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How brave are internal communicators?

Ann Pilkington — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:56:00 +0000

Our new Communicating for Engagement report, based on research conducted with uber engagement, reveals that internal communication practice has improved considerably in many organisations in the past five years. At the same time many practitioners are keen to improve it even more by focusing on communication that directly supports employee engagement, as set out by MacLeod and Clarke in the Engaging for Success report published in 2009.

However, there are two significant obstacles preventing continuing development in practice:

Senior managers don’t always appreciate that internal communication, if practised strategically, will improve employee engagement
Though keen in principle to develop practice, many internal communication practitioners are reluctant to push the boundaries.

As one focus group participant put it: “Internal communications practitioners are not brave enough”. Opening up internal communication to provide employees with more of a voice is going to be very challenging in some organisations. So, quite naturally, internal communicators sometimes back away from going down this path.

This is not to decry the critical importance of keeping employees informed through professional, timely, relevant communication which is what most internal communicators spend most of their time on. It’s just to say that on its own this is never going to shift employee engagement that much.

We’ll be talking to senior managers in 2012 to get their side of the story. In the meantime, how brave are we? How prepared are we, as an emerging profession, to move practice on to another, more strategic, level?

To download a copy of the full report, use the link above the blog.

Climate change needed for internal comms?

Ann Pilkington — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 21:38:51 +0000

Here at PR Academy we have just completed the first stage of some research into today’s world of internal comms. It seems that lots of internal communicators want to get stuck into the engagement-enhancing stuff but are getting bogged down with day-to-day operational comms. Learn more over on our sister blog (on the Exploring Internal Communication website). You can also sign up to receive a copy of this first stage report (once it is all written out nicely with lovely diagrams) towards the end of October. If you cant wait that long, Kevin will be talking more about it at the CIPR Inside conference on 6 October. So, check out Kevin’s blog and let us know what you think…..

Internal communicators – seize the day!

Ann Pilkington — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:09:14 +0000

Thanks to our friend and PR Academy Mike Wooles for flagging this article to us. Lots of good points here about employees living the brand etc but it says that ‘marketing and HR’ are increasingly getting together to deliver it. Internal communciations gets a mention further down but I think this reads like this is all the responsibilty of marketing and/or HR – what do you think? Of course it is a marketing publication so there is going to be a focus on marketing…but even so….

It just makes me think that Internal Communciations is really going to have to seize the day if we arent going to get left in others’ wake, stuck as the corporate post people. As Quirke (2008:291) says:

“There are areas of businesses which are quietly getting on with harnessing communication to change cultures, re-engineer processes and build their brands. However, the internal communication departments are often busy elsewhere, either missing the action or being kept out.”

Congratulations to our internal communication students

Ann Pilkington — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 19:25:29 +0000

The results for the new CIPR Internal Communication Certificate are out and our students have done brilliantly – congralulations everyone! 62 students took the qualification in the first half of this year, 23% achieved a distinction, 56% a merit and 18% a pass. These are outstanding results for a brand new qualification. We are also pleased to say that the CIPR is about to launch a diploma level qualification for internal communication practitioners too which will start early in 2010.

CIPR Internal comms conference

Ann Pilkington — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:31:48 +0000

Our good friends at the CIPR Inside group – the group for internal communicators – are organising a conference on 14 September – more info here.

There are some great speakers and it is bound to be a good opportunity to network with other people in internal comms, so do try and get along, you need to book ahead of course.

If you are a CIPR member and work in internal comms – have you joined the Inside group? It is the sector group for internal comms professionals and has a really proactive committee with lots of ideas for events etc, so think about signing up if you havent already, visit the CIPR website

Internal communications podcast

Ann Pilkington — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 20:10:27 +0000

We’ve been chatting to VMA – the search and selection people – about their research into internal comms careers.
Interesting stuff in here, some great job titles and what employers think internal comms people need to get better at, compared to what the practitioners themselves think.
They’re a great team at VMA, really get the internal comms world and seem intent on pushing up standards. They are the biggest internal comms recruiters so they should know a thing or two I guess.
Catch the conversation I had with their Associate Director Charlotte Butler in the podcast. We’re going to be using this as a resource on the internal comms course too.

Download the podcast here (MP3 format).