Blog

CATEGORY: Building a business case for internal comms

Building a business case for internal comms

Building a business case for internal comms

“Internal communications function is responsible for equipping our people with the organisational knowledge they need to work effectively, with pride in their work and the organisation, and supports recruitment and well-being of colleagues.”

NHS England

No small task.

organisations need to communicate and engage

For organisations to survive, they must relearn the art and skill of meaningful communication. There’s a global crisis of disinformation, fake news and inadequate communication. We’re losing our ability to respectfully communicate, and we don’t even know it… The main reason we’re losing it is because we take communication for granted.

Cathryn Barnard, Partner – Working the Future

Where the pandemic has already re-shaped the role and scope of the internal communication profession, the future of work will present further game changing opportunity. How change is communicated within organisations will be integral to success and longer-term survival.

Even before COVID-19, our workplaces were already undergoing the early stages of profound transformation. Coronavirus and the ensuing economic fallout have tipped life as we know it on its head.

 

The Business Case for Internal Comms

Increased employee engagement and satisfaction with lower turnover

Employee engagement happens when staff feel like they’re aligned with workplace values and goals, and feel personally invested in their teams. In fact, research shows that 80% of employees feel more engaged when their work resonates with the core values of the organization. 

To achieve this outcome, employees have to have a clear and consistent idea of your company identity, mission, and vision. An internal communications software is great at facilitating this by offering a consistent platform to channel brand identity and opportunities to connect employees. 

In the words of the Institute of Internal Communications, “Effective communication builds alignment and shared understanding – both essential for purposeful movement forward. #wematteratwork. People drive successful organisational outcomes through connection and shared meaning, to deliver higher performance, productivity and brand reputation.

 

Change/Crisis Management

Permacrisis was announced as the Collins Dictionary’s word of the year for 2022. A permacrisis is defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity”. And if the word on the street is right... we are not out of the woods yet. 

In the IoIC “business case for world class internal communication” they sum up the need for community that crisis and change bring about in us all:

“ In times of crisis and tumultuous change, it’s imperative that we feel as connected and cohesive as we can. Human beings crave structure and connectedness above all else. We need to know we’re all in it together. More critically, we need to feel hope for a better future. Without these, we’re all vulnerable to acute stress, anxiety and depression.”

Continuous change is here to stay, as we learn to adjust to a world that looks entirely different to the one we lived in just a few months ago.

The rise of agile working

Why is internal communications important in terms of timing? It is vital that information is delivered to all employees, regardless of location, department or status. An effective channel will promote equality by circulating information across hierarchies, giving everyone the same message at the same time.


Real-time communications become more relevant than ever in times of difficulty and this is where technology should be helping, not hindering your delivery. Avoid the difficulties caused by speculation and rumour by releasing information on a regular basis. If possible, release the information at a publicised regular time, even if there is no information to impart. Informing staff that the situation has not changed is just as critical as telling them when things have altered. 

 

Since email is already the resource your staff rely on the most, an internal email software is a great place to start.

 

Improve your outlook with the right information

Internal communications is as much a conversation as it is about getting information out. But even when you are simply getting information out you need to understand who is reading and engaging with it, otherwise how can you optimise or follow up with the people that need it.

 

Increase employee engagement

  • Delivers visually-engaging content

  • Offers interactive formats

  • Demonstrates ‘top down’ authority

  • Provides flexibility for passive to priority messaging (by using a range of templates)

  • Drives behavioural change through regular or automated reinforcement of messages or immediate response through interaction

Demonstrate ROI

  • Provides accurate tracking and reporting

  • Offers actionable employee insights across the organisation

  • Generates consistent reporting to meet regulatory and audit requirements

Improve workplace productivity

  • Streamlines communication processes, particularly around potentially damaging IT outages

  • Improves information flow during organisational changes

  • Identifies knowledge gaps and improves effectiveness of training

  • Enhances retention of top-performing employees

Improve compliance and cyber security

  • Bolsters compliance to organizational policies

  • Identifies activity at the user level to reduce non-compliance

  • Aligns communication platform with current best practice technical capabilities

 

Communicate benefits of your chosen tech-stack strategically

If you’ve found a tool that you want to pitch to your team, you probably know its benefits inside out. Even if you’re eager to list all the beneficial features, you need to think about how to communicate the benefits strategically.

So, using e-shot as an example, you would need to highlight the following key things:

 

  • What need(s) will this software help address?

  • How will we be able to measure and demonstrate success?

  • What key challenge will this tool help solve?

  • Are the business benefits of this tool a viable trade-off for the resources it demands?

  • What does success look like?

Also consider some of the implementation questions that may be raised:

  • Who will be the core users / administrators of this tool?

  • Is the tool easy to use or is training or specialist knowledge required?

  • Is support/best practice development and advice provided by the tool provider?

  • Can the tool be connected to existing systems securely and inline with IT and governance requirements?

Free email marketing healthcheck - icon

Email marketing healthcheck

We are confident that we can help you, which is why we offer a free healthcheck to identify potential issues with your current programme and free advice on things that could be done to improve it.

Get started