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The vast majority of people working in internal communications think that their company doesn’t devote enough resources to the task. That’s the conclusion of a poll held this summer by CiB, the British Association of Communicators in Business. The poll was held in the association’s monthly e-zine, which goes out to more than 4,500 communicators worldwide. The results showed that almost 75% of respondents felt that their companies fell short. The comments made by the e-zine readers made interesting reading: “Internal communication appears to be top of the list of dispensable items when budgets are tightened,” wrote one respondent. “Sadly, employees would riot if tea and coffee-making facilities were withdrawn, but accept the cutbacks in internal communications. They sometimes have little faith in the information they receive, it talking the 'company-line' rather than acting as real and effective communication.” Another wrote: “Good internal communications binds people together, encourages them to care about the work and their colleagues, reduces the amount of misinformation floating round the ‘water cooler’, and allows the executive to promulgate the messages they want adopted. It's one of the more worthwhile expenditures in communications, not one of the least.” Others were more positive. “Organisations are waking up to the fact that they need more resource to handle tactical IC effectively, but they are still trying to use one person to handle tactical and strategic IC,” said one. “I think there's much more work for us to do in using that resource differently - but I think that the level of investment feels about right, said another. “We have enough resources but what we don't have is a member of the executive board who has responsibility for communications. Consequently we are setting our own agendas and if we have issues/problems no one to speak up for us at board level.” But another commented: “It is up to IC to prove the value of devoting more resources to it.” |
