Companies are now more than ever concerned about their image. Environmental policy, equal pay for men and women, defence of the rights of sexual minorities, the fight against moral harassment: companies want to convey a positive, committed and modern image to their customers and consumers. While the focus is on external communication, companies should not neglect their internal communication.
What is internal communication?
Before looking at the benefits of internal communication for your company, it is necessary to define it. Internal communication consists of disseminating information within the company itself.
Information in companies can be disseminated in three ways.
The first movement is top-down: it is a question of disseminating information from the top to the bottom, either from the manager to the employee or from the management to the teams.
The second movement is upward: the information goes back from the employee to the manager, then to the management.
Finally, the last movement is transversal: information then circulates horizontally, from one department or team to another.
It is also necessary to take an interest in the content of the information transmitted. A company’s internal communication can be based on several themes, according to an article in Dynamique Entrepreneuriale dated 2017 but still current [1]:
- the company’s values,
- the company’s vision and challenges in the short, medium and long term,
- ongoing projects, collective projects, cross-functional projects,
- operating rules,
- proposals for improvements, etc.
The need for internal communication in companies
As mentioned above, communication can have many benefits for the company.
The first benefit of internal communication is to limit misunderstandings and confusions, or even to avoid them. It promotes the fluidity of information between the various players in the company. This fluidity then allows for more exchanges, which defuse tensions and encourage innovation and creativity.
Today’s employees are suffering from the loss of meaning at work and feel less and less involved in the life of their company. Internal communication, by reminding people of current projects, the company’s latest successes and its current challenges, makes it possible to give meaning to the teams and to involve them more. Internal communication then increases the feeling of belonging to the company and promotes the commitment of the employee, who identifies with the company and wants it to succeed.
Finally, internal communication is necessary for the development of the employer brand : it makes it possible to spread the company’s values and culture to the entire organization. The employer brand is all the more important as it is an essential tool for human resources to attract and retain new employees.
Implement an internal communication strategy
Now that the challenges of internal communication have been exposed, all that remains is to set up a real internal communication strategy.
The first step is then to take stock of your current strategy and the actions that have been taken. Are the actions taken effective? Are these actions known to the employees? If so, what do they think of these actions?
Once the assessment stage is over, it is necessary to redefine the objectives in terms of internal communication. Do you want to increase the engagement of your teams? Improve the flow of information and make current projects known to all employees? Developing a real employer brand? Depending on your priority objectives, the actions carried out and the tools used will differ.
However, make sure to define achievable goals with actions that can be quickly and easily implemented. Indeed, the efficiency of internal communication is based on its regularity and its long-term commitment. The faster and easier the actions chosen are to access, the more regular they will be and the more long-term they will be. Then, the results will be guaranteed and you will achieve the set goals.
You now know the objectives set and you have chosen the most relevant actions and tools to achieve them. It is therefore essential to define which actors will be in charge of the deployment of internal communication. Will you choose to entrust this strategy to the human resources department or to the communication department? Or would a dedicated service be more appropriate?
Finally, here are some ideas for concrete actions to put in place to improve your internal communication:
- Welcome booklet: intended for all employees as soon as they arrive, it is part of the integration process and makes it possible to explain the functioning and organization of the company. It also allows you to be kept informed of the company’s latest achievements and ongoing projects.
- Internal newsletter: monthly or bi-monthly, it allows employees to be informed of current projects in other departments.
- Team meetings: weekly or fortnightly, it has the advantage of letting everyone express themselves, easing tensions, strengthening cohesion and bringing out new ideas.
- Individual interviews: annual or even biennial, it allows a privileged relationship between the employee and his manager, in a more intimate setting than the meeting. A real tool of trust, the interview allows the manager and the employee to inform each other about their respective expectations and to take stock of successes and failures.
- Team building seminars: bimonthly or quarterly, it allows the company’s values to be disseminated and to strengthen team cohesion. The seminar is also the perfect tool to develop your employer brand and employee engagement through unique experiences.
In conclusion, internal communication is your company’s key asset for its success. WAYDEN is convinced that the company is above all a human adventure that is based on the cohesion of its employees. The more internal communication is developed and present, the greater the commitment and satisfaction of the teams will be.
[1]http://www.dynamique-mag.com/article/communication-interne-entreprise.9708
