How to create an internal communication strategy

As expectations placed on internal communication teams continue to increase, it can be difficult to keep a strategic mindset. Yet having a long-term internal communication strategy is the only way to consistently influence your leaders – and the strategic direction of your organization. Here we explore why and how to create your strategy.

In this article, we explore why you should have one, and how to create it.

Our State of the Sector report shows that only a minority of organizations (29%) have ‘an overarching internal communication strategy covering a period of more than one year’. While this rises to 44% in organizations with more than 10,000 employees, the majority of communication professionals (60%) still focus on creating communication plans for specific campaigns and initiatives – over and above devising a strategy.

When asked why this is the case, we’re often told that internal communication teams lack the time and resource, are dealing with constant change and don’t have the business clarity required. It therefore seems all the more important that we explore why an internal communication strategy is so critical to internal communication success.

What is an internal communication strategy?

‘Internal communication strategy’ and ‘communication plan’ are often seen as one and the same, yet their scope is very different.

An internal communication strategy is a high-level document that outlines how your internal communication function supports your long-term business objectives. It should articulate how internal communications will help your organization to execute its corporate strategy and deliver on its employee value proposition.

By contrast, a communication plan is a more detailed and tactical document that explains how internal communications can be leveraged to achieve a specific goal. For example, deliver a specific change program; connect your employees with your corporate vision, mission and strategy; create engagement around your ESG strategy; or encourage your people to manage their physical, emotional and financial wellbeing. Ideally, the plan will include communication objectives, audiences and key messages, while also outlining what activities you’ll implement and how you intend to measure success.

The main difference between the two lives in the level of detail and scope. A communication plan essentially focuses on the tactics of a specific campaign. An internal communication strategy looks at the bigger picture and guides your efforts to maximize the value that internal communications adds to your organization.

What are the benefits of having an internal communication strategy?

Developing a solid internal communication strategy is an investment in your team’s future as it can deliver many benefits in the long run. These include:

• Creating stronger strategic alignment by clarifying how your internal communication function supports your organization’s strategic goals.
• Providing operational focus by defining how you’ll deploy resources and what you’ll deliver within a given timeframe.
• Securing leadership buy-in with a clear proposition that can be shared with your internal stakeholders and used to present a business case for necessary investments.
• Delivering a roadmap for the future that sets expectations as to what will be delivered, by when and by whom.
• Inform employees and engage them around your purpose and direction so they can align their efforts to your strategy.

Ultimately, your internal communication strategy identifies how to achieve maximum impact with minimum effort, therefore enabling you to concentrate on what adds the most value while pushing back on what doesn’t.

A step-by-step guide

Our internal communication consultants have helped dozens of in-house teams define their roadmap over the years, which means we’ve learnt a lot along the way. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or don’t know where to start, get in touch to discuss how we could support you.

Step 1 - Set the scene

An internal communication strategy primarily drives alignment within your organization, so a good place to start is by understanding where you are today and what pain points you’re trying to solve. Take the time to think about who you’re trying to influence within the organization, and make sure you have a plan for engaging them throughout the process.

Build a clear and honest picture of the current state of your internal communications. It helps to start with a positive outlook and acknowledge any significant achievements before turning to areas of improvement and listing your top communication challenges.

Make sure you base this assessment on tangible data, such as employee engagement data, survey findings and feedback. This will make it harder for stakeholders to challenge your evaluation. You could also conduct an internal communication audit to gather solid insights.

Next comes your corporate strategy. Effective internal communications contribute to business performance, which means your strategy should be hardwired to the organization’s strategy. So, how does this translate into communication objectives? And how will your function need to evolve in order to achieve these?

Last of all, consider any external macro trends that could impact your organization. For example, is the competition for talent likely to increase in your sector? Are workforce demographics going to change significantly? How will technology impact ways of working?

Step 2 – Articulate your vision

Now you have insight into the way your organization currently communicates and the direction it’s headed, you can look to the future and the experience you need to create for your employees. Most of all, you can articulate how internal communications can help to achieve this.

This process delivers best results when it’s collaborative, so we recommend hosting a series of workshops with your stakeholders. This helps to create a shared understanding of your communication priorities. Here are some examples of ideas you could explore together.

• Key messages: what is your organization’s corporate narrative? What behaviors are you trying to embed?
• Communication capability: who are the biggest influencers in your organizations? How can you leverage their influence?
• Channels and technology: what communication experience do you want to create for your people?
• Tone of voice, look and feel: what needs to change for your communications to reflect your external brand and culture?
• Employee voice: how can you ensure your organization captures and responds to employee feedback?

As with any stakeholder workshops, it’s likely that a myriad of ideas will emerge, so prioritization is key – but do keep an open mind and make a note of all contributions. You’ll want to consider the whole picture of your organization when presenting your priorities to stakeholders.

Step 3 – State your goals

Now you’ve identified a vision for the future of your internal communications, it’s time to create a roadmap for delivering it. It helps to identify four or five high impact goals that your team can focus on over a period of two to three years. But do keep the following in mind.

• Be realistic about what your team can deliver and what will need additional investment.
• Be clear about who ‘owns’ each action – driving a better employee experience requires collaboration, so not everything will be on you.
• Be specific about how you will measure success for each of these actions.

Each high-level goal can be broken down into actionable workstreams. Let’s say you’ve identified a need for better audience segmentation supported by targeted messaging to reach an increasingly diverse workforce in terms of age, roles and geography. Workstreams needed to achieve this goal could include creating audience personas, investing in new communication platforms, and improving internal processes for capturing feedback.

It's also a good idea to look at implementing your strategy in phases. You can stage these according to the time and investment required. For example, short-term quick wins, medium-term components that require more planning, and longer-term technology rollouts.

Step 4 – Communicate your strategy

Communicating your strategy with your stakeholders gives them the opportunity to provide important feedback – this isn’t purely an internal communications document, but a shared organizational ambition that everyone’s on board with. This means that some of your goals may require additional investment or investigation. Say you need to introduce new communication technology, for example, this is likely to be a significant investment and you’ll need buy-in from different functions across the organization.

After all of the above is complete, your final document could be very content heavy, which is why we recommend creating a simpler summary of your strategy – one that fits on a single page.

Step 5 – Implement it relentlessly!

Now you have your internal communication strategy, you need to implement it relentlessly – don’t let it sit in a drawer. Schedule regular meetings with your stakeholders to share progress and ensure you stay on track. And review it regularly.

Want to know how this could work in your organization? Get in touch. Our team of 180+ internal communication consultants have extensive experience supporting organizations across the world as they solve their people challenges through communication.