Communication Management – Best Practices in Internal Communications

Prepared by: Joey Capisonda

Best practices in internal communications

Ronnie Gomez | 2021

Notes:
- Without a well-executed internal communications strategy, necessary information can get
lost, missed or ignored.
- Internal communications require the same level of care and planning as customer, partner
and recruiting communications.

Rethink your internal communications plans

- Effective communication in the workplace is more important than ever. As more

companies opt into long-term remote work, it’s increasingly clear that corporate work
environments will not be returning to pre-pandemic norms. While remote work has its
benefits, it’s also left some employees feeling disconnected from their work and their
employers.
- In this new landscape, your internal communications strategy can’t rely on a set-it-and-
forget-it approach. It needs to be proactive, comprehensive and creative to foster the
connection that was lost when in-person touchpoints went away.
- An intentional internal communications plan can help organizations manage the ever-
growing impacts of a changing work environment. This is a tremendous opportunity for
businesses to rethink how they communicate to an often-forgotten audience—their own
employees.

7 steps to form your internal communications strategy

- Creating an internal communications program is an ongoing exercise in
collaboration. It requires prioritization and buy-in from leadership, as well as
frequent check-ins with managers across your business.

So, how does one kick off an internal communications strategy? Here’s our seven-step guide to
launching a successful internal communications program:

1. Assess your current internal communications strategy

- You likely have some internal communication processes already in place, so it’s
always best to start with research. It’s time to assess what’s working and what
isn’t.
- Some of the things you should immediately address when revamping your
internal communication strategy include:
 Your current performance: How effective is your current strategy? What
are your biggest strengths and weaknesses? Who is currently involved in
shaping and executing your plan and who can you add to improve it?

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  Where you’ll eventually be: What are your goals for your internal
communications program? Who is your audience? the entire organization
or a select business unit? The answers to these questions will be your
north star as you design your strategy.
 How you plan to get there: What is it going to take to achieve your
objectives (in terms of resources, budget or tools)? What type of content
will resonate the most with your staff?
 How long it should take: What’s the difference between how long it
should take vs. a realistic timeline for your team?
 Who’s involved: Is your current team too small? Are there too many cooks
in the kitchen? Assessing your current strategy should indicate where you
can add to or streamline your internal comms team.

- Answering or at least planning to resolve these prompts is important to reevaluating

your strategy. Your answers will illuminate your big picture vision before diving into
tactical details.

2. Set realistic goals and timelines

- Your new internal communications strategy won’t magically transform employee
experiences overnight. These things take time, so it’s important to keep your goals
realistic.
- One way to set smarter goals is by looking to internal benchmarks and noting where
you think you can make an immediate impact. You may also want to send out a
survey to get a better understanding of what employees want from your program.
- Some initial questions you might ask to get this conversation started include:
 What do you want your internal communications strategy to do for your
company?
 Which areas are working well, why are those areas working well, and
what needs improvement?
 How quickly do you want to reach your goals?
 What communication tools or platforms are available given your company
size, priorities and expectations of what employees should be doing with
information shared?
- Answering these questions will paint a clearer picture of what you want your internal
communications strategy to actually accomplish. These goals will serve as your
blueprint for establishing your strategy, and then growing and maintaining it over
time.
- When creating your goals, try to ensure they follow S.M.A.R.T. logic—in other
words, are your goals:
 Specific: Define what you want to accomplish in clear, simple terms that
your entire team can understand.
 Measurable: Create milestones and targets that can help you see your
progress toward each aspect of your goal.
 Attainable: It’s good to have lofty ambitions, but you need to know that
your goals are manageable and realistic.

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  Relevant: In this case, you’ll need to create goals that are linked to
developing your team, and connected seamlessly with your business
model.
 Time-based: Create a specific timeframe for reaching your goals to
maintain accountability and create an opportunity to reflect on your
performance.

3. Identify your key metrics to track for success

- Just like most other facets of your business, your internal communication strategy can
and should be measurable. To do this, you need to choose the core metrics that will
show you if your strategy is working.
- These stats will help you determine if your colleagues use the resources that are being
provided. This means you can dissect your strategy and learn about what areas need
more attention and what can be skipped. For example, you may find that your team
overwhelmingly prefers one channel over another, or that certain departments pay
more attention to communications from executive leadership rather than peers or
team managers.
- Some things, like anecdotal feedback, can’t be measured. Still, it’s important to build
on your understanding of employees’ experiences with data. Here are some potential
metrics to consider:

