Today, we’re going to talk about something quite a few companies struggle with and even fewer get right—internal communications. If you’ve ever led the charge as the Internal Communications Director to engage employees, we understand how big the job is.
You’re working with HR and executive teams to communicate the company’s values and encourage employee engagement.
But when asked how they would rank their internal communications, most employees felt they were “average.” So there’s room for improvement moving forward.
And with many companies shifting to a hybrid or remote work model, it’s crucial to make employees feel appreciated, valued, and included. So we’re sharing a few of our recommendations based on years of experience helping corporations create internal communications campaigns.
Why is Internal Communication Necessary for Your Business?
Internal communications share the company’s vision, yes. But what often gets overlooked is how much it plays a role in building a cohesive team. Small and large companies alike benefit from promoting and maintaining transparency with their employees.
And when done right, internal communications give employees purpose. They shift people’s mindsets from feeling like a “worker bee” to becoming invested in the business’s outcome. You’re building tight connections within the organization and helping employees feel like they’re part of something bigger.
Significant Internal Communications Challenges Companies Face
Many businesses put a majority of their energy into their sales and marketing campaigns. According to Simpplr’s State of Internal Communications survey, some of the top challenges communications teams face are:
- – Employees not interested or incentivized to partake in communications (49%)
- – Too many communication channels (45%)
- – Terrible internal comms technology (41%)
- – Lack of help producing up-to-date communications (40%)
- – Over-communication & diluting messaging (37%)
- – Leadership isn’t engaged (29%)
- – Internal Comms roles aren’t seen as critical/strategic (25%)
- – No clear internal comms strategy (25%)
Let’s take a closer look at two of these comms challenges.
Disengaged Leadership
With less than 50% of company leadership involved in internal comms, this reveals a gap that needs to be filled. We’ve heard some feedback from internal teams that leadership often looks for signs of direct revenue drivers, which are easier to see with customer-facing advertisements. However, some leaders don’t recognize the significance of investing in employees. This line of thinking leads to employees feeling left out, inconsequential, and later apathetic towards their work.
Not Enough Help
For companies producing their internal comms materials in-house, there’s a lot of pressure. More often than not, they’ve never had a person dedicated to this position or used external designers to create functional, visually appealing content. As a result, many of their materials are produced in Word or programs not unsuitable for high-resolution printing or digital formats.
The Most Common Pieces of Content Organizations Use Internally
Organizations communicate through a wide range of materials to reach employees across digital and traditional media, including:
- – Email / Email headers
- – Newsletters
- – Employee Intranet
- – Non-intranet social/messaging (Slack, Yammer, Facebook, LinkedIn)
- – Videos
- – Digital Signage (TV screens)
- – Printed posters & signage
- – Employee Comms apps
- – Mobile apps
- – Direct Text & SMS
- – Printed Magazines/Newsletters
- – Event graphics (Large format banners, backdrops, and booths)
- – T-shirts
One of the challenges organizations face with internal communications is using too many channels to reach employees. And here’s a solution to alleviate it.
Employee surveys.
What better way to understand which tactics resonate with them? Their insights help you build a strategy that categorizes which pieces of content to send out and when.
Keep Your Internal Communications Campaign Designs Consistent
Managing your internal campaigns is as important as your external advertising—and it needs just as much attention. Style guides—even simple ones—are critical for solidifying the look and feel of company communications.
And there are a couple of places to start.
Email Signatures
When you don’t control how email signatures look, they can create confusion at best or, at worst, cause the company to look unprofessional. We’ve seen it repeatedly when companies come to us to reign in their internal comms digital presence. Liberal use of random fonts and colors are the main culprits to internal branding inconsistency. The takeaway is to keep email signatures locked down so employees can’t edit or change them on their own.
Emails
Clipart is the scourge of internal comms design. Most of the time, these images, while used with the best of intentions, make communications materials appear amateurish. One fix is to design a templated email header you can drop into outgoing messages. People can easily substitute headlines and other information.
Intranets
Intranets highlight company news and celebrate the organization’s valued members. It’s a space to share their stories, get feedback, and dispense company information. And while an intranet’s design may look great, bugs and usability issues can wreak havoc on how often employees use it. Spend the time upfront to create an intranet with this in mind, so it serves as a safe online community for employees.
Bring out the Best in Your Internal Comms
In our experience, once a company brought us in the mix to breathe new life into their internal comms materials, the results were palpable in the form of committed, more engaged employees.
They’re empowered to use graphics and templates to create branded, internal communications on the fly. Involving them in the design process is key to helping strengthen connections within your organization.
What’s on the horizon for your internal comms campaign?
