Have you ever gotten frustrated by a company's social media presence? They post amazing things about their products, but when you try to contact customer service, it's radio silence. It puts you right off that company, right?
Believe it or not, the same thing can happen within a company. You might be crafting incredible marketing campaigns and building a stellar brand image externally, but if your internal communication is lacking, your employees will be feeling confused, undervalued, and frustrated.
Here's the thing: your employees deserve the same communication magic you give your customers. Why? Because happy, engaged employees are the backbone of any successful business.
A Tale of Two Teams:
I used to work at a company that had an amazing social media presence. They were all about "transparency" and "building a community." But internally, information was like a closely guarded secret. We rarely heard from leadership, and updates trickled down piecemeal. It felt like we were working in the dark, and engagement was low! A particularly bad day was when some tricky news was released to the market with no corresponding internal communicaitons, so our people were left to speculate and resignations jumped dramatically.
On the other hand, I also worked at a company where internal communication was a top priority. We had a daily heartbeat, regular all-hands meetings, an intranet that was refreshed daily with news about what our people were doing, and leaders who were always accessible. Even when there was bad news, we heard it first from our leaders, not through gossip. The difference in employee engagement and overall happiness was night and day. This quality of internal communications was the single most important thing that impacted on our ability to recruit and retain talent and to deliver high performance - to each other, our customers and our shareholders.
How to Make Internal Communication Match External Communication:
Here are five practical tips to bridge the gap between your internal and external communication:
Transparency is key: Make a values choice that you will always communicate with your people first. This is especially true if you have complex information (which can be misinterpreted) or challenging times in your business (like now). This builds trust and makes everyone feel like they're part of the team.
Frequency matters: Build an internal communication schedule and tell your people what it is - whether that is a daily heartbeat call, a weekly email from the CEO or a monthly all-hands meeting. Get a rhythm going and your people will know they don't need to speculate because they will hear what is happening at the next scheduled meeting.
Celebrate internally too: Just like you share customer success stories externally, establish a rhythm for celebrating employee achievements internally. Recognition goes a long way to building connection between your people and the organisation, which then leads to great performance and customer experience.
Use the same language: The way you talk about your company culture and values should be consistent inside and outside the organization. It avoids confusion and speculation and reinforces your brand identity.
Communication is a two-way street: Don't just broadcast messages. Communication using online or face-to-face meetings are perfect for encouraging questions on the things your people actually care about (which might be different from what you think they care about). Make sure you let people know beforehand that you are keen for questions. For your first few sessions, you might want to ask specific people before the session to think of and ask a question in the session. Alternatively, you can enable anonymous questions. Remember people can be shy about asking questions in front of their colleagues, so make it easy and worthwhile.
Remember, every employee is a potential brand advocate! People talk about what happens at work with their friends and whānau. It's up to you to create an environment which enables them to want to tell others what a great place they work in.
Bonus Tip: Feeling overwhelmed? Start small! Focus on one communication channel, tell your people what you're doing and ask for feedback when you've been trying it for a while. Then take action on that feedback and tell your people that you're making those changes because they have suggested it. People appreciate it when others make an effort and listen to their ideas about how things could be improved. It helps your people to grow trust and confidence in your leadership and your organisation.
Need some help?: At Fortis Street, we help organisations, teams and individuals have a great experience at work. Give us a call, we would love to help.
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