4. internal communication

INTERNAL
COMMUNICATION
LECTURE 4

Learning outcome
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
 Define internal communication and recognise it in
practice
 Evaluate internal communication from the
employee’s perspective
 Describe and evaluate corporate strategies and
methods for communicating with employees

Definition
 Internal communication is also known as
employee communication.
 It is defined as ‘the planned use of
communication actions to systematically
influence the knowledge, attitudes and
behaviours of current employees’. (Stauss
and Hoffman, 2000)

Who are our internal publics?
- the group of people as having a stake in an
organisation
Employees
Part-timers
Casual
workers
Volunteers
Contractors

Pat Jackson’s Total Relationship
Management Model
Investor Relations or Fundraising
Public Affairs
Customer Relations
Social Responsibility
Community Relations
Employee
Relations

Why is internal communication
important?
 Easy to communicate during difficult
situations (crisis, conflicts, reputation
building)
 Facilitate dissemination of information in
building the organisation reputation
 To ensure everyone in the organisation
understands the mission and vision
 To encourage a two-way communication
(feedback, suggestions)

Continue…
 The relationship with external stakeholders would
best served if internal stakeholders were
attended to.
 In order to reflect the importance of employees in
organisations, the term “employers of choice”
was created – attract the best talent and gain
competitive advantages in the industry.
 Family benefits
 Values employees’ education/ training
 Has diversity programmes

Its purpose…..
The strategic purpose of internal
communication involves:
 2-way communication between the employer
and employees
 Trusting relationship

Skills to strategy…
 The roots of internal communication are:
 communication skills (writing, speaking)
 Tools used: noticeboard, newsletters, blogs,
websites, factsheets, facebook, face-to-face
meeting, walk-about, corporate video, etc.
 Involves the combination of interpersonal
and new media channels

Strategic internal communication
Factors leading to the trend towards strategic
internal communication:
 Political
 Economic
 Social (and cultural)
 Technological

Factors leading to strategic internal
communication
Political /legal
Economic
Social/culture
Technological
Organisation
Re-brandingRe-branding

What is employee engagement?
 This is when employees ‘go the extra mile’
 How do you get to this?
 When employees believe in the orgnisational
values
 Employees given the opportunity to
‘experience’ company products
 Create company ‘ambassadors’

What do internal communication
practitioners need to know?
Communication
 ‘Articulating’ or ‘verbalising’ a message
 Listening
 Reflection
 Inquiry
 advocacy

Continue…
Internal communicators need to understand:
 Organisational structure
 Organisational culture
 Organisational history
 Communication networks
 Business goals and priorities
 External industry environment
 External stakeholders
 Previous communication activities

Corporate strategies
In order to create a good internal relationship
with all employees, organisations create:
 ‘Psychological contract’- due to low level of
trust/ commitment/ loyalty
- employee and employer commitments
 Corporate culture – values or practices that
account for an organisation’s success
Example 1: Disney’s values
 Innovation: we follow a strong tradition of
innovations

Continue….
Examples 2: Tesco’s values
The way we work:- The way we work is how we
deliver. Every Little Helps to make Tesco a
better place to shop and work in. We use
simple processes so that shopping is Better for
customers, Simpler for staff and Cheaper for
Tesco

Continue….
 Organisational Culture – a set of beliefs held my
members of an organisation
Example: Freedom of speech, dress code
 Leadership and strategic change
 A good leader provides a clear direction to
employees
 ‘Charismatic’ leaders – emotionally connect with
their audiences
 The communication approach is important to the
credibility and effectiveness of internal
communication

Conclusion
In this chapter, we have:
 examined the key issues in building internal
relationships in an organisation
 outlined the changing nature of work, in particular
the importance of achieving the sense of unity
within the organisation
 emphasised the importance of corporate
strategies in order to create good practices in
organisations

4. internal communication

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4. internal communication