The 10 Commandments of Internal Communications

These are the 10 commandments of internal communications according to NKD Creative, NKD Group's creative communications agency.

1. Listen and learn

• Listen to your employees – they know what works and what doesn’t in terms of communications
• Find out what they want to know about and link that to what they need to know about
• Review what’s worked well in the past – what have they remembered?
• Test communications with a ‘user group’ before sending out major communications interventions

2. Align everything with the business strategy

• Use the annual business plan to construct and align your communications strategy
• Schedule your communications interventions to support key events in the business plan
• Craft key messages at the start of the year and plan how to reinforce these throughout the year

3. Be authentic

• All communications must reflect the changes you want to see. If your corporate values are energy, teamwork and innovation, then communications execution should reflect these

4. Tailor the style to the audience

• Think about the reaction you’re trying to create and make sure you deliver in a way that is congruent with this – tailor communications to the audiences
• Understand what type and style of communication works for different people at different levels of an organisation. Adopt a tone of voice and a look and feel that ‘talks’ to them in their language.

5. Use appropriate communication channels

• Look at your key messages and think about the most effective medium for delivering each. For urgent messages that need to get to all employees immediately, use email. But for major change announcements that have been planned for months, face-to-face communication is likely to be far more engaging. Newsletters and memos are useful for progress reports on key initiatives.

6. Join it up

• Make sure all communications reinforce earlier messages and tell a joined-up ‘progression’ story
• Always give the context to the message – not just the message itself. People want to know where this fits into the big picture. Be very explicit about how things link.

7. Make it easy…

• To remember. Use narrative stories, with a good beginning, middle and end, to bring messages to life and help people understand their role within the big picture.
• To repeat. Write good briefing notes and set your managers up to be successful communicators by giving them the right tools and training to continue the story
• To become ‘involved’. Use Q&As, invite feedback, and incorporate interactive sessions into briefings.

8. Bring it to life

• Leaders MUST walk the talk – whatever you communicate, leaders need to be role models of it
• Train managers to reinforce key messages at every opportunity and not wait for formal communications channels to kick in
• Use a variety of media to keep communications fresh and exciting – invest in the execution of communications to ensure you ‘surprise’ recipients

9. Measure understanding and commitment

• Make as much communication as possible two-way. Find ways of getting feedback from the audience on their degree of understanding & their commitment to the messages
• Ensure you measure the effectiveness of all communications media annually to ensure effectiveness and to keep media contemporary

10. Avoid the void

• There is always something to comment, communicate or update employees on – don’t leave long gaps between communications interventions

About NKD Creative

We are a different kind of Creative Communications Agency. As part of NKD Group we uniquely bring together insights from the world of Marketing, HR and academia and combine that with contemporary creative design to deliver solutions that truly engage organisations.

Next Steps

For an initial free consultation on how we can help with your communications challenge, call us on 0207 208 7258 or complete our contact form.