What are the key factors to building a successful team in Internal Communications?

Why IC - they drive conversations, culture, awareness and engagement among the people.   Empower the IC Team with a thorough understanding of the brand. Create a balanced team of writers, designers and ideators so they can create engaging content and a consistent brand experience. Create a broad strategy, plan and framework. Empower them with information and updates and create a mechanism for info to flow into the IC team. Give them the tools and templates to easily create, share, track and monitor. This will help them reach the right messages to the right audiences. Finally, measurement. What's working and what's not. What to start / stop and what to continue. Reporting success is important and helps keep things on track.

Create a long-term strategic communications plan that supports the business goals. This is guidance for your team in what to do, and not do. Empower them with the right to say no to the unimportant, or not-at-all relevant tasks by being clear on your strategy. This enables confidence and efficiency. Ensure your leadership team buys into this by strategy by learning, advocating for it, and reinforcing regularly.

I've always found the best way to ensure communication is received is by understanding which methods of communication work best for your team e.g. written, verbal, combination, etc. Also being present with your team and letting them know you. The best outcomes for communication in my experience has been when the team understands the overall mission/goal and how accomplishing it matters.

Create strategy. In a large organization that has very few internal communications experts, we have to prioritize messaging. That is done by understanding our vision and mission and through the creation of messaging pillars that help us measure the effectiveness of our work in promoting that which is the most important.

IC teams often function very similarly to marketing teams, with the most obvious exception that their audience is employees. Consider marketing a blueprint for what your organization needs internally. What does it cost to acquire a customer? What does it cost to hire an employee? How many teammates work on your consumer loyalty program? How many should support employee engagement/retention? From the functions of marketing, what does your organization need most? PR: Leveraging personal brands for thought leadership and earned media? Advertising: Creating awareness for the employee experience? Branding: Building, changing, reinforcing cultural beliefs? Promotions: Driving transactions from within, like open enrollment and new systems?

They said I'm different... ... That I don't think like they do. Best compliment ever! I've had the most success and enjoyment working in teams where we all have different skills, and life experiences. And use that to our advantage, to create brilliant outcomes.

Diversity is key when it comes to building a strong internal communications team. Look for candidates with varied backgrounds and industry experiences. When possible, offer flexible work to capture a wider candidate pool who can offer a diverse perspective. The one thing I’d caution against is only opening up roles in a specific location. It’s limiting and not inclusive.

Implement recruitment strategies that seek candidates from varied backgrounds, ensuring your team represents a wide range of perspectives. Thru this, you naturally infuse fresh insights and creativity into your IC efforts.

Encourage open discussions about D&I topics, and provide opportunities for team members to participate in training and initiatives.

While building a diverse team in IC is crucial, we must remember that diversity also includes neurodiversity. Individuals with neurodiverse conditions like ADHD often excel at lateral thinking and bring a dynamism that can rejuvenate stagnant narratives. The nature of such conditions better suits these talents to roles as external counsel rather than in-house staff, allowing them to offer invaluable perspectives without the constraints of traditional corporate structures. Practical Tip: Actively seek partnerships with consultancy services specializing in strategic narratives helmed by the neurodivergent. They can offer fresh narrative perspectives that resonate deeply.

A culture of positivity goes a long way. But it won't develop without a positive leader. The best team members could struggle under a tyrant. And the most cobbled-together team could achieve greatness with an inspiring leader. Be the team member that you want others to become.

To build a successful internal comms team, focus on clear goals, diverse skills, good leadership, collaboration, training, data analysis, & listening to employees. It's really important to empower the team. these are fundamentally creative people and you shouldn't tell them what to do. As a leader, ask them for a solution to a given problem & see the creativity flow in. It's important to work as a team. As the work is usually time sensitive, be clear on who does what & be open to help each other to meet timelines. Be adaptable, prepared for change, & have a clear plan. Regularly evaluating & prioritising team engagement is essential. I like to know my team members at a personal level & delegate them work as per their potential & interests.

Regular team meetings and individual check-ins are equally important and each serve a different purpose. Foster individual growth through consistent one-on-one meetings with team members to give them a safe place to share what's going on in their world both personally and professionally. Consistent team meetings allow for celebrating wins and sharing insight into team workload, while also building camaraderie. Workshops, social events, etc are useful tools, but a simple cup of coffee or a shared love for a tv show goes a long way too!

What if meetings aren't right format to get authentic and collaborative relationships humming? Most collaborations are still just the loudest, most confident voices. Genuine collaboration needs provocation, difference, listening and vulnerability. These arise out of trust. So the question then is, what scenarios generate the most trust? Walking/driving meetings have been better for me for holding challenging conversations. When I have done hard-but-not-worky-things like volunteering in a soup kitchen, conversation naturally becomes more real. But perhaps most significantly, when our collaboration feels more like play, then it feels safer and naturally more collaborative. When are we going to welcome play explicitly into the workplace?

