How to Build a Successful Internal Communication Strategy?
Mary Davis Kaplan
Internal communication is paramount to a company's success. It ensures all employees have the right message and information, to move in a cohesive and unified direction towards shared goals.
However, a lot of organizations prioritize external communications and marketing, with clients, suppliers, and prospective customers, much higher than internal communications to employees. Internal and external communication strategies are equally important.
This article focuses on internal communication ideas to help grow your business. Discover the benefits, best practices, and the steps to build your internal communication for better success.
Internal Communication Strategy: Definition and Benefits
What is internal communication?
Internal communication is the transmission of information within a company or organization to its employees. A strategic internal communication strategy builds a culture that makes employees feel part of the ‘family’. Taking this one step further, internal communication is the backbone of the success of a business since an internal comms plan helps create alignment and informed employees.
Each organization necessitates a meticulously crafted internal communication strategy to effectively establish connections with its employees.
What’s the goal of internal communication?
There may be many goals, but the main goal of internal communication is to ensure all employees understand the company goals, and where they fit within the organization. Employees need to know clear roles and responsibilities. Good internal communication provides clear, understandable information.
When we look at the success of a business, one of the key factors is that the employer understands the importance of internal communication. Employees who know what their company or organization is doing and where it’s going are far more likely to be motivated than those who are out of the loop.
Successful internal communication doesn’t happen on its own. The employer has to acknowledge the need for a strategy, define it, and put it in place. The main internal communication strategy objectives should be:
- Offering clear and cohesive information about the business objectives
- Connect with staff at all levels (frontline, deskless, and desk based workers)
- Deliver information in an easy-to-understand and engaging way
A clear strategy is the start to building an effective and engaging internal communications program.
The benefits of a successful communication strategy are numerous, and include:
- Understanding – when staff understand where they fit into the company they feel valued.
- Increased productivity – clear communication translates to time-saving because people know what information to look for and where to find it.
- Cost savings – information that is conveyed only once because it is easy to interpret means more time working and less confusion.
- Clarity – succinct, well-communicated information reduces misunderstandings.
- The prevention of information overload – a common problem in today’s workplace, which can overwhelm and demotivate employees.
- Increased employee engagement - When employees understand what’s happening across the organization, they are more likely to feel informed about company news and this increased commitment to the organization leads to increased employee engagement in their work tasks.
An internal communication strategy template is a useful tool as it can promote clear and logical thinking. It can guide the planner through the different steps of organizing and implementing a communication strategy.
Internal Communication Strategy
A checklist for internal communication goals..
5 Essential Steps to Building your Internal Communication Plan
How do you develop an internal communication plan? These 5 steps will ensure your plan unites your staff with your core business goals.
1. Review your current internal communication methods
Do your employees avoid reading internal emails and communications as they’re long and wordy or not relevant? Do they avoid using the intranet as it seems complicated? If the answer is yes, then you know many important internal communications will be missed and overlooked.
If this is happening in your business, your internal communication method needs addressing. And the best way to find out what could be improved is by asking the staff; the people who use the internal communication tools every day. By finding out what their pain points are and what could be better, you’ll be embracing the importance of internal communication.
Working groups, staff surveys, and focus groups are a productive way to find out what people think. When selecting members for focus groups, make sure you’re choosing a diverse group of employees. For example, you’ll want to choose members of leadership and management, members of the sales team, technical teams, as well as members who are not desk workers, but more often on the frontlines. Surveys and focus groups don’t have to be long and complicated, often less than 5 questions is best.
2. Analyze the results
Once you have employee feedback, it’s time to determine what needs to improve and how. Questions to ask are:
- Does everyone in the target audience have access to the information they need?
- Do some staff receive information they don´t need?
- Is there a recurring problem e.g. lack of information, not enough contact from management, people feel undervalued, communication is not clear, poor employee engagement, distractions from unnecessary communications?
- Does the business need to improve transparency? Do people feel they are not kept informed of what they need to know to be part of the overall success of the company?
- Are there days of the week, or particular times of the year, when communications seem better, or worse?
- Did you feel adequately prepared to handle recent company events or announcements?
- What kind of feedback do you get from colleagues and peers on the internal comms at this company?
The answers to these questions will help define the strategy to improve internal communication and what collaboration tools will bring benefits.
Goals can then be set using the SMART formula:
- Specific – do certain departments need specific communication methods? For example, does the Sales team need communication in Slack instead of email?
- Measurable – how will the changes be analyzed? On a quarterly basis, or a different metric?
- Attainable – are the suggested changes practical?
- Relevant – are the goals appropriate to the target audience?
- Time – how long will it take to make the changes?
3. Decide if different technology could improve things
Take stock of the current tools you use for sending internal communications. If your business would benefit from better communication tools now’s the time to invest. These needn’t be expensive and can be tailored to suit your needs. Do you already have an intranet? Would your business benefit from the streamlined internal communication methods an intranet offers? Consider technology that:
- Keeps everyone in a group informed
- Allows for adequate communications planning and tracking
- Offers social capabilities to encourage employee interaction and engagement
- Is easy to use - additional technology should never create more barriers to entry!
Many different tools can be integrated into an intranet to make communication easier. If groups of employees are already using certain tools, like Sales using Slack, HR using Google Drive, and your IT team using Microsoft Planner, make sure you’re investing in an intranet that can also integrate with and leverage these powerful tools.
However you communicate with other members of your business, the platform should offer a rewarding and unique communication experience. When you send out a message, whether a chat or a report, people should want to read it. The content needs to be succinct and engaging, which is why an internal content strategy is also important. There’s nothing worse than a clogged-up inbox that screams ‘delete without reading’.
