand decisions that we're making or stands that we're taking? So that's sort of how we try to approach it. I mean, you have to build those relationships within your team so that they know to give you the heads up.
And I know in a lot of places. Internal communications can be a little bit of a stepchild, but I feel very fortunate in my team that I feel like everybody really values internal communications and the importance of, you know, you need your employees to be on board with what you're doing as a company, and you need to bring them along on this journey and it's not.
And nice to do. It's really a must do. And if you wanna have a strong culture, your employees need to feel like they're part of the conversation. And that they're part of what we're talking about externally as well. That's a great
Amanda Berry: segue to our next segment, getting tactical.
Natalie Ridsdale: I'm trying to figure out tactics and to be perfect and honest, and I didn't have to worry about tactics too much.
Here I am in charge and trying to say, why did you sleep through tactics, tactics, tactics.
Amanda Berry: Wanna talk about that idea of the employee experience and building culture and how important all of that is in culture building and in employee experience. Cause in your current role, you're responsible for some employee experience initiatives.
Then you talked about the meeting, the intranet, all the communication, that's such a big part of the employee experience. So let's just start broad and talk about how you're creating and maintaining a good culture at Levi's.
Natalie Ridsdale: Yes, I think one. The hardest things right now is figuring out what does that look like?
As we move into this new world of working, whether it's hybrid or remote, our company was very much a face to face culture before the pandemic. And so we were able to use a lot of tools. That were more like in person type tools. So whether it's the environment that you're in at our headquarters, making sure that people could see the clothes that were coming out in the next season, being able to play our advertisements on the video screens so that you could just sort of have this sort of surround sound experience of our culture.
And now in a remote environment, we're figuring out how to translate. Into stuff that works virtually as well as in person. And I will say, I don't think we've cracked the nut. I don't know that anybody's cracked the nut, especially in an environment where at the end of the day, you kind of just don't want anymore emails.
You don't want any more meetings. Like how do we reach people where they are, but in a way that feels different and fresh. And feels like what employees wanna participate in. So that's really what I'm focused on right now. I think it's one of the most interesting times to be in internal communications for this very reason.
I think we're having to throw out a lot of our playbooks and start from scratch. And I think a lot of that also requires a willingness to try and fail because we don't know exactly what's gonna work and that's sometimes hard and sometimes scary, but you know, let's just try something. If it doesn't work, then we move on to plan B.
So that's where my mind is right now is how do we make culture come alive if you're not in the office, especially for all the new folks who joined during the pandemic. This has been a very interesting social experiment of some kind.
Yeah,
Amanda Berry: I, I agree. I think this is one of the most interesting time. Well, this to me, this is like the most interesting time to be internal comps, cuz we're all part of like rebuilding how we do everything is now done differently.
And I was, I was actually gonna ask you before you said, I don't think anyone has figured out to crack that nut. I was gonna ask you what has worked for you. Is there something you can point to that says we used to do it this way and now it's working really well doing it differently this way because of our remote environment.
One of the things
Natalie Ridsdale: that was always popular before. COVID was, we have basically an ask me anything session with our CEO and traditionally it had always been in the building and really with our headquarters folks. And we had started to expand it a little bit before COVID during the pandemic, we just knew people needed to feel closer and feel like they were getting answers about what was going on.
So we went fully virtual and we uped it to two times a. And that has been, I think, a real benefit of the pandemic and that now this is open to a global audience to connect with our CEO and participate in this in a way that we hadn't before. So I think there's a few things that have been actually made easier by the pandemic.
We happen to roll out our internet two weeks after we all went home. And that was already just planned. And we had, of course, all these fun things planned for in the office that had to be put on the back burner, but we launched our internet two weeks after the pandemic began, or I should say people in the us, we basically all went home.
And then we also launched teams just maybe like a month later, which was already in the works, but was accelerated much more quickly. But I would say that our employees were so much more receptive to adopting this new technology because we really didn't have a choice. And so I feel like. Part of the benefit has been the receptiveness to doing things virtually that we wouldn't have had before.
So, you know, we're trying to figure out what it is from like a social perspective. That'll work. I haven't quite found, you know, you can only have so many happy hours or
Amanda Berry: eight nights, virtual paint nights. Yeah,
Natalie Ridsdale: exactly. So, but that's my next thing is like, how do we create a, that social interaction, but on a virtual level,
Amanda Berry: Your role clearly has to have a big emphasis on employee feedback and how they feel about this stuff.
