What Works for the Workers...

We had a discussion in the office around internal communications and the role digital can play in helping build staff awareness, engagement, enthusiasm and loyalty.

A handful of key (and very useful) ideas came of it but perhaps the most interesting identified the challenge of internal communications in the need to become a habit without becoming stale. Inconsistent messaging is almost as damaging as no messaging at all and battling the two-headed monster of Shrinking-Time-and-Attention-Span doesn’t help.

Internal comms teams, then, must create relevant, succinct and engaging communications for staff that are often so busy working hard they forget to eat lunch. So how do you get their attention and how do you keep it?

A few interesting case studies across a spectrum of approaches arose in our discussion. From Deloitte’s engaging Film Fest competition to a College's mandatory internal landing page and all the intranets software and web apps in-between (Chatter, LinkedIn groups, MOSS, etc...). Some shared experiences with internal comms that didn’t work as result of information overload, irrelevance, disinterest and/or miscommunuciation (the most recent and public being Vodafone).