One of the most important lessons I have learned is that everybody thinks they are good at communication.
The reality is a little bit different. Communicating well on a consistent basis is hard. There are many variables that can go into it such as tone, body language, and even culture.
Like many people, companies think they are great at communication. Because information tends to flow from the top down, it shouldn’t be a surprise that information that should be communicated simply isn’t.
Frankly, most companies don’t understand the power of communication and how it can impact their success.
I have stories upon stories on how messaging to an employee base did more to cause confusion and anxiety. That’s not good for morale or productivity.
Internal communication is more than an administrative process. It’s not just sending out emails or messages on Slack. It’s a strategic function that can improve the health of your company and help it meet its goals.
Of course, this can only happen if it’s done right.
Ineffective communication will foster negative aspects such as rumors, low job satisfaction, and high turnover.
This makes effective internal communication a win-win for both the company and its employees, helping create a thriving, productive and positive work environment.
What Is Internal Communication?
Internal communication is the exchange of information within an organization.
You might primarily think of it as top-down, meaning from somebody in the executive suite, a head of a department, or a manager to employees.
But it doesn’t have to be top-down. It can be bottom-up such as from employees back to a manager, department head, or executive suite. It can also be between peers or departments.
They are many ways to communicate inside a company. It could be email, instant messaging, Slack, your company’s intranet, team meetings, department meetings, training sessions, 1:1’s, or town halls.
I worked in a company that utilized all of these, minus Slack because it wasn’t in existence yet. I have also worked in companies that only used one or two of these options.
It’s important for you to understand that communication is constantly happening within your company, and it can be used for better or worse.
I used to work at a tech company, and rumors starting floating around that my department was being moved to a different country. After about a month, I brought it to my manager, who stated it wasn’t true.
The rumor continued to spread like wildfire and people were becoming concerned about it. I brought it to my manager again who, again, denied it.
It died down during a part of the year when we particularly busy, but as soon as things went back to normal, the rumor took root again. This time there was a claim that the information came directly from our department manager, our department was moving to Costa Rica.
I took it back to my manager, telling her it should be addressed since the department manager was being named as the source of the rumor.
A couple of weeks later, the department manager was in our weekly staff meeting announcing that they were planning on moving our department to another country by the end of the next year.
Within this example, you can see internal communication flowing between peers, bottom-up, and top-down.
While it is an example of communication occurring, it’s certainly not a shining example of it.
A reminder, just because you understand the elements of communication, it can still be done wrong. This is especially true if you underestimate communication. I’ll talk more about that in the next section.
For those of you who want to know what happened, we had a department manager who had only been with us about a year. He was telling a manager, who happened to be on a medical leave, about our department’s move to Costa Rica. What he didn’t know was this manager was part of the gossip mill of our department and everything that he shared was being spread.
It’s an instance of internal communication gone wrong.
Why Internal Communication is Often Underestimated
The Costa Rica example illustrates how internal communication can be underestimated. In this case, it was to the detriment of my department, but often the good things that can be communicated, aren’t.
Why is that?
It’s often because internal communication isn’t seen as something that can drive results but as a support function. It’s done when you absolutely need to communicate something that you want employees to know.
You aren’t looking at it as a potential driver of business results, but an administrative function that you’re obligated to do.
There is not a perceived return on the investment of internal communication, so it’s only done when it absolutely needs to be done.
Maybe it’s felt that internal communication can’t be measured effectively. It takes resources but doesn’t give anything back. How do measure something like morale or trust? (Spoiler: it can be done.)
Internal communication often isn’t as coveted as external communication, which can bolster the company’s bottom line and stock price with marketing and public relations.
Leadership might assume that good communication is occurring at all levels of the company, and see their only role is to send out announcements on the information they feel is pertinent for people to know.
This goes back to that idea that communication is easy when it’s really more complex.
Again, going back to the example from the previous section, management made a choice to keep the plan to move the department under wraps. It was likely because there was a concern about a mass employee exodus, which would be a serious problem.
But there was communication. The problem was that it came out in an unofficial way caused problems.
People were freaking out, both morale and productivity were going down, and most people were afraid to ask their manager to see if it was true.
I wasn’t a hero to bring to my manager. I was an angry employee who sick of what a lack of communication was doing within my department. Not only that, but I was already plotting my exit, so I didn’t care about any negative repercussions that might have frightened others away.
