Building Stronger Companies with Internal Communication
How Internal Communication can help you build an organization that is purposeful, value based, united and open to change.
May 24th, 2021 • 5 Mins Read
If utilized correctly Internal Communication (IC) can help you build a stronger company. A well sought and bright employee joins the team, it is highly unlikely that they will read through your 50-page HR Manual, so how do you introduce them to your company’s culture and values? How do you remind existing employees of your values and nudge them in the right direction? Internal Communication can be used to drive action during times of change, improve your sales through creating internal product awareness and show your employees the positive impact of their work.
Internal communication is the function responsible for an effective flow of information within an organization. The way you communicate with your employees affects their productivity, buy-in of your company vision, culture, engagement, and ultimately employee experience. In this article, we investigate how you can use IC to develop stronger and more productive teams and organizations.
How IC Develops Stronger Businesses:
- Drive Action During Times of Change
- Culture and Value Awareness
- Product Awareness
- People Awareness
- Brand, Passion, and Purpose
1. Drive Action During Times of Change
In times of change and uncertainty, how do you get your workforce purposefully moving in one direction? During the COVID-19 pandemic, companies have had to quickly change direction and align employees to new priorities. IC helps in cutting through the noise of daily work and informing staff on why the new changes and direction are important. IC also helps drive action.
Why You Want to Drive Action During Times of Change:
- Empower Middle Management by not burdening them with the sole responsibility of passing on information.
- Communicate through the noise of daily work, deadlines, challenges, and customer delivery.
- Well communicated goals, well-trained staff, and happy faces support customer encounters and have a positive effect on the brand and revenue.
- Allow staff to hear from leadership on the new direction and reasons behind the decisions made.
- Reassure and answer any questions or concerns staff might have.
- Set expectations of what is required from staff, with the change of direction or priorities.
- Highlight culture/ value/ brand champions and their response to change.
2. Culture and Value Awareness
Culture is one of the most important parts of a business’s long-term success. I say long-term success because bad culture can still yield success in the short term. Culture picks up where the employee handbook leaves off. Culture tells us how to respond to a change in a client’s requests, whether to risk sharing new ideas with the boss, whether to hide or surface problems, culture tells us what to do when the CEO is not in the room. Culture not only helps with customer delivery but also the retention of your best talent.
Why You Want to Create Awareness of Your Culture and Values:
- Informing new staff members on the culture and values.
- A behavioral nudge for existing employees, reminding them why the values are important and how they affect customer delivery.
- Setting a known standard of what behavior will be rewarded and appreciated.
- Highlight’s value and culture champions that serve customers or do work in line with company values and culture.
- Ensure standardization of core values, quality of service, and brand across teams in different geographical (cross border) locations.
- Makes those who do not care about your culture or values aware your company is not the right fit for them.
3. Product Awareness
With teams working in different business divisions, offices, cities, or even countries it is not unusual for workers not to know about a new product or product roadmap. Companies put a lot of effort into communicating product launches, improvements, and benefits to their external customers but will often leave out their internal customers.
Our analysis of the effect on culture by remote and hybrid work shows that awareness of what others are working on has suffered. In our research, professional and technical workers showed great awareness among staff of what their team is working on (57 percent). But low awareness of what other teams are working on (44 percent). The results for administrative and support workers follow the same trend with 52 percent for the former and 44 percent for the latter.
Why You Want to Create Product Awareness:
- Increases chances of your employees using the products and services you are selling.
- If they like your company and products, they will talk about it and the products you sell to people who already trust them.
- Shout-outs and features of the people behind the products and services generate pride and belonging.
- Develops pride in products and services you are creating, and greater commitment to the company.
- Communicates the company’s priorities and rallies employees to play their part in the brand’s success.
4. People Awareness
You can use Internal Communication to help your staff members be aware of the people working within your company. IC is a fun and engaging way to introduce new team members to the company. Though please note that this needs to be done in a way that creates excitement to have new people on board – and not have people tune out of new team member notifications.
IC also provides a great avenue for your staff to know the founder and leaders of your organization. And other people who hold your organization together – your tea lady, askari (guard), or other staff members who have inspiring stories of how they have overcome adversity. For example, days like World Cancer Day, or Mental Health Awareness Day come alive when your staff members share personal stories of hope and resilience.
Why You Want to Create Awareness of Your People:
- Reduce the power distance between leaders and staff through relatable content.
- A great way of bringing out your culture and values through storytelling.
- Your employees’ stories are important and inspiring.
- Develops a sense of belonging and pride.
- People move from being a “familiar face in the office” to being relatable and inspiring.
- Makes new staff members feel welcomed.
5. Brand, Passion, and Purpose
We all want employees who not only love what they do but are engaged, dedicated and committed to the brand. This is the result of action and not chance. The late Bob Collymore, CEO of Safaricom talked a lot about the significance of purpose in business. Purpose directs how you treat your employees, suppliers, and everyone across your value chain. It helps you decide on the products you will develop and launch. And develops a sense of purposefulness for your staff team.
We must be working for more than a paycheck at the end of the month, and businesses need to want more than a great P&L and market share. Purpose helps give work meaning, and when our work has meaning, the quality of our work commitment and productivity increases.
Why You Want to Communicate Your Brand, Passion, and Purpose:
- Communicate your Business WHY – answering why everyone should wake up every morning and commit to not only profitability but IMPACT.
- Develop internal brand awareness and pride in your brand.
- Develop common language, culture, and pride in belonging.
- Communicate what you stand for and what you stand against.
- Communicating the secret sauce behind your success. What no one else can copy – your corporate purpose.