 Social shares
 One metric many organizations overlook is the amount of social shares
your content receives. Studies show that employees have an average of
10 times as many connections on social media as a standard brand.
Empowering your employees to share business updates can do more
than make them feel connected—it can help achieve your business
goals.
 With an internal comms tool like Sprout’s, you can analyze total
shares by network, content or user to better understand overall reach.
 Employee engagement metrics
 How often do employees read your internal content? Do they
comment, like, share or start a discussion with your content?
Measuring your overall content engagement metrics can provide
insight into what your staff uses the most.
 Your human resources and people team might also have additional
insights on employee engagement, depending on how they’re
collecting information for their own programs. If you aren’t
collaborating with them regularly, reach out. They may be able to
complement your internal communications reporting with their own
data.
- Project management issues
 The transition to remote and hybrid work sparked massive changes in
team planning norms. Project management has gone digital, which
streamlines communication in some areas, but can cause obstacles in
others.

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  Tech adoption at an organizational level has always been a challenge.
If remote workers aren’t kept in the loop on how a project is
progressing, it can lead to disconnection and frustration. In some
cases, it can even drive them to look for new jobs.
 To keep employees engaged, talk to teams about project management
bottlenecks proactively. There may be a benefit to establishing
standards of communication by tool or platform.

4. Segment and map out your audience

- Once you have an idea of what could bolster your internal comms strategy, it’s
time to determine who to target. Your content should always target a specific
audience, even when it’s internal. It’s important to figure out what messages and
formats will resonate with different employees in your business.
- Another major misconception is that to have a successful internal comms strategy,
you have to include everyone in all messages for transparency—that’s just not
true. While your employees want to be in the loop on news and company
information, overwhelming them with too much detail could cause them to ignore
updates as they come through.
- Strategically mapping out your approach to communications can minimize
information overload. Partner with leaders and internal subject matter experts to
discuss what type of content would be necessary or helpful for their teams. Rather
than sending the same information to everyone (regardless of role, location or
department), your internal communications strategy should focus on delivering
relevant information to the right people, at the right time

5. Build an approval process

- A key part of planning out your internal communication strategy is creating an
approval process for your content. This will prevent any unnecessary errors,
confidential comments or news from accidentally being published to the wrong
segments of your team.
- First, you need to determine who or what team owns your internal comms
strategy. If you don’t have a dedicated internal communications resource, who
will read, write or approve the messages you send?
- Next, you need to know what stakeholders from each department can contribute
to the content approval process. In most cases, this responsibility falls on
marketing teams—and for good reason. These are the team members who are
most confident in their ability to convey company voice, brand and overall image.
- Your marketing team has a hand in almost every company update and campaign,
meaning they can easily curate the most current content and point coworkers to
industry-specific resources that speak to relevant trends. All of these capabilities
are critical to have when leading employee advocacy efforts. Another important
ability—and one that often comes naturally for marketers—is crafting social
messaging that’s concise yet impactful, and relevant to the platform it’s being
shared on.

6. Identify your internal communications tools

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 - Certain messages are best suited for specific channels. Internal process changes
might be better suited to an email update, whereas a quick announcement might
get more traction on an internal messaging platform.
- Slack is a great internal messaging and chat service that can integrate with tools
you already use for a more streamlined work experience. Whether you’re sharing
internal documents or looking to plan specific events without starting an endless
email chain, Slack may be your go-to.
- That being said, internal communications is more than updates and
announcements. It’s how information flows through a company, whether that
information be from the C-suite, a department manager or a project manager.
- If you don’t have technology infrastructure in place to support your internal
communications initiatives, now’s the time to act.
- The technology you use may hold the key to creating more equitable experiences
for remote and in-office employees. If you want to help maintain employee
satisfaction, you’ll need to make the investment.

7. Evaluate your progress and optimize

- Your key performance indicators shouldn’t be used just for tracking progress.
Learn from them and continually optimize what you are doing for the best results
possible. Conduct quarterly or even monthly evaluations of your communications
strategy and build these into your workflow.
- Sending out routine pulse surveys can help you track how employees are feeling
about your communication content and cadence. Be sure to leave a few questions
for open feedback, so they have an opportunity to candidly share their thoughts.
Some questions you could ask include:
 How well do you think we are communicating internally?
 Are we doing everything we can to keep our company vision transparent?
 What setbacks limit you from working with others on projects?
 Do you believe we could increase our communication across departments?
 What barriers prevent you from communicating internally each day?
 Where can we improve the most on company communication?
- As you continually reevaluate your internal communications strategy, let people
know you’re listening. Share what you’ve learned and how you’re planning on
adjusting your strategy to promote transparency and trust.

Reference:
Gomez, Ronnie. (2021, October 21). Kickstart your internal communications strategy with these
best practices. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/internal-communications-guide/