Three Areas Where Your Internal Communications Need Vision
Many organizations are missing out on the benefits of strategic communication. Case in point: 60% of companies have no long-term strategy in place for their internal communications (Arthur J. Gallager & Co.). That’s a huge miss on multiple fronts. Strategic communications play a critical role in project success, overall profitability, and strong company culture.
But how do you start accessing these benefits? Keep an open mind when it comes to which scenarios could benefit from more strategic communications. When you focus on successfully communicating mission and vision across the organization from a variety of strategic vantage points, your organization can reap the maximum benefit. Let’s explore three key areas where strategic communications can unlock newfound efficiency and profitability for your company.
The many benefits of strategic communicationProject success
0% of project failures stem from ineffective communications. (PMI)
Alignment
Aligned companies enjoy 36% more business growth. (SiriusDecisions)
Employee morale
33% of employees said a lack of open, honest communication has the most negative impact on employee morale. (Accountemps)
Make transformation successful
Making the case for change clear helps your company pivot when it needs to transform—whether that’s due to a shift in strategic direction, M&A activity or a planned digital transformation program.
When making transformational investments, you can’t forget the “people” side. New technologies like cloud and SaaS platforms promise lots of benefits in terms of interconnectivity and resilience, but a strong communications strategy could be the determining factor in whether a new solution or approach is successful.
Additionally, keep in mind that not all transformations are planned. Change is here to stay, whether your company is ready or not. Moving forward, the World Economic Forum has identified three critical drivers of risk – political, technological and societal – expected to drive greater uncertainty and disruption. How prepared your organization is for those disruptions depends on a variety of factors, chief among them your ability to stay agile and connected across the value chain. The first step toward connection? Fast, clear communication.
Align Internally
Some departments, like HR and finance, serve internal audiences who rely on clear, timely communications for a positive employee experience. In these cases, why approach the stakeholder any differently than you would a customer? To keep service and satisfaction levels high, make it exceedingly clear who you are, what you do and what’s in it for them, just as you would with external customers.
Internal service levels can also have a profound impact on the quality and consistency of your end product or service offering. Depending on the structure of your organization, for example, you may have teams responsible for providing guidance on compliance, quality and safety, and other standards across a global set of operations. When employees fail to leverage those teams properly –or leverage them at all –your organization can take a hit in terms of noncompliance fees, quality issues and more.
We’ve helped global Fortune 50 companies create playbooks that establish expectations, define engagement protocols, and standardize strategic guidance to ensure consistency and repeatability.
Improve employee morale
In other instances, you may not directly serve another department—but you do wish they understood what you do so everyone could work better together.
• Do other departments have a clear sense of where your responsibilities end and theirs begin?
• Are there key points that your company just doesn’t understand about the work your team does?
• What about behaviors you need your colleagues to adopt?
Take cybersecurity, for example. A sales employee isn’t responsible for the company’s overall security posture, but they do need to understand the basics of two-factor authentication, how to identify a phishing scheme–and the supreme importance of opening a ticket if they have an IT issue.
Stronger inter-departmental communications prevent redundancies and other inefficiencies while helping departments work together more productively. And don’t be afraid to get creative: fun internal campaigns that grab attention and engage the audience are a great way to get your message across. These are your coworkers, after all. Even a small boost in engagement and communication can make a big difference when it comes to morale.
Start today with a hand-picked team
Whether you’re launching a project, aligning expectations or boosting employee morale, achieving strategic goals requires the right message at the right time—to the right audience. Let’s discuss how we can help you inform, influence, and motivate with strategically designed and deployed internal communications.
