The (not so) secret seven internal communications best practices
Essential best practices for internal communications
It’s safe to say that the role of an internal comms professional can be pretty full-on.
We check in with senior leaders to articulate organisational vision, mission and values. We transform business messages into stories that spark action and engagement. We work with managers to cascade communications through the business and back again.
And we regularly check in with colleagues to gauge levels of engagement across the workplace.
All while weaving our wizardry and proving the value of great internal communications.
The list doesn’t stop there. We asked 12 internal communications professionals exactly what their day-to-day entails – and one revealed they often juggle more than 50 different internal communications projects simultaneously.
With so much to think about, it’s only natural for some internal comms best practices to slip under the radar.
Why are internal comms best practices critical to communication success in the workplace?
The fact is that internal communicators often feel like they’re moving mountains.
Sometimes, bringing to life the most finely-crafted, creative programmes can start to feel like frantic daily firefighting. That’s why turning grand visions into exceptional results means keeping sight of fundamental internal communications best practices in the workplace.
This is key to achieving success.
So, in the spirit of getting back to basics, we’ve hand-picked seven essential internal comms best practices to keep in mind.
And we’re giving you the scoop on some of our best internal communications examples from projects we’ve delivered for our clients. Use these tips to help you create workplace comms that make a lasting and powerful impact.
1. Strategise
As strategic internal comms experts, we can’t overstate how important it is to put time into planning internal communications programmes, no matter how exciting it can be to unleash a fantastic new campaign.
The strategy is the guiding light of your internal comms plan. Not only does it keep you on the right track, but it also makes it significantly easier to focus your efforts and have the greatest impact where it’s most needed.
It’s about communicating the right messages, to the right people, in the right way.
When devising a winning strategy, think in reverse and figure out your end goal before you start thinking about how to get there.
What does success look like – for your organisation specifically? What are your goals? This goal can be as broad or as specific as you like (for individual campaigns, it’s likely to be much more focused).
When you have sight of where you want to be and what you want to achieve, it’s time to consider the best route to get there.
Ask some core questions. What messages will help you accomplish your goal? Who will you be communicating them to? Which channels will be the most appropriate and impactful?
Once you have it in full, create a summary ‘plan on a page’, highlighting your key tactics so you can easily refer back.
Make it eye-catching and persuasive, with business benefits spelled out, and it may also help to inspire buy-in from above.
A good example is the ‘big picture’ strategic-narrative map we put together for the folks over at the Smile Foundation, to help them bring to life the story behind their fun, exciting brand. Take a look below – we’re proud to say it went down a treat!
Just wanted to say another big thank-you on the Smile rebrand and to show you and your team what great developments it’s helping us with. We have a very bright future and a great story to communicate
2. Be hyper-specific with your audience
Have you ever received a marketing email that was totally irrelevant to you, and thought ‘oh wow, I’m super excited to dip into that!’? No, we haven’t, either.
To create a message that resonates you need to make sure it’s relevant to them in the first place.
It pays to be personal. And if you want your employees to actually take notice of what you’re telling them, you should be meticulous about the messages you include.
There’s also scope to tailor the channels you use.
For instance, an employee who works at a computer all day may prefer to receive messages via email, or via a dedicated MS Teams channel.
On the other hand, if you’re trying to reach teams who are out and about, it might be better to tailor your messages for mobile phones or tablets. MS Teams keeps everyone in the same ‘workspace’ whether they’re remote or at a desk, or you might consider using an instant messenger tool like Slack.
Just as marketers devise ‘customer personas’ to help them define audiences, you could create ‘employee personas’ to flesh out the audiences on your radar.
This helps clarify how you should segment communications, so your content, style and structure hit the sweet spot for everyone.
A simple way to find the information you need to build your employee personas is to distribute a short survey. Ask questions like, ‘At what time would you prefer to receive communications?’, and ‘What kinds of information or updates about the business matter most to you?’.
