What are internal communications?

Before you begin building an internal communications strategy, it’s useful to get an idea of which elements fall under the umbrella of internal communications (or internal comms, as it is often abbreviated to). They can come from all different parts of your business. You might think of internal communications as top-down communications from a manager to their employee, and you would be right. However, it also includes other forms of communication, including but not limited to the following:

• change communications
• peer-to-peer communications
• two-way communications
• emergency communications
• information communications
• campaign communications

This means that internal comms can include a message that one of your employees receives over a messaging service from another employee. It can also mean the ongoing communication that you provide to your employees about a change management strategy you have in place. 

When it comes to crisis communications, your employees know where to find information about what to do in a crisis (such as when there’s a fire), or through which channels this information will be communicated.

What happens when internal communications are not handled well

It’s clear that internal communications can be important to almost every aspect of your business. When they’re used well, they can keep everything running smoothly, but when they are run less successfully, they can lead to conflicting messages from managers or confusion about how tasks are supposed to be completed. Furthermore, infrequent communication about change might leave your employees guessing about what to expect or feel, if the changes are poorly managed.

Tips for building a strong internal communications strategy

If you are looking to build an internal comms strategy, or strengthen your existing one, it’s worth considering what areas are essential and where there’s potential room for improvement. Here are some tips for doing so.

Setting standards for communication

Managers can help to set standards for internal communication by showing employees how it should be done. This might involve focusing on becoming more transparent and open, holding more regular one-to-one meetings with employees and involving them in more important decision-making processes. If managers improve their communication skills, it’s likely that your entire team will pick up from this how to communicate with each other.

Instead of declaring that certain changes will be made, perhaps you could engage your employees more in a conversation about them. This could involve preparing responses to any potential questions that they might have. This way, they should be more prepared with a better understanding of what to expect and how to navigate any new challenges.

Keeping messaging consistent

You will probably want to communicate with your employees during a time when they are all available, particularly if you are working with an international team. This means checking in to make sure that you are working during similar hours. One way around this issue if you are working in different time zones to some employees is by scheduling messages to reach them at a certain time. If their morning is at a time when you’ll be asleep, you can schedule an email or message to reach them then.

Communicating small amounts of information regularly is a good way to prevent your employees from feeling overwhelmed. It means that they can process news in chunks and prioritise as they go. Similarly, if you go silent on employees after a period of intense communication, it can leave them feeling confused or stressed as they might feel as if they are not being kept fully informed.

Communicating simply and clearly

As you will probably want your message to reach as many employees as possible, it’s useful to think about communicating everything simply and clearly. Even employees who are confident in dealing with complex information might find it difficult to take everything you say on board when there is a lot of information to process. They might already have a lot of work to read through already, and an email that’s too lengthy or wordy could slow them down. You also run the risk of your employees skim-reading over important points, or not fully understanding what you have to say.

By keeping your written communications informal, interesting and concise, you will keep employees engaged and focused on your message. Not only is this a useful skill to have when dealing with internal comms, it’s also useful for when your employees are talking to customers or clients.

If you ask your employees questions too, it’s helpful to get to the point fast. It’s worth focusing on questions that are constructive and help to move the project along.

Learn about employee communication styles

When it comes to communicating, no two employees will be the same. Some will be more confident at giving presentations, while others will be more adept at writing persuasive pitches to clients. One of the best ways to find out how your employees prefer to communicate is by touching base with them regularly and learning about them more as people. 

Encouraging employees to learn new communication styles might involve pushing them out of their comfort zone, but it can also lead to them becoming more confident communicators as well. Some employees might feel that they’re less comfortable leading a presentation, but with the right support become much better at it. It’s not always clear what someone’s true strengths and weaknesses are, therefore, unless you get to know your employees on a deeper level.

Listening to employee concerns

This leads naturally to listening to your employees if they speak up about their concerns. It also means actively encouraging your employees to voice their opinions, particularly the ones who do not share their views as much as others. Showing your employees how to be diplomatic and resolve disagreements maturely and practically can also be a great way to lead by example.

Conducting a survey on internal communications

You can find out how your employees feel about your internal communications strategy (if you already have one) by conducting an employee satisfaction survey. In this, you could ask them questions about how confident they feel raising issues, or whether they enjoy using the video conferencing, messaging tools or project management system you’re using. With an anonymous survey, you’re more likely to find out your employees’ honest opinions on how your current communications strategy is working out.

Building an effective internal communications strategy involves looking at the relationship between employer and employee. This means listening to employees’ concerns, either through meetings, surveys or one-to-one communications. Your employees are likely to have different strengths when it comes to sharing their ideas, so learning about the communication styles they’re most confident with will help you to improve your comms strategy. Finally, managers can help lead the way by providing a strong example of how to communicate via simple, clear and consistent messaging.