Institute of Internal Communication

Dominic Walters, chairman of the Institute of Internal Communication, discusses the role of organisation leaders in ensuring that internal communication genuinely contributes towards enhanced business performance.

Most organisation leaders know that employee engagement is important: in a recent major study by the Engage Group, it was one of the top three factors cited by senior management as driving performance, well ahead of more traditional issues such as strategy, innovation and execution. However, this same survey also indicated that implementation was falling short of the ideal with only just over a third of employees feeling that their organisation was successful at engaging them and their colleagues. So what should internal communication be achieving for your organisation, and what role should CEOs and Board members play in making this happen?

The benefits

An effective internal communication strategy should play a pivotal role in helping you to achieve very specific business objectives and organisational goals. However, this does not mean that anything to make employees feel happier will achieve this – indeed happy staff can be quite unproductive and have poor results. Nor is merely telling them what is going on the magic ingredient.

To make a real difference, internal communication should be instrumental in gaining staff’s support for organisational vision and values, along with clear understanding of the contribution their role should make and a consistent commitment to working with everyone else towards these common objectives. As part of this process and in line with today’s dynamic business environment, programmes and strategies need to be able to deal with the challenge of regular change, helping to emphasise the ‘big picture’ which provides consistency of purpose.

The value of this approach is backed up by hard data. For example, research by IPSOS Mori suggests that organisational performance is actually not strongly related to pay rises, nice friendly bosses, working hours or finding jobs interesting. Their findings state that the key drivers are employees understanding the goals of their organisation, being clear on how they can help achieve them and genuinely feeling part of .the team.

Effective internal communication will also help organisations attract and keep good people and motivate them. Employees who feel that they ‘belong’ are likely to stay longer in an organisation than those who are alienated. While this may not seem a major issue at the moment when many employees are opting to stay put, organisations need to look at possible future challenges when economic conditions become more buoyant.

Organisational strategy

A number of characteristics of internal communication strategy help to achieve high levels of employee engagement, and leaders should consider if these exist currently in their own organisations. They include commitment to:

• Communication programmes that are inextricably linked to overall business strategy and objectives, and not just seen as a means of information dissemination. Stitching an internal communication exercise onto the end of a major planning process as a bit of an afterthought is unlikely to bring optimum results.

• Campaigns, processes and tools that promote two-way communication.

• Truthful updates during difficult times to share the issues being faced and what is being considered to tackle them, rather than waiting until large-scale announcements have to be made

• Effective, constructive communication by line managers as these individuals are key to employee engagement – Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC) research shows that employees typically have high levels of trust for their own immediate boss, while a GfK NOP survey indicates that a disengaged manager makes for a disengaged team. Communication staff can support line managers but they cannot do their work for them.

It is important to cultivate a culture in which people who have communication responsibilities know what they are and are equipped and motivated to execute them.

The leader’s role

Apart from giving consideration to the overall effectiveness of strategy, organisation leaders should also think about the significance and nature of their own, personal input to the internal communication process.

Although staff do not necessarily expect to hear from their chief executive frequently, they do want him or her to convey a clear and consistent vision for the organisation to them.

When talking to employees in informal or more formal settings, business leaders need to be able to distil the various strands of plans and objectives into a straightforward message. They should help employees to ‘see’ the future rather than focusing on abstract details and empty business terminology. Simple, vibrant language and effective use of repetition are important in getting the message across.

Today’s staff want their leaders to be accessible rather than remote, to understand what employees are facing on a day-to-day basis, to actively encourage feedback and to be willing to answer difficult questions - and this should be reinforced whether generally being seen around the building, contributing to specific communications tools such as blogs or magazines or taking part in presentations to employees.

Staff appreciate a relaxed and spontaneous style of delivery – a sense of being over-rehearsed, stiff and wanting to stay firmly ‘on-script’ will seem less genuine. Preparation and practice are, in fact, important, but their ultimate purpose should be a form of personal presentation with which both business leaders and the people they are talking to are comfortable.

Individuals need to know their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, if someone does not come over naturally in a ‘talking head’ video, there is little point in choosing this particular method for them to communicate with employees. Successful leaders know the communication styles and strengths of their top teams and are able to deploy these skills to best effect.

Role of the professional communicator

Internal communication has developed rapidly as a discipline in recent years, but organisations can only reap the full benefits if they recognise its potential. This means not viewing communications professionals simply as information disseminators, writers or editors. Skilled internal communicators can help business leaders in a variety of ways including:

Clarity/strength of message- assistance with developing and delivering strong, inspirational messages which ring true with their audiences.

Materials- developing tools that fully support organisational objectives and those within the organisation who are conveying key messages.

Enhanced understanding - - it is not practical for chief executives to follow every nuance of what is going on in the organisation at any given time. Internal communicators should be sensitive to employee reactions in relation to specific actions and communications, and able to provide feedback to senior management on their significance.

Coaching helping leaders to understand their audiences better and encouraging them to listen to feedback they receive. Communications professionals should be able to provide constructive feedback on what has gone well and not so well, and how things could be improved.

Time - identifying ways of using precious time creatively, ensuring staff’s expectations in relation to accessibility are fulfilled despite other pressing commitments.

Truth – providing reminders when particular promises have been made to staff so that appropriate action can be taken at the right time, therefore maintaining trust.

To do all this, internal communicators must gain the respect and trust of the Board, which in turn requires a greater breadth and depth of communications and general management skills than ever before. In particular, communicators must stop talking to their bosses about communication and start discussing the business issues which most worry their leaders and what they can do to help. The IoIC is currently developing a major programme of industry-recognised qualifications to help form a firm foundation for today’s challenges. As a profession, we have long yearned for a seat at the top table. When we get there we need to have something worth saying – what we call being ‘able for the table’.

Chief executives cannot be experts in everything, including communication. However, they do need to acknowledge the importance of internal communication, and the fact that they should devote significant time and energy to it. They should also be willing to take advice from communications professionals and look at positive examples from other organisations rather than feeling under pressure to generate all the answers to important issues themselves.

This article originally appeared in Chief Executive Officer Today magazine, August 2009.