Effective internal communications are key to keeping employees engaged and aligned with company goals. An effective internal communications strategy, built on meaningful dialog and active listening, can build trust, strengthen relationships and team collaboration, and boost engagement across your workforce. With some thoughtful planning and the right tools, you can implement a winning employee communications strategy and start connecting with your people in impactful new ways.
To develop an effective internal communications strategy:
- Determine key objectives and messages. What do employees need to know to do their jobs well and support company goals? Focus communications around these key points.
- Choose appropriate channels. Use a mix of media like email newsletters, intranet portals, virtual town halls, and in-person meetings. Different types of information may be suited to different channels.
- Share information regularly and consistently. Don’t just communicate in times of change or crisis. Frequent, transparent communications build a sense of trust and community. Aim for sharing key messages at least quarterly.
- Listen and engage. Provide opportunities for two-way dialog, feedback, and questions. Make it easy for employees to connect with leadership and feel heard.
- Measure and optimize. Use surveys, focus groups, and website analytics to determine what’s working and make improvements to better meet employee needs.
How to Conduct an Internal Communications Audit
To get started, survey your employees. Ask them how they currently get information, what’s most effective, and what they want more of. Provide anonymous options to encourage honest feedback. You might be surprised by the results! Conducting an internal communications audit is a great way to begin. It can help you understand what’s working, what’s not, and where there’s room for improvement.
Review all your existing communication channels. How are you using email, intranet, newsletters, staff meetings, and more? Assess the frequency, content, and open rates for each channel. Look for opportunities to streamline or improve.
Examine how information flows between leadership, managers, and staff. Are messages getting garbled along the way? Consider revising approval processes or holding regular sync-ups to keep everyone on the same page.
Take a close look at your company culture. How do internal communications reflect and strengthen your core values? Are there any pain points you could address to boost engagement and collaboration? Subtle changes here can have a big impact.
Don’t forget to analyze key metrics like productivity, retention, and employee satisfaction over time. Strong internal communications should correlate with positive trends. If you spot issues, an audit can help determine the root cause.
With a comprehensive audit of your internal communications and workplace dynamics, you’ll gain valuable insights into what’s working and not working. You can then develop a robust strategy and tactical plan to implement impactful changes that will strengthen your culture, build trust in leadership, and keep your teams motivated and informed. An audit may require effort upfront, but the long-term benefits to your organization can be huge.
Setting Clear Goals and Objectives for Your Internal Communications Strategy
To successfully implement an internal communications strategy, you
- What do you want to achieve with your communications? Some possibilities include:
- Increase employee engagement and morale- Engaged employees are more productive and loyal. Effective communication is key to engagement.
- Strengthen your company culture- Your communications should reinforce your core values and brand.
- Improve collaboration and knowledge sharing- Communications that connect employees across teams and locations can drive innovation.
- Enhance transparency and trust in leadership- Honest, timely communications about company news, priorities, and challenges help build trust in management.
Once you determine your goals, establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure progress. For example, if your goal is to increase engagement, you could track survey metrics around job satisfaction, loyalty, and motivation. Set a baseline and target improvement.
Next, define clear objectives that will help achieve your goals. For instance:
1. Share company news and updates at least monthly to increase transparency.
2. Highlight employee stories and recognize achievements regularly to strengthen culture.
3. Encourage cross-team collaboration by spotlighting different teams and sharing their priorities, challenges, and wins.
4. Solicit and respond to employee questions and feedback to build trust and morale.
With well-defined goals, KPIs, and objectives in place, you’ll have guidance for developing messaging and choosing communication channels. You’ll also be able to evaluate the effectiveness of your efforts and make adjustments to continually improve your internal communications. The result will be a winning strategy that boosts employee engagement, strengthens your culture, and builds trust in leadership.
Choosing the Right Internal Communications Channels
Choosing the right channels to communicate with your employees is key to the success of your internal communications strategy. The options today are endless, from email and intranets to social platforms and messaging apps. How do you determine what mix is right for your organization?
Email
Email is a staple for communicating important news and information with teams. However, with increasing volumes of email, messages can easily get lost or forgotten. Use email for:
- Company or department announcements
- Policy or process changes
- Updates from leadership
To increase open and click-through rates, keep subject lines concise and compelling, limit messages to one topic, and avoid attachments when possible.
