10 Things Every Internal Communicator Should Know

Simon Rutter draws on his own industry experience to delve into the things every internal communicator should know.

Being an internal communicator can be a tough job. Challenging stakeholders, conflicting demands, and contracting attention spans are daily obstacles. However, internal communications is also increasingly at the epicentre of organizational strategy, as the need to engage employees and deliver results becomes tougher yet more pressing. 

With all this in mind, here are 10 things every internal communicator should know.

1. Everyone thinks they are a communicator

This is a reality of the job. Everyone thinks communications is easy, and that they can do your job (usually better than you). The first thing to say here is – don’t take this personally. It’s hard, especially at the start of your career, but you get used to get it. 

Let’s look at the positive side of this. Since the rise of social media, employee activism, and public company statements, your people (at all levels) are more comfortable communicating than they were even a few years ago. You can harness this to your advantage, working with stakeholders’ natural style, channel preference, and voice to help them become even more effective. This allows you to focus on adding value through strategic advice. 

And if someone does tell you anyone can do your job – well, show them this viral video of Andi Owen, CEO of MillerKnoll. No. They. Can’t.

2. Listening is a superpower

In my experience, if you ask people questions, they are more than happy to answer. As an internal communicator it’s easy to forget that you work for every person in the company – not just its leaders.  

It’s critical that you establish a regular forum for listening to a cross section of your employees (levels, locations, etc.) so you can: 

• Understand whether anyone’s reading and understanding what you’re communicating, and whether it’s changing behavior.
• Get feedback on what employees want to hear more/less about. 
• Test early thinking/ideas. 

Listening is often overlooked by stretched internal communications teams. But it’s so important to make space for it. If your people feel that they have a voice and that your communications strategy reflects their reality, they are far more likely to engage with your content and do what you need them to do. 

Oh, and it’s free, which is a massive bonus.  

3. Work through leaders and managers

Leaders have the biggest impact on organizational culture. They are role models and everything they say and do is scrutinized and picked up on by employees. To deliver your internal communications strategy, you need to work with your leaders. That means spending time with them, getting to know them as people, and understanding what makes them tick. If you collaborate in this way you will be better positioned to help your leaders communicate authentically, with purpose, and connect with employees.  

Managers are the glue that hold a business together. They are how work gets done and employees are motivated. Indeed, they are the biggest determinant of engagement – by far. If you think of your managers as a channel to reach employees then you can focus on what they need to do that job – training, tools, materials, etc. Listen to them, co-create with them, and ask them for feedback – is what you’re provided helping or hindering them as communicators?

4. Inside Out/Outside In

Gone are the days when what happened inside your organization stayed there. Now, you need to assume anything you say could be out in the world in seconds. There are countless recent examples of this, and incidents have spiked as global layoffs have increased.

Employees are also less afraid to leak information, in some cases seeing it as a form of whistleblowing. So, before you hit send, make sure you’d be happy to see your words on the front pages of tomorrow’s newspapers. 

The reverse is also happening. What goes on in the world is impacting employees’ daily lives. Tightening economies, wars, social unrest, mental health crises – whatever it is, these pressures are increasing in intensity across the world. Internal communicators cannot avoid these realities, and you need to be empathetic when communicating with your employees during these times – this is where ongoing listening (see point 2) is essential.  

5. Stop the scroll 

Employees’ attention spans are getting shorter. Workload, external events (see point 4), and the inexorable march of social media mean the vast majority of your people are spending 15 minutes or less per day reading your content. 

This means that to cut through, your communications must demand attention. The best way to do this is by asking yourself some questions before creating and distributing them:  

• Is this information that the audience needs to know, feel, or act on? 
• Are we linking the communication to business goals so employees can connect the dots?
• If we don’t issue this communication, is there a corporate risk?

Putting your communications through these filters will increase your chances of your message(s) getting through. I also recommend making the content itself as easy to digest as possible – headings, bullet points, having a clear call to action – anything that helps your audience.

