The single most important thing is to know what your employees are thinking and what THEY want to know. It’s not enough to communicate just what the executives want to communicate. You will do your executives and your employees (and yourself) a favour if you seek out and bring the employees’ perspectives, mindset and concerns [...]
Tip: “You Need a Seat at the Table”
Firstly, communication needs be three-way: employees need to hear from their managers, managers need to hear from their employees, and employees need to hear from each other. Secondly, internal communication specialists must hold a seat at the management table. You can offer managers expert advice, guidance and support on content and internal communication channels. Rebecca [...]
Tip: “Don’t Schmooze Senior Management”
Schmoozing senior management doesn’t make you a better internal communications professional. It can actually lessen the impact of your work because you’re concentrating on the messages being delivered rather than how those messages might be received. Talking to people ‘at the coal face’ helps you to stay connected to your real customers. While working for [...]
Tip: “Support Financial Results”
Linking communication plans and strategies to financial results is a sure-fire way to get maximum leadership buy in. Leaders understand solid financial data and if you can demonstrate how your efforts have impacted this area, you’ve got it made! Luke Dodd Features Editor – Melcrum
Tip: “Nurture Your Network”
You absolutely need a network of influencers throughout the organisation. You want a real mix of people who are active in their local teams, supportive of the comms function and vocal enough to critique what you do to help make sure it’s going to hit the right note for audiences. This might not be so [...]
Tip: “Get To Know Your Audience”
Don’t think you know your audience – actually get to know them! Sit down with a good cross section of your audience on an annual basis and find out what they want to hear about, who in the company they want to hear from and what channels they like to communicate through. Then use this [...]
Tip: “Trust Your Judgement”
If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Judgement is the one thing that singles out a great communicator from a mediocre one. If you consistently get your judgement calls right, you’ll win the trust of the people you’re communicating with. And ultimately, winning peoples’ trust is the single most important thing you can achieve. Nick Green Director – Internal Communications, BskyB
Tip: “Try Infographics”
Words are good, but pictures are better. Sometimes you just have to communicate facts and figures to an audience that’s more comfortable with words and emotions. Taking an hour or so to distil the key points into an engaging infographic can deliver a huge payoff in the long run. If they’re well designed, they can make the highly complex easier to [...]
Tip: “Put Yourself in Their Shoes”
It sounds like a cliche, but the thing I come back to every time is to stand in the audience’s shoes. Will they understand the terminology you’ve used? How will they interpret the tone? Are you answering the questions they’ll have, or just passing on a confusing message? Excellent internal comms puts the audience at the centre of everything. Alexandra Smith [...]
Tip: “Promote Yourself”
Brilliant internal comms doesn’t mean doing everything by stealth. Make sure the right people know everything you are doing or they will begin to think they don’t need the function, since it’s all “just happening anyway”. Jo Gunton Head of internal communication, Compass Group
Tip: “Be Genuine”
Always be genuine with employees. If it’s worth telling, say it like a human being. If it’s great, smile. If it sucks, tell them. If you screwed up, admit it. Jennifer Rock Director, Dialogue & Intranet, Best Buy
Tailor your tools!
Today our internal communication tools are getting increasingly sophisticated, but nothing can guarantee you to reach your audience. When I was working for Total, in a pilot site for internal communications, I conducted a survey to understand which tool was the most efficient. What I discovered is that the internal public of the company doesn’t [...]
Tip: “Learn Your Audience”
It sounds obvious but one of the ways I have been successful when working with senior people is to do my homework and find out a detailed analysis of their workforce. Spend some time with HR and CIO learning about the audience profile. What are their ages, career levels, and typical roles? Where they are located, and what comms devices do [...]
Tip: “Balance Message with Channel”
It’s very easy to get too hung-up on either the message, or the channels you use to communicate the message. There’s no value in having an earth shattering, important and compelling message if your channels do not get it to the audience in a way that engages them. And there’s no point investing time and money on communications channels like blogs, [...]
“Kick-ass internal comms”
Hello, I'm Ian Harris. My mission with internal-communication.com is pretty simple: I just want to share tips, hacks, and how-tos that will help you get noticed and make a difference in your internal comms. Ian
