5 Best Practices for Your Internal Communications Strategy

You can promote optimal daily operations with an effective internal communication strategy.

Most companies have best practices for communicating with customers and partners. Companies even create policies for communicating with new employees.

However, it’s important to maintain the same level of planning when communicating with existing staff members. It’s also essential to provide tools that help employees communicating with each other.

Effective internal communication is not nice to do—it’s a must. It improves employee engagement. Effective communication also helps to align employee ideals with company goals.

Revamping internal communications is a considerable undertaking. However, it’s more than worth the effort for the positive results.

For five best practices for your internal communication strategy, keep reading.

1. Understand the Current Internal Communication Strategy

Some organizations already have established internal communications policies. In this case, your existing systems are a good place to start with revamping your practices.

You’ll need to begin by rethinking your internal communication processes. For this best-practice, you’ll need to conduct a detailed introspection.

However, some organizations do not have an official internal corporate communications policy. In this instance, you can move on to identifying unique metrics. These metrics will quantify internal communication success for your organization—more on that in a moment.

If you have existing policies in place, you’ll need to examine your current strategies. For example, you’d need to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your internal communications policy.

You’d also need to figure out who’s involved with the planning of internal communications. More importantly, you’ll need to figure out how to improve your existing processes.

2. Identify Key Metrics

Most likely, your organization uses key performance indicators (KPIs) for processes such as sales. You might also use them to measure customer service. However, you can also use KPIs to analyze your internal communication strategy.

To begin, you’ll need to choose core metrics. These metrics will show you what parts of your strategies work—and what doesn’t.

For example, your company might measure success based on how many employees use your intranet. This metric will also provide insight into how employees use company tools. It will also help you to determine if you’re reaching employees.

You may also measure employee social media shares. Alternatively, you might keep track of how many employees read internal content.

Metrics allow you to dissect your corporate communications strategies. They help you to learn what areas need more attention.

3. Choose Tangible Goals

It’s important to establish realistic goals for your organization. Reasonable goals can help you to assess obstacles.

They can help you figure out the challenges of deploying a new strategy. Realistic goals can also help you to work more efficiently toward updating your policies.

Your internal communications metrics can help in this regard. These benchmarks can help you to figure out where you can make immediate improvements.

As for your goals, you may want to know what improved internal communication can do for your firm. You may also want to know how quickly you can achieve new goals.

4. Identify the Stakeholders

When publishing internal communications, it’s vital to know your audience. Marketers, for example, learn intimate details about their ideal consumer.

In the same way, it’s important to understand your employees. By doing so, you can figure out what messages you need to communicate to select staff members.

Many organizations mistakenly think that all employees need to receive all messages. They believe that this policy promotes transparency.

Employees need to have current information about your firm. However, it’s better to segment your internal corporate communications.

By segmenting internal messages, you can ensure that important messages don’t get lost in a sea of information. You can also prevent employees from suffering from information overload. 

5. Pinpoint Internal Communication Tools

It’s essential to identify the channels that you use to publish content. It’s also important to consider the internal tools that you use to share company information.

Some messages are better suited for certain channels. For example, you might publish a positive company announcement on an open platform such as Twitter. You might post job openings on LinkedIn. Meanwhile, you might limit propriety information to the company newsletter.

It’s also helpful to consider your communications tools. For instance, team tools such as HR Cloud Workmates help you share important information with staff members. It also allows enterprises to stay focused on employee engagement and company culture.

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Finalize Your Internal Communication Plan

It’s also important to formalize the approval process for communication in the workplace. By doing so, you can avoid needless errors.

For example, you can ensure that you don’t accidentally promote closed comments from internal forums. Alternatively, you can make sure that you don’t send the wrong information to the wrong staff member segment.

To develop an approval process, you need to figure out who’s in charge of your internal communication strategy. Typically, this is the person or group that writes messages to the team. However, you’ll also want to consider the best stakeholders who can contribute to the approval process.

You might also consider hiring an employee engagement manager. However, most companies usually put their marketing department in charge of this task. Marketing professionals are generally the most skilled at creating content.

For this reason, members of the marketing department are typically the most qualified for the role. They’re also well-qualified to convey the desired company voice, brand, and image.

More than likely, your marketing team is also well-versed in navigating your existing content library. For this reason, it’s easy for them to locate relevant content.

Marketing professionals are also skilled at pointing staff members to industry-specific resources. What’s more, they can ensure that the information is timely and relevant. For marketers, this kind of ability comes naturally.

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Promote Success With Improved Internal Communication

Now you know more about the best practices for your internal communication strategy. An effective communication strategy will ensure that employees feel as though their opinions have a voice. In turn, your staff members will feel more engaged.

Effective internal communications will make employees feel educated, informed, and inspired. More importantly, however, it promotes optimal performance.

HR Cloud’s Workmates platform is a powerful internal communication tool that can promote employee engagement. Contact HR Cloud today to schedule a free consultation or request a demo.

About Author: This article is written by a marketing team member at HR Cloud. HR Cloud is a leading provider of proven HR solutions, including recruiting, onboarding, employee communications & engagement, and rewards & recognition. Our user-friendly software  increases employee productivity, delivers time and cost savings, and minimizes compliance risk.