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Companies and organizations of all sizes engage in internal communications one way or another as this is a wide-ranging discipline. It is quite ubiquitous and is sometimes almost synonymous with daily operations. It is precisely because of this characteristic that internal communications flies under the radar as opposed to the more public facing communication functions.
Often a neglected part of deliberate corporate practice, internal communication is a vital component of a successful organization's corporate culture. Planning and implementing a comprehensive internal communications strategy should be an integral part of an organization’s overall communications strategy.
While some corporations or organizations including multinationals are large enough to have an internal communications team headed by a manager because they recognize the importance of strategic internal communications. However, not everyone can afford to have an officer dedicated to internal communications let alone a team.
Many companies and organizations tend to leave to the communications department or officer to handle it solely. Yet as already mentioned, because of its ubiquity, internal communications is an integral part of operations as it comprises many aspects beyond the newsletters, memos or meetings. Of course, the communications department has the mandate of streamlining planned and coordinated communications medium, otherwise it runs the risk of being nobody’s responsibility. A healthy corporate culture infuses internal communications in its daily business through open door policies, maximizing the resources such as inductions, trainings, regular staff and team meetings in addition to other mediums.
In some cases, internal communications fail because half the time staff believe it is not useful for their key performance indicators (KPIs). In fact it is not rare to find that some staff who believe that their input in internal communications only help the communications depart meet their objectives and their KPIs.
While they may be right on “helping” communications teams meet their objectives and by extension, help them meet their KPIs, that’s only a small part of the communications objectives. After all, communications objectives feed into the organization’s ultimate goals. It is important for different teams to communicate what they are doing to others. This goes a long way to give topline information to all staff members who then become acquainted with the organization’s overall operations.
Sometimes success stories do not need to wait to be published in the annual report only. Different teams and exceptional staff members can be celebrated and made to feel appreciated without necessarily investing in costly trophies and parties if they are able to share their success stories. Success stories and stories of change do help in team motivation, celebrated internally and published externally.
Internal communications has sometimes been relegated to only mean a tool for crisis management. Internal communication is critical in crisis management, no doubt. However, where there is a culture of planned corporate internal communication, change management is a little smoother and does not have to feel like a major crisis with frequent special meetings or communiques from the senior leadership. In an information age, there is no excuse why there should not be steady flow of information as part of the corporate culture, such that change management communication is easily incorporated into the routine practice, unless of course there is a drastic change, or an incident that does require crisis communication.
While organizations that engage in internal communications as part of their routine operations, there is also the pitfall of an overkill of information. As the adage goes, too much of anything can be dangerous, well, of course, too much IC is in no way dangerous, but it may have pitfalls. Some of those include apathy as evidenced very low open rates, ignorance of information communicated through various internal communications channels or information overload (fatigue). When information fatigue happens, it tend to lead to demotivation to open or even pay attention to the information communicated.
Good internal communications practice should be consistent, concise and considered. Why considered? Considered because not everything needs to be a newsletter. Internal communications is more than newsletters. Newsletter should contain news, as in novel upcoming developments, not so much history that everyone is already aware of. Much as it is important to celebrate wins, when it is so old, it no longer serves the purpose.
While verbal communication cannot be downplayed when communicating important matters to staff, Senior leadership do well to use various internal communications media as a way to communicate important matters to staff who may need to use a newsletter or a bulletin as a reference point. It is human nature to forget. However, when there are newsletters flying from different directions, it can be overwhelming and again lead to information fatigue.
Ultimately, with a good internal communication practice which well thought out as part of the organization’s communication strategy and used in a considered manner, success rates go higher. Too little or none at all is a crisis waiting to happen. Too much of it of course is a wasted resource.
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