It seems this post on creating an internal communications plan got a lot of great insights which Rony can use. I checked in with Rony and he seemed delighted to see the quality of inputs that came in.
For the benefit of readers I am making an attempt to distill the key points that can help you create your own internal communications plan and strategy.
Start with the goals: As Lucille mentioned that ‘effective Communications Strategy should comprise 6 components: “the what”, “the why”, “the who”, “the how”, “the when/how long” and “the crisis-mode plan’.
Assess the need: Peter shared that it helps to conduct a survey and gauge how staff are currently tuned to communication and thereby identify gaps. Getting buy-in from leaders and working with a budget helps to further the cause.
Build in rigor in the process: Ensure there is a formal and informal mechanism to ensure communication happens consistently. Therefore the sender, frequency, timing, content, messages etc need to be mapped.
Define the best use of your resources: Great point from Chris about having a strategy for making the most of channels and resources you have. He mentioned ‘trust’ and ‘awareness’ of tools available – interesting points considering how much communication can do to improve internal credibility.
Balance your communication: Preeti highlighted ‘information overload’ where too much can blind staff and too little can add to confusion. Excellent thought here. Probably do an audit of how much employees currently receive and if there are ways to integrate or reduce or reframe internal communications. Keeping the interest of your audience is mind is so important.
Any other thoughts that can help create an effective internal communications plan? Please share them here.
Depending on the size and structure of the organisation, it may be useful to get a sense of who are the influencers within the company. While comms people or the management may have certain messages to communicate to the employees, having the message come from a trusted peer or colleague will impact on how much employees listen in to the message and how much they remember of it. In other words, I would think that other than planning how to communicate via various channels and resources, it may be useful to put in place steps that identify key influencers within the organisation and provide for programmes that “train the trainer”, i.e. train and empower these influencers to spread the right message for you.