Intranet
An intranet is your internal website for sharing company news, resources, and collaborative tools. Intranets are ideal for:
- Employee resources like HR forms, training materials
- Company events, milestones and social updates
- Cross-departmental collaboration and discussion forums
To drive intranet traffic and engagement, keep content fresh, interactive and tailored to different employee groups. Promote new features and content through email, the intranet homepage and digital signage.
Social Platforms
Enterprise social networks and messaging apps are gaining popularity for enabling real-time collaboration and information sharing. Platforms like Slack, Workplace by Facebook and Microsoft Teams are useful for:
- Quick team discussions and questions
- Real-time status updates
- Morale building and social interaction
The key is choosing platforms that integrate with the tools your company already uses, like G Suite or Office 365. Start with a single platform and build from there based on how different teams prefer to communicate. Provide clear guidelines on appropriate use and etiquette.
An effective employee communications strategy leverages a mix of channels to reach all employees with the information they need, when and how they need it. Determine what blend works for your company culture and objectives, drive adoption through promotion and training, and regularly re-evaluate to optimize engagement and impact.
Creating Engaging and Impactful Content for Employees
Creating content your employees will actually engage with and find value in is key. Focus on relevance and impact to boost readership.
Keep it Concise
Aim for brevity. Employees are busy and inundated with information, so keep communications concise and scannable. Bulleted lists, graphics and short paragraphs are effective.
Share Relevant Information
Choose topics that directly apply to your employees’ day-to-day work or company goals. Explain the ‘why’ and ‘how’ things impact them. Share key company updates, policy or benefit changes, training opportunities, and success stories.
Vary Your Content
Mix it up to keep things interesting. Include a combination of written communications like newsletters, blog posts, and emails along with visual content such as infographics, photos, video and livestreams. Surveys and contests also boost engagement.
Make it Actionable
Provide practical takeaways and calls-to-action so employees know what to do with the information. For example, include links to sign up for an event, register for training or review an important policy document.
Solicit Feedback
Ask for input on the types of information employees find most useful and the preferred formats to receive it in. Be open to suggestions on how to improve your internal communications strategy. Employees will appreciate the opportunity to shape future content.
An effective internal communications plan considers both the content and delivery methods. Focusing on relevance, impact and engagement will help build a winning strategy to reach your employees. Keeping the lines of communication open in both directions will strengthen your culture and empower your teams.
Driving Two-Way Conversations With Employees
Driving two-way conversations with your employees is key to building trust and boosting engagement. As a leader, make yourself available and approachable so your team feels comfortable coming to you with questions, concerns, feedback, and ideas.
Keep an Open-Door Policy
Let your employees know your door is always open. Encourage them to stop by anytime they have something they want to discuss. An open-door policy helps build rapport and signals you value open communication and feedback.
Conduct Engagement Surveys
Anonymous employee engagement surveys are an easy way to gather honest feedback and input from your team. Use a tool like SurveyMonkey or Typeform to create a customized survey, then share the link with your employees. Ask questions about what’s working well, what could be improved, and how people are feeling about their roles, work environment, managers, and the company overall. Review the results to gain valuable insights into how to boost engagement and make positive changes.
Host Town Halls
Town hall-style meetings are a great forum for addressing questions, sharing company news, and facilitating open discussion. Start by providing some updates or framing the conversation around a particular topic. Then open it up for Q&A and comments. Make it clear all questions and opinions are welcome. Town halls help build transparency and trust in leadership.
Keeping the lines of communication open through various mediums will strengthen your relationship with employees and give them opportunities to provide meaningful feedback. Their input can help shape better policies, work environments, and experiences that drive higher engagement and productivity.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Internal Communications
To make sure your employee communications strategy is as effective as possible, you need to measure its impact and success. Some of the key metrics to track include:
- Employee engagement and satisfaction scores: Send out surveys to gage how employees feel about company communications, get their feedback on what’s working and not working, and look for improvements in scores over time.
- Open rates for email newsletters and digital signs: A higher open rate means more employees are interacting with and interested in your communications. Compare open rates for different types of messages to see what topics and content your team responds to best.
- Click-through rates for links in emails and on your intranet site: The more clicks, the more people are engaging further with your content. Look at the specific links and topics that get the most clicks to shape future communications.
- Questions and comments: Pay attention to the types of questions employees are asking and comments they’re making. This shows you what topics or issues they need more information on or clarification about. You can then include follow-up messages to address their concerns.
