Mike Tippets, VP at Hughes, has a dynamic and passionate vision of digital transformation and communication for 21st-century businesses.
getty
Whether it’s “quiet quitting” or “bare minimum Mondays,” some employees express their dissatisfaction at work in novel and unpredictable ways. Amid layoffs, inflation and a looming threat of recession, the return-to-office seems to be stirring up new levels of disengagement and malaise that threaten productivity—not to mention workforce morale. This leaves HR and corporate communications teams to once again curb the negativity that can sweep through an employee base—whether in the office or remotely—as fast as a Slack or a tweet.
Covid-19 forced internal communications out of the back office and into the forefront, with a much-needed spotlight on employee engagement, wellness and morale. During the most intense weeks and months, there were regular manager and all-staff communications out of necessity for sharing updates on policies and safety protocols. Once staff returned to the office, though, did the communications end? Or did they continue with a renewed appreciation for the value of internal campaigns for creating alignment and engagement?
As a marketing leader in my organization, I work closely with our corporate communications team to coordinate messaging, digital communications and media relations, especially around our enterprise business offerings in North America, which include digital signage solutions. Working out of a satellite office away from our Maryland headquarters, I have the opportunity to observe our internal communications, somewhat from afar—supporting the corporate program in our Utah facility while coaching the internal comms team on how best to utilize our digital signage. As we’ve transitioned to “normal” instead of pandemic communications, our internal communications program has evolved and continues gaining traction. As the communications priorities have changed from health and safety measures to business alignment and employee motivation, I’ve noticed three marketing principles that I believe have helped deliver campaign success.
Use a variety of communication channels.
While the “media mix” is no longer made up solely of analog tactics like print and radio, using a mix of media is more relevant than ever. The old “rule of sevens,” which posits that a consumer has to see or hear a message at least seven times before they take action, has grown exponentially with the growth in media outlets. Just as consumers will experience a marketing message in various media—TV, websites, social media apps and in-store signage—employees will consume internal communications in different ways, at different locations and at different times. We need to consider these variations and utilize different channels to reach the employee where, when and how they want to consume the content—just as we do for any well-designed marketing campaign.
In today’s hybrid work environment, we no longer have a captive market in the employee audience—where we once might have relied on a single poster by the coffee machine, our media "net" must be cast much wider today. For example, you can post a message to the company intranet, engage digital signage throughout the office, send out email messages, hold in-person meetings, host virtual team meetings on Zoom or Microsoft Teams and more.
Punch it up with personality!
Just as with any external marketing campaign, your internal communication strategy should align with your brand style—and just as social media has pushed marketers to be more creative, captivating and clever than ever before, so can our internal campaigns. Internal communications allow us to display style, wit and personality. Have some fun!
Remain professional, of course, and be critical of any attempts at humor that could go awry, but you can be slightly less formal with internal communications than with external ones. Tap into your company culture and history when crafting your messages and give your campaigns creative and memorable names, tag lines and games to drive engagement and help the messages “stick.” Don’t be afraid to sprinkle in current events, fun facts and even pop culture trends. In the same way, a marketing campaign needs to break through the clutter of messages assailing us nonstop (inside and outside the office), some well-placed creativity in internal messaging will help to break through the noise of business-related content that comes at employees at a pace of about 100 emails a day.
Leverage internal influencers.
We all know the power of a well-placed (and well-informed) influencer in boosting product awareness and sales. Just scroll through any social media feed for sponsored or celebrity-endorsed content. However, influencer marketing has been around since long before social media, and it can—and should—be applied to internal communications campaigns just as it’s used as a tactic in external marketing programs.
Internally, it can take the form of an engagement committee with representatives from geographically dispersed offices. These employees can be recruited to help facilitate corporate messages and, in the most effective programs, to help send employee questions and feedback back to the corporate team. (The best of these programs will rotate out the location representatives after a set time frame to minimize the extra work on any one employee and share the “status” that comes with being among the first to know what’s happening across the company.)
Most businesses already have an influencer community at the ready: Middle managers are too often untapped resources in carrying the company message to their teams. When designing your next internal communications campaign, consider this management layer as your campaign influencers. Watch how they rise to the occasion when they feel empowered to help send company messages instead of just receiving them like everyone else in the organization.
Just as a marketer will consider every tactic at their disposal in promoting products and services to their target market, so should internal communications professionals. We would never consider a single media outlet for an effective external campaign—and we should never count on an employee message sinking in after just one touchpoint. Bringing all our external creativity and internal influencers to employee communications can mean the difference between an announcement that merely informs to one that inspires, motivates and engages our audience.
Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