4. Set a budget and timelines
The budget available will influence how far things can change. We all know, you can only make the decisions that your budget allows for! For example, your business may require a completely new intranet, or parts of the existing intranet may only need updates, such as adding a social network, a mobile application, or integrated search solution. Timelines should also be set to ensure the changes take place on time. Are there other projects that this might be contingent upon? And what about available staffing? These should all be considered.
It’s also essential to inform employees about what’s happening so they can be part of the new internal communication strategy. You’ve listened to their opinions so now it’s time to put the new communication channels in place. Great ways to do this are creating a competition to come up with a new name, a new design theme, and creating a diverse group of champions who are responsible for promoting adoption, usage, and engagement.
5. Review and Improve
For an internal communication strategy to be successful it should be regularly reviewed. It should have short and long-term goals to measure its success.
Often the hardest part of this step is defining “what to measure”!
At LumApps, our customers all measure “reach” as a key KPI: How many employees are reading and reacting to a piece of content, over a set period of time. Aside from content performance, many customers differ as to what else to measure. Some customers choose to measure KPIs that are related to enablement.
For example, if LumApps houses all sales enablement content, measuring sales performance and time spent in LumApps is an effective KPI. Another example might be “time spent on task”. By utilizing search metrics, IT teams might be able to decipher different KPIs that are important to support. The possibilities are endless! That also can make it hard to determine what to measure.
Social advocacy should also be measured as this is a core part of the success of a business. If staff are liking and sharing messages you’re communicating to them then the formula is working.
Not everything will work. Give the changes time, and if they’re not successful then make changes. Improved communication strategy is a rolling program that will grow with the business.
8 Internal Communication Best Practices for your Company
Once your business embraces the value of internal communication, best practices can be put in place. Below are 10 best practices and ideas to benefit both management and staff:
1. Reach and engage all employees: personalize your message to fit the audience
There’s nothing more frustrating than sifting through unnecessary information to find what you need. Whether in our personal or professional lives, when information and content is tailor made to you, you feel more valued and taken care of.
Everyone is a crucial cog in the wheel of a business and employees should understand this. Without catering there’ll be no coffee, without the finance department you won’t get paid, without the marketing department, no one will know about new products…
It’s essential everyone knows they matter and have a role. This means internal communication should target the right people with the right information at the right time. Manufacturing doesn´t need to know that development is thinking of producing a new widget in 10 different colors, but they do need to know when that decision is agreed so they can produce or source the color.
Internal Communications – Measurement to Mastery
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2. Encourage all employees to share, when and where appropriate
Every employee has something to say, and valuable knowledge that can help their team and company. However, many technologies bring barriers to entry, making it difficult to know how, when, and where to post something. Make sure you’re encouraging and supporting employees so that they can easily share what they know with each other. Maybe that means embedding generative AI in your intranet, to help employees write more effective communications. Maybe that means leveraging video so that employees can share in a way that they feel most comfortable.
There are many different possibilities for employees to share. Make sure your intranet, and your internal communications, reflect employee voices as well, and allow for employee engagement and sharing. This will massively improve company culture.
3. Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
KPIs define whether a business is achieving its goals. They are regularly monitored to evaluate success. Examples of KPIs that can be linked to internal communication and its success are:
- Number of shares, likes, and comments of a news item, blog post/article
- Increase in numbers of employees using an intranet (platform adoption)
- Opening rates of internal newsletters
- Counting page views
- Feedback questionnaires
- Employee retention and turnover
- Interaction online
- Completed employee profiles
<< insert https://www.lumapps.com/resources/checklists/actionable-analytics-comm-leaders/ >>
4. Use Simple Communication Tools
Keeping things simple is the best way to encourage employees to read messages. The collaboration tools you use to communicate should be easy for the sender of the information to use and easy for the receiver to access it. If a system is complicated people won´t use it. An easy-to-use system also saves valuable work time when trying to learn how to operate it.
5. Brand Promotion: Live your Company Values
A company’s brand represents its philosophy and states who it is. Employees should be clear on the company brand and why it exists. They should also be advocates in promoting it whenever they can, both internally and externally. If you work for a business that makes delicious ice-cream then tell everyone about it!
Related article: 17 internal communications best practices for a stronger employee engagement
6. Improve Transparency
Transparency encourages company loyalty. If a company is open and honest with their employees, they will gain respect. Of course, confidential information sometimes has to remain confidential for the good of the business. But if employees are told why, they’re more likely to be understanding. If not gossip and rumors start, which can be damaging to the business.
7. Highlight individuals and teams
If a team or individual does something great everyone should know about it. Don’t leave it to the press to report that Milly in sales has raised $5,000 for charity – invite people to share their achievements, get social, and communicate them internally. This can apply to both work and personal successes. For example:
- Promotions
- Qualifications
- Career moves
- Company milestones
- Getting married/having a baby
- Sports and leisure achievements
- Performing on stage
If a company is proud of its employees and what they do both at work and out of work it shows they care.
8. Encourage conversation
Trust employees and encourage them to communicate with each other via message boards. A quick chat can often achieve much more than a formal email. People are much more used to social media chatting these days and getting an answer to a work question this way can save time if a face-to-face meeting isn’t possible. It can also encourage the use of the message system. This can improve performance as no time is wasted. Team news should be shared with all departments, you never know when it might come in handy for another project.
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Internal communication is an entire process within an organization. It includes how information is shared up and down communication channels, as well as laterally, in order to achieve the organization’s goals. Communication is shared in various forms (verbal, written, and digitally), within teams and company-wide.
- Effective communication ensures all employees are aligned and working towards the same goals
- It assists in motivating employees
- Employees become more productive
- Defining goals and objectives
- Identify the target audience
- Choosing the right internal communication tool
- Creating the right message
- Measuring internal communication
- Personalize comms where appropriate
- Ecourage employee conversations and knowledge sharing
- Use simple communications tools
