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"I think internal communications is something everyone struggles with. You don't know if your message is being heard, and it's very frustrating."
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Capturing employee attention. Avoiding information overload. Overcoming common obstacles. For internal communicators, these are just some of the issues you face every day. Wouldn't it be great to learn how leading organizations are resolving these challenges?
Now you can. A new report, called Best Practices in Internal Communications, gives you an inside glimpse into the tactics and strategies top internal communicators use to capture attention and motivate their employees. |
From: Occasional Words
Business Development Centre
If you work in internal communications, or are responsible for communicating information to your organization's employees or other internal stakeholders, you know how hard it can be to get your messages heard throughout your company.
Chances are you've also heard all the excuses. People are too busy. There's too much information to sift through. With dozens of e-mails arriving each day, it's hard to figure out which ones are most important.
Yet, despite these common refrains, you may be surprised to learn that some organizations have developed actionable strategies that exponentially increase their ability to communicate with internal stakeholders.
Now, for the first time ever, these tips and tactics have been aggregated in one comprehensive report that can help you determine how to gain a higher rate of adoption for your internal communications initiatives.
How do we know these strategies work?
Because this report is based on information gathered in a series of face-to-face interviews with senior communicators who, together, represent 15 of Canada's most successful organizations, spanning virtually all industry sectors from financial services, law, and accounting, to technology, retail, consulting, and the public sector.
These experts have spent their entire careers honing their internal communications skills. Between them, over the last 40 years, they have been responsible for developing, planning, implementing, and supporting thousands of internal communications initiatives.
Recently, these senior communicators participated in several in-depth discussions with us where they shared their best practices for:
- Selecting the most effective communication vehicles
- Implementing formal procedures to prevent information overload
- Overcoming common obstacles, such as budget limitations and technological restrictions
- Adopting actionable strategies to improve communication effectiveness
- Soliciting employee feedback and measuring success
And the best part is that all this information is equally applicable to internal communicators in virtually any industry, and for virtually any sized organization!
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"Our organization has four internal audiences, which makes it extremely challenging to communicate. Plus, one of our biggest goals is to increase cross-selling between departments. So our job is to encourage all our internal groups to share information.
"Until recently, there's been almost no sharing of information. This is partly because our various stakeholders have disparate goals. However, it's also partly because they lack knowledge about communicating. And it's this knowledge I was able to find in your Best Practices in Internal Communications Report. Thanks for your help!"
-- Marketing Manager, Leading Canadian law firm |
The surprising truth is that organizations often hoard their internal communications strategies...
It's amazing how many times our clients have told us that they wished they knew more about how other organizations handle their internal communications. The trouble is, there are few real world opportunities for internal communicators to share best practices outside of their own companies.
What's even more surprising is how often BIG organizations lack access to even the most basic information about how their peers handle internal communications. Sure, colleagues who move from one company to another share their knowledge. However, relying on new hires to inform you about the latest communication tips and tactics can be an unreliable way to learn new strategies.
Even worse, there's no guarantee that a new hire is coming from an organization with a robust internal communications function. If the company they left has even fewer resources than your own, new learnings will be particularly hard to come by.
Of course, we didn't realize how pervasive this problem is until our clients started asking us about internal communications best practices. Knowing that we work with many renowned corporations, they were hoping we could shed some light on how other organizations operate. Most important, they were hoping we could pinpoint specific internal communications strategies that appeared to be successful inside other organizations.
Before we shared any of this information, we began to contact our various clients, asking for permission to discuss their internal communications processes. It was then that we discovered how hungry most communicators are for real world information about this topic!!
Not only did our clients give us permission to share their information, but they also asked to receive more information in return. Which is when we realized how much our clients could benefit by simply sitting in a room together to share their knowledge and expertise about the internal communications function.
It was as a result of these meetings that we were able to develop the Best Practices in Internal Communications Report. And it is this report that we are now pleased to make available to internal communicators who are eager to learn which tactics and strategies are most successful when communicating with internal audiences.
IMPORTANT NOTE: While this report focuses on the internal communications practices of Canadian companies, its findings apply equally to internal communicators around the world.
The information in this report is time-tested and true.
