Why you need an internal communication plan

The more I have conversations with managers, the more they confirm that internal communication is still an issue for most of them. In fact, from one hand they appreciate that in the last two years there’s been an increasing awareness – however it’s not become a priority yet within the organization they’re working for. So how can you effectively engage your teams over it?

Definition and examples

Before diving into this topic, let me set the record straight defining what internal communication (IC) is:

Any interaction between colleagues working in the same organization aimed at asking / sharing useful information.

Want some examples?

Your company’s mission and corporate values
Every conversation taking place within your team or cross-department regardless the channel [e.g. phone calls, email, video call and others in use]
Employee manuals and [e.g. onboarding, technical. etc.]
Internal newsletters
Company intranet content
Trainings, seminars, webinars
Employee forums, surveys and polls

How about your cross-department conversations?

Now let’s focus on the most frequent pet peeves that affect organizations (aka cross-department conversations). If you work in the customer service arena I bet that this example will sound pretty familiar to you: a customer starts the conversation asking for support. ➡️ Your agent / team provide a ‘holding reply’ because they need to get information or specific actions taken by other colleague’s department. ➡️ Such internal response is slow in coming so that the customer gets impatient, urging the customer support team [to be angrily continued…]

Cross department conversation dynamics

Unfortunately these stats confirm that still too many companies are stuck in a rut.👇

60% of companies don’t have a long-term strategy for their internal communications. (Workforce)
74% of employees feel they are missing out on company information and news. (Trade Press Services)
86% of employees and executives consider lack of collaboration or ineffective communication the origin of workplace failures. (Salesforce)

Building up your powerful IC plan

I guess you won’t be surprised that I’ve been working a lot with clients helping them develop on this crucial topic. In fact, whether it’s about building an effective internal communication plan from scratch, or just making adjustments to improve it, positive results affect the whole business. In addition to that, smooth employee experiences lead to better customer experiences, which are your best life-insurance policies for the future of your organization.

Internal communication session