Want to Futureproof Your Internal Comms? It's Time to Get Strategic

Simon Rutter explains why 'concierge communications' must become a thing of the past, and 'strategic communications' is the only way forward.
 

I wrote in a previous blog that there has never been a more exciting time to work in the field of internal communications. Part of the reasoning for this is that it’s an area that is changing so fast, with many different drivers including rapid evolutions in employee expectations, technology, and economic conditions. 

In this blog I’m going to unpack five ways internal communications is advancing from old to new, and what you need to do to ensure you’re futureproofing your function – and career – in this accelerating world. 

1. One-way vs bottom-up

Since its inception, internal communications has been considered by many organizations to be something they do ‘to’ their employees. In practice, this led to leaders deciding what they wanted to communicate, how, and when, and internal communications being ordered to simply deliver. Hence the accusations of internal communications being little more than a corporate mouthpiece, and practitioners’ frustrations at being undervalued. 

While this perception (and related activity) still persists, (see Boots CEO ordering employees back to the office five days a week) the tide is turning. Increasingly, internal communicators are championing and leading employee listening activities to inform their strategies, so they are more likely to be successful. What’s more, this listening is becoming more frequent, with an ‘always-on’ approach to capturing, analyzing, and sharing feedback with leaders and managers now more common. 

The business case is clear: employee listening improves engagement, which in turn increases productivity and profitability. 74% of employees are more effective in their work when they feel heard, with 71% feeling sufficiently confident to share their feedback and ideas in the future. Listening builds trust not just between employees and the internal communications team, but also with leaders and managers. That trust helps with everything from retaining talent to innovating new products and services. 

In 2024 and beyond, employee listening is no longer an optional nice-to-have, or an activity to be considered only after something’s gone wrong. It’s now a central part of an internal communications team’s strategy, enabling them to have more impact and add greater business value.  

What you need to do: Incorporate a mix of quantitative and qualitative listening activities into your internal communications strategy.

2. Leader-led vs people managers

As I wrote earlier, old internal communications has been leader-led. While senior leaders are critical for setting strategy and role modeling culture, engagement is created – and work gets done – at a people manager level. Indeed, employees who feel well supported by their line manager are 3.4 times more likely to feel engaged at work.

People managers are the majority in most organizations, and this unfairly derided ‘frozen middle’ are where internal communication challenges become reality. These managers are expected to translate company strategy and initiatives into meaningful actions for their teams, and communicate these with clarity and confidence. 

To do this effectively, managers need support from internal communications. Most managers aren’t natural communicators, so they need training and tools to be able to deliver what their businesses need. 

What you need to do: With a relentless workload and depleting resources, manager burnout is now at a record high, with significant impact on team morale and delivery of business strategy. 

That’s why it’s critical that in 2024, internal communicators tackle this challenge head on and put people managers at the heart of strategy. Specifically, you need to dedicate yourself to:  

• Listening to people managers to discover what support they need 
• Co-creating training and communication materials with them
• Viewing them as a communication channel, reviewing their effectiveness, and getting feedback

If we get this right, the results in terms of engagement, retention, productivity, and financial performance will be game-changing. This challenge really can’t wait.  

3. Concierge communications vs strategic communications 

For many years internal comms was (and still is, in some organizations) performing what I call ‘concierge communications’. What I mean by this is that internal communications teams are servicing the needs of particular leaders. This on-demand ‘man-marking’ created a lot of noise and confusion in many companies, with various leaders all sending out different messages, through different channels, and at different times. 

The result? A lack of clarity and confidence among employees in the strategic direction of your business. 

One word sums up new internal communications: strategic. Out – the vanity publishing. In – laser-focusing your typically lean resources on communications that are aligned to the business strategy. 

