In a world threatened by information overload, organisational leaders have a responsibility for cutting through the fog and presenting a clear picture of vision, values, and strategy. In return, employees must be encouraged to offer feedback willingly and without fear.
Creating a two-way street of open and honest communication within the organisation requires a strategic view. The following internal communications plan template will help your organisation create an internal communication framework by outlining goals, establishing communication protocols, and incorporating employee engagement to ensure effectiveness.
Why your Workplace will be More Effective With an Internal Communications Plan
Effective in-house communications begin at the senior level and filter down. Employee communication strategies are the employee empowerment tools of inspirational leaders. As we’ve outlined previously:
- Leaders with the ability to listen, communicate, and influence will empower employees to make decisions which help to achieve both individual and company goals
- A more open and inspiring leader will encourage ideation. Creativity and new working practices will flow through to the shop floor, and best practices can be shared to encourage organisation wide improvement
An internal communications plan template will enable the leader to:
- Deliver more effective messages to employees
- Create value added two-way communication
- Reach out to geographically dispersed employees
- Monitor the effectiveness of the communicative process
Understanding the Importance of Internal Communications
Why Internal Communications Matter
Internal communications play a vital role in the success of any organisation. It is the backbone of a company’s culture, productivity, and employee engagement. Effective internal communications help to ensure that employees are informed, aligned, and motivated to achieve the company’s goals and objectives. A well-planned internal communications strategy can improve employee productivity, retention, and overall job satisfaction.
Internal communications matter because they:
- Foster a sense of community and belonging among employees
- Encourage collaboration and teamwork
- Provide a platform for employees to share their ideas and feedback
- Help to build trust and credibility between employees and management
- Support the achievement of business objectives
- Enhance employee engagement and motivation
- Improve communication and reduce misunderstandings
By prioritising internal communications, organisations can create a more cohesive and productive work environment, ultimately driving success and growth.
Defining Your Internal Communications Strategy
What is a Strategic Internal Communications Plan?
A strategic internal communications plan is a document that outlines the goals, objectives, and strategies for internal communications within an organisation. It serves as a roadmap that guides the internal communications team in creating and implementing effective communication strategies that support the company’s overall business objectives.
A strategic internal communications plan should include:
- A clear definition of the company’s internal communications goals and objectives
- An analysis of the current internal communications landscape
- Identification of key stakeholders and their communication preferences
- A description of the communication channels and tactics to be used
- A plan for measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of internal communications
- A budget and resource allocation plan
By developing a comprehensive internal communications strategy, organisations can ensure that their communication efforts are aligned with their business objectives and effectively reach their employees.
Identify Current Communication Challenges
Assessing your current internal communications situation is an essential step in creating a strategic internal communications plan. This involves identifying the current communication challenges and opportunities within the organisation.
To assess your current situation, consider the following:
- What are the current internal communications channels and tactics being used?
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the current internal communications strategy?
- What are the key communication challenges facing the organisation?
- What are the communication preferences of key stakeholders?
- What are the business objectives that internal communications need to support?
By understanding your current internal communications situation, you can identify areas for improvement and develop a strategic plan that addresses the unique needs and challenges of your organisation. This assessment will provide a solid foundation for creating an effective internal communications strategy that enhances employee engagement and supports the achievement of business objectives.
How to align the goals of internal communication
Many businesses fail to deliver on their stated values and vision because they fail to communicate them. In-house communications are found to be lacking in design and focus, even if external communications are excellent. By instigating an internal communication planning process, an organisation will more effectively ensure that all employees are pulling together.
Here are 7 steps to create an effective internal communications plan template:
1. Define the culture
Define the organisational goals, values, and vision through well-defined internal communication strategies. Require senior executives to live and breathe them, acting as examples of expected performance and working practices. If this step isn’t executed by the top level executives, those below them will see no reasons to engage.
2. Define the audience
Put consistent audience targeting processes in place to identify key employee groups. Employee personas, informed by employee communication data from engagement surveys, channel audits, and employee feedback, will help to develop effective communications and can be used to plan business strategy and release relevant news.
3. Define appropriate messaging channels
Decide the best channel to connect with each unique persona, ensuring that key messages are tailored to specific audiences. Develop a process that interconnects these at the center. This enables easy management of the internal communication plan template, and might feed into workplace calendars, intranet, social media, and news channels.
4. Encourage feedback
Support employees to become involved in the employee communications process, making it easy for individuals and teams to offer feedback and creative ideas. This process will include open team meetings, intranet, and other engagement tools. This requires some mediation allowing those who would be afraid to speak up in front of others to have an equal opportunity to speak as those who offer opinions freely.
This process of engagement in internal communications encourages self-confidence, creativity, and ideation.
5. Establish management control and measurement of effectiveness
Internal communications strategies happen when you design a system of measuring the effectiveness of internal communication to enable continuous improvement. Metrics will depend upon the strategic vision of the organisation, but will necessarily include the adoption of expected behaviours in line with the corporate culture.
6. Coach employees in digital communication
Increase effectiveness of the internal communication plan template by ensuring staff are adept at using internal communications channels as part of a smart internal communications strategy.
7. Recognise performance
Put in place a strong internal communications strategy that includes a process of recognition, rewarding individual and team performance to enhance the corporate culture. Congratulate hard work, innovation, and teamwork in action not just in concept.
An effective internal communications plan template requires a combination of systems, processes, and leadership. Of these, leadership is the key ingredient: without effective leadership, workplace communications will inevitably break down.
Producing a valuable internal communications strategy takes time, resource, and effort. Leaders will need to be coached in effective communications and benefit from high emotional intelligence, freeing themselves to opening performance enhancing communication channels between them and their employees.
Contact Primeast today to discover how an Emotional Intelligence course will develop and embed effective personal skills in the workplace, for leaders, managers, and employees.
