What Is an Internal Communication Plan?
Consider it a map that shows you where you are, where you want to go, and how you’ll get there.
In other words, it’s a document that describes your department’s goals and methods of achieving them. An internal communication plan can transform your messaging from haphazard to intentional. It can replace rushed, reactionary correspondence with a calm, proactive rollout of information.
The plan gives your year a sense of structure, detailing who you intend to speak to, what you intend to say, when you intend to say it, where you intend to say it, why you intend to say it, and how you intend to say it.
Below is a 10-step process for developing an internal communication strategy designed to boost employee engagement and benefit the overall business.
How to Build an Internal Communication Plan in Ten Steps
1. Assess your current situation.
The first step is to pause, take a breath, and look around. What is your current approach to internal communications? What are you and your team busy doing day after day? What tools and resources do you have? Which ones do you wish you had?
Before starting anything new, it’s important to take stock of your present circumstances. Evaluate what’s working and what’s not. Be honest about both your strengths and shortcomings. Ask coworkers to share feedback. The point of this exercise is to remember that almost every aspect of your regular routine is a choice, and you’re free to choose otherwise.
Once you have a solid understanding of your current process, you’ll be ready to shake things up.
2. Align your goals with the company’s goals.
The next step involves knowing what your company’s leadership team hopes to achieve in the coming year. How they define success will help you determine your department’s strategy.
If, for example, your company is about to merge with another company, that’s a major project to focus on in terms of internal messaging and collaboration. If your organization is trying to reduce employee churn to save on the cost of hiring and training new staff, that’s another objective that will require a specific plan of action.
Business is a team sport. People in sales, human resources, and research & development may all do different things, but their efforts should align in a way that benefits everyone. Prior to crafting your internal communication plan, therefore, it’s crucial to comprehend how your role can support the company’s larger mission.
3. Establish your style and brand voice.
As every effective communicator knows, the delivery of a message is just as important as its content. Therefore, you should establish a distinct style of communication that’s best suited for your workplace.
This could mean a more irreverent and humorous tone of voice. On the other hand, your company might require more formal language given the nature of the business.
And this applies to more than just words. What kinds of images do you plan to include in your notes to colleagues? Will your messages include infographics? What about colors and logos and other features that define your brand of internal communication?
Again, with the mindset that everything is a choice, this is one decision you shouldn’t overlook when creating your plan. Sending out consistent, branded communications will help engage your employees as they begin to recognize your content and know what to expect.
4. Define your audience segments.
Although broadcasting one message to all employees is quicker and easier than sending multiple tailored messages to distinct groups of workers, communications professionals know the latter option is superior.
Not everyone needs to hear every tidbit of news. Indeed, sending too many irrelevant emails can lead to information overload, which increases the likelihood that employees will ignore future messages — even important ones meant specifically for them.
To avoid this problem, internal communicators should create smaller, more targeted distribution lists. This can mean sorting workers by role, location, or stage in their career. The more well-defined the group—whether it consists of new recruits or a specific department within the company—the more likely its members are to receive information relevant to them. The end result: higher open rates and enhanced employee engagement.
5. Choose your channels of communication.
On a similar note, internal communicators should not plan on sending different messages to different audience segments on the same channel. While some people will respond better to in-person meetings, others will prefer email. Perhaps a newsletter or podcast series featuring interviews with members of the leadership team can be a vehicle for updating staff members on company developments.
Whatever mediums work best to keep employees informed is what you should invest in. This will require you to do some measurement against benchmarks to see which channels are most effective.
And it’s worth noting that sometimes the most effective channel for reaching employees is a person. This could be the company’s CEO delivering an announcement in a recorded video clip posted on the intranet. It could also be a manager addressing their team in the breakroom.
6. Pick a cadence and stick to it.
Effective communication is built on trust and reliability. That’s why the next step is all about setting up a schedule for when you communicate and adhering to it. Without a regular rhythm of correspondence, employees may tune out or miss hearing something that’s important to hear. Infrequent emails are bound to get read infrequently.
Establishing a timeline for sending both notices before an event or deadline and follow-ups after it also help cultivate a sense of familiarity with the flow of information at the workplace.
7. Identify your KPIs.
With the beginnings of a plan in place, it’s time to define your key performance indicators (KPIs).
Select a handful of metrics that best gauge whether your plan is failing or succeeding. These can be anything from benefit enrollment rates to time spent reading an email to employee satisfaction levels. Are you making progress, standing still, or falling behind?
Industry benchmarking can assist on this front, too, as comparing yourself to competitors can reveal both strengths and weaknesses of your operation. Just because you’ve seen improvement internally doesn’t mean you’re in good shape when placed next to your rivals.
8. Measure the results.
All that said, KPIs won’t do you any good unless you’re actively measuring your efforts. Make sure you install the necessary software to capture data on an ongoing basis. The unbiased, concrete statistics will show you if you’re heading in the right direction.
Learning how to interpret the numbers through a basic understanding of data analytics will also come in handy for refining your internal communication plan and better navigating your team in a data-driven business environment.
9. Present the results to leadership
To really lock in your strategy in place, schedule regular meetings with your leadership team to show them the results.
Don’t feel obliged to discuss every detail or statistic, of course. Rather, focus on a specific problem and explain how your efforts are providing a solution. Highlight how your work is helping to generate the business outcomes that matter to them.
With the leadership team’s support, your plan will have the momentum and credibility it needs to grow in size and scope.
10. Remain open to change
While it might sound contradictory, or perhaps mildly frustrating, the final step in building an internal communication plan involves an openness to tearing it all down.
Leaders quit. Priorities shift. Customers can be fickle. A new technological development or world event can alter the business landscape overnight. COVID-19 is a perfect example of why it’s essential to stay nimble.
So don’t overschedule meetings or produce content so far in advance that you bristle at the mere suggestion of pivoting to something new. Having a good plan is an asset, of course, but even the best strategy can become a liability if you’re unwilling to abandon it and start over.
Learn More About Internal Communication Plan Strategies
While unforeseen crises and last-minute problems are impossible to avoid, having an internal communication plan in place will help you and your team bring order to the chaos.
For those looking to learn more, PoliteMail offers a free course on the topic through its Employee Communication Academy. The program dives deeper into the subject matter with more detailed analysis and internal communication plan examples. The course also has a complimentary internal communication plan template that outlines all the basic components needed to build a better internal communications blueprint today.
