Making employee voice matter: 5 internal communications tendencies for the year ahead. Part 1
Communications matter — be it a PR campaign conveying certain messages or internal communication within an organisation. While PR communications in the media shape particular messages tailored to convince the audience, internal communications within enterprises shape those values PR practitioners are delivering.
Developing strategies to engage the employees regardless of their location or proper working conditions to create a better place to work — all of these impacts the tone PR professionals deliver across the media. Here, we will dive into the top 5 trends of internal communications to try out this year.
#1. Employee advocacy: Being a cornerstone for any enterprise to successfully expand
One of the areas of focus for the year ahead is employee advocacy — a public promotion of a company’s brand, mission, and values included, by the employees themselves. The concept stands on three pillars — thought leadership, employee influencers, and employee advocates. While thought leaders share new angles and bright ideas, employee influencers impact the way internal and external audiences view a company’s brand, product, or services. With these, staff members themselves further display the tone for the company’s brand, shaping public opinion on one’s business, so be mindful of them.
#2. Company values content: Reflecting a brand’s core values
Another huge tendency in internal comms for this year is creating and distributing content that would reflect a company’s values. Be it a Friday afternoon presentation series that offers a
solution to a specific internal problem or a better solution for gathering anonymous feedback — the leadership team can come up with diverse initiatives that would align or reflect specific values and boost communications within the company and beyond.
#3. Employer branding: Making the workforce voice count
Yet another cornerstone of internal communications is employer branding — the reputation you have as an employer among your employees and the workforce. The employer branding has to be authentic and also be an extension of the company brand, not separate. Weber Shandwick, in partnership with KRC Research, found that only 19% of the nearly 2,000 global employees surveyed feel strongly that the work experience their employer promotes publicly is matched by reality. So, be mindful and intentional when building an employer brand in the media space.
#4. Modern email: Making creative emails to modernize and elevate communications
Email is the most-used form of internal communication and is part of the strategy for 97% of internal communication teams, according to the survey conducted by Workshop. Currently, sometimes, employees might use some out-of-date features for communication to get more creative like Outlook, which, however, might lack some communication tools. Now, however, we might use different tools, like Workshop, to add surveys, and design items to modernize communications.
#5. Project management: Using management tools in internal comms
Last but not least, to deliver internal communications right, it is crucial to keep to effective management strategies. Google Forms or Microsoft Forms are some of the cost-effective tools to use when planning and implementing strategies. Creating a google form, sharing it, and setting a deadline to receive a form two or three days in advance is a good option to get the necessary information from the employees. Setting up monthly meetings with department heads to get the latest information straight from the source is also a good option.
Summing Up
Internal communications are imperative for a company’s brand, both within the company and among the audience. Communication campaigns always entail values, opinions, and attitudes shared within a company, which makes internal communications essential for meaningful PR. The Drofa Comms offered five tendencies in internal comms to look up for this year. In the next article, we will discuss another five major tendencies, such as change management, employee engagement, analytics, and others. Catch up with the latest trends in internal comms to build strong messages!
This post included highlights from the Workshop webinar on the 10 internal comms trends to test in 2023.
