One person doing all your internal comms? Here’s why that might not be enough.
I first heard the phrase ‘internal communication’ almost 30 years ago. I’d landed a job at a media company, helping the Exec team’s EAs, and within six months I was helping the Group Development Director with her M&A agenda.
As the company grew, I started helping the different parts talk to one another. Then one day, my boss came in clutching an article from the Sunday paper about internal comms saying: ‘This is what you do!’
And that set the rest of my career.
It’s a profession I’ve seen change a lot over the years. What started out as a tactical role (PowerPoint slides, taking photos for the staff directory, organising the Christmas party) has turned into a strategic function.
And yet, it’s still common to see internal comms teams under-resourced. A one-person comms team with no budget trying to communicate with 10,000 people. So busy sending messages and writing newsletters that people don’t read — and no time to focus on what the job should be:
helping employees understand the big picture and their role in it
Or as we say at B&M, connecting the broom with the moon.
So, what are the skills you need in your internal comms team? The bigger and more disparate the company, the bigger the comms challenge. So size does matter.
And, as with your sales and marketing team, one size can’t fit all. Your relationship manager has very different skills to your social media manager.
When it comes to IC, here are four types of pro you may need:
The strategist
Strategists understand the organisation’s purpose, vision and strategy and know how to translate it in a meaningful way so employees can get behind it.
They won’t settle for a jargon-riddled PPT slide hidden on the intranet. They’ll have the skills to create a comms strategy that brings the business strategy to life and keep it at the top of people’s minds.
And they’ll have the experience and gravitas to kill distractions that deviate from the plan.
The partner
If your business is big enough, you might have a strategist partner for each department or business unit.
Partners are the conduit between the comms teams and the business’ leaders. They’re expert relationship managers who are comfortable advising and challenging the senior team.
They understand the part of the business they work with and oversee comms in that area, while helping tell that function’s story to the rest of the org.
And when there’s a story to tell, they know the best person to help tell it…
The creative
Back in the day when we didn’t have smartphones, you could send an email and expect people to see it. Today your comms are not only battling with all the other work emails and Slack messages, they’re also competing with TikTok, Instagram and all the other distractions offered up by our phones.
So you need creative people who can take a story and make it compelling. Writers. Designers. Animators. People who know how to take a story and turn it into an intranet article, a keynote speech and a series of social posts.
You might not have all of these skills in your team. They might sit in Marketing, or you might use an external agency.
Just know that if you’re expecting one person to strategise and produce great content, they’re probably not going to have time to do a great job of either.
The channels manager
Outside of the office, we use a range of tools to keep in touch with other — like WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. Yet many companies still rely on email to communicate with their teams (which is definitely not going to work for your Gen Zers).
You need a comms infrastructure that supports your team in getting the job done. Easy to find tools and information and ways of collaborating across teams and geographies.
That’s where a channels manager — or, depending on the size of your org, a team of them — comes in. There are lots of options out there and, working with your IT team, they can help you choose what’s best for your business.
The data cruncher
If you’re not measuring, you can’t say for sure whether you achieved what you set out to. Which is why marketing teams don’t get to spend money without showing the ROI.
Likewise with internal comms. Want more budget? You need data to back up what you’ll do with it.
What you’ll measure ranges from how well employees understand their role in helping achieve the company’s vision through to the effectiveness of a specific campaign.
How you’ll measure varies from interviews, focus groups, surveys, polls and your comms channels (for example, the number of reactions to a social post).
Whatever or however you measure, data is what will help you shift from newsletter writer to strategic advisor.
If you still have a one-person comms team but want help turning it into a function that will help your business succeed, get in touch.