I Have Done all the Internal Communications I Could. Where Do I Go From Here?

I had this interesting question posed today and spoke with the individual to understand the genesis of this thought.

Here is the scenario and it may possibly be a situation many internal communicators face at their workplace.

This communicator, fresh out of college has completed close to two years with her organization supporting a business unit of over 2000 employees and isn’t sure if she is making progress or knows what to do next. It is now time for the appraisal cycle and she has been asked to share her goals/objectives for the next year/round.  

When I probed further I heard that she wasn’t aware of the group’s goals or the leaders’ pain points. She handles the entire group’s internal communications – be it reviewing content, newsletters or updates from the team or publishing content to various channels. Interestingly, she is the sole point of contact for all internal communications even though there are other sub-teams such as HR who manage their own communications independently. She has been told to only review what comes her way since ‘technical’ communications isn’t her forte and that can be done by the technical people. So, there are communications which do go by without her intervention.  She is wary of ‘stepping’ on other peoples’ toes by getting involved in other communication work. Even with this limited scope to operate in, the internal communicator (let us call her Nitya) has delivered on a social media solution that works for HR and built a system for digital signages among others.

Now Nitya is contemplating either a change outside the organization or staying the course since her experience of two years isn’t enough to go elsewhere. So, what can Nitya do?

Here are some of my thoughts and I am open to your recommendations that Nitya can do to improve her situation and continue doing great work.

To begin, she must understand – and truly understand what the business unit and organization is trying to do with their goals. Nitya can asking probing questions about the current gaps and review literature or engagement survey results to be sure all angles are covered.

She can explore if the organization has a system for business continuity or crisis management and propose solutions that save the organization time, effort and funds.

Nitya can partner with the Corporate Social Responsibility team (and many companies have staff manage it part time) and recommend ways in which they can be more successful in garnering volunteering or funding.

Nitya can devote time researching best practices from other organizations and understand how social media integration (a big need today) is done for internal communications and do a pilot project.

The other option is to craft a workshop on writing standards and walk managers through it. She can request for a slot in her team’s induction program and connect with new employees about the company’s culture and communication. A great place to find out about people and tap talent for internal communications. She can hold a communications editorial calendar together and help leaders see the impact internal communications is making.

She can use her time to grow her skills as a professional – be it learning about social media, program management etc.

Over time when she demonstrates value through communications she can raise the level of thinking among leaders and staff.

Interested to know what other ideas you have. Please share them here.