Why I love internal communications – and how I got there

What started as an "add on" to my PR job, has now become my core focus and most fulfilling aspect of my career. As a kid, I always liked writing. I won some junior writing competitions in school and then edited the school paper as a teenager. The University of Victoria, Canada – close to where I was raised in Vancouver – had a very well-regarded cr...

Many organisations focus their mental health communications around set dates such as Mental Health Awareness Week, yet as we have all experience, colleagues need support throughout the year. Many communicators have been reaching out to ask for help and guidance on how to communicate mental health support to colleagues and FutureNet committee member...

There are three levels of return on investment (ROI) of IC campaigns: gold, silver and bronze. Gold is financial Silver is behaviouralBronze is engagement To put this into perspective, let's say you were launching a healthcare cashback scheme. You know, where employees can claim money back for dentists, opticians, massages etc. Your organisation wi...

Do you know when you're watching the X Factor / The Voice /BGT etc and the wannabe hopeful answers the obligatory "When did you know you wanted to be a singer?" question with something like "I was singing before I could talk" (?!?), or "I came out of the womb singing" (!!???!!!)? Well, I'm not saying I always wanted to work in internal communicatio...

I chose Internal Communication in 2017. I was attending the second semester of my Master's. At the time, I knew I was attracted by Corporate Communication, but I felt like something was missing. Somehow, even after four years of classes and seminars, Internal Communication never quite showed up on my radar. A shame, really (looking at you, universi...

If you are thinking of a career (or want to progress) in internal communications (IC), the profession is more important to businesses now than ever before. The pandemic presented a crisis which required IC teams across the world to do our best work. IC has been central to crisis management, sharing business critical updates and helping leaders and ...

Communication is a critical aspect of a healthy workplace — especially with so many people working remotely in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. If you oversee or are part of a remote work team, it's important that you make an effort to genuinely implement empathetic listening while virtually at work. Learning to actively listening To many people — ...

Eight months on, as many organisations and businesses continue their brave journey navigating the seemingly never-ending pandemic crisis, there's also the need to look at ways to engage with the workforce and help them through the recovery process. The FutureNet committee members were recently joined by crisis communications expert and Director of ...

What do you want to be when you grow up? It's the age-old question that parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and other family friends or relatives who you see once a year around Christmas ask you as you're growing up. I never had a solid answer for that question. I flirted with the idea of being a vet or marine biologist, but I'm allergic to fur an...

Like many people working within internal communications, I never even knew the profession even existed until I saw the advert for my first internal comms job. My experience up until this point had been focused around customer experience since I was 16, working as a waiter and shop assistant at the weekends, then into the 5-star hotel industry as a ...