What 2024 and beyond demands from #InternalCommunications and #EmployeeEngagement professionals!?

An under leveraged domain in India - Internal Communication (IC) and Employee Engagement (EE) Function - holds a lot of potential for companies and especially all leaders. Unfortunately, it has gotten limited to doing ‘tick in the box’ activities or at best only remained tactical to running a few but disconnected campaigns in a year (in a majority of organisations).

When we look at the current scenario, the geo-economics and geo-politics are undergoing a huge change, and it is going to impact companies at all levels across the globe, including India. This doesn’t mean the bad news of churn and change but also is great news when it comes to growth. Organisations don’t only weaken in the times of distress, they also weaken when they are not able to handle growth and everyone starts working in silos, or slowly start compromising on ethics to manage the growth. One wrong shot might take the entire company along with it. A simple search on google is enough to tell us how actions of few people who intentionally take to the wrong practices put the entire company in danger.

One of the ways to safeguard against it, falls in the realm of Internal Communications.?

It’s time for #IC and #EE function to go strategic where it ties in with culture building, value reinforcement, and enabling leadership with insights on factors that impact productivity and strengthen the organisation.?

2024 will demand from the IC professionals to keep their companies ready for the change that every industry is undergoing and expected to undergo in the coming time.

With the start of 2024, Thoughtcom (formerly BLAQ) put together a series of articles based on the experience and observations it had collected in its journey of 16+ years in the domain that would be crucial in the years 2024 and beyond.