Establish cross-functional task forces to tackle complex challenges. Form teams comprising members from different departments to address specific issues.

I once had a mentor tell me he sees job descriptions as a spotlight, not a box. In other words, job descriptions highlight an identified business need but shouldn’t box people in. I tell all of my direct reports that they are empowered to look beyond their job descriptions to identify opportunities to create a bigger impact and grow, and I am here to help.

Everyone should read 'Leaders Eat Last'... it's a brilliant book generally, but the sections on building trust and nurturing an environment of support/empowerment offer some incredible insights! Team members need to feel 'safe' and protected, so they can focus their energy/expertise on achieving excellence and driving innovation, rather than on self-defence. The 'Circle of Trust'!

Let your team make mistakes. And they will learn from it automatically. Guide them and show how to do it once. You'll see MAGIC unfolding. Let them know that every word written by them represents the brand. Always insist in highest standards.

Reports, and plans, and strategy, and KPIs, etc are all useless if your team doesn't mesh. We call this "fit" but it's much more than that. Managers and team leaders need to think carefully about the personality they are adding to the matrix. You could be the most talented, innovative, proven professional--but if your attitude and drive don't match the team vibe, I'd pass. Skills can be taught. Strategy can be taught. Software can be taught. Personality, attitude, passion, interpersonal styles cannot be taught. They are intrinsic qualities that make "work" not so hard and far more successful.

Consider investing in continuous education. Just hiring people and forcing them to do the daily work without allowing them the time to learn and grow is a waste of their brain capacity. Education is important for the team because it helps them stay on top of the ball, and acquire the latest of the latest in terms of technologies, tools, channels, best practices, etc. Education also allows them to still feel excited about their work. Any job reaches a mature point. To keep people invested and interested in their field, it's important to allow them the time to meet with other mind-like people and share ideas, concepts and event challenges. All with the purpose of learning and growing.

At our agency, we support our clients and often are considered part of their team. Because of that, we work hard to be a great team and practice what we preach. Some things that make us successful are our focus on fun, learning, and nurturing curiosity. We are in the people business, and we try our best to remind ourselves of that every day.

This is a great time for internal communication teams to invest in the "new." With lots of tool improvements hitting the market, hybrid/remote shifting employee engagement, A.I. introducing new conversations, creative teams can experiment, invite employees into new storylines and employers can re-evaluate and refresh their brand story and assets.

For me, there is tremendous scope for communicators to become more technically savvy, to prevent a frustrating dependence on IT and to put autonomy before expectation (the latter usually being its "a techie thing and doesnt belong in the comms camp). Technology skills are no longer optional and with the breadth of channels, metrics tools and intramer platforms that bring corporate messaging to life, we must invest in the continuous development of our communicators through the upskill of digital.

Use Human Centred Design principles to help with your decision-making. The tools that exist and are commonly used for external audiences should also be used for your internal audience. It's amazing the difference it can make as those involved in focus groups and testing can go on to be your biggest champions - and they provide different perspectives that can help you reach people in ways that work for them.

It’s simple—it’s called engagement. Are employees responsive to internal communication efforts? Do they feel comfortable sharing their ideas and/or feedback? I’ve always believed that you attract more bees with honey, which also applies to an effective internal communications strategy.

Think human first. It sounds obvious, but it can be easy to forget that companies are a bunch of people trying to do their best, whether it's an individual contributor or an executive. Doing this helps you build pitches, stories and strategies that are empathetic, realistic and authentic.

You need to hire Infiltrators who can blend seamlessly into different departments. They're the chameleons who gather insider info and help you tailor messages that hit home. Dive into the psychology of your workforce. Understand what motivates them, what keeps them up at night and then use this intel to create communication that speaks to their deepest desires and fears.

The message is vital in internal comms, but so is the messenger. Not everyone or anyone can or should be the face of information and engagement, including executive. The messenger shouldn't be assumed, but rather also part of the larger strategy including distribution, responsibility, platform, etc. The right person sharing a message can be impactful, engaging and trusted. The wrong person sharing a message can diminish it, disqualify it or have opposing results.

Depending on the stage of growth for your internal communications team, you may need to hire generalists at the early stages of expansion, and as you grow, you will seek out specialists. That said, once a new hire has the relevant core communication skills and an eagerness to learn, for the most part they can learn the specifics while on the job. I always found that it was important to find folks who were driven by strong values, and had particular areas of interest and passion (not necessarily connected to the job even). These areas could often be developed into a useful asset for the team, as well as help shape a path for their own individual development.

To build a successful internal communications team, prioritize clear and diverse communication, align team goals with the organization's, encourage empowerment and collaboration, provide essential technology and training, measure performance with metrics, incorporate employee feedback, and remain adaptable to change. These elements are key to ensuring effective and engaging internal communications within the organization.