Live Well San Diego Champions Campaign Inspires Change from within

Background:  In 2008, San Diego County, like much of the nation, faced high rates of chronic disease and rising healthcare costs. To address these challenges, in 2010, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors adopted Live Well San Diego – a vision for a region that is Building Better Health, Living Safely and Thriving. Modeled after the Stanford Social Innovation Review’s Collective Impact framework, the County and its partners provide residents with tools to be self-sufficient, and track progress using a shared measurement framework called the Live Well San Diego Indicators.

Program background:  To help realize the Live Well San Diego vision, the County of San Diego adopted four strategic approaches – one of which is Improving the Culture Within.  This approach inspires County employees to be role models of living well for colleagues and the residents they serve. Internal stakeholder interviews conducted in 2012 revealed that employees did not understand their role in communicating the brand message. As a result, a County team worked with an advertising agency to create a communications plan for uniting the Live Well San Diego brand voice. A logo, website and supporting materials were developed, tested and launched. With this foundation for brand messaging, the County team turned inward to focus on creating an Internal Branding Campaign.  The process started with research on best practices for employee engagement, followed by a survey to gauge employee understanding of Live Well San Diego. The research sparked an idea: County employees are Live Well San Diego. Using this concept and guidance from an internal steering committee, 18 County employees were selected as “Live Well San Diego Champions.” Each was featured on campaign materials including posters and elevator clings with stories of how they exemplify the vision. In April 2014, these installations were piloted at select County facilities, and website profiles and a video campaign were posted on the County intranet.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  Following Phase I, a mid-point employee survey was conducted in February 2016 to evaluate initial campaign impact. There was a 12.5 percent increase in the percentage of employees who reported the ability to describe how what they do on the job contributes to the Live Well San Diego vision. These findings are guiding the development of Phase II of the Internal Branding Campaign, focused on employee engagement.

Conclusions:  Progress is being made, but change takes time. The Live Well San Diego message is only as strong as each individual employee who promotes the brand voice. Just as Collective Impact requires collaboration with external partners across sectors, engaging each County employee, as an internal partner, is equally essential for success. Stakeholder interviews and mid-point progress measures provide critical insights on how to refine campaign strategies for Phase II.

Implications for research and/or practice:  The Live Well San Diego Internal Branding campaign is a best practice model for successful employee engagement in government organizations. This campaign shows how the Collective Impact framework can be applied to an internal audience and demonstrates how innovative tools, including web-based surveys, multimedia, and storytelling, can inspire change from within.