1. Strategic alignment of the function with the business – #IC and #EE should serve the business objective - vision, every goal can only be achieved by ensuring that awareness and understanding reaches to all the people involved.? In this world where too much of communication is taking place, is your organisation's message on Growth losing out to chocolate or food advertisements?
2. Enrolling for #IC based training for the function – In this changing world, everyone needs to learn, especially #IC and #EE professionals. Technology is changing, people’s consumption of communication is changing, attention spans are changing, leadership expectations are changing. With change, continuous learning is essential.?
3. Prepare the company for the upcoming changes – Nothing gets ready on its own – especially a workplace that requires participation from everyone to bring about a change and adopt a new practice as a culture. Are we going to adopt new tools that might disrupt the industry? Will there be confusion or resistance? Will the leaders lead the way? 2024 will ask #IC if we are playing our role in the getting the company ready for the future.?
4. Aligning the leadership and grooming them in comms - Communication is an art that goes beyond good speaking or good English, not everyone understands its depth to make an impact. And companies can't afford to not train its leaders in it. It doesn't happen in a day and not even in weeks. It takes constant grooming!
5. Work with the HR team to play a role in grooming the next level of leadership - For good companies to remain good, the next level of leadership and the young emerging leaders need to be groomed in the nuances of communications from early on. Good progress is only made when all of us reach to our next level of growth, well prepared. ?
6. Enable HR team in strengthening – Line Managers – Subordinate relationship - An #IC campaign makes an impact only when the line manager – subordinate relationship are? talking the same language. When the stakes are so high, this factor must be part of the IC armoury. Can this ever be perfected? No. But do we have an option?
7. Employer Branding – People love stories, and they always choose the story where they have the possibility to bring out their heroic character and hone it. What’s the story your organisation is going to tell??
8. Educate, Educate, Educate - Educating the colleagues of who we are, what we do, why do we do, etc. Just because people work in a company doesn’t mean that they know what the company stands for. Knowing who we are, what do we stand for, what is our governance framework, adds a lot in terms of motivation, inspiration, clarity and productivity. Also, free movement of people, from one company to another, means new people joining an organisation all the time and we have uninformed ambassadors of the organisation. More importantly can we do this in one day?
9. Leadership leading the culture dimension - Leading the culture is crucial, even more important that it should be seen too! People follow leaders and and precedents they set. Leadership across levels, is the biggest inspiration for empployees to get excited to be part of a culture and of the organisation.?
10. #ChannelStrategy and #ContentStrategy - Let us accept, it is not the KRA of any employee to follow the communication that the IC and EE teams share. But the good news is that there are many opportunities (read platforms and channels) to catch people’s attention and convey the message of the organisation. But every channel has its own attributes – thus we need a channel strategy and content strategy that suits each channel the best.
11. #Measurement - For many organisations there are some basic questions to be answered. Do we know what is the read rate of our emails? What is the engagement rate of our channels? What is the click rate on the key campaigns…etc And for some, it is about measuring association with values, measuring reinforcement of cultural pillars. Because it is difficult to measure, we can’t stop finding a way to measure, it's like creating stairs to reach higher.
12. #ValueReinforcement – aiding corporate governance: Prevention is better than cure. And nothing else suits better when it comes to the subject of corporate governance. Values play a big role in preventing any misconduct. Values don’t work while being pasted on the notice boards and screensavers, companies will have to continue to create narration around the values of their company, and what does it mean to follow them.?
13. Making #Intranet cool again – One of the most cost-effective channels is either almost dead or dying a slow death in many corporations. We can’t let the #intranet die. It is the go-to place for any information, it supports campaigns, it is usually reachable to all the people at once across geographies and much more. What will make it work? First of all, the WILL – that we have to make it work and a series of experiments that include a content strategy that is shaped as responses, continuous content creation and keeping it as a base all things IC. Also, make it visually interesting appealing and interactive.?
14. In any content strategy, patience is the key - Do we dream of playing a role in strengthening the culture of a company? Do we dream of minimising the distance that colleagues feel from their leadership? Do we believe that we have a role to play in helping the company reach its sales target? But are we also stuck in doing ad-hoc campaigns and then wondering why our campaigns are not getting the response we want? Building a responsive communication framework in a company requires a communications vision that is defined into a content strategy that is changed consistently to serve the vision. Did we miss anything? Yes, Loads of Patience and Perseverance.?
15. Going visually strong - Every employee is a customer for someone. People not only are expecting an appealing communication visual but also judging a company for not serving them with their best communication collaterals. They might not say it, but it will show in engagement.?
16. Treating employees as ambassadors - Yes, it is not something that is being missed, many companies are doing it already. What we must ensure is that they are engaged and participative in building the narrations, and at the same time nurtured for their valuable contribution.?
17. #Budget - Setting aside a #budget for creating good content – Good content doesn’t only mean visually appealing content; good content also means relevant content – that answers employees’ questions; gives them clarity into working of the company and aligns their growth with the growth of the company; that makes them feel belonged. If a company says it doesn’t have a budget, then it is not serious about its #IC. Approaching #IC & #EE with half-heartedness will do more harm than not doing it. But does a company have the option of not doing it? Decide it for yourself.?
18. Do less but consistently - Know, believe and feel that it is a mutual relationship of growth, trust and well-being between employees and the organisation. Be more strategic, clear about aligning comms with the company goals, and measure it as much as possible.
19. Consistent feedback mechanism from colleagues - Communication always involves 2 people and #IC involves multiple people all the time. Thus, it is important that, we, IC professionals, have the ears on the ground all the time. A few easy and simple feedback mechanism should be put in place for and evolve them with time. Of course, it is to ensure that our comms remains credible consistently.?
20. Align an agency – #IC people alone cannot do everything: It is too much of a task to know and keep a check on the pulse of the organisation. What are the employees thinking; what about the water-cooler conversations about the company; what should the leadership be talking about; what did the leadership talk about in the last all hands call or townhall? Has there been any follow up on the statements made? What new communication initiative we should start with? Who will do the content for it? Do we have proof points and a lot more. To be on top of all of this there is need for a strategic team. That is not it - there needs to be a designer, and a copywriter, and a strategist, and a leadership consultant. Build a team or align an agency partner that can help you strengthen your IC and EE framework. We tell you Thoughtcom is a good choice. ???
21. #EmployeeEngagement to be based on strategic value and not disconnected celebrations alone –?Gone are the days where just publishing a newsletter was considered to be the job of IC function; or organising office parties and festival celebrations etc. The strategic important of IC is real and ignore it at your own risk.?Communication’s function might not solve all the problems of the company; or might not appear to make a direct contribution to the company’s bottom-lines, but it will surely bring to the fore the gaps that if not addressed will? dent the performance, reputation and competence of the company.?People build business and not vice-versa. And communication or lack of it can unite or distract people.
22. Integrate technology in the communications strategy and employee communication experience - The answer is obvious – let us use technology to our advantage. Measuring tools, using #VR for induction and campaign can do wonders in reducing the distance that people feel exists between the regional offices and head offices.?

Thoughtcom will provide more commentary on the above mentioned topics. If you want to hear on anything other than these topics, please let us know.??