Internal communications (IC) can’t replace change management but is key to success of any change initiative or transformation. In order to be successful, IC needs at least to be qualified, empathic, speak employees’ language(s), and to be effective by using modern technologies and methods. Is that the case in your organisation? Just answer the following 3 x 5 questions to check it out!
A) Being empathic, trustworthy and critical
Due to our experience, we at viadoo are convinced that internal communications (IC) first and foremost needs the trust and appreciation of employees and management. That’s especially true in change processes. Therefore, IC has at least to be empathic, trustworthy, credible, and authentic. Furthermore, an eye-to-eye relationship between IC, employees and top-management is crucial. That means, that IC is not only the interpreter of the top-management but also accepted by them as a competent and critical (!) advisor. Only then IC will succeed to engage employees and to arouse their awareness and desire for the related change objectives. Otherwise, internal communications wouldn’t get beyond simply broadcasting messages.
Does your internal communications fit these requirements?
Check it out by answering the following 5 questions:
- Have your IC team members completed a basic change management qualification programme so that they are familiar with the specifics of interacting with employees during an ongoing change or transformation?
- Do your IC team members have both cognitive and affective / emotional empathy so that they both know and feel how and what employees feel during a change initiative or transformation?
- Is your IC team allowed to give critical advice to the CEO and board on internal communications topics in order to prevent potential communication failures?
- And do the CEO as well as the other board members usually follow the advice of your IC experts?
- Does your IC team have an archive of past organisational change initiatives and a trust-building process to identify possible contradictions to previous statements in time?
B) Speaking employees’ language(s)
When it comes to developing new business models or innovative products, start-ups as well as established corporations regularly consider on customer needs through dialogues, co-creation workshops, feedbacks. Not so with internal communications (IC) during corporate change processes. In scenarios like this, we at viadoo often experience that CEOs / boards members consider IC merely as their megaphone (one way) to address employees. Instead, they should use the IC to conduct dialogues with the workforce. And most of all, they need to speak their languages. That means, among other things, addressing blue collars in a different way than white collars, and to keep information as short and simple as possible (KISS principle) without using any fancy management phrases.
Does your internal communications fit these requirements?
Check it out by answering the following 5 questions:
- Is your IC team aware of the fact that your middle managers have to successfully lead a change and to keep their teams together at the same time – in addition to their daily business? And does your IC team know how to support the middle management in such a situation?
- Is your IC team aware of the fact that reducing complexity and telling emotional stories is also considered under “speaking their stakeholder’s language”?
- Is your IC team aware of the fact that members of Generation Y and Z aren’t willing to read long “Letters from the CEO” and other time consuming management information (according to a Pew Research Center Study)?
- Does your IC team invite employees regularly to tell their stories or stories from their point of view (especially in videos) to engage them effectively?
- Is your IC team using feedback tools and participatory workshops regularly to engage employees and to initiate constructive dialogues?
C) Being effective through Newsroom, AI & KPI
At viadoo, we experience time and again that the internal communications of even large corporations use outdated tools and analogue processes to manage their challenging daily work. As a result, they reach their objectives and target groups only partially at best. For example, they hardly manage to get at least ten per cent of invited people to participate in carefully prepared workshops or other events. Yet, for years, there have been state-of-the-art technologies and methods that organisations can use to keep the effectiveness and efficiency of their internal communication on a high level.
Does your internal communications fit these requirements?
Check it out by answering the following 5 questions:
- Has your IC team developed a collaborative and topic-centric mindset with a smart editorial plan instead of a channel-driven workflow?
- Does your IC team use modern digital tools to create, manage, schedule, and distribute content as well to measure performance effectively instead of using Microsoft© Excel, Google© Sheets or similar spreadsheet / calculation tools?
- Is your IC team part of your Corporate Newsroom (Topic Setting Center) where interdisciplinary teams plan topics & stories and distribute content across the company’s media channels?
- Is your IC team using artificial intelligence (AI) regularly and have your IC team members learned how to write perfect prompts for ChatGPT and other AI tools?
- Has your IC team defined objectives and key results (OKR) or key performance indicators (KPI) to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of internal communications in a change process or transformation?
Now check your results
Most lights are green? Well, that’s good! Your IC team seems to be well prepared for the challenges of interacting with employees during a change process or transformation.
Some lights are red? Don’t worry! You decide whether you want to turn them green on your own or with a little help of a friend (aka transformation communications specialist).
Most lights are red? Well, that’s not good. It’s most likely that your change initiative or transformation will fail because your IC doesn’t meet the minimum requirements for effectiveness.
Author(s)
Dominik is founder of viadoo and has managed change and communication projects for SMEs as well as DAX corporations like Airbus, BMW, ESG, IABG, KMW, MTU, MTRI, OHB, RUAG, ZF. Based on his expertise, he is very familiar with the importance of the human factor for the success of change projects. The human side of transformation is close to his heart. Dominik combines certified change competence with multimedia storytelling expertise and operational change leadership experience with a high level of methodological competence.