5 Best Practices for Internal Communication

Effective communication in the workplace has many benefits. When you commit to employee engagement through internal communication, your company only stands to benefit.

When you communicate with your employees, it’s important to not only focus on the messages you are delivering but also how you are communicating those messages.

These are some of the best practices for internal communication:

1. Planning

One of the biggest mistakes that organizations make when they attempt to have a communication strategy internally is to take a cookie-cutter approach without determining their own unique needs and what they are hoping to achieve.

The template that your friend at Company Z sent you might not work within the unique corporate culture of  Company X.

Determine what you want your internal communications to do for your company and build your plan accordingly.

2. Target the messages carefully

Sometimes in employee communications you will have niche audiences you need to keep informed about certain matters.  You should only target the members of that audience wherever possible or you run the risk of devaluing all your internal communication via information overload.

Ways of doing this might be setting up email lists or having dedicated groups on internal communications platforms via your intranet.

3. Less is more

Avoid communication overload. Think back to what workplaces were like 20 or 30 years ago: workers didn’t have the constant barrage of information that we have in the modern workplace. Many workers often complain of having email fatigue, where they have a never-ending stream of information flowing to their inboxes every day. The result of sending too many emails is that you devalue your messages. On that note, if you absolutely, positively have to send that email or newsletter, keep it brief and to the point.

4. Use the right tools for the job

There are various ways of communicating internally, from emails to newsletters and intranet portals, which all have their pros and cons.  Overloading employees with too much information, too often, can have the opposite effect of what you are trying to achieve. Instead of being informed, employees can start to tune out – they might not read emails, they might rarely seek out information on the intranet.

A clever software solution is DeskAlerts, which sends information straight to an employee’s desktop. It is especially useful for critical information that they can’t afford to miss.  You can also track how many people have received it.

5. Make it about the employees too

Having internal communication systems in place that enable a two-way flow of information is something that employees value. When they have a sense of buy-in and inclusiveness, they’re more likely to want to hear from you!

Give your employees a voice within your internal communications and let them be mouth-pieces spreading the good word internally.

Genuine recognition for staff achievements in internal communication also helps to foster this spirit and to boost morale.