Building an internal communications strategy

Good internal communication is one of your most powerful tools to cope with disruption. It’s like having great suspension in your car: you can’t remove potholes, but you can navigate them more smoothly.

But what does ‘good’ actually look like? And more importantly, how do you build an internal communication strategy that’s truly effective?

Keep reading, and we’ll answer those questions.

What is effective internal communication?

Internal communication is the flow of information through an organisation. The discipline of internal communication refers to building the practices and processes to optimise this information flow.

Good internal communication fundamentally means ensuring your people know everything they need to perform their jobs effectively. As UK government guidance puts it: ‘the purpose of internal communication is to inform and engage employees in a way that motivates staff to maximise their performance and deliver the business strategy most effectively’.

Effective communication increases employee engagement, builds trust, motivates, creates connection, improves collaboration and teamwork, strengthens your culture and creates alignment around critical goals.

For instance, the IC UK 2021 report talks about the ‘communications multiplier effect’, revealing that communications maturity has a major impact on employee engagement.

The data shows that when employees understand, relate to, believe in and feel involved in company strategy and priorities, employee engagement is 89%. In contrast, when employees only understand your priorities, employee engagement is only 39%. And if they don't even have an understanding of them, engagement falls to 14%.

The stakes for great communication are high. Especially right now.

Internal communication has become business-critical

Internal communication has always been both important and complex – but on both fronts, it’s getting more so.

One major factor has been the shift to flexible working. Some 96% of UK organisations are now more flexible about where employees work, for instance.

This has major benefits but also makes internal communication more complicated. For example, a study of roughly 61,000 Microsoft employees found that remote work ‘caused the collaboration network of workers to become more static and siloed, with fewer bridges between disparate parts’. The study concluded remote work ‘may make it harder for employees to acquire and share new information’.

Another factor has been the pandemic, which saw organisations making sweeping strategic and operational changes while many employees battled increased stress and uncertainty.

This context creates the perfect storm for internal communications, as employees turn to their employers for support and reassurance. For example, 62% of UK employees think the pandemic had a positive impact on company culture, thanks to an increase in open and honest communication.

This should impart lessons for handling the crises ahead.

The UK faces record-high inflation levels and a grim financial outlook that’s impacting employees’ mental health and wellbeing: 94% of UK employees are suffering from money worries.

Employees’ health is also a concern, as the number of UK workers with long-term sickness rose to a record 2.5 million recently. Already on the rise, employees’ health anxiety is only likely to worsen, with the continuing presence of COVID and the resurgence of respiratory infectious diseases.

In this sea of upheaval, employees need organisations to be a lifebuoy, offering stability and reassurance. Effective internal communications has never been more critical to organisational health.

Nor, unfortunately, have they ever been more difficult to get right. There’s an urgent need for organisations to prepare an internal communication strategy to confront this challenge head-on.

Best practices for effective internal communications strategy

An effective internal communications strategy maps a path between where you are now and where you want to be. Your strategy should include proactive communications campaign planning that’s aligned to overall business strategy, as well as contingency planning.

For example, if improving diversity and inclusion is a major organisational objective, your communications strategy could support this with a campaign to educate managers on diversity and inclusion in their teams.

A good strategy should consider and accommodate various factors:

Your audience’s requirements

For example, how will you communicate with frontline workers versus office-based workers? How will you communicate with leaders versus graduates?

Message requirements

For example, how will you communicate sensitive news versus general company news? How will you communicate a lengthy message versus a shorter one?

Timing requirements

For example, how will you communicate urgent news versus messages that aren’t time-sensitive? Or messages that become more time-sensitive over time, like asking employees to complete a task by a deadline.

Types of channels

Different channels are appropriate in different situations, depending on the factors above. The Government Communication Service advise that ‘often a message or communications campaign will require the use of multiple channels, to help to reinforce your message and make sure it reaches as many people as possible’. Channels can be verbal, digital or paper-based.

Potential challenges 

A good communications plan predicts and plans for challenges you might face that could disrupt your communications.

For example, how would you communicate urgent, sensitive news to an employee on sick leave? How would you communicate if your company internet were down? How would you communicate if the designated person (like a senior leader) responsible for delivering a message were unavailable?

Goals and success metrics

How will you know if your plan is effective, if you haven’t defined what ‘effective’ means? A good strategy should outline goals and metrics that show you whether you’ve achieved those goals.

For example, you might set the goal of improving employees’ perception of transparency from 6 to 8 on your employee engagement survey by the end of the year. People analytics can provide useful join-up here, helping you connect internal communication to wider talent objectives like reducing turnover.

Now let’s look at some of the examples of internal communication, to bring the necessary breadth of your strategy to life.

Examples of internal communication 

Internal comms is an upwards, downwards and lateral process that happens between employees at every level. As such, there are hundreds of possible examples of internal communication ranging from top-down messages to peer-to-peer advocacy. Here’s a few of them.

Industry news. Like…

• Competitor news
• Market information
• Training programmes
• Regulatory changes

According to IC UK, 41% of UK employees want more information about their market and competitors but only 27% receive this type of information.

Company news. Like…

• Company successes
• Leadership hires
• Policy changes and strategy shifts
• Crisis response
• Events

Recognition communication. Like… 

• Celebrating employee’s successes
• Introducing new hires
• Re-onboarding existing employees
• Thanking departing employees
• Announcing personal news like new parenthood

Less-recognised employees are 131% more likely to lose faith in their management team and company’s core values – but nearly three in four UK employees feel they deserve more recognition. Building recognition communication into your strategy should be a key focus area.

Peer-to-peer communication. Like…

• Team meetings
• Peer recognition
• Water cooler moments
• Digital collaboration

Employee-led communication. Like…

• Whistleblowing
• Employee feedback
• Reviews and user-generated content
• Raising questions or escalating concerns
• Requesting leave or reporting absence

76% of workers want employers to have whistleblowing standards. But right now, only 43% of UK employees know if their organisation has a whistleblowing policy.

HR communication. Like…

• HR support communication
• Compliance communication
• Resignation and dismissal
• Following up employee feedback

This list gives a sense of the breadth your strategy must encompass to add meaningful value.

A robust internal communications strategy is a core component of organisational health. As businesses battle constant disruption and employee engagement continues to decrease, communicating with your people in an effective way builds trust, protects engagement and fosters organisational resilience.