Is Internal Communication a “BS” Job?

Emily Hecker:

Admittedly, there are moments in my internal communication (IC) career where I think to myself, “Is the work I’m doing actually creating any value?”

As IC professionals, we aren’t curing life-threatening diseases. We aren’t doing brain surgery. If we all collectively decided to go on vacation simultaneously, organizations would continue to operate—perhaps just a little less effectively, or not as the case may be.

That’s where I became intrigued by anthropologist David Graeber’s theory of what he calls “bullshit jobs.”

Could IC, in fact, be one of them?

To answer that question, we must first look at Graeber’s definition: “A form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence, even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend this is not the case.”

Given that definition, most IC professionals would likely protest, proudly proclaiming, “But no! My work isn’t pointless or any of those other things! IC is an organization’s connective tissue—linking employees’ daily work to the bigger picture, inspiring, informing, and engaging them.”

And yes, for those in IC roles where you can fully realize the strength of the function’s potential, you are not in a bullshit role. Rejoice.

Others, however, might think back to that executive directive to “just send it out, don’t ask questions,” or the “values-driven messaging” they’re compelled to produce even though the words don’t match the organization’s behaviors—and likely never will, barring divine intervention. For those IC professionals, it’s worth looking more closely at Graeber’s concept.

Graeber breaks bullshit jobs into five categories:

• Flunkies: Roles that exist to make someone look or feel more important than they actually are. Think of the executive who proudly declares they have 100 direct reports—none of whom they could name in a lineup, but, boy, do they fill out the room nicely for an all-hands meeting.
• Goons: Employees whose jobs involve one-upmanship. Think of the communications executive who sees that marketing has five direct reports and therefore insists on the same headcount. What will this additional workforce contribute? Not the point.
• Duct Tapers: Roles that exist to patch organizational flaws rather than fix them. Consider the communications leader hired by a friend but utterly ill-equipped for the role, prompting the hiring of an underling to actually do the work.
• Box Tickers: Employees whose purpose is to make the organization appear to be doing something it’s not—like effectively communicating internally, for instance.
• Taskmasters: Employees whose job is simply to assign or supervise tasks. Middle management springs to mind.

IC roles can easily fall into any of these categories. I’ve certainly held hybrid variations of them. As Graeber notes, those in bullshit jobs are often the best judges of whether they hold one. The thing is, some IC roles can start as bullshit and evolve into something meaningful. Others, however, are doomed to stay that way.

Those in the profession know all too well that misconceptions about our function lead organizations to treat IC as a copy-paste-send factory, an extension of administrative services, or a replacement for Google. Then they write job descriptions and hire accordingly.

We get it. We talk about it all the time—whining to friends over drinks or venting to our professional networks about the fact that “no one understands us.”

Don’t get me wrong, this is a persistent problem. But it’s not an unsolvable one. It can be overcome with two components:

• IC professionals who self-advocate and demonstrate their impact on business outcomes
• Organizations—particularly leaders—who are open-minded enough to see IC as more than a bullshit job

One without the other only gets you so far from the bullshitization of IC. Brilliant, passionate professionals can burn themselves out making case after case for why they can do more than send meeting recaps or “pretty up” slide decks. If their organizations stay entrenched in outdated perceptions, then yes, IC becomes (and stays) a bullshit job.

IC only becomes a bullshit job if we let it. When communication professionals have the space, trust, and curiosity to do what they do best—connect meaning to action—they become one of the most valuable functions in any organization. And that’s work worth doing.

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Emily Hecker is a US-based internal communication strategist, author, and certified Communication Management Professional (CMP®) with over a decade of experience transforming communication strategies.  She is a Strategic Columnist and a #WeLeadComms honoree.

Written by: Editor