In a recent post on internal communications in the new era of work, we summarised the first part of a lecture by Huib Koeleman, a Dutch Communications Specialist. Today, we will delve into the second part of the lecture. In particular, we will describe six concrete steps organizations can take to adjust their internal communications for the new era of work. As Huib Koeleman says: “We should make use of internal communications because they enable us to benefit from new ways of working, not because we have to.”
In the best-case scenario, internal communications increase the productivity and engagement level of your employees. But how do you reach people who might not be as engaged with the company as you are? The most important thing is to offer them a communications channel that becomes part of their daily lives. Of course, that is easier said than done. Huib Koeleman believes that the following six elements should be present in your communications strategy in order to achieve this:
- Launch an internal communications platform that is personalized for the end-user: send relevant information, short texts, and lots of images.
- No family, but extended family: internal communications should be available for everyone, not only your fixed employees. You can still send different messages to different departments and functions.
- Co-creation: Let your employees think about the content together.
- What kind of employees do you need? How can you support this with internal communications? Create profiles of employees that are most engaged at work. Make ambassadors of the most engaged ones and let them inspire other employees.
- Boss-free content: We want to see the real people behind our colleagues. For instance, by sharing videos: What is their story? What do they think about the product or organization? Why do they think about it like this? After all, we trust our colleagues.
- Everyone can start the conversation: tag employees, allow them to give commentary, share messages.
Are you ready to start implementing these steps in your internal communications strategy? Do you agree with Huib Koeleman’s approach? Feel free to share your comments below.
