Ask the experts: the state of internal communication

The working world has never undergone so much change or moved so fast. And at this breakneck pace, strong internal communication has become more essential than ever before – a theme that was prominent in this year’s Gallagher State of the Sector report.

We caught up with three guiding lights in the industry – simplycommunicate Managing Director Marc Wright, Inner Strength Communication Inc President Priya Bates and Institute of Internal Communication Chief Executive Jennifer Sproul – to get their take on today’s internal communication hot topics…

Marc Wright

On hybrid working and culture:

“With people going into the office at most three days a week, the ‘bricks and mortar’ structure of the space that determines how we work is getting weaker. Therefore, the digital platforms we use will have more of an impact on our culture.

“The problem is that we all use the same tools. The culture is currently Microsoft Teams v Zoom – it’s not BP v BT v GSK… Companies are facing a real struggle to engage people around their purpose, because the tools we are all using are vanilla – they’re all the same.

“And that’s why businesses are turning to internal communication to say: ‘How do we continue to drive culture?’ – particularly when it comes to new joiners and Gen Z.”

On the future of communication:

“The area we’re coming across the most, which we think will be future facing, is hyper-personalization. It’s transformed the internet, it’s killed television, it’s changed newspapers and it’s affected democracy. The good news about AI-created content is that it’s very personalized, so people with engage with it, they’ll read it; the bad news is that it’s bubble thinking.

“For internal communicators, it means channel management is going to become redundant. That’s tough, because we have all been trained in channel management, so that’ll all change. What these systems will do is see how people are consuming information at different times of the day, and then recommend content you can use to create communications to match how people consume it.

“Our job as communicators becomes one of curation. We take an issue, then we curate it into different packages and ‘the system’ will fire it off to people in different ways. We will lose the control of the portal, even the news carousel will become irrelevant. Instead, we will ask: ‘Where are people at this time of day? Let’s get that bit of news into that time slot’.”

Priya Bates

On productive remote working:

“From what I saw, organizations whose office staff worked virtually during the pandemic did not stop in terms of productivity. The productivity actually increased.

“I had managers tell me they were actually afraid that productivity would go down once people returned to the office. So for us to hear ‘we don't trust employees’ and ‘we’re afraid that employees aren’t engaged’, while at the same time hearing that productivity and results are just as good... There’s a disconnect there for me.

“There is an opportunity to define what engagement means to us. Every organization that's concerned about disengagement right now should be carrying out an audit. They should be asking employees: ‘What does engagement mean to you?’

“For me, engagement means:

• Performance – is the business performing well?
• Participation – are employees doing what they need to do?
• Promotion – are employees saying good things about the business?
• Pride – are people proud to work here?”

On purpose and strategy:

"Only 30% of businesses have an internal communications strategy or plan. I think that's because there is a little hesitancy for some companies to plan too far into the future. It used to be that we would talk about three- to five-year plans, but that's kind of gone out the window because now you don't know what's happening. You're kind of going month by month, day by day.

"But I think that it's there is a opportunity to define your purpose and your approach, from an internal communication perspective. And it's making sure that that approach works as things change. It's almost as if you have to create a strategy in order to be flexible.

"That's the big opportunity for organizations. But you need to know what you're doing and what you're trying to change, or else measurements don't matter. I think it is the most important thing that internal communications professionals need to understand."

Jennifer Sproul

On changes in the workforce:

"The future of work presents many challenges and opportunities for internal communication, playing an integral role in helping our organizations and people adapt to the changing environment. There are many big changes happening. For example, career customization: we want careers that meet us where we are, not where the employer is.

"Our preferences are changing: where we work, how we want to engage, how we want to consume content, when we have the chance to consume content… We're in what I would call an 'attention-deficit crisis', where we have probably about six seconds to create cut-through. We're also moving towards becoming organizations that are significantly flatter in structure, with more distributed working.

"What does that mean for internal communicators? It means we need to keep our core role of driving purpose, vision and values. But we can only do that if businesses are set up behind good behaviors, values, integrity, leadership, and strong people managers."

On going back to basics:

"With burnout, attention deficit, critique, cut-through, engagement, and all the challenges we face — is there a need to go back to basics a bit? Do we need to start with a blank piece of paper and and work consistently at driving those messages and those behaviors that are based on continuous feedback loops.

"The problem is we"re all trying to do too much. I think there is a need to simplify; to lean into our audience preferences, understand where they are and meet them where they're at. This is about asking: 'How can we build communications into the flow of the day?'

This article was first published in the Journal of Internal Communication brought to you by Gallagher. As a world-leading internal communications agency, we are excited to share our round-up of internal communication trends and provide practical examples of how organizations communicate with their people.

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