One of the advantages of Best Practices in Internal Communications is that it culls its information from active industry practitioners. The strategies contained in this report aren't theoretical, and aren't pulled from school-day textbooks or course materials. They're compendia of real world knowledge imparted to us by professionals who possess years of hands-on, practical experience.
This means you get more than a rough outline of how internal communications works. Instead, you get a roadmap that explains how leading organizations make decisions about:
- How to best communicate with dispersed workforces who may not have regular computer access
- The most effective ways to communicate with national sales representatives
- Selecting appropriate vehicles to communicate change or share "late breaking news" with employees
- The preferred uses for internal employee newsletters
- How employees can best share personal information without misusing company resources
- Developing guidelines regarding the use of electronic media
- And more...
Simply put, you'll get the inside scoop into the internal communications practices employed by major organizations. Better yet, you'll get a clear overview of which practices succeed most often and which ones don't.
Learn about the most effective ways to overcome common communications challenges:
- Discover the role that senior executives play in ensuring the success of your internal communications campaigns
- Find out why it can be to your advantage to hoard information
- Learn how the professionals select which content to communicate, and which vehicles to use
- Reconsider the benefits of frequent face-to-face meetings
- Review the role of internal promotion
- Identify strategies for measuring the success of your campaigns
- Uncover the best ways to solicit and use employee feedback
- Plus lots more
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"A big challenge for our company was figuring out how to share information among our employees, who are scattered at 17 different locations around the country. We'd tried newsletters and e-mails; we even upgraded our intranet, but people still weren't keeping their colleagues informed. Then I read in your report that video conferencing often works better than conference calls and it gave me the idea to try it. Since then, we've noticed a real difference in the way our folks speak to each other. It's as if the video conferences make it clear that we're all dealing with "real" people, and it's created an environment of collaboration."
-- VP Marketing, Major financial services organization |
Here's just some of the great information contained in Best Practices in Internal Communications:
- Communication Vehicles that Capture Attention Learn which communication vehicles are appropriate for your various target audiences; what types of vehicles to use to communicate specific messages; why you should take your organization's culture and technological ability into account when selecting communication vehicles; and how to choose methods of communication when you're operating under budget constraints.
- Avoiding Information Overload Uncover a series of strategies you can use to avoid inundating your staff with too much information, including putting guidelines into place to streamline your communications procedures, implementing technological restrictions, and adopting training programs to ensure enterprise-wide awareness of your communications processes.
- Greatest Internal Communications Obstacles Improve your decision-making process by becoming aware of the most common internal communications obstacles faced by other organizations, including budget constraints, technological restrictions, and the inability to properly segment target audiences.
- Improving Communication Effectiveness Once you've identified the challenges standing in the way of your communication success, discover the ten strategies most frequently employed by leading organizations to resolve these common challenges.
"Two years ago, our company built an intranet site that no one was using. Even though we talked about the site in our newsletters and pay stubs, we couldn't get any traction. But after reviewing your report, I realized we had failed to properly publicize the site with a full-scale internal promotional campaign. Since doing that, we've seen intranet usage spike by 36%."
-- Director of Internal Communications, National retailer |
- Measuring Campaign Effectiveness How can you assess if your internal communications strategies are working? Find out what tools the professionals rely on to measure success, and compare your campaign success rates to typical campaign success rates.
- Expert Commentary Each section of this report is followed by commentary supplied by our internal communications experts. These quotes provide a tactical overview of the information discussed, and explain how the various strategies suggested throughout the report often play out in practice.
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100% Risk-Free, Money-Back Guarantee |
We conducted a lot of research, and spent a lot of time, developing the Best Practices in Internal
Communications Report. That's why we're confident your organization can benefit from the information contained within it.
However, after reviewing the materials, if you aren't completely satisfied, let us know and we'll instantly refund
your purchase price, no questions asked. All we ask is that you take the time to review the information and assess
how it can help your organization improve its internal communications practices. If, at that point, you decide the information
does not meet your expectations, we'll issue an immediate refund. |
So, now it's up to you...
Do you continue wondering how other organizations handle their internal communications dilemmas? Or do you take the initiative to discover precisely how leading organizations are resolving common communications challenges?
If you're ready to take a serious look at your internal communications practices with an eye towards implementing substantive changes, then you owe it to yourself to review this report on an absolutely risk-free basis.
We wish you the best of luck in improving the effectiveness of your organization's internal communications!
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