6. Outcomes not outputs

Internal communicators are often charged with producing outputs – videos, newsletters, events, etc. – as this is typically what stakeholders understand the role to be about, and therefore measure your value on. 

However, it’s important to focus on outcomes. This is about understanding what the business needs to achieve, and aligning your internal communications strategy to support this. 

For example, let’s say your business needs to improve customer centricity. Instead of rushing to create outputs that may or may not help with this – brochures, blogs, etc. – focus instead on how you can help deliver the outcome of customer centricity. This may be through working with HR to create new training materials, or with your Sales and Marketing teams on compelling value propositions. 

The key is to keep anchoring your activity back to outcomes, not outputs. This isn’t easy, and will involve saying ‘no’ a lot – but it’s crucial if you want to be strategic and effective.

7. Measure it 

It’s important you can measure the value of your communications. This is a perennial problem for internal communicators, with fewer than half saying they do any measurement. 

While outputs are technically easier to measure (X number of posters put up, etc.) they do not tell you whether anyone has done anything because of your communications. If you focus on outcomes, you can start demonstrating the real value of your work. 

Again, let’s use an example. Your organization wants to improve cross-selling. Rather than measuring how many cross-functional meetings you’ve organized, look at the rate of cross-selling. Is it going up or down? What have you done to help that – training, messaging, etc.? Report on those metrics. That way the business will see you as an enabler of strategic goals, rather than just a creator of content.

8. Double-check the tech 

You’ve sent all the invitations. Briefed the speakers. Prepared all the content. And then – the technology fails. I’ve lost count of the number of events I’ve run or been part of – live and virtual – which have been let down by tech failings. 

As a result, employees give up, switch off, or focus on the medium and not the message. Fortunately, while these things can happen, there are measures you can put in place to mitigate them:

• Do at least one, ideally two dress rehearsals with every aspect of the technology – sign-in, breakout rooms, Q&A, etc.  
• Have a Plan B – what will you do if the tech goes down? 
• Capture feedback and lessons learnt – so you can improve for the next time.

In the era of flexible working, organizations are hugely reliant on the stability of digital platforms. Outages and failures can render months of hard work redundant. Double check the tech.

9. Be brave

Admittedly, this is much easier said than done sometimes. To be specific, what I’m talking about here is:

• Saying no. You will have more demands for your services than you can cope with. The only way to continue to add value AND keep your sanity is to learn how to say no. There are many ways of doing this – referencing your strategy, questioning objectives, or suggesting alternatives – but sometimes you just have to say ‘no’.
• Speaking truth to power. Leaders often operate in echo chambers, and rarely hear bad news or the reality of life on the frontline of your business. It’s your job as a communicator to be that invaluable messenger, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you. Your business needs you. 
• Be the corporate conscience. Internal communicators are in a unique position of being able to see up, down and across an entire organization. Use this power to ensure your organization’s purpose, values, and culture are being lived everywhere – not just in pockets.

10. HR are your friend 

The modern internal communicator must see HR as a friend, not an enemy consuming all its time and trampling over its territory. So many HR and IC areas are interdependent that it is only by joining forces that both functions can thrive and, most importantly, employees feel properly served. 

Take the topic of employee experience, for example. IC and HR have to work together to ensure employees have a seamless experience at every stage of their journey with the company, from attraction to alumni. 

Along with IT, these functions have a massive impact at many of the moments that matter to people – e.g. onboarding – and that difference can be multiplied by operating as one integrated team.  

It is also worth remembering that HR have:

• People data that can be used to inform communication strategies 
• Often, bigger budgets than IC teams 
• Influence in the C-Suite – not something all IC teams have 

For internal communicators to deliver in today’s heavily matrixed, interconnected world, collaboration with HR is the only way to go.  

So, there you have it, 10 things every internal communicator should know. Despite the everyday setbacks and soap operas, there’s never been a more interesting and exciting time to work in this field.