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In our 15^th podcast, we were delighted to welcome Victoria Lewis-Stephens and Alys O’Neill of Instinctif Partners, an international business communications consultancy that specializes in reputation, influence and engagement.  The topic: How to lead change from inside the organization by identifying your employee influencers.

Victoria is Managing Partner of Instinctif Partners. She has extensive experience in internal communications and engagement and has worked in a range of in house and agency roles. Victoria has delivered a number of projects for Lloyds Banking Group, Unilever, and Royal Bank of Scotland. Previously, Victoria was Vice President of Employee Communications Europe Middle East and Africa for State Street.

Alys is Senior Engagement Specialist at Instinctif Partners, also working at a range of in-house and agency roles in the U.K. and the U.S. She has delivered consumer, digital and internal engagement projects for global brands operating across a variety of different sectors – from professional services and retail through to healthcare and technology. She’s worked with such clients as Thomson Reuters, Starwood Hotels and Coach, helping them engage senior stakeholders and disparate workforces with their strategies.

In this fascinating discussion, Sharon Phillips, Victoria and Alys cover:

• How companies can better tap into their existing talent. (Sharon quotes a Harvard Business Review article that outlined how, on average, managers are using just 66% of their employees’ capability.)
• How employee influencers are different than ambassadors
• How to build an influencer program (and a few key principles to keep in mind)
• Watch-outs and best practices

And much more. All ready for your listening pleasure. As always, tell us your thoughts!

About Sharon McIntosh

Sharon is president of And Then Communications. With more than two decades of communications experience, she has a passion for creating and executing new ideas to drive employee engagement at companies both large and small. Most recently Sharon served as PepsiCo’s vice president of Global Internal Communications, overseeing the company’s efforts to connect with its more than 274,000 employees worldwide.

About Sharon Phillips

Sharon Phillips is principal of Sharon Phillips Communications, which focuses on employee engagement and corporate communications strategy and support. Prior to relaunching her consultancy in 2014, she served as director of Global Internal Communications at PepsiCo.