Lay the foundation
Nelligan says the company’s direction needs to be defined
from the top, and it’s the primary reason why he continues to
focus his work force around three objectives: staying client-focused, executing tasks at a high level of efficiency and contributing to the quality of the culture.
Nelligan reinforces the basic building blocks of the company’s direction through consistent communication — which is
about more than just talking.
“I have a couple of beliefs,” he says. “First of all, I believe the
leader sets the premise. Our job as leaders is to set the intent
to create a great place to work. But I also say that it’s not just
me saying that, which makes that happen.
“It’s not a top-down process. It’s getting employees engaged,
passionate, enthusiastic, and that creates the environment,
which, ultimately, is a high-performance culture.”
Nelligan says that when building an inclusive culture, it’s
imperative to create a two-way dialogue with employees over
the direction of the company. With that in mind, leadership at
IMS Americas has rolled out a multifaceted communication
plan aimed at giving employees many different chances to
interface with management.
One of the most recent innovations introduced for internal
communications has been what Nelligan calls the “vision cast.”
It’s a satellite webcast that allows direct interaction between
employees and management.
“It’s an interactive tool that we ran out last year, and it allows us
to talk in almost an interview type of setting,” he says. “It allows
employees to ask questions of us, and it allows us to do some polling so we can understand where our employees are.”
While the vision cast program is designed for large-scale
gatherings throughout the IMS Americas footprint, Nelligan
and his senior management team also conduct in-person meetings on a much smaller scale. The meetings are held in town-hall or round-table format and give Nelligan and other IMS
executives time for some face-to-face contact with the field
managers who have daily and weekly contact with the company’s front-line workers.
“I will sit with the top 100 leaders in a region and provide
them with information and tools so that they can cascade the
information throughout the organization,” he says. “What is
important is that it’s not just from the top, but that we get
everyone on board and understanding what is important with
our business, internalize all of our activities and be able to
communicate it throughout. It needs to be more than one or
two people bringing the message.”