Your MD just announced a merger of two of your company’s large business units. Clearly, an incident of this sort made it to the grapevine before it did the inboxes over a formal email from your corporate communications. Can you imagine the raising eyebrows and an equal number of baseless rumours of layoffs, not to mention the unending series of questions this may bring to the minds of your employees?
Now, there are two ways your company could respond to this situation:
- Let the rumours have their way and lose internal brand value.
- Send a communication assuring your employees that there is nothing to worry about.
No prizes for guessing which approach will help you win brownie points with your employees.
Internal communication has long been one of the most undervalued branches of corporate communication. It is among the best ways to ensure total transparency in your company. But recent transformations in the way of working and the influx of the newer generation into the workforce have prompted companies to appreciate the value that effective workplace communication brings. All this points to just one thing – putting together an effective internal communications strategy. Let’s take a look at what all this really means and how you can up your ante in this space.
What is an internal communications strategy? Why do you need it?
An internal communications strategy is a set of well-defined steps to follow when liaising with your workforce and serves as a blueprint to achieve your company’s internal business goals. An effective strategy, therefore, can positively impact employee engagement, improve retention and productivity of the workforce, and establish long-lasting connections between a company and its employees.
On the flip side, not investing proper time and thought into your strategy could result in necessary information getting lost, missed or ignored, leaving your employees frustrated and disgruntled.
Internal communications require the same planning and attention to detail as external communications. Let us look at the key steps to enhance and uplift your employee communication strategy to the next level.
Building a Compelling Corporate Internal Communications Strategy
1. Evaluate your current strategy
More often than not, your organisation already has an internal comms strategy. An excellent place to begin is by researching its effectiveness for the present. Some details that must be assessed in greater detail are:
- Strengths and Weaknesses – what worked and what didn’t in the strategy?
- Alignment with goals – how well did the strategy align with your company’s overall communications goals?
- Resources required – How much effort and resources, in terms of workforce and budget, would be needed for a revamp?
While there will be many more factors, these should give you a fair idea of where things are going wrong in your strategy.
2. Know when to communicate and when not to
Workplace communication, in general, has transformed a lot in the post-pandemic world. An uptick in remote and hybrid working means companies must rely more upon written and audio-visual communications over face-to-face interactions. As a result, it is essential to connect with every employee, whether they are working remotely or in a designated workspace.
However, that doesn’t mean including everyone in all communications. While it is good to be transparent, overwhelming employees with too much information can cause them to disregard critical updates in the future. Your internal communications must target the right people and deliver relevant information that will resonate with them.
Involving the management to understand the content that might be useful for their teams is an effective way to strategise your messaging. Good workplace communication must include leadership, and allowing a single team to make the decisions could prove counterproductive.
3. Establish a foolproof approval process
Nothing is more detrimental to your company’s image than confidential data being divulged, messages reaching the wrong inbox, or employees failing to decipher information because of poor presentation. A critical part of planning your strategy is to have a foolproof review and approval process to prevent unnecessary errors from creeping into your communications.
Identifying a dedicated internal resource to read, write or approve the messages while also involving stakeholders from each department in the approval process is a perfect way to keep your messages targeted, current, and industry-relevant. An added advantage is that it will also help forge meaningful relationships across the organisation.
4. Identify metrics to track progress
A strategy is only successful if it works and the only way to ascertain if your internal communication strategy is effective is by making it measurable. Tracking the impact of every communication can help you dissect your strategy and figure out areas that are doing well, areas that need improvement, and areas that are not working at all.
Some questions that you should be able to answer are:
Is there an increase in the message open rates?
Is there increased participation and improved feedback from employees?
Do certain communications receive better responses on some channels than others?
Do engagement rates vary based on the seniority of the sender?
Is there an improvement in inter-departmental collaboration?
5. Course-correct, course-correct, and more course-correct
Like other facets of a business, strategies must be optimised continuously to achieve the best results possible. Involving your workforce and providing them with an unbiased platform to share feedback can help you gauge the on-ground realities of workplace communications. These responses can help you reevaluate your communications strategy and fill the gaps where required.
Some areas where you can evaluate your strategy are:
How do we improve in the areas that need more attention?
Is the strategy still in alignment with our company goals?
Is the content motivating employees to take the intended actions?
Are the communications providing a better understanding of the company culture and increasing brand awareness?
6. Don’t skimp on the tools
Finally, communication is only as beneficial as the tool by which it is communicated. Specific channels are better suited to delivering certain messages. While process updates are better suited to emails, quick announcements do better on a messaging platform.
Investing in the right communication tools is as important as the strategy itself and must not be underestimated. The technology you use could make all the difference between a pleasant and unpleasant communication experience between you and your workforce, both remote and in-office. If it comes to it, you’ll have to invest in their satisfaction.
Conclusion
Communication, internal and external, comes down to understanding your audience better and enabling them to understand your business better. The right strategies will always drive higher engagement and help your business thrive, no matter the working situation.
It is time to take the conversations off of the grapevine and on to an engaging, internal communication strategy. Perhaps we can help. Write to us at contactus@wytefyre.com.