Staying ahead of the curve – what does that mean for Internal Communication Professionals?

Katharina Auer:

How can Internal Communications professionals ‘stay ahead of the curve, when life is more frequently like a rollercoaster? What is ‘the curve’?

We can define the curve as the ever-changing landscape of employee needs and expectations, digitalization, technological advances, and data driven business. At the same time, the human element remains much the same, with people appreciating – and needing – in person communications and interactions. So maybe every organization has its own curve?

Staying ahead of the generic curve means being agile, proactively adopting continuous learning and a change mentality, exploring innovative technologies, listening to employees to see what should stay the same, what should stop, and what should change. At the same time, it means adapting to technological advances and people’s expectations that shape how we communicate internally. It means anticipating trends, embracing data and data literacy, embracing innovation to maintain organizational relevance, connecting the dots for everyone, organizational listening, and so maintaining or strengthening employee engagement (the outcome) for performance, retention, and advocacy.

What’s in the curve?

GenAI and data – to personalize communications (if possible) and to measure impact & outcomes. As Internal Communicators, we need to be data literate and know how to use GenAI/AI to benefit our work. With AI, this goes beyond the routine tasks of creating or checking content, summarizing, or creating meeting minutes. With the right prompts, GenAI can help us deep-dive into research topics, including the relevant source references. It can create event outlines, shape agendas, create videos, generate images and infographics. An internal GenAI platform can be a first level helpdesk on company, communications, and brand topics, replacing chatbots. We can provide not only information, but also the necessary templates or source sites. Used effectively – and with the necessary fact checking – GenAI can save communicators time and money. Looking at data, we need to be able to extract quantitative and qualitative data from existing data sets relevant to Internal Communications, and work with it to inform our plans.

Automation. As companies deploy automation, Internal Communications can do the same. We can automate routine processes, create automated dashboards with the data we collect, build automation into shared calendars, and build automated request forms for our advice and services to help us triage and prioritize.

Team collaboration. Using existing office software and its apps, teams can collaborate more effectively, working from the same source files, sharing materials and knowledge. Social collaboration platforms help the whole organization connect –for information and knowledge sharing, as well as more personal posts.

What we should do

Track trends & data
Most organizations have vast amounts of data, so we can collaborate with the master data owners to see what data is relevant to us. For example, new joiner data, exit interview data – give us guidance on what’s working and what to improve in internal communications (the process) when it comes to the employee experience or retention. The global employee survey data is the motherlode of outcomes data for Internal Communicators, for example – engagement, eNPS, intent to stay, perceptions, feedback on line managers, perceptions on senior leadership, perceptions on culture, line of sight to the organization and organizational strategy, feedback on communications in general. It shows us not only the feedback data, but also the key drivers behind categories or indices. These key drivers are excellent signposts on strengths and areas for improvement. We can work with the survey team to see if we can establish co-relation data between a business KPI and communications or generate more key driver analysis on specific topics.

Employee engagement and organizational alignment
Employee engagement, as an outcome, is not new and remains essential for driving performance, advocacy, and intent to stay. If possible, we should shift from generic messaging to more personalized messaging, with more focus on relevance to individuals. Yet in this area, leaders and managers remain essential as channels of communication. Senior leaders provide the big picture, the tone from the top, and hopefully role modelling. While people managers need to ‘translate’ the big picture into team and individual context.

Connecting all messages to company purpose, values and strategy continues to be a given, the foundation of effective internal communication.

Collaboration & connection
Use tools, processes, and ways of working to connect employees across the organization; listen; help break down silos, collaborate with all relevant stakeholders and functions.

Strategic agility
We need to regularly review our strategy to see if anything needs to change, and we need to regularly review our activity plans to refresh and improve, based on feedback and data we collect. This also means using data as the impetus to stop non-value adding activities and helping us and our stakeholders prioritize effectively.

In summary

Is there a curve, or is it common sense and proactive evolution? Whatever it is, as Communication Professionals we need to explore, learn all the time, keeping track of trends, industry changes and employee needs. We need to adopt and embrace technology, adapt and course correct quickly when needed, and continue to apply a strategic, data driven and outcomes focused mindset.

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Katharina Auer is VP/Global Head of Internal, Service, HSE, Suppliers & Partners, SD Communications, Communications Business Solutions at Hitachi Energy. She is a recognized corporate communications & change leader and strategist with focus on measurable outcomes. She has worked for companies such as GE, AstraZeneca, Shell, Rio Tinto, Zurich Insurance, ABB and gained multi-cultural experience in the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Nigeria, and South Africa. She has also served as a non-executive board member and co-chaired the Conference Board’s European Corporate Communications Council.

Written by: Editor