Internal Communications Help Mold Company Culture and Bonding During the Pandemic
Posted on Sep. 19, 2022 / Professional Development / Subscribe 0
By Sophia Musso
The COVID-19 pandemic shined a spotlight on internal communications as companies shifted to a work-from-home model. Several industry leaders spoke about its importance in the September PRSA Memphis webinar, “The Evolution of Internal Communications.”
The prevailing theme of the program was the focus on how employee communications bridges the C-Suite with the employee workforce to foster a unified organization. Panelists from Amazon, Youth Villages, ALSAC - St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and theEMPLOYEEapp provided unique insights from executive communications to the power of data.
“If you can imagine a company of our scale and size, it’s really challenging to form those connections with team members around the world and have them understand your vision, your priorities, and where we should really be focusing our efforts,” said Natashia Gregoire, head of Internal Communications at Amazon.
Chris Sheffield, internal communications manager at Youth Villages, says the organization is in the early stages of developing an employee communications strategy, one that brings in the executive voice.
Gathering and analyzing data was a priority for many of the panelists. Metrics from internal content provide a better understanding of what employees value most, and from which platform they prefer to receive it.
“We had invested time basically looking at industry standards for things like email and intranet and then even creating our own baseline,” said Shannon Carter, Internal Communications Manager at ALSAC - St. Jude.
The group follow-up by developing a monthly report for leadership about how they were performing against their own baseline and the industry.
"It’s really understanding, ‘Who am I targeting communication to and what channel is going to be most effective to receive that message through?’” said Director of Client Strategy at theEMPLOYEEapp Amy Jenkins.
Panelists were quick to share that metrics do not paint the full picture, though—what comes after also aids in understanding what employees value.
“We’re really encouraging people to make that shift from ‘don’t just look at the clicks; don’t just look at how long they watched the video.’ To what did they do as a result of having better access to that information and how did that improve performance across your organization or help drive culture?” Jenkins said.
Overall, internal communications help cultivate and solidify company culture, a priority that does not appear to be waning even after companies and their employees move past the pandemic.
“One of the ways that we shape culture is by what we celebrate through our storytelling,” Carter said, “for instance, highlighting employees and the behaviors that are creating success and hitting on things about innovation and collaboration.” Public relations practitioners can use internal communications to generate content across many departments and the organization as a whole.
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