Ilse Rabau

Ilse Rabau (November 5) dares to experiment with communication 

“Our people are like elite athletes”, says Ilse Rabau of the Antwerp digital agency November 5. “They work at a high pace and therefore need focus, and Spencer helps them with that.”

Who?

• Ilse Rabau

• Responsible for internal communication at November 5, full-service digital agency

• Launched Spencer in spring 2020

For Ilse, corporate communication is about bringing your culture to life. “Connection and trust are very important to us because they are the building blocks of strong teams. Our people are elite athletes, working together to create innovative digital solutions for our clients.” The office environment contributes to that. “Employee experience is indeed important to us; people come here with connection, team-building and trust in mind.”

What place does Spencer have in that? Ilse sees 3 types of corporate communication: collaboration, communication and conversation. 

The first, collaboration, runs via Slack. For the second, classic communication, November 5 uses Spencer. “In the past, general communication was also shared via Slack, but that information was getting a bit lost among the conversations about projects and the daily work. Spencer provides focus and the ability to add more context. It is less about the rush of the day compared to Slack.”

Conversation does not happen via Spencer, but as much as possible in person, which is still possible with some 60 people on board. Spencer does provide input for those offline conversations, through the data that is generated: does a message get through or not, is it understood or not? Those insights feed live communication. 

Ilse started at November 5 on 1 April 2020 and rolled out Spencer there in the middle of lockdown. That taught her the value of experimenting in communication. “That unprecedented situation forced us to reinvent our communication: how do you create connection from a distance? Keep experimenting and questioning yourself is a healthy approach, I think. Right now, for example, we see that people are spending a little too much time in their project silos, so we stimulate internal dynamics by sharing company-wide updates about what we are working on.”

Ilse has one foot in communication and one foot in HR and is closely involved in onboarding new employees. “The ideal moment to get people excited about Spencer, because then they are sponges who want to know as much as possible about their new workplace.” Thanks to smart segmentation, Ilse shares tailored updates with newcomers. “Starting here should feel like a very warm welcome, that is really one of my pet topics.”