Don’t forget your employees: How to approach internal comms planning for your business

“The customer comes first.” 

We’ve all heard it before, many times. But do they always? 

Sure, a customer-centric strategy is now an expectation. Businesses have long since figured out that the way to win the hearts, minds and wallets of their customers is to make their product or service experience exceptional. If they’re not happy, then what can be changed to fix it? 

Prioritising customer experience makes unquestionably good business sense. 

But not everyone agrees the customer comes first. It’s become a point of distinction for Sir Richard Branson, who always says:   

“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.” 

My point is not to argue if Branson is right or wrong, but to underline the importance of employees in your communications strategy. 

There are many, many reasons why your employees should be treated as a priority. They range from blunt truths like mitigating reputational risk or ‘quiet quitting’, through to more nuanced opportunities to build your workforce as passionate advocates for your company, your strategy, and your customers. 

Yet, the outward lens through which many of us focus our efforts (i.e. on customers and clients) means communication with the wider workforce is often a much lower priority, or worse - off the radar completely. 

Of course, not all employees need to know everything happening across the business all of the time. Create too much noise and you’re at risk of tuning people out completely. When you’re too quiet you create room for speculation and misguided effort.  

So how should you approach internal communication planning for your business? Here are four tips to help narrow your focus. 

Tip 1: Map out your communication priorities 

Use a simple matrix like the one pictured to sort the noise based on the criteria of ‘strategic importance’ and ‘need to know’. Be sure to include relevant activity that is and isn’t already currently communicated.  

The items in the top right of your matrix should reflect where you will be prioritising and resourcing internal communication effort. 

Tip 2: Align your communication priorities with the right champions 

This one crystalises the importance of strong, prevalent leadership in your business. Your efforts will be thwarted if the most strategically important, need to know information for employees (i.e. what’s grouped in the top right of your matrix) is not communicated and championed by voices at the very top.  

It is no coincidence that an effective internal communications function works closely with the organisation’s CEO and leadership team. These are the voices yielding greatest influence.  

Creating an internal communication environment that engages both leadership and employees also means having complementary ways to channel other communication (e.g. need to know IT updates, or nice to know wellbeing initiatives), so that you can fine tune the noise.  

Tip 3: Don’t take a ‘set and forget’ approach 

It’s easy to fall into the trap of going through the motions once you’ve got your regular communications channels and mechanisms in place. While there’s a lot to be said for consistency in a good communications plan, that can’t be the end of it.  

For example, if you’re in a company with values and strategy striving for innovation and growth then the way you conduct internal communications matters just as much as what is being said. Walking the talk is important, so don’t forget to look for those opportunities – or fight for the ones you know deserve extra sunlight – to break out of the mould and do something different that gives your employees something to buzz about. 

Whether it’s celebrating a significant milestone or championing the adoption of something new into the organisation, thinking outside the box by bringing a campaign mindset to the challenge will help bring to life your unique employee culture in ways just another email could never do. 

Tip 4: Resource and scale wisely 

It’s a hard truth that whether you’re sending a newsletter to 50 people or 5000, scalability in communication effort is difficult.  

While larger organisations may have the benefit of a dedicated internal communications function, for many this is not a reality. Internal communications responsibility is often wrapped up indiscriminately within a wider comms function, or it might fall squarely on the shoulders of leadership themselves. 

Practically, this means you’ll need to resource appropriately. Whether you’re in an environment with enthusiastic colleagues eager to spread the word about their very ‘important’ projects or one where people are less forthcoming with important information, be kind to yourself by being pragmatic.  

Focus on what you know are the priorities, build your champions, and tune the noise where you can. 

Whether customers come first or employees do is largely beside the point. Without either of them, your business or organisation would be in deep trouble. Resourcing strategic internal communications, at whatever scale you can, is essential.