3. Align internal comms goals with overarching business goals
As a vital bridge between the C-Suite and the rest of the organisation, internal communicators are uniquely placed to create real value by strategically connecting employees’ own goals with those of the business.
This can involve motivating people to deliver organisational objectives, encouraging critical behaviour change, or driving greater workplace performance through enhanced engagement levels.
For instance, if a broader business objective is to improve organisational efficiency by improving digital processes, your internal comms goal could be to encourage a change in employees’ ways of working so that they seamlessly and positively adapt.
Or, if a wider goal is to strengthen brand awareness and reputation, you could turn your employees into brand ambassadors by collecting inspiring stories and promoting from the inside out.
A good example of this internal communications best practice in action would be when we worked with not-for-profit organisation Anchor to develop a compelling narrative to help communicate their ambitious growth plan.
The plan’s success depended on employees understanding how they could collectively contribute, to enhance performance and encourage the smooth adoption of new ways of working.
And so, our specific internal comms goal became to support employees to develop this shared understanding.
We created a strategic narrative ‘big picture’ map, and kick-started conversations between managers and their teams to show employees how they could help in delivering on the plan.
By aligning the internal comms strategy to the overarching business goal, we empowered Anchor to realise their vision – with a 100% increase in the understanding of the business strategy across the organisation.
This is where internal communicators need to rub shoulders with senior leaders to get the inside track on the business objectives.
This way, you can ensure that your internal comms goals are perfectly aligned, and delivering upon the wider strategy.
4. Measure, measure, measure
Measurement is a best practice that should be at the front of our minds when planning and cascading internal communications.
It’s vital to ensuring our comms are achieving the results we intended and resonating throughout the workplace.
Are employees engaging with them, and if so, in what way? Do they understand what you’re trying to communicate? Or are your messages drawing little more than a nonplussed shrug?
Without these invaluable insights you’ll be shouting into the void, blissfully unaware of what’s been working, where you need to improve, or whether you need to reconsider your approach.
However, make sure you’re measuring the right things – in particular, the human outcomes of your work.
Metrics like link clicks, email opens or download numbers tell part of the story, but they don’t indicate how your employees are responding or feeling.
What you want to know is – did you spark them into action? Did you prompt behaviour change? Has understanding been increased? Strike the right balance and you’ll get the juiciest insights out of your measurement activity.
5. Make the complex, simple
This best practice principle underpins all the internal communications we help our clients create.
When you’ve got a particularly juicy story to tell, or the information you’re communicating is complicated, intricate or expansive, it can be tempting to cram every last detail in to ensure you don’t leave out anything important.
But when you’re reaching out to a mass audience, with potentially varying literacy levels – or minimal time for interacting with internal communications – the key to making your messages widely accessible and engaging is to communicate as concisely and simply as possible.
When it comes to internal communications best practices in the workplace, less is most certainly more.
This means extracting the core golden nuggets from your message and prioritising what your audience really needs to know.
Think of it as though you’re putting every detail on trial for its life – a bit brutal, but you’d be surprised how judicious and methodical it makes you when it comes to whittling down a message.
And if your message is complex, it’s also important that you figure out the best way to reframe it to make it as easy as possible to understand.
For instance, major organisational changes (they’re cropping up a lot, aren’t they?) can be intricate and complicated. To ensure mass understanding and investment, re-contextualise them into a narrative that’s easy to follow and digest – otherwise, you’ll be fighting an uphill struggle to get people to buy in.
Storytelling can come in very handy in this scenario.
Using metaphors is a great way to make a complex idea accessible and relatable. Try connecting a business issue to something universal and paint a vivid picture so the audience can see it through a more familiar lens.
Which leads us nicely on to…
6. Tell great stories
We’re sure you’ll know that a simple story can transform an ordinary message into something extraordinarily impactful and memorable.
