7.3: Internal Communication

Who doesn’t want to be part of “the best?”  Why do soccer fans go crazy when their team wins the Stanley Cup or baseball fans when their team wins the World Series? Why do companies seek to be known as “the best place for (women, LBGTQ+, etc.) to work?  Why do firms post banners if they are selected as one of Maryland’s Best Workplaces?

The answer is simple:  Nearly everyone wants to be part of a great organization.  That goes for employees, shareholders and even customers.  Think of the intense loyalty generated by Walt Disney Co. or Apple. 

But that loyalty doesn’t just happen. The company has to celebrate its wins – its big achievements and its small achievements. When one of its products is designated best in class by Consumer Reports, that’s a win.  And a smart company lets its employees know about it. 

And not only its corporate achievements, but also the achievements of its employees, even if those achievements aren’t directly related to the business operations of the organization.  When an economics professor is chosen to be a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors or wins the Nobel Prize in economics, that is a tribute to the standing of that professor in his profession – and it reflects glory upon his institution that it has on its faculty such an outstanding scholar as this.  The same thing would be true if the economist worked for a major bank such as Bank of America or Goldman Sachs.

As companies have grown larger, the need for employee communications to keep everyone “on the same page” has also grown. In a small business information about strategies, results, new products, etc., can easily be disseminated by word of mouth in a company meeting. As a company grows, this can be achieved by posting notices on bulletin boards. But the moment the company divides into departments, each with its own office – much less physical location – an organized strategy is needed.

How do organizations do this?

One way is by a newsletter. Editing of The Wall Street Journal is done around the world on a 24/7 basis. To keep everyone – reporters, copy editors, managers, etc. – up to speed on the latest decisions on style issues by the editor-in-chief and the standards desk, Style & Substance is issued monthly.  It includes some flubs, praise for clever headlines and notifications, etc.  You can see a sample issue here.

The University of Maryland publishes Research Roundup weekly. See a sample here.  Bowie State University publishes BSYou to keep Bowie State faculty, staff and students informed about the university’s latest news and events. You can see a sample here. 

Some organizations publish an employee magazine. Some might think it’s out of date, replaced by an e-zine on the internet.  But for many frontline employees, company magazines are still alive and well, and if mailed to the house, on coffee tables. Employee magazines can build pride in an employer not only in the actual worker, but also in his family.

Other organizations, principally the military, use closed-channel television programs.

Effective employee communications does not have to involve creating all-new content. When Bowie State University wanted to announce a major grant from Kevin Durant, it did so via a press release.  That press release was also printed in an internal newsletter for faculty and staff, BSYou.

In the past 30 years, there has been a major change in the attitude of employees toward the organizations they work for.  This change has been a result of globalization and downsizing.  This means the days of effective employee communications involving just slick printed brochures have come to an end.

To be effective, employee communications must answer the questions employees are asking, such as these:

• How is the organization doing and where is it going?
• What is our charter and how does it match up to other functions?

American business can’t rebuild employee loyalty through effective communication alone. The communication must be supported by action. Workers, Wright (1995) found, need to be treated as another important public.

Vision and values must be incorporated into employee communications, and research must be conducted to determine if employees are receiving the most important internal communication messages targeted to employees each week.

In the case of the Blizzard of 2023, you can be sure that many Southwest employees received abuse from customers – “why don’t you know when I can get out of here?  If I rent a car, will you pay for it?  What do you mean you don’t know where my bags are?” So internal communications objective would be to restore the morale of the staff. How might it do this? It could highlight the actions of some employees who went above and beyond to help customers, it could highlight the work done in the emergency operations center. If Southwest was the first airline to have a significant number of flights cancelled every day for nearly a week, internal communications could make sure employees knew they had experienced a (hopefully) once in a lifetime event. And it could publish notes from customers expressing their appreciation for outstanding customer service rendered by various staff members.

The airline’s CEO needed to quickly pivot and visit the stations that were closed because of the blizzard to thank the workers there for doing their best to care for their customers.  Those visits, by the way, should include another media opportunity:  local media could be invited to come, watch the CEO talk with employees and then hold a press conference. To set up those media events, media relations would have to work closely with the CEO’s office.

 

References:

Wright, D. K. (1995, Fall). The role of corporate public relations executives in the future of employee communications. Public Relations Review, 21(3), 181+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A1743...M&xid=04ca4d45