Internal Communications Tools

"The employee communications department is at risk of becoming irrelevant. There already are voices calling for companies to do away with them, arguing that a function focusing on one discrete audience is anachronistic given everybody’s ability to see what everybody else is saying.

Most internal communication departments spend most of their time creating and distributing content. Much of that is done through email and intranets, which have become the replacement for newsletters and magazines (and something called a “magapaper”).

It remains vitally important for a dedicated internal comms function to report news and other information employees need to know. While they may read the same reports other stakeholders read (like customers, shareholders, and local communities) and have access to sites like Glassdoor.com, where employees praise or condemn their organizations with granular detail, employees have special contextual needs those channels don’t serve.

Reporting alone, however, is not enough to sustain employee communications’ relevance. Everything about business and work is changing; so is the way people get, share, and use information outside the workplace (and even inside, since it’s easy for employees to bypass official channels). Employee communications departments need to recognize the realities of the modern workplace and reinvent themselves in response."

Read the full article to find out more about these roles a modern internal comms department needs to fill:

• Facilitating employee-to-employee communication
• Message Mission Control
• Channel management
• Inspiring and sharing employee-generated content
• Data analysis
• Coordination with other communication functions
• Change and culture communication
• Leader communications
• Communicating for engagement
• Supervisor communications
• Employee advocacy
• Measure, measure, measure
• Call to action: Go forth and communicate

"Our smileguide on The Changing Role of Internal Communication is now available as a free download is available to all our registered readers. If you are not registered just sign up (it takes less than a minute and is completely free). 

It is clear that the arrival of social media and digital communications has changed the role of the IC professional forever. As I started investigating social networks in the enterprise I quickly saw that we are just at the beginning of an evolution that is going to transform forever the practices of this industry. Indeed, all the indications seem to suggest that the speed of technology will continue to occur faster and faster."

Read the full article to access this free 23 page smileguide which identifies the key trends in the marketplace and what practitioners can do to develop themselves, covering the need for internal communicators to:

• be digital experts with a background in both internal and external communications

• have journalistic skills

• think like a marketer

• be relevant in the new era of social business

• also have experience in public affairs, marketing, and media relations

"Today’s corporate communicator has a legion of responsibilities. Everything from executive communications to media relations to employee communications falls under its umbrella.

Corporate communicators must be good writers. They must be able to hold and lead a meeting. They must have good interpersonal skills. And, they must be able to work well alone–and in a team environment.

We know about all of this because it is well documented. We talk about it a lot in professional organizations like IABC and PRSA. We read about it on blogs and industry publications.

But, we talk very little about those unwritten laws that govern our profession. Those “commandments”, if you will, that truly enable us to do our work–and do it well."

Read the full article to find out more about Arik's four unwritten “commandments” that he believes play a key role for every corporate communicator:

1. Thou shall always keep executive admins happy
2. Thou shall always keep a full candy dish at your desk
3. Thou shall never eat alone–or at your desk
4. Thou shall take at least 2 trips per year

"We all have them. The scars from projects that don't quite go to plan... the zombies you need to avoid."

Read the full article for humorous, albeit true, pointers on how to survive the fall out from comms projects (zombies) that have gone either bad or well:

• warning signs of imminent zombie attack
• how to protect yourself and those you work with from a zombie outbreak

"I’ve often wondered what I would say to someone, if I left my job, and the person replacing me was new to internal comms and employee engagement."

Read the full article to find out more about these 5 key issues, or the 5 C’s of being an internal communicator:

1. Commitment
2. Culture
3. Courageous conversations
4. Challenge
5. Leadership communications

"Getting staff to click through to an email newsletter, read articles online or in print, or engage with company comms is a whole lot easier if the content is quality stuff. Not only that, if it’s produced using a few tried and tested journalistic techniques, it’s even easier and more effective."

Read the full article to find out more about these six journalistic skills that will amp up your internal communication materials:

1. Good writing
2. Interviewing
3. Editing
4. Fact checking
5. Headline writing
6. Knowing where the good stories are

"Should your IC team consist of generalists who are adequately skilled in a variety of areas, or specialists who focus specifically on one skill that they have mastered?

It’s an ongoing debate that Heads of IC across the globe have had to mull over at one point or another.  But it ultimately boils down to what your organisation needs. And that should directly inform how you build your IC team – and the skills and competencies you foster among them.  Yet finding the right balance of these crucial competencies within an internal communication department or team can be tricky."

Read the full article to find out how to effectively manage an expanding mandate for IC, by adopting a more systematic approach to competencies and skill development using Melcrum's IC Competency Model.

You can also find out more about the need for this model in this Melcrum article Brave New World: Capabilities for Internal Communication's Future.