6 Successful Internal Communication Examples

Sixty percent of companies don’t have a long-term internal communication strategy in place according to Gallagher’s research, while 50% say they want to make improving leadership communication a top priority.

Failing to have a well-planned internal communications strategy can have serious repercussions. It will lead to poor morale amongst workers, high employee turnover, and lower productivity levels in teams, all of which will have a negative impact on a business’s overall success rate.

In order to avoid this, and to reap the benefits of strong employee relations, it is essential to have a well-planned strategy in place that will ensure open communications.

Internal Communication Strategies

There are numerous ways in which companies can reach out to their employees but some of the following internal communications ideas are the most successful, tried, and tested approaches, that have been beneficial in helping businesses significantly improve employee engagement within their organizations.

Launching an internal mobile app

Launching an internal mobile app is an excellent example of internal communications that is both relevant to today’s workers and effective in its reach. It’s been well documented that mobile has become the preferred communications channel for a large proportion of today’s workers. This is why launching an internal app for staff is an excellent way to increase employee engagement.

Towards the end of 2019, Valley Health, a not-for-profit health system of hospitals, urgent cares, and physician practices, successfully launched an internal mobile app to keep frontline and back-office employees informed, engaged, and connected.

Since the launch of the app, Valley Health Employees benefit from:

• Easy access to information via mobile.
• Security that provides peace of mind: Due to the app’s security measures, employees don’t have to worry about vulnerabilities or risks.
• Seamless integration with existing internal communications: The app is built with Poppulo, which is also the internal communications platform Valley Health uses. Keeping everything in one platform streamlines the communications flow.
• The connection of employee groups during the COVID-19 pandemic: The mobile app was beneficial during Valley Health’s response to COVID-19 by keeping workers updated and informed throughout the uncertainty.

Focusing on Email

Focusing on email is another internal communication example with a success story to back it up is the implementation of a solid plan for email communications. When Experian, a leading global information services company, decided to focus on this, they began to see their digital messages increase the standard of their employee communications significantly. Experian succeeded in doing this by introducing:

• A weekly email newsletter – Taking office location, department, and title into consideration so employees will only receive information relevant to them.
• The use of single emails for must-read messages – After weekly emails were introduced, important messages could be used sparingly such as singular emails from a senior leader that would stand out in inboxes.
• A manager briefing pack – Recognizing the value and impact of managers in delivering information to their teams face-to-face, the Experian IC team introduced a monthly information pack for staff members.
• The use of email as part of a multichannel strategy – Email was used to drive adoption of the organization’s intranet and to raise awareness of initiatives.
• Email Reduction – Achieved by combining the global, regional, and business line information into a simple infographic that is posted on the intranet and subsequently embedded into a singular email sent out to employees.

Conducting Campaign Outcome Surveys

When it comes to an internal communication strategy, measuring how well employees are responding to the plan is an essential component in helping employers understand whether or not their chosen communication tactics are succeeding.Encompass Health, a patient care company decided to focus their attention on this area by introducing Campaign Outcome Surveys as a way to monitor how efficiently employees are being kept up to date with company goals.

The organization was able to take a baseline of employee sentiment before running any messaging by sending out a survey to random employees. By re-running the outcome survey post-campaign, they could clearly see how the information gathered in their original survey and then implemented in their communication with staff, had helped to improve employee understanding across the company.

Improving Event Management

Attempting to plan events without the right tools can be a challenging task for any business. This was exactly how the events management team at E.ON, one of the UK’s leading power and gas companies felt before finding the solution with Poppulo Events. By using this feature, E.ON’s event invitations are now fully branded with images and videos included in the invite themselves.

This has helped to engage employees and boost attendance. The team can now also easily track registration and record those that show up, in addition to capturing special requests from guests, such as dietary requirements or travel arrangements.

Focusing on Analytics

In order to effectively analyze a communication plan’s efficiency, it is important for organizations to have access to metrics that give them accurate and meaningful insight across the organization’s digital channels. This is why ERM, a consultancy that offers end-to-end services across the sustainability spectrum, decided to implement advanced analytics. This way, they could receive real-time detailed reporting across their internal digital channels. ERM now benefit from:

• The ability to manage active campaigns - because engagement is now being monitored in real-time throughout campaigns, ERM can have informed conversations with business leaders, focus on areas where engagement is lower, and make changes mid-campaign.
• Downloadable dashboards - Well-packaged measurement dashboards to download and use in presentations.
• Tailored reporting- Rather than producing one report, ERM can now tailor presentations to specific audiences, e.g. senior stakeholders, team leaders.
• The elevation of IC to a strategic role – The internal communications team now has a strategic role to play within the organization and is considered a valuable business asset.

Having a Crisis Plan in Place

Before a crisis ever hits, it’s imperative to ensure that a communications infrastructure is already in place to prevent further issues from arising. A great example of this is the manner in which Wentworth Institute of Technology was able to successfully handle the coronavirus outbreak by quickly and effectively reaching all students, faculty, and administrative staff to inform them the University was going to be switching to a remote learning environment.

Fortunately for Wentworth, who had already been using Poppulo’s platform prior to the outbreak, audiences were familiar with receiving messages in this manner. Users trusted the platform as a single source of truth for COVID-19 information. Having the system in place allowed the comms team to move quickly, delivering effective messages, and keeping audiences informed and reassured throughout the uncertainty.

Key Result

It’s plain to see how implementing a strong internal communications plan is an important process that has many benefits for businesses. With a strategy in place, companies have the ability to understand whether or not workers are engaging with their communication methods if the tactics used are having an effect on employee sentiment, and a way to gain meaningful business value by examining key communication data.