How can you make sure everyone on your team is included in your internal communications?

Knowing your audience sounds basic, but it's the linchpin of not just communication -- it's your entire business strategy. Surveys and focus groups? That's not just chatter; that's vital intel. You're mapping the corporate landscape, pinpointing where to drill for those nuggets of insight. Personalizing content? Welcome to 2023. In an era of big data, personalization isn't a luxury; it's a necessity. You're not just a messenger; you're a data analyst and a behavioral economist. Knowing your audience is your first move in the chess game of corporate strategy. It's the difference between shouting into the wind and a targeted strike. Tune in or become irrelevant.

Do you want your team members to sit in their seats watching you? If so, call them your audience. If you want them involved working with you, refer to them as your team members and get to know them as individuals — the unique humans they are. Building a relationship with them will help you communicate with them one-on-one as well as in a group.

I'd like to add that you are often not your own audience, so it's crucial to get input from as many stakeholders as possible. It can be tempting to communicate in a way that you like to receive information, but that doesn't always paint a complete picture of all potential recipients.

Building connections with the team can help you go long way in the internal comms plan. Knowing your audience is the crux of internal communication. Put yourself in the shoes of your audience and then start working on what you would like to know.

To go even deeper, assess the chaos tolerance of your team so you know what types of messaging elicit the highest engagement. Craft your internal communication to 'meet people where they're at' by giving them the freedom to execute (high chaos tolerance), or the precise steps to ensure success at every milestone (high order tolerance). This is your secret weapon for high quality comms.

The key is to consider the desired outcome before choosing your channel. For example, email might work if you simply want to raise awareness about an issue, but not if you want to create change. Involving channels such as team meetings, digital platforms and interactive events are more likely to lead to commitment as they invite people to become part of the solution, rather than the problem. A 'spray and pray' approach where all channels are used is rarely effective as it simply creates 'noise'.

Choosing the right channel is equally important when it comes to internal communications. We need to see where is the target audience and then accordingly pick the channel. For example if your audience is employees best would be to target them in elevators or standees across the offices rather than emails.

The best way to understand the people who work within your organization, their challenges, motivators, and preferences is to spend time with them. Understand what happens when you send a message at noon to a frontline restaurant worker. Attend a manager meeting at the local manufacturing plant and listen to the questions that are asked. Before introducing a big change, work shoulder to shoulder with different employees in different departments and at different levels and note how the change will truly impact their day to day. And if you don't think you have time for that, think about just how little time you have to send the same message over and over because you didn't get it right the first time.

While choosing the right channel, digital is the predominant option in front of us. But we are conveniently ignoring face-to-face personalized real life interaction. That's the only thing that causes long-term organizational "sticking", a phenomenon involving factors that make employees stick to their organizations in good and bad.

Establish a consistent structure for which channels you use for what type of message. The key word here? Consistent. In doing this, you teach your audience what to expect from each channel and how to best engage with you.

Participation is interdependent on value. If I don't feel valued, I won't participate. Before involving people to give feedback, make sure they are convinced that they are valued by you as emotional-intellectual entities. Otherwise, they can feel when they will be treated as mere datasets that will upset the authenticity of the data collected.

Participation and feedback are the twin engines of a thriving corporate culture. Feedback isn't just a tool for improvement; it's a data set, a treasure trove of insights into what makes your team tick. When you're inviting participation, you're not just filling an internal newsletter; you're constructing a narrative of collective identity. And that's powerful. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy; tell people they're part of an innovative, collaborative team, and they're more likely to act like it. So, when you ask for feedback, you're not just tweaking your communication strategy; you're also subtly influencing behavior, setting norms, and maybe even shifting the corporate culture.

Your feedback and participation should be completely anonymous and rewarding this will help employees to share their voice freely.

When you ask for feedback, deploy a survey, or distribute a poll, make sure the results have legs. Build after-reporting into the timeline and workflow. Nothing disrespects your workers more than wasting their time, so be sure they know you value theirs. Communicate the results and connect them to changes planned or made.

Excellent point Madja. And one of the keys for people to feel valued is that their feedback is heard, listened to and acted on. Survey results are often fed back to employees, but the actions and changes as a result of employee feedback, even if they're in progress, aren't conveyed clearly and consistently enough.

Diverse teams outperform, period. Highlighting diverse achievements? You're not just patting backs; you're shaping the corporate narrative. And narratives drive behavior. Educating on diversity topics is your nudge strategy. You're not just informing; you're molding a culture. But watch out for tokenism; it's the landmine on your path to inclusivity. Diversity isn't just your moral compass; it's your competitive edge. You're building a fortress of innovation and trust. It's 2023; diversify or die.

Storytelling in the space of DEI is invaluable, and internal communications offer a unique way to do this that fosters an inclusive company culture. Find meaningful ways to highlight your community, which not only boosts your engagement on internal communications, but more importantly creates a space where folks belong.

Diversifying internal communicative methods is pivotal for engagement and retention, the key to keeping teams & companies sustainable & profitable in the long term. Always find ways to open lines of communication by exercising soft skills, such as Active Listening, a key to building trust and understanding, Empathy, an authentic connection that can impact the way employees absorb messaging, Lifelong Learning, providing specific tools, inclusive language guides, resources, Conferences participation,strategies for enhancing inclusive written and verbal communication so people can build their own skills and grow.The aim is to create an environment of empowerment for people to voice their opinions, challenges and why not successes.

Diversity is the key, every organisation should cherish and encourage diversity. This shows brands trust in their people and avoid any biasness

If you want to grow, get feedback! Encourage fast feedback from trusted partners, so that you can adapt and evolve as perspectives and situations change. Feedback is a gift, so become known for giving and accepting it. Make a plan. Communicate the plan. Gather feedback. Adapt the plan. Execute the plan. Gather more feedback. Communicate the changes. This is the reality of the communications cycle.

Always gather feedback, adapt as per the feedback and evolve these are 3 mantras of internal comms. You never know how feedbacks can do wonders to your comms.

Practice continual improvement. Measure, evaluate, adjust, deploy - wash, rinse and repeat. By measuring more than "clicks", you can connect feedback, chaos tolerance, and engagement to craft the right internal communications strategy for your business.

Scroll up and read my schpeal on communicating with different generations. Sometimes the best ideas come from outside the marketing department. Be open to trying a new strategy if the one you are using needs some oomph.

While in principle, "engaging your whole team" is desirable, there's some room for caution as well. In my research, "noise" - the bombardment of leaders and employees with irrelevant content - is a massive issue in organizations these days. Simply put, not everyone on your team wants to be on the distribution list for every message. In keeping with the DO-KNOW-FEEL-SAY model of internal communication, focus first on what people actually need to do. Identify who needs to lead, to follow, or to get out of the way. Then communicate with each group accordingly.

Before getting to know your audience in depth, the first and fundamental step is to know your organization's strategic goals. Internal comms team should be aware how both they and other internal teams are contributing to achieving those goals. For some it might be more complex journey, but internal comms team with key leaders should help everyone to conceptualize the contribution. Then ownership and accountability will be the foundation for teams to feel included and willing to participate in joint activities.