Non-British workers' concerns dominate in IoIC Brexit survey

Fears of non-British workers about continuing permission to live and work in the country were the most commonly expressed employee concerns about Brexit, according to a recent IoIC survey.

51% of internal comms practitioners who responded cited this as a main employee concern, followed by general uncertainty about the direction of the organisation  and how it will affect them (37%); possible job losses (29%); and impact on rules, regulations and costs relating to global trade (27%).

36% of respondents said that EU exit would have a significant impact on their organisation, with 39% saying it would have some impact. 10% felt it would have no impact at all.

There was a wide variation in predicted impact dependent on sector; for example, 71% of respondents from the education sector predicted a significant impact, compared to 20% from the construction sector and 8% from communication consultancies.

45% said there had been a little comms preparation in advance of the Referendum, with 25% saying there had been some and 7% a lot. However, internal communication activity post-result looks set to increase significantly with 65% saying they envisaged a lot (17%) or some (48%) activity.

The most common channels for communicating information had been email (82% of respondents), followed by intranet/ESN (61%), team meetings (40%) and events (29%).

46% said their senior management team would have comprehensive plans relating to Brexit, including internal communication considerations, while 28% said the senior team would not give a high priority to Brexit until the actual impacts became clearer.

The biggest internal communication problems relating to Brexit were identified as arising from lack of certainty on the impact of Brexit and how it would affect organisational direction and priorities (46% of respondents). Only 5% predicted a loss of trust in senior management.

The survey did not show a major impact on IC recruitment as yet, with only 5% saying their department had put a position on hold as a result of the Referendum result.

Further survey findings are available to IoIC members

*67 IoIC members across a variety of sectors responded to the Brexit survey

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