What you need to do: What this means in practice is that to be successful as a communicator going forward, you will need to:

• Understand organizational strategy and priorities
• Audit your current internal communications strategy and activities to ensure they are fully aligned to the business  
• Push back on requests to communicate anything outside the corporate strategy 

Strategic communications, then, is all about making choices. What is your organization trying to achieve? What does it need you, as an internal communications function, to focus on to support this? What activities will have the greatest impact and create the most commercial value?  

While much of this sounds obvious, it’s often been difficult for internal communicators to deliver, with the traditional leader-led concierge model limiting the effectiveness of our role.

The communicators who have broken free of this are those who have been prepared to have the difficult conversations with senior stakeholders, had the appropriate backing when needed, and used measurement to stay on track and demonstrate progress. 

I’m not suggesting for a moment this is an easy transition, but if you can get to the other side, you will be more effective as an internal communicator, professionally fulfilled, and help to enhance the reputation of an often misunderstood yet critical discipline.

4. Reactive vs proactive

Old-style internal communications teams have skewed reactive rather than proactive. There are understandable reasons for this – workload, resources, etc – but in 2024 and beyond, we must find a way to break out of this vicious cycle. 

More than ever, our organizations need us to be scanning the horizon, spotting trends, and connecting dots. A key benefit of strategic communications (see number three) is giving you and your team the time and space to get ahead of issues (external or internal), so that you maximize any positive impact and limit the negative. 

For example, when you communicate updates on performance against strategy, are you helping to explain context – whether macro-economic, political, social, or industry- and sector-specific? To do so, as internal communicators we need to be speaking with those responsible for strategy, planning, insights, and data. These may be different to the stakeholders we’re used to talking to – like HR and IT – but they are essential to helping us better understand the businesses we work in, so our work has greater impact. 

AI is another example here. (Come on, I couldn’t NOT mention AI in a future-focused article!) In its report on AI and the future of internal communication, the Institute of Internal Communication rightly points out that internal communicators have an essential role to play in how AI is deployed in their organizations. This is because we sit in the privileged position of seeing across, up, and down our businesses, and can identify opportunities and call out risks that others may not see. We should therefore take a leading role in educating our businesses and ensuring the right departments are talking to each other when decisions are made.  

What you need to do: Carve out time for you and your team to read, research, and collaborate with people internally and externally to build your knowledge.

5. Siloed vs interconnected 

While I wrote in number four that internal communicators are in a unique position to orchestrate change in their organizations, too often I still see teams working in silos. This leaves them cut off from many parts of the business, causes issues with the essential collaboration needed for many programs and projects, and hampers their ability to deliver work that could really move the needle on achieving business objectives. 

I’ve seen this in areas including brand, employee experience, and sales enablement, to name just three. This has led to fragmented work, missed opportunities, and a perception that internal communicators are unwilling, or unable, to help outside their traditional scope. 

In 2024 and beyond, with corporates becoming more networked and matrixed by the minute, the fact is that to continue being effective, internal communicators need to put themselves at the heart of their organizations. This means forging new relationships and reinforcing those with critical interdependencies such as IT, HR, and marketing. 
Moreover, these relationships need to move from being reactive, transactional, and tactical to being strategic, proactive, and truly interconnected. Internal communicators need to be involved from the outset of discussions about changes that impact employees, no matter where in the business they originate from, and have a key role on cross-functional project teams. 

Let me give an example to bring this concept to life. According to project-management app Asana, workers are spending 1.5 working days each week, or around 30% of their time, navigating ‘disconnected’ tools at work. Its study of more than 3,000 UK and US knowledge workers revealed the overwhelming desire by workers to have fewer, but more effective, tools to help them get their jobs done. By working with IT to streamline tools and educate employees, internal communicators can help their businesses become more efficient and add directly to their bottom lines. 

What you need to do: Identify key interdependent functions and request to sit on their leadership teams (and invite them onto yours) for increased visibility, better planning, and greater collaboration.

Go forth and pursue strategic communications

So, there you have it. Five ways not to get left behind in 2024 and beyond. 

No doubt they require bravery, boldness, and belief. 

But then, doesn’t any change?