Research shows that we remember stories up to a staggering 22x more than straight-up facts – making tales a top tool in the internal comms practitioner’s utility belt.
The great news is, every message has the potential to be turned into a powerful, engaging story. You just have to pin down the essential elements, and arrange them in the most inspiring order.
Imagine you’re tasked with communicating a major business change, and you need to ensure 100% buy-in.
To start piecing together the narrative, break the change journey down into its individual components within the framework of the typical story structure.
The clincher is that you vividly capture the WHY behind the change – providing a sense of purpose is a sure-fire way to rally people behind a cause.
First, set the scene: Where are we? What change is heading our way?
Then move onto the conflict: Why is the change necessary? What’s the reason behind it?
Next, explain the resolution: How the change will unfold, and how the organisation (and employees) will be better off for it.
This narrative of achieving success through adversity is inherently positive and incredibly inspiring, which is what makes it so relatable.
The clincher is that you vividly capture the WHY behind the change – providing a sense of purpose is a sure-fire way to rally people behind a cause.
Check out this awesome TED Talk from Simon Sinek, on why the WHY is so important when you want to inspire people to believe in your message (it’s one of our favourites!).
A sound approach, with wonderful images and words that resonate.
At H&H we love a good story. So when global technology giant Fujitsu asked us for help in increasing awareness around their Global Delivery Group (GDG) among their employees, we immediately began thinking about the stories they had to tell.
We extracted the essence of the GDG’s purpose and advantages and crafted a compelling and informative narrative. Woven through it were key messages about all the benefits brought by the GDG.
And it was a huge hit – with some great feedback from the delighted client:
‘A sound approach, with wonderful images and words that resonate.’
Colleague stories can also bring real depth and meaning to a project, helping others connect with the messaging. However, teasing inspirational tales from people is not always easy, especially when you want to leave a lasting image in the reader’s mind.
Our Storytelling Cards are designed to help bring ideas and stories to life through the power of visual metaphors. They’re visually stunning, come with loads of thought-provoking designs – and can help to get people talking freely about what’s on their mind, in a way that feels less like they’re under a spotlight.
And, for those times when inspiration is slow out of the blocks, they can help you ignite your own imagination, too.
We created our own visual story using the combination below – what ideas does it bring to your mind’s eye?
7. Talk with, not at, employees
This is perhaps the most important internal communications best practice advice we can give.
At heart, internal comms is all about conversation and dialogue. It should be open, honest, and inclusive – built on the foundations of bottom-up communication as well as top-down.
Intimate access to the employee voice is what makes an internal communicator so uniquely placed to add value within the workplace.
Research tells us that 75% of employees would stay longer at an organisation where they were listened to and had their concerns addressed, and 83% of engaged employees feel their ideas and suggestions matter (as opposed to a mere 34% of disengaged employees).
By acting as the spokespeople of employees and feeding their views, opinions and suggestions back to the C-Suite, internal comms professionals can help to cultivate a culture where everyone feels they have a say, regardless of their role.
This means a more committed, engaged, and genuinely invested workforce.
The crucial thing is that you make it as easy and accessible as possible for employees to get involved in the organisational conversation.
Create a workplace portal where they can deposit their thoughts, whether that’s in an online company forum or even in an ‘ideas and suggestions’ box.
Champion individual employees’ stories to inspire colleagues or demonstrate how people are genuinely making an impact on the business.
And make yourself visible as a key point of contact – so people know who to come to if they need any information.
One final tip: always keep these internal comms best practices at the front of your mind!
With all the wonderfully elaborate and exciting internal comms projects being delivered every day around the world, getting back to basics might seem like a needless simplification of the issues.
But we don’t see it that way.
Staying true to the principles of great IC is what drives the results that lead to more effective, engaged and productive organisations.
Keeping these internal communications best practices front-of-mind – and sticking to them, no matter the path a project takes – will ensure that IC greatness in the workplace always remains firmly in sight.
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