Information is sometimes siloed. Management or onedepartment controls it and doesn’t see a reason why anybody else needs to know. Or maybe, information exists in pieces across different departments who have fragmented information but believe it to be whole.
One of the most common issues is that there is a fear of transparency. It’s being tightly controlled because of a concern there could be negative reaction resulting in poor feedback.
Here is a situation I experienced that shows many of these issues.
Years ago, I worked in human resources. It wasn’t uncommon for another group, such as payroll or health benefits, to send communications to employees.
The intent was good, but the communication was in a payroll or health benefits language that many of the employees didn’t understand so they reached out for clarification.
Because there was a silo mentality, they failed to recognize was that the stakeholder, human resources, who was going to field all the questions, needed to be communicated with as well.
The end result was employees who stopped working to contact human resources because they didn’t understand or were concerned about the email they got. It was made worse because the department they contacted had no idea what was going on.
A 3-minute phone call turned into a 10-15 minute phone call, dampening productivity and creating stress for everybody involved.
It may not surprise to hear these business groups were not customer facing, nor did they particularly know their audience very well.
To them, it was a simple communication, but they underestimated the situation.
Whether it’s internal or external communication, you have to know your audience, and you always need to put them first.
It’s not about you communicating, it’s about them understanding. This means it’s not about sending a message. It’s about sending a thoughtful message and making sure there is a feedback loop.
If you want to improve your internal communication, you need to be strategic.
Before communicating, ask yourself two questions:
- What’s the end goal with communication?
- How can I best meet that goal?
This will go a long way to making your communication more effective.
Why Internal Communication Benefits the Company
Let’s think of your company as a patient. When it’s healthy, it’s going to do well. When it’s not, there are going to problems.
Employees are like the organs within your patient. If they’re healthy and doing their jobs, they’re going to work to make sure the body is functioning properly. If they aren’t, the patient’s health won’t be very good.
While making money is important, you can’t snap fingers and watch your bank grow.
There is work that has to be done and good internal communication can go a long way in helping your company succeed.
Informed employees will feel more valued and connected, helping to reduce rumors and anxiety during times of change. You will see higher job satisfaction.
There will be an understanding of what’s expected of them and their role in helping you meet your goals.
Trust will be higher, preventing misinformation being spread.
Misunderstandings can be costly. Communication helps reduce them, eliminating redoing work and wasting resources.
Communication also has a hand in reinforcing the values, mission, and vision of your company.
I once worked at a company who was so invested in reinforcing its values that they created training around each value the company had. A little over the top? Maybe but it also showed employees that it wasn’t just talk.
We also revisited the mission and vision of the company and my business group in our quarterly meetings. If people know your values, mission, and vision, are more than just a bunch of words to make the company look good, they will take them seriously.
Practicing good communication in good times will help in times of crisis. It won’t feel unnatural or out of character when you are communicating important information, and it overall, communication will be more consistent, and accurate.
One of the biggest issues for many companies is turnover. It costs more money to hire a new employee and train them than to retain employees.
Employees who feel like they’re being informed and being heard will feel more connected to the company and will be less likely to leave, saving you money over the long term.
The result is a healthier and more profitable company.
When I was younger, I worked in retail. I was part of a team of people who opened a new store. Our team built strong relationships and we are all invested in the store’s success.
Retail doesn’t pay great. That shouldn’t be new information to anybody but the lack of pay led to high turnover.
As we lost people to other stores or other jobs, that core of people that we had from management to employees dwindled, but we still did well because we had a good store manager who was pretty good at communicating with us.
One day I arrived at work to find that the store manager had suddenly quit. You wouldn’t have thought that somebody, even a store manager quitting would be a huge deal, but in this case, our once stable store was in turmoil.
They brought in a temporary store manager. He was a nice guy but it felt like he was there in name only and the district manager wasn’t giving us any direction.
It was chaotic over the next couple of weeks, and we were all stressed out.
We finally got a new manager, somebody that we knew and helped train.
The vacuum created over the prior two weeks because of a lack of communication was finally filled. You could feel the stress levels and uncertainty disappear after his first meeting with us.
Good communication is typically taken for granted until it’s gone and then you will see it’s impact and its importance to help the company win.
Don’t learn this lesson the hard way.
Why Internal Communication Benefits Employees
Many of the things that are a win for the company are also a win for employees as well.