- Time spent on your intranet or internal social network: The longer employees spend on your platforms, the more they value the experience and information. Work to optimize the time spent by improving content, layouts, and features.
- Conversions for call-to-action messages: If you include CTAs in your communications like encouraging employees to sign up for or attend an event, track how many people actually do. Strong conversion rates mean your messages are persuasive and relevant.
- Anecdotal feedback: Talk to managers and employees in person to get direct feedback on what they think about your internal communications strategy. Their verbal comments can provide insights the metrics alone may miss.
Measuring these key areas will help determine the overall effectiveness of your employee communications and point you to specific ways you can strengthen your strategy and better engage your team. Continually optimizing based on the data and feedback will lead to a winning internal communications plan.
Aligning Your Internal Communications With Company Culture and Values
Aligning your internal communications strategy with your company culture and values is key to success. When your messaging reinforces what your organization stands for, it builds trust, boosts transparency, and strengthens relationships between leadership and employees.
Connect Communications to Core Values
Identify 2-3 of your company’s central values or mission statements. For example, if two values are “innovation” and “collaboration,” focus communications on how new initiatives tap into creativity or how cross-functional teams are achieving goals together. This helps employees see how their daily work lives out those values.
Share Stories of Values in Action
Spotlight teams or individuals demonstrating those values in practice. Their stories show how values shape day-to-day work and decision making. For example, feature an interview with a project lead discussing how their team collaborated to solve a tricky problem. These authentic stories make values concrete and memorable.
Discuss How Decisions Align With Values
When announcing key changes or strategies, tie them back to relevant company values. For instance, if implementing new technology to boost efficiency, note how that aligns with a commitment to continuous improvement and innovation. Explaining the why behind decisions helps employees understand leaders’ thinking and feel more invested in new initiatives.
Model Values in Communications
Your communications themselves should reflect company values. For example, if transparency and trust are priorities, share both good and bad news, acknowledge mistakes, and highlight lessons learned. If work-life balance is a value, model that by not sending emails at night or on weekends. When communications mirror values, it makes those values feel authentic and attainable.
Keeping your internal communications aligned with your culture and values is an ongoing process. But by consistently tying messaging back to what matters most, you build understanding, enhance morale, and transform values from abstract concepts into real sources of connection and purpose. Employees will feel engaged and motivated to help achieve key goals when they see how their efforts move the organization closer to its ideals.
Building an Effective Employee Communications Strategy
One of the most common questions I get about building an effective employee communications strategy is “Where do I start?” Here are some tips to help you get going:
Do your research.
Learn about the current state of your company’s internal communications. Survey employees to find out what’s working and not working. Review any existing communications plans or strategies. Examine what your competitors are doing. Gathering information will help shape your strategy.
Define your goals and objectives.
Figure out what you want to achieve through improved employee communications. Maybe you want to increase employee engagement or share company news more effectively. Be as specific as possible. Your goals will drive what channels and tactics you use.
Identify your key audiences.
Determine which groups of employees you need to reach. Segment your workforce based on factors like location, job function, seniority. Tailor your messages and communications channels to meet the needs of each audience.
Choose your communications channels.
Select the right mix of channels, like email, intranet, video, social media, events, etc. to reach your audiences. Provide the same information across multiple channels so you reach employees in the ways they prefer to consume information.
Create a content plan.
Develop an editorial calendar to plan the content you will share with employees and through which channels. Include a balance of content like company updates, employee spotlights, and more. Keep content fresh and engaging.
Measure and optimize.
Measure how well your strategy and communications are working. Survey employees again. Track email open rates and intranet traffic. Look for ways to strengthen your efforts through feedback and insights. Make adjustments to your strategy as needed to improve over time.
Building an employee communications strategy does take work, but following these steps will set you on the path to success. Be sure to start small, focus on your key goals, and continue optimizing to keep improving your company’s internal communications. With time and effort, you’ll have a winning strategy in place.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jody Ordioni is the author of “The Talent Brand.” In her role as Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Brandemix, she leads the firm in creating brand-aligned talent communications that connect employees to cultures, companies, and business goals. She engages with HR professionals and corporate teams on how to build and promote talent brands, and implement best-practice talent acquisition and engagement strategies across all media and platforms. She has been named a "recruitment thought leader to follow" and her mission is to integrate marketing, human resources, internal communications, and social media to foster a seamless brand experience through the employee lifecycle.