Like they ask us or ask me anything. I'm assuming you've got some good feedback. And I wanna talk to you about that. Cause I think Levi does a pretty good job of collecting employee feedback. And just start with the basics, I just kind of wanna open your playbook and say, how do you collect employee feedback on whether it be in, like in how you liking these, ask us anything, or what's wrong with our culture or how can we improve our employee experience?
What are you using to collect that feedback?
Natalie Ridsdale: so for every single meeting that we have, we always do a survey afterward to get feedback on that. And we, we ask about the meeting itself, but we also ask some benchmark questions that we can measure over time, just about how people feel connected to the company and to the business and its strategies.
Our HR team does a lot of employee engagement type surveys. But what I have found super valuable are two things that we do. One is we have employee feedback groups and we call 'em the tailors, cuz everything we do has to have a, I love that an
Amanda Berry: apparel pun connection. So, so they're jeans or dear clothing.
Exactly.
Natalie Ridsdale: So we have two groups, one with leaders and just one with the general population that they're primarily us focused at this time, but we may expand and we get together quarterly and this is really just an opportunity for me to pick their brains. Primarily about communications. So we will, you know, ask them about some recent communications that we had and how they landed, what their feedback was.
We will preview communications that are coming up to see like, what questions do you still have? What can we address? And then we also just open it up to say, you know what? What's on your mind? What are you hearing? Like, what is the pulse of the company right now? Are people excited? Are people burned out?
Are people feeling overwhelmed? How are your colleagues feeling? And all feedback that we get from that. Completely anonymous. We don't record the meetings. We'd really try and keep it safe space where people can stay whatever they want. And so we tap these groups often after also we have a big announcement and we'll just, you know, we have a teams group where I'll say, Hey, how'd this land?
What do you guys think? And they'll give me, you know, great, honest feedback. and the great thing is that we can then share it back with our leaders as proof points to say, Hey, people are tired or people, you know, maybe didn't feel as connected to this announcement or people were surprised by this. And we probably should have given a little more direction here.
So that has been amazing. And then we also do. An employee communication survey about every other year. We're a little bit off cycle because of COVID, but this is a longer survey and we really ask questions to get an idea of the general quality of our communications. Like, is it useful? Is it giving you the information that you need?
And then we also dig into like, what topics do you want more of and what channels do you like? Where would you like to get more information? So we have quantitative questions and we also have qualitative questions. And so I'm going through that right now. We just did the survey in the spring, and it's just so valuable to hear what people want more of.
And really people want less of a lot of things. People are just overwhelmed. So it's being able to look at that and say, where can we cut back? Where can we streamline? How can we better package and curate this content for employees so that they don't feel. Overwhelmed by, you know, the volume of, of what we're sharing with them.
Yeah,
Amanda Berry: that's just a critical role for an internal coms person, right. To they look across the board and try to figure out how to, you don't want all these messages going out. So that's, that's great. How often do you get, or with the tailors? I love that name by the way I, instead I was like, yeah, you could, you could say like speaking off the cuff or you know exactly a lot of puns with that.
Yeah. How often do they get together or I know you mention. Slack. How often do you ping them for information?
Natalie Ridsdale: Yeah, so we get together on a quarterly basis as a meeting. We have those scheduled and then I on an ad hoc basis, maybe a few times in between meetings, but once you've built those relationships, the folks that I know know that they can reach out to me basically at any time, if they ever have questions or just wanna provide feedback in the moment.
So that's been really. So
Amanda Berry: when you were talking about like HR department, does it, you're, you're ping people for feedback. I wanna talk about survey fatigue. And I, when I was thinking about, I was like myth or real, and I'm sure that there's a little bit of both to that, but do you hear a lot about survey fatigue and, and feedback fatigue from your employees, from all these different mechanisms you're using?
Yes.
Natalie Ridsdale: I think that there is survey fatigue. The two places that we see fatigue are surveys and trainings that we hear feedback on. I think that this especially comes through, because we do ask for feedback after all of our meetings, that it can feel like a high volume of surveys, but I feel like people opt in when they have feedback to give the response rate that we just got for our employee communication survey was actually like pretty great.
It was, I think it was about 25%, which for audience, this big is really good. So we are feeling really good about the feedback on. but it's hard cuz you want to create that two way dialogue. You want people to feel like they're being heard. You wanna make sure you're making data driven, informed decisions, but without creating that sense of fatigue.
