The Engage Internal Communications Conference was a brilliant coming together of the best in the industry, sharing their stories and strategies for improved engagement and communication.

 

Across 26 talks we heard from IC experts in the beauty industry and water suppliers, in dog rescue (sadly no pups were present) and the BBC, from 106 Comms’ own Henry Davies and everything in-between. We’ve drawn out the four key trends that threaded these conversations and also shed a light on the new set of challenges internal communications professionals are facing in the wake of the pandemic.

 

Consistency breeds trust, consistency breeds certainty

Lessons to be learned from the death of Queen Elizabeth II, as historic protocol repeated and practiced over hundreds of years brought order and calm to a tumultuous time.  The BBC practice for the death of a royal three times a year, and that level of detail and crisis planning paid dividends this past month as they pulled off one of the most complex live broadcasts to date. Most of us don’t have upwards of 30 million eyeballs on us, but it does go to show how crisis planning and regular rehearsal can avert chaos in difficult times.

 

Lost in translation

Marelie Ehlers, Vice President & Head of Employee Communications at Ericsson, gave some fantastic insights into transmitting global messaging and mitigating risk of translation error. There are two parts to the translation piece; the first is translating between languages and the second is translation for different contexts.

 

In the first instance, there must be trust in the Internal Communications structure that the communications representative is translating faithfully. A direct translation of words is rarely a true translation of meaning, so bringing these international comms representatives in on the narrative journey early on in the process will help them create more true and rich translations.

 

In the second instance, there needs to be a system of understand with local communications representatives. The instinct for many is to slightly amend a message to their preference or how they think their team wants to receive it. This process of filtering can muddy global messaging, so be clear when a document or wording is to remain untouched. It sounds simple, but if you don’t communicate this these amends will inevitably creep in.

 

It’s all about tribes

We heard from some brilliant IC professionals from Murphy’s, Northumbrian Water and Affinity Water who all have significant frontline workforces and creative comms solutions. The people who keep our cities running, provide crucial services to our communities were risking their health during Covid for the benefit of the many. It’s more important now than ever, that organisations develop communications strategies designed to include and accommodate frontline workers.

 

Enter tribes. At Murphy’s, the IC team conducted several focus groups across different teams and services to understand how these hard-to-reach groups preferred to be communicated to. From here, they built a comms strategy that flexed messaging to different channels, allowing key messages to be broadcast via different channels according to tribe preferences.

 

Side note: we also noticed a trend in the return of old school mediums. Break room notice boards, old school posters and a good ol’ fashioned postcard in the mail proved effective with these diverse workforces.

 

A delicate dance: supporting leaders in communications

Leadership was, as ever, a hot topic at this year’s conference. David Manning, BBC Head of Internal Comms & Employee Engagement, opened Engage with a brilliant example of a leader he was working with in the BBC. The leader was prickly, stating that he ‘doesn’t do internal communications’ and was resistant to any initiatives beyond an email every six months. David turned it around, and here are his key insights:

• Leaders are often wary of comms because they are uncomfortable in the spotlight or self-conscious. Use ‘on your turf’ walk and talks to get to know the person, understand these vulnerabilities, and co-create strategies they’re comfortable with
• Understand their perspective and build a personal narrative around that. Once you have a core narrative that makes sense to the leader, you can use this as the framework for future messaging. If they’re comfortable with the messaging and understand it then they’ll be confident in communicating it.
• Leaders are focussed on their work and the business outcome. Make. The. Business. Case. Data is always your best friend. Speak the language of the leaders, and help them understand why internal comms is crucial, and what value it brings to them.