Our global workforce no longer resembles what it once did. Internal communicators now face a variety of fresh challenges as a result of technological advancements, globalization, and COVID’s consequences.
When internal communications are successful, employees are satisfied, effective, and productive, which enhances the employee experience. When internal communications are unsuccessful, however, employees are confused, unproductive, and disengaged from corporate initiatives. Working with an internal communications consultancy like Pearl Lemon Consultants will help ensure that your staff fall into the former, not the latter category.
Employee engagement, information sharing, and a common understanding of the company’s objectives, principles, and policies are all made possible via internal communications. In order to prevent rumors, develop a voice of authority and trust, and facilitate efficient, unambiguous communication between departments, internal communications are essential for keeping employees informed about a company’s most recent activities.
Be aware that effective internal communication strategies aren’t just about sending broadcasts from the leadership level to the lower levels of the organization. On the contrary, effective internal communicators also give employees a voice and interact with them directly.
Good communication within a company is as important as it is in any other relationship. If your internal communications don’t work, then slowly your business will deteriorate. Tasks will be completed incorrectly because the right way was never made clear.
Others will fall through the cracks and never be completed because the people who should have done so never knew they existed. Rumours fly and blame gets shifted. Employees feel disconnected and disheartened. We could go on and on, but by now you get the point.
This having been said, as a leading internal communications consultancy we see everyday that businesses are facing more, and new, challenges to executing effective internal communications strategies. Here are just some of those that we see most often, and help our clients overcome.
There are a lot of different ways to communicate within an organization. Some are faster and easier than others. Some are methods that some people prefer over others – an email versus a phone call, a WhatsApp chat versus a Zoom conference, an email chain versus entries into a task management tool.
There is no one set ideal way to decide how internal communications should be technically achieved. But the one thing that every company does need is a set way that works for their unique business and staff, and everyone involved needs to understand what that is.
One of the seemingly simplest, and yet most effective, ways we help our clients via our internal communications consultants is helping them to set this semi formal internal communications model and help ensure that everyone understands it.
From choosing and implementing the best tools and software to facilitate internal communications to creating an internal communications policy to sharing and implementing effectively so that everyone is ‘on the same page’ our internal communications consulting team will help you build an internal communications framework you can then build your business on.
Business blindness is common in any industry. By business blindness, we mean an inability to see what needs to change and why, simply because your key players are too close to the heart of the business.
Take, for example, the retailer who has always operated from a bricks and mortar store only. They could get into ecommerce, and broaden their horizons, but that’s not the way they ‘do things’ and the idea of selling online seems to be too complicated and uncomfortable.
However, their sales are slumping, and in part, it’s because of the lack of change. As an outside party, a consultant can come in and assess the best ways to boost sales from a customer’s point of view, which is often rather different. A good consultancy will go even further though. They won’t just tell a business what needs to change, they’ll stick around to help them make those changes.
Consider the following hypothetical situation: A manager asks their staff, “Should we adjust our protocol when it comes to contacting customers?” What happens? Probably nothing. Undoubtedly, the manager could mean well and is trying to improve communications and employee engagement. However, a question like this can be too ambiguous to be useful.
Sometimes the issue is not a lack of internal employee communication. It can sometimes be the manner in which employee communication is delivered. Managers can engage frontline staff in more fruitful dialogue by making requests more actionable. Therefore, in this example, they can ask “What are three ways we could modify our protocol today?” as opposed to “Should we change our protocol?” And they will get the actionable input they are hoping for.
All of our internal communications consultants are skilled corporate communicators and can work with you and your managers to show you how to make all of the employee communications you have like these within your organization more effective in this way.
Employees often have questions, but if they don’t know how they should ask them, or, worse still, are afraid to ask them, things can get messy fast. Without the answers to their questions they will guess and get ‘it’ wrong, procrastinate and never get ‘it’ done or simply never even try.
The issues here are often complex, but our experienced internal communications consultancy team can and will help sort through and solve them. From helping you choose communications tools – such as feedback software – that will help make employees feel more comfortable asking for help, to working with managers to ensure that their communication style is not preventing employees from feeling that they can ask for help when needed.
Could your staff members tell you what their objectives were for the upcoming month if you asked them? What is the yearly objective of your company? What is the role that they are expected to play in meeting those objectives? What’s in it for them if they do?
If they are unable to respond, your communication of these objectives was inadequate to say the least. Employees need to be engaged and informed, and while no-one has the time – or the inclination – to attend a meeting every morning, you can make use of improved internal communications strategies to inform, engage and motivate everyone in your company to help it meet its goals. Working with our internal communications consultancy will help you determine the best ways to do this for your unique business.
We all now reside in a post-COVID world, and for many of us, remote work has become a permanent reality.
It’s impossible to manage remote workers using the same methods as their coworkers who work in your physical offices (if you still have them). With remote workers, there is a wider internal communications gap that needs to be closed.
It is simple to fall into a lack of internal communication when there isn’t face-to-face engagement. When you work remotely, you can’t pick up on any of the verbal or nonverbal clues that you can in person. In an office, it’s acceptable to leave some things unsaid, but on a remote team, those omissions can be seriously detrimental.
Internal misunderstandings and a lack of regular internal communications can make remote workers feel excluded, unappreciated, devalued, and even lonely. But it does not have to be that way.
As a part of the Pearl Lemon Group, our consultants are used to working with a remote team, as it has always been a standard for the vast majority of businesses within the group. This means this is an area of internal communications consulting in which they have especially extensive expertise.
They can help you create internal communications strategies that engage, motivate and empower remote employees, and they will be based on tried and tested real world models they work with every day themselves, and know for sure work.
Whatever your current internal communications challenges are, we can help you solve them. Contact us today to learn more.
In large consulting firms, a hierarchy exists that assigns younger, less experienced consultants to customers for day-to-day operations, while more senior consultants oversee the project from a high level. Clients are also often given priority over one another. The bigger a business is, the more attention they get.
We don’t do that at Pearl Lemon Consultants. We are lucky enough to work with some ‘big name businesses’, but to us, every business is a big name. Every client is given our best, in terms of our team’s attention, our resources and our time.
Internal communication is crucial for companies as it helps improve employee engagement, fosters a positive company culture, and ensures everyone is on the same page.
Internal Communications Consultancy services include communication strategy development, employee engagement surveys, internal communications training, and crisis communication planning.
We work with companies to assess their current internal communication processes and identify areas for improvement. We then develop and implement a customised internal communication strategy that addresses their specific needs and goals.
Interested in learning more?
Contact us today, and we’ll be happy to discuss just how, as a leading boutique consultancy London, Pearl Lemon Consulting can help you.
Contact Us
© All Rights Reserved 2024 | Company Number: 10411490 | VAT Number: 252 7124 23