So I think there's probably ways that we could fine tune. We've been trying to think like, could we combine certain surveys or could we, instead of sending out an email, have a place where you could always go and provide a survey. So that's stuff that we've been considering, but we haven't quite landed.
Amanda Berry: Well, given, given your experience, getting feedback and doing surveys, what are some dos and don'ts. So what mistakes are people making that you've noticed or that you've changed your behavior when creating surveys or feedback mechanisms for employees?
Natalie Ridsdale: My number one piece of advice when I talk to people is like, don't ask a question.
If you're not gonna act on the answer, people need to know that you're gonna take this feedback and do something with it. So. if you're asking something that gives people a sense that you might take steps to address it and you never planned on it. I think you're harming some of that trust in the relationship between you and the people that you're surveying.
So make sure that you're asking about things you're actually gonna take action on. And I would also say try to be as specific as you can be so that you can take action. For example, with our internet, wanting to get feedback on that. We wanted to know, not just do you like it, is it working, but trying to dig into, if it's not working, like what's one thing we could do to make it better and that you get a lot more comprehensive feedback and actionable feedback.
So that has been really helpful. But I also do think that making sure that if you're gonna. Surveys over time, making sure that you're keeping some of those same questions so that you can, you know, measure progress and see how you're evolving over time. That's what for the communications survey that we've been doing.
We have a few questions that we've had since the beginning, and it's been great to see the progress that we've made and to merchandise that back to employees and say, listen, We are listening and here's what we're changing. And the survey shows that we're getting better. So that's really cool.
Amanda Berry: I love reading employee comments and surveys.
To me, it means so much, especially when they write 'em in and, and give really good constructive feedback. Is there some feedback that's really stood out to you over the last two years? That's changed the way you've done something with this work remote culture.
Natalie Ridsdale: I mean, I would say as I'm going through all of these pieces of feedback now, Just the sheer volume of folks saying.
Like less is more, is really hitting me. And I think as communicators, we wanna try to provide as many channels as we can. We feel like that we're doing a good job if we're giving people all of these resources, but giving people what they need in a way that is digestible. And that often takes a little more time and coordination quite frankly, across all of your stakeholder groups.
So getting smarter about that, I also think part of my job is to. Share with leaders, what we're hearing from employees and making sure that their needs are being addressed. And so at the beginning of the pandemic, we did hear a lot that people were tired. They're burnt out. They were having, you know, kids at home and they were having to school and it was just a whole new way of living and working.
And it was a lot. And so. We'd merchandise this information back to our leadership team and they ended up giving us the last Friday of the month off as a time to recharge and get your chores done, your errands done, you know, just take your care of yourself. And that has been like hands down, the favorite perk for employees.
And that really was driven by what they said and what they needed.
Amanda Berry: Oh, that's nice. A lot of the stuff you're saying I'm hearing at organization, or I've been in organizations that have been doing this stuff. It's great to see that leaders were reacting based on what you and other. I see people were telling them, let me just switch topics here for just a second without we don't have to go too far into.
Specifics, but I know Levi's is very vocal about political issues or other stance on political issues. Can you gimme an example of one they've done recently? And then how do you bring these conversations to light and sort of facilitate, I mediate conversations with employees.
Natalie Ridsdale: So most recently we've been outspoken on a, a few topics.
Reproductive rights has been one and then gun violence prevention is something we've been talking about for a while, but it's been back in the news lately. And so, you know, we have criteria that we follow and we decide when to speak out on things. But in many cases it's actually driven. By employees and them speaking out and saying, this is a, an issue that matters to me.
So we know that not every single employee is going to agree with the stances that we take. And that is completely fine. What we do try to do is provide some context about why we're speaking out. And why we feel that this is an issue that is authentic to us and that we can have a voice on. And in most cases, it, you know, ties back to our business in some way.
So for internal, we do usually a post on our internet called our Internet's called threads, and our posts are called where we stand. And so we give sort of the background on why did we take this stance? Why is this important to us? And then usually we have a set of FAQ. that employees can, can review. So we really want to make sure that our employees.
Again, feel like they're being brought along on this journey of why we're speaking out, but we're also want to make sure that not everyone has to agree with everything that we say. We understand that and that's completely fine. So that's how we approach it. And. I think it's, I think it's healthy to have diverse perspectives within a company.
