INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS
INNOVATIVE PRACTICES
PART 1- TRENDS AND IDEAS
Suhasini Kirloskar
Publisher
Winning Edge Magazine
Partner
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Edge Partners
www.winningedgemagazine.com www.edgepartners.biz

AGENDA
• The New Realities
• New Approaches to Internal Comms
• Effