What is internal communications?
Internal communications, or “internal comms” for short, is the workplace function that facilitates effective organizational communication. Simply put, the role of internal comms is to ensure that everyone in a company knows what’s going on and feels engaged with the organization. But that’s just the beginning! The impact of internal comms goes far beyond broadcasting messages. Effective public relations internal communication is essential for aligning employee efforts with the company’s vision, fostering a unified and motivated workforce that drives organizational success. By developing clear internal communication strategies, organizations can ensure messages reach the right people at the right time and have a meaningful impact. This article explores the definition of internal employee communication in depth.
What is external communications?
External communications is the function responsible for sharing information between an organization and audiences outside the company, including customers, media, investors, partners, and the public. It typically falls under marketing, public relations, or corporate communications and focuses on shaping reputation, promoting products or services, and building trust through channels such as websites, press releases, advertising, social media, and customer communications.
Is there a difference between external communication and internal communication?
It’s all about the audience. While the audience for internal communications is primarily employees, the audience for external communications or external comms is outside entities, including the media, customers, suppliers, investors, and even the general public, depending on the industry. External comms often falls under the umbrella of public relations and marketing and includes a range of social media channels. On the other hand, internal comms leverages internal communication channels like email, meetings, and intranet pages. Even though there is certainly cross-over between the two, internal comms are composed specifically for employees. Developing effective internal communication strategies ensures that the content delivered internally meets employees’ needs while complementing external messaging.
Example use cases for internal and external communications
Use Case | Internal Comms | External Comms |
|---|---|---|
| A company publicly announces a new product. | Before the release, education on the why and how of the new product. Post-release stories about who it’s for and how it was built and brought to market. | Press releases, advertising campaigns, social media reviews. |
| A company confidentially informs employees of an upcoming acquisition. | Meeting script, slide deck, and follow-up emails. | A press release on the date of the official acquisition. |
| A company addresses a public relations crisis. | Awareness meetings, positioning and talking point documents, social media restrictions or recommendations. | Public spokesperson, written statements, web pages. |
| A company launches an internal training program. | Email announcements and invitations, Teams channel, chat messages, training guides. | No external comms. |
What is internal communication in business?
The scope of internal communications varies by organization, but some of the most common responsibilities include sharing company news, events, and updates; managing internal communication channels like Teams and SharePoint; helping leadership share updates and visionary messages; fostering employee engagement; and gathering feedback to improve comms strategies.
Furthermore, industry guides suggest that every business problem is a communicator’s opportunity. Communication breakdowns, such as mixed messages, lack of comprehension, wrong or slow-moving information, or a lack of response, account for most business problems. Therefore, internal communicators will create real value by improving business performance outcomes. Implementing strong internal communication strategies ensures that these efforts are focused, measurable, and aligned with organizational goals, helping companies achieve effective internal communications that truly engage employees.
Who’s responsible for internal communications?
Internal communication organization often depends on the size of the company and its structure. In a small organization, internal employee communication may be the responsibility of one person with contract writers and designers or a small team. The team often reports to the VP of HR or the Executive Leader.
Organizational internal communication for medium sized companies often falls under a small team focused on internal comms, with an average of one communications person for every 1,000 employees. This team usually reports to a VP or Director of Corporate Communications responsible for internal and external comms.
Large companies typically have one centralized, organization-wide internal communication team. Numerous communications and personnel are spread worldwide and embedded to support business units, regions, and specific leaders. This staff often works with the Director or VP of internal communications who coordinates efforts with HR and Corporate Communications/PR. This investment of time and talent lets the centralized team focus on more strategic employee engagement and employee experience programs and leverages the broader staff to create and manage content and execute a comprehensive communication strategy and plan.
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Why does your company need an internal communications team?
As internal comms is responsible for keeping everyone in the loop, it can impact key outcomes like revenue and performance. A study of 651 organizations across various industries found that companies with highly effective internal communications are 3.5 times more likely to outperform their peers.
Conversely, the impact of poor communication can be incredibly costly. An Economist survey found that communication barriers in the workplace can lead to project delays or failures (44%), low morale (31%), missed performance goals (25%), and lost sales (18%)—some worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Moreover, internal communications play a crucial role in creating a sense of belonging among employees. By keeping teams well-informed and connected through reliable internal communication channels, it can significantly boost morale, enhance productivity, and minimize confusion or misinformation. This ultimately leads to a more engaged workforce.
Employees who feel informed are more likely to contribute positively to the company’s culture and success, as they understand where their efforts fit into the broader organizational strategy. Developing strong internal communication strategies ensures that employees not only receive information but also understand its relevance to their roles and the company’s goals, supporting effective internal communications throughout the organization.
In a competitive business landscape, the value of strong internal communication organization cannot be overlooked. It serves as the foundation for driving organizational success by ensuring that employees remain informed, motivated, and aligned with the organization’s vision.
By fostering an environment of transparency and inclusivity, companies can unlock their full potential and achieve sustainable growth.
How does Internal communications boost employee engagement?
Internal comms play a key role in employee engagement. It helps organizations boost engagement by building trust, fostering human connections, and recognizing accomplishments.
- Build trust. Transparent, consistent communication helps employees understand priorities and leadership decisions. Measuring engagement is equally important. Tools like PoliteMail help communicators see how long employees spend reading messages, which topics resonate, and where clarity is needed, making it easier to improve future communications.
- Foster connections. Organizations can build community by sharing news, initiatives, and events. Always follow up with recaps, pictures, and stories to encourage future participation.
- Recognize employees. Internal comms has a phenomenal opportunity to create recognition programs and processes. Make space in your newsletter or intranet to recognize individual and team accomplishments.
- Continuously improve. Engagement grows when communicators learn from real data. Strong internal communications are not just about sending more messages. They are about sending better ones. When communicators combine thoughtful content with clear analytics, they can create messages that employees read, understand, and act on.
You can also boost engagement by measuring the results of your internal messaging with internal comms software like PoliteMail. On average, our top 20% of customers increase their readership rates by 82% and engagement rates by 69%.
How do you measure internal communications success?
Sending messages is only half the job. Internal communicators also need to understand what employees actually read, ignore, or act on. Measuring internal communications helps teams improve content, timing, and channel strategy so messages become clearer and more effective over time.
Start with reach and deliverability. With a tool like PoliteMail, you can confirm how many employees received the message after removing undeliverables, out-of-office replies, and opt-outs. This ensures performance is measured only among employees who had the opportunity to read the content.
Next, look at engagement quality. Open rates alone do not show whether employees truly read a message. Metrics like message read time, link clicks, and scrolling behavior reveal if employees skimmed, ignored, or fully engaged with the content. These insights help communicators adjust subject lines, layout, message length, and calls to action.
Benchmarking is also essential. Comparing each campaign to company averages or department results shows trends over time and highlights opportunities to improve. Strong benchmarking helps communicators prove the impact of internal messaging on employee alignment and business outcomes.
Internal communications platforms such as PoliteMail make this process easier by tracking read time, cleaning recipient lists automatically, and providing campaign, sender, and account-level reporting. With clear analytics, communicators can move beyond guesswork and continuously improve employee communications using real data.
Ultimately, measurement turns internal communications into a strategic function. When teams understand what employees read and respond to, they can create messages that inform, engage, and drive meaningful action across the organization.
Leveraging internal comms
Internal comms goes well beyond the news and keeping people informed—it’s key to fostering workplace culture because it builds connections and drives engagement. By understanding internal comms and the true scope of the function, you can maximize the impact of your employee communications programs.
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