That's something that is with our diversity equity and inclusion team that we try to foster is that diverse viewpoints make us stronger. So creating that space for people to have their own opinions is really important as
Amanda Berry: well. When you were talking about the internet, you got threads, you got tailors. I just have to ask if there are other fun pun you use within your company related to
Natalie Ridsdale: Yeah, our, our external blog is called unzipped, which is a little, a little racy. We did a, our survey series in the past with sea, to me, with sea being S E a M. One of the tools that the retail team used was called pocket. There's a lot of things, especially when you first start working here every time you see an opportunity for a pun, you kind of jump on it.
Now that I've been here, I don't know, eight or nine years. I'm like, okay, I gotta ease off those. those
Amanda Berry: clothing puns. it's getting too kid. What'd you say? It's not cheesy. It's. Cheeky. Not cheesy. Yeah. Cheeky. That's getting cheeky, but no, I think it's it's I love that. I think it's fun when you know, companies have fun with it.
Yeah. Onto the next segment seat at the table.
Natalie Ridsdale: First get seat the table, get seat the table. You want to seat at the table.
Amanda Berry: You're the executive communications partner for the chief information officer and general counsel at Levi's having these strong, good partnerships with leaders. It's so critical. Can you talk about how you started off building these relationships?
Natalie Ridsdale: I mean, it's all really about building trust. And I think what's interesting in my role is also I'm, I'm usually one of the junior members of a leadership team.
And so part of it is also finding, you know, your footing and self confidence to speak up around leaders who may be a lot more senior than you. So that takes a little bit of time in getting used to. But, I mean, I'm fortunate that both of my leaders that I support are wonderful people that I truly enjoy working with and they come to me for, you know, advice on communications.
That to me makes me feel like a valued partner. And I I'd like to think I'm a valued partner to them as well. But I think what's really important is being able to see what's happening across the company. And one of our values is empathy and it helps you really understand what's going on in other parts of the business.
And that makes you also a better communicator because then, you know, maybe this, our, you know, it team is all heads down on a huge project that's coming up and maybe we need to ease off some other things to give them space for that gives you some understanding of where people might be having challenges.
Where we can share some of the feedback that we are hearing with those leaders to say, Hey, sounds like teams might be stretched right now. Let's ease off some other things. It's a great sort of a two way street. I think, to anybody who's sort of starting an executive communications. I think the hardest part is really building trust, but also building your self confidence to be able to speak up with authority about communications.
Basically being a voice for the employees in the room.
Amanda Berry: And when you have leaders that challenge you, like, let's say, you say, let's say, you say, Hey, we're hearing from employees. They want fewer channels. And they say, no, we like all these channels. I always sort of laugh and say, you know, they're the boss, you know, and above my pay grade or whatever, sort of jokingly, but how do you work with leaders to bring them into these conversations and help them understand why your, where your recommendations come
Natalie Ridsdale: from?
Yeah. And that's why I think the surveys are so important because it gives me real data to help back this up and to show them that this is coming from employees. My job is almost like advocate and I am sort of a stand in for the employees and, you know, trying to advocate for them. But I think. There are definitely times where people think more is more.
And I think part of what my job is, is to explain to them that really what we need to do is hit the right people with the right information at the right time. And so us being sometimes very. Target and targeted and surgical on these communications is gonna get us much better results than if we feel like noise or static in the system, because we are just trying to reach everybody all the time.
I feel like in general, when you come to them and you explain why you're coming to this decision, most people are fine with it. I think it's, you know, we. We never wanna be the team of no. Right. It's always like, maybe it's like a yes. And right. Well, we could do that, but let me tell you what I think might work better and what might get you the results that you need.
So really coming at it from how do we deliver what you're asking for, but in the best way possible. And how do we do it in a way that's gonna work for employees, which is, you know, the most important.
Amanda Berry: Absolutely. Let's move into our last segment, asking for a friend who's asking
Natalie Ridsdale: for a friend. Hey, asking for a friend, asking for a friend.
Amanda Berry: I mean, you've been at Levi for, you said eight or nine years now, what advice would you give a first time isolator just coming into a company.
Natalie Ridsdale: So I always think of this role. You are your own audience in many ways, right? You are an employee and you need to communicate with employees. So when I start thinking about a communication or a plan, I always think through what would I wanna hear?
What questions would I have? Does this feel real? Does this resonate or like if your BS meter is going off, then yeah. You can bet that it's gonna go off for others as well. So think through your own thoughts first and understanding that you are not every employee and you can't be the one perspective that you consider, but I do think sometimes we get in a rush.