When you communicate well, they will understand the company’s vision, goals, and how their work contributes to towards them. This helps them create a connection with the company.
Ambiguity will be reduced, thus helping lower stress.
Communication isn’t and shouldn’t be one way.
Part of your internal communication plan should be how your employees’ communicate with you.
You need to address the following questions:
- How do they provide feedback?
- How do they share ideas and solutions to the problems they experience?
Your internal communication plan should address how you show you’re going to show your employees how you value both them and their contributions. It’s showing them respect and giving your thanks.
From an employee standpoint, it’s about having all the information to do their job and being recognized. It’s also about understanding training opportunities and how they can grow.
Most people aren’t content to stay in one job. They desire career advancement, and that comes with communication that tells them how they can do this.
You also need to know this information so you help them understand where they fit in and how they can grow.
Good communication fosters connection with both colleagues and leadership. It’s going to improve collaboration and build a supportive environment.
It helps employees feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, giving them pride in their job and the company.
And finally, it builds trust.
One company I worked for that had monthly training session, weekly department meetings, and I had biweekly 1:1s where information was freely shared, all questions were answered, and concerns were addressed.
It wasn’t perfect, but even on the tough days, there was no question of what my responsibilities were and how they connected to the bigger picture.
There weren’t many rumors, job satisfaction was relatively high, and turnover was low.
I was able to share what I wanted my career path to be, and my manager would find opportunities and training to help me get there.
As you might imagine, I enjoyed my job and working for this company. I couldn’t imagine leaving.
How Both Mutually Benefit
I’ve been the employee and I’ve been the manager. I’ve also been in human resources, feeling sometimes like the referee in between employees and managers.
Everything I wrote in the previous two sections, for me, felt like obvious mutual wins for both the company and the employee to the point where I was going to dump this section completely.
Clarity is a great thing, so I’m going to be concise here, even it means repeating myself a little.
Not necessarily a bad thing because this needs to be hammered home.
The goal is a positive atmosphere where everybody thrives all the time but that’s not reality.
There will be ups and downs for your company. It’s important that you have an environment in place that can withstand the downs. You don’t want your company to fold like a house of cards when the tough gets going.
When the company and its employees are able to communicate with each other effectively, everybody will on the same page working towards the same goals and objectives.
There will be trust. Employees will feel comfortable sharing problems, ideas, and solutions without fear of retribution.
Change is never easy, but good communication will help everybody navigate through it easier.
Happy employees are typically great brand ambassadors. They will tell others how great it is to work for the company and be its champion. That can be a great help to your business.
Good communication is the mark of a healthy company that will weather the downtimes and inspire success. That’s a win-win for everybody.
Key Elements of Effective Internal Communication
Having been a manager myself, I understand that sometimes you might be so concerned about getting information out that you might forget to listen.
Effective communication demands a feedback loop.
I touch on it earlier but this point is too important for you to ignore: Communication is a two-way street.
It’s not about all about talking. You need to listen.
Communication should not be reactive. Most of the time, it’s going to be proactive.
There are times when a crisis hits that nobody saw coming, and you have no choice but to be reactive, but most of the time, this isn’t the case. There isn’t a good excuse to not be proactive.
Information needs to be concise, easy to understand, and be pertinent. I once spent an hour in a training session and I had no idea how the information I was given pertained to me and my job until the last five minutes.
This next one is a burr under the saddle for me because I can’t believe some of the stories I’ve heard about this. Choose the right channel for the message.
If the message is layoffs, don’t send a text, an email, or not communicate it leading to people finding out about it when they can’t log-in.
Using the wrong channel can lead to a loss of trust amongst your employees and in more extreme cases, amongst your customers too.
Leadership needs to set the example. They must model good communication practices. If you play the “do what I say, not as I do” game, you will lose credibility faster than you can snap your fingers.
Finally, like external communication, you need to measure. If you don’t, you will never know what works and what doesn’t.Things change, and what works two years ago may not be working so well anymore. If you can’t make tweaks and adapt, it will lead to lost time and money.
Conclusion
Internal communication is a powerful tool for any business. It’s not a cost, it’s an investment that can yield significant returns for both the company and its employees.
It’s not an administrative task, but a strategic activity that will help you build a healthy company that will meet its goals.
I hope you prioritize it within your company and work to measure its impact so you can constantly be improving your communication strategy.
*Image by Ralf Ruppert from Pixabay
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