Have you ever managed a large multi-shift workforce? Have you ever thought What if I could personally communicate with everyone on all shifts? I once managed a large multi-shift workforce and communicating to that workforce was a big issue for me and it was very important to do it properly. I was the manager of an 800+, 5 shift factory. One of my important themes was communication. I wanted every employee to know how our operation had performed against last months goals and objectives and I wanted all employees to know what the up-coming months goals and objectives were. Everyone contributed to our performance. Therefore, all employees had to know and understand our goals and objectives. It was important to the team.

This is what I did. On the third of the month the Accounting Department had to have the records for the prior month completed. I then called a meeting with my staff (8 people) and we discussed how we wanted to present the performance of the prior month. It had to be easy to communicate and understand because the intention was that all employees would be presented with the same information. We also defined how we wanted to present the current months objectives. We roughed out a PowerPoint presentation to do this. My personal assistant was responsible for taking notes and drafting the presentation.

The next day my staff and I would get together and vet the presentation. We would make additions and subtractions and refine it.

I would then present it to my staff and my staff was responsible for presenting it to their staff and over the course of the next few days all employees would have had a chance to see the presentation. Some employees were hearing it second, third or even forth hand. Many of the people presenting did not have the luxury of having all the background information that my staff had. There were arguments over conference room bookings and some managers had to present on 1st, 2nd and 3rd shift. Some even came in on the weekend to present to 4th and 5th shift. It was a time consuming and somewhat disruptive exercice. It was worth it.

I tasked the Human Resource Department to keep track of whether a person was presented to and this was a big task for them.

All of my staff agreed that it was a valuable exercise but all also wished there was a better way.

There is.

Today, it is easy enough to convert a PowerPoint presentation to Flash. However, it is not always that easy to voice narrate to it and to then distribute that presentation. I would like to introduce you to a tool that makes the conversion to Flash, the voice narration creation and the distribution of the final result a voice narrated presentation - easy and straight forward. The tool is the PTT Presenter and PTT stands for Presentations That Talk.

The initial creation of the presentation is still done with PowerPoint. The voice narration is done with the telephone - any telephone. It is just like talking to a voice messaging system and one can narrate to a presentation on a slide-by-slide basis. The distribution can be by e-mail, on a website, a company intranet or even in a company e-newsletter. The viewer does not need to have PowerPoint to view a presentation (just be connected to the Internet and have a browser) as the presentation has been converted to Flash. It is converted to Flash simply by loading it up to the server.

If I had access to this technology when I was committed to communicating to all employees on all shifts then I would have had the following benefits.

1. I would have done the voice over myself so all employees would have heard what I emphasized and embellished directly from me.
2. I could rest assured that all employees were getting the same message.
3. The message could be viewed multiple times. This would have helped with retention and understanding.
4. The Human Resource Department could use the viewer statistic records, which are built into the PTT system, to generate reports on who viewed and when and how often.
5. The scheduling of meeting rooms and the hassle of certain managers coming in on 3rd, 4th or 5th shifts could have been minimized.
6. The PTT Presenter system can add surveys that can be recorded so that management can gain insights into employee opinion.

To learn more about online voice-narrated PowerPoint presentations and how to use the PTT Presenter for workplace communications visit the website of Presentations That Talk. Simple type Presentations That Talk into the Google Search field as we come up number one.

Gary Horsman

Gary has been working in the field of technology and application development for over 25 years. It is not only a profession with Gary but also his hobby and passion.

Gary is President of Presentations That Talk! and is constantly involved in helping to implement web-based strategies and solutions. This involves website design and implementation coupled with search engine optimization. The core product of Presentations That Talk! is the PTT Presenter. The PTT Presenter allows users to easily make voice-narrated streaming media presentations. This allows a company to present their products and services using presentation marketing which adds impact by engaging more senses simultaneously.

Gary lives in Woodstock, Vermont with his wife and two children. Prior to living in Woodstock Gary lived in Ireland and was in charge of Operations and Business Development at General Semiconductor Ireland. Before this he lived in Japan and ran the marketing and quality functions for General Instrument Japan. He has also been involved with the US Department of Commerce in an assignment to study Japanese Industry and Trade and was assigned to Mitsubishi Electric in Nagoya, Japan.

He enjoys networking with people from around the world to help and to spread knowledge and ideas.