Internal Communications (IC) till recently has been a neglected area of organisational communication, often taking a back step to its glitzier cousin, ‘public relations’. When budgets, efforts and strategy were focused on external communications, IC often received slivered budgets and single or double member teams to manage content, creatives, technical support, events, channels and anything else one might care to throw into the IC cauldron.

The past couple of years have seen this genre of employee communications gain more visibility and acceptance with organisations realising the need for a well-resourced, robust internal communications department. Still, we are far away from realising the strategic value of IC which often is regarded as an email writing department. However, with support from the top and by pushing for an awareness of the over-arching mandate of IC, this can be reversed to enable internal communications to deliver on its true purpose.

Here are a few quick-win tactics for IC professionals to build strong relationships and gain better acceptability for the function.

1. Stakeholder alignment with IC priorities, strategy and tactics

During the last quarter of the year, IC usually sends out requests to internal departments to collaborate to develop a central communication and events calendar. Based on the communication priorities and initiatives of all departments across the organisation, the IC strategy is developed.

Once the strategy is approved and signed off, it’s worth reaching out to specific department heads to take them through the communication priorities of the organisation, the ROI of focused and integrated communications and seek their buy-in. This will ensure that IC is looped in on all initiatives across the organisation, has the support of key stakeholders and is perceived as a strategic communication partner.

2. Internal Communications is everyone’s responsibility

Encouraging colleagues to think of internal communications as a company-wide strategy, rather than the responsibility of an individual or department, can help an organisation address structural pain points and build a culture of trust and transparency.

3. A strong internal communication culture begins with leadership

HR, managers and team leaders may communicate with employees on a day-to-day basis; but employees’ value and expect a two-way flow of communication with leadership. IC can help to build channels for ongoing, two-way communication between employees and leadership which helps departments to understand the pulse of the workforce, receive timely feedback on initiatives, share ideas and suggestions and encourage participation in events/ internal drives/ campaigns and launches.

4. Everyone wants to feel appreciated and valued

When it comes to internal communications, accessibility, visibility and transparency are your magic words. Build internal platforms to help acknowledge efforts, recognise achievements and most importantly to share expertise and lessons learnt. Allocating a central channel for recognition and sharing of learning, increases visibility across teams and communicates success to senior leadership.

5. Improve your knowledge management system

Is it easy for teams to find the information they need to do their jobs well? Build a document sharing space on the intranet to make it easy to find and share information that facilitates not only everyday work and inter-departmental collaboration, but also helps employees to find information related to internal events, initiatives, learning & development opportunities and links to all internal systems.

6.    Establish clear processes and manage expectations

IC often faces the challenge of scaling, especially if the organisation structure is complex. This means that you’ll need to prioritise your team’s focus and efforts. This might also mean that you may no longer be able to work on a draft from scratch, will need advance heads up on communication requirements or might simply need to politely refuse certain communication requests on a priority basis. It is important to establish clear processes for specific channels of communication along with timelines and get the buy in of stakeholders to be able to work seamlessly.

This will also help to gain some bandwidth to deal with those ad hoc requirements that barge in when least expected. Writing like creative design is an open field, whose boundaries need to be set firmly and collaboratively for the machinery to run smoothly without too many distractions.

And finally, build a robust IC team

Ensure the team is equipped with members of different skill sets to build internal relationships, source stories of interest, develop content and creatives, ensure channel management and so on. In communications, timeliness is key and without a robust team it can be an uphill task. Most importantly, this is a department that has empathy at its core, which is probably the most coveted trait in the area of employee communications. So, when choosing your team, make sure that ‘empathy’ is marked as an imperative skill, as important as communication effectiveness.

 

Need a hand with internal communications?

We help with internal communication strategy, content planning, content development for various internal channels like intranet, newsletters, C Suite communication, HR messages, employee communication and internal campaigns. Outsource your internal communications and save time, money and get access to professional talent in the field. For internal communication outsourcing, please reach out to:

 

Email: info@commsimpact.ae / WhatsApp: 052 530 8771