Start writing or start communicating without stopping and reflecting on like, what do people really wanna know? What do they wanna get out of this? What are they wondering about? How are they feeling? How things land in a time of a normal time versus a COVID time is quite different, right? We need to approach these things differently.
So that is what I would say. It's all about empathy and, and thinking through what do the employees need first and foremost.
Amanda Berry: What do you think some of the biggest challenges that internal coms is gonna face in the future? I mean, this whole COVID has brought a whole new set. How do we reach people virtually, right.
No longer having people in this, a lot of people in the same room. Mm-hmm what are some of the biggest challenges you see? That's that's on the horizon for internal coms.
Natalie Ridsdale: Yeah. I mean, sort of related to hybrid work and how do we build culture when we're all disparate? I mean, as I think about the evolving workplace, You know, why do you choose to work for a company today?
If you're not gonna come into the office or if you could work anywhere? I mean, I think that's gonna be the question that we have to answer and address is like, how do we make our company bringing that culture to life appeal to people, even if you can't come into the building. And I think. Especially in for folks who've never been able to come to our headquarters or meet people face to face.
I think that's gonna be a really interesting challenge. I've worked at LSN co, like I said, for almost nine years now, I think, and that's probably the longest that's for sure. The longest I've worked anywhere. And it really is because of the company and the people. And that's really what has kept me here.
So. Do I bring that sort of feeling to everyone else in the company. And so, you know, we've done some work with our employee value proposition about defining that and how do we crystallize that and make that come to life. But to me, that's the most interesting challenge. If you could, if you can work anywhere, what makes you wanna work here?
Right. yeah.
Amanda Berry: How do you make your company stand out? How does Levi straws and companies stand out over anywhere else now that now that yeah, most companies are hiring remote from anywhere. I know everyone's trying to get better at their jobs. What do you do to stay really current on internal communication trends and, and new technology and all that kind of stuff.
How do you stay current?
Natalie Ridsdale: Yeah, well I'm, as I tell my, um, my friends who are outside of this business, it's it's can be challenging because you don't see what happens in other companies, right? You can't just go online and look and see, Hey, what are they doing? Because most of it's only the other employees.
See. So I just find it so important to build relationships with other internal coms professionals. The business so that you can tap them for what they're doing, see what challenges they're facing and how they're dealing with it. A lot of times people have playbooks. You don't have to start from scratch.
You can, you know, at least have a strong starting point. If you talk to your colleagues and other companies. And I think it just makes you a stronger person when you have these relationships that you can draw on and get fresh ideas. I think especially. Depending on what industry you're in. You kind of get in sometimes a, a certain way of thinking.
And especially if you're talking to other folks in different industries, they're gonna approach things completely different, you know, in the bay area, we're around a lot of tech companies. So they're doing, you know, they're probably ahead of the game of where we are in terms of using technology for employees, because they've been doing it the entire time.
And so being able to tap to tap into these networks to me is the most valuable way to keep fresh.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. I mean, I've seen people like LinkedIn, I'm on a number of groups and I'm sure you are too for internal coms and employee communications where people just, Hey, I need an doesn't anyone have an example of a change management plan about X and then tons of people will, will chime in.
I think that's one of the things I would love the most about internal coms folks and the professionals is that they're always willing to share. Share war stories. If you're struggling, you know, they'll sit there and talk it out with you. And I think that's just such a, an amazing part of this, the internal communications community.
Natalie Ridsdale: Yeah. And our chief communications officer does a great job of bringing in guests from other companies speak. I mean, it's not just internal, it's internal and external, but being able to get these perspectives from all over the place and it not only keeps you educated, it keeps you inspired.
Amanda Berry: Yeah, that's so important.
Well, Natalie, this has been a lot of fun. I really appreciate you coming on and talking a lot about feedback. I know that's something that's been coming up, especially in light of, you know, everything's changing and trying to get employees' perspectives and, and improve the employee experience. I think it's such a key part of this before I let you go.
Where can listeners find you?
Natalie Ridsdale: Well, I'm on LinkedIn. If anybody wants to connect, I'm always happy to share internal coms stuff with anybody who wants to know, but that's probably the best way to connect with.
Amanda Berry: Great. Thanks Natalie, for joining us today. This
Natalie Ridsdale: has been great. Awesome. So nice to talk to you as well.
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