Q&A round-up: Making internal communications count

Dave Briggs works for Learning Pool, the public sector eLearning exchange, and blogs about the use of social technology in government at DavePress

One size doesn't fit all Every organisation works differently and has its own culture and personalities. Forcing systems on people and organisations won't work. Be open, transparent, collaborative and cooperative - and use the tools that work for you..
Take technology seriously It seems technology is one of the few remaining areas where wearing your ignorance is a badge of honour. Many opportunities are missed because of decision makers not being aware of its potential. There is a job to be done to convince the powers-that-be that digital is an effective platform for working smarter.
Be interesting Easy is one thing, interesting is another. Intranet content can be stale and rarely updated, it's hard to find what you want and almost impossible to 'meet' new people. Other forms of internal comms such as staff newsletters are often the same. The prevailing attitude when I worked in local government was that it was embarrassing to be featured in them so they just didn't work. Finding interesting ways, tech or not, to get people to talk to each other is key.
Prepare for criticism It amazes me when organisations run engagement exercises and find out most of their staff hate them. I mean, did you not know?! If you are truly trying to engage, if you really want to know what people think, be prepared, take it on the chin, and make it constructive by getting involved. Grown-up organisations should be able to take criticism.

Widen access, don't block it If people want to mess around on Facebook they can do it on their phones. What's more, if you don't provide internal channels for constructive debate and dissent, people will go elsewhere in their own time and do it in public. Take the Watching Lincolnshire County Council blog: anonymous employees, annoyed at the council, venting their collective spleens online for the world to see. With the growth of web-publishing tools, an organisation can't stop this, except by creating the climate to make it unnecessary.

Sean Trainor is Chair of CIPR Inside, the specialist group for Chartered Institute of Public Relations members with an interest in employee communications and engagement

Intranets are a tool They help employees do their job. If that facilitates information sharing, communications and collaboration then bring it on: build it that way and they'll come. But employees need to be at the heart of all internal communications strategy. The channel is merely a tool. Only a fool starts with the tool.
The old ways still work Town halls are common for mobile workforce and there is something nice about the good old-fashioned noticeboard for fixed location shift workers. I've worked in heavily unionised industries who have very effective ways of communicating with their members without the use of formal channels. Perhaps we can learn from them.
Work for, not against, management The role of communicators is to fight their senior managers corner. If you find the issues and objectives at the heart of the organisation that will be resolved or achieved through effective employee engagement, you've just found your budget. If the fight is about securing budget to do comms for comms sake, engagement for engagement sake, digital for digital sake, you might win this round but you are heading for a knockout.

Sharon O'Dea is intranet manager at the Houses of Parliament and blogs on government and communications

Consult your staff Senior leaders are finally recognising the value of user-centred design, that is getting users involved in designing digital platforms from the get-go, not deciding these things at the centre and dumping a system on a organisation which doesn't want it. Digital comms should exist to support and deliver offline communications.

Technology isn't everything It needs to work with, and fit into, the existing culture. If your organisation isn't collaborative and doesn't listen to its staff, introducing a social platform will not, on its own, change that. Start small; pilot social communication on a team or department to understand how really people work. If it works, scale up. If it doesn't, can it.

Confront tricky topics People are more likely to speak out/participate when they're pissed off about something. On our senior management blogs, a typical entry gets a handful of answers. If the issue is unpopular, it goes into the hundreds. An issue such as redundancy is something people actively want to hear about. Communicating a change in strategy, which most people don't care about (and often rightly so) is harder. Leaders and managers need to engage at all levels and allow people to ask the difficult questions - and get honest answers.

Harness the power One of the central aims of internal comms is to equip your staff to advocate for you. Send your Facebook campaign to 5,000 staff and they can pass it on to all their friends and family. Give employees access to social networks and you position yourself as the kind of employer normal people might want to work for. A modern employer which trusts its staff and treats them like adults.
Know your new audience Who councils provide internal comms for and to is no longer clear. Services are already delivered by a mix of employees and outsourced service providers. This is further muddied as councils merge departments into shared services and shift provision to the voluntary sector in the brave new dawn of the "big society". Effectively communicating goals and values to this diverse audience is essential. We need to recognise complexity and rely less on hierarchical models of communication.
Make your comms mobile With so many of your audience out on the frontline, delivering services, councils face a challenge communicating with their staff. Comms officers need to match their communications to the diverse workforce and think about making their intranets mobile. Smartphones are commonplace, but not every council has the resources for them. Networks such as Yammer can be set up quickly and cheaply.

Darren Caveney is head of communications and marketing at Walsall council

Yammer works We were looking at ways of using social media channels. Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Facebook were working effectively in support of external comms but internally, it was a different experience. We trialled Yammer within our own comms team. With little to no promotion the thing grew and grew, across all parts of the council, and we now have 600 staff signed up and actually using Yammer in a really creative and effective way. It is encouraging debate and gives a platform for timely and accurate information to be shared.
Be credible Email, social media and online forums are all brilliant but in most local authorities, the majority of staff do NOT have access to email and internet. This will not change anytime soon. Picture a gritting team out at 3am in the snow and ice. How best to communicate with them on the really important stuff? The only answer is to ensure that the tried and tested methods are really well done - for example, the staff briefings by managers. Ultimately, the type of channel being used doesn't matter if your information isn't timely, accurate, honest and 'discussable'. Without that, you can't expect your communications to be credible.
Comms matter We can learn from one another. But we need to be prepared to change and evolve. Internal communications is more important now than ever and the organisations that do it well now will prosper in the future. It's a bit like that classic marketing case study about Cadbury's continuing to advertise during the war and reaping the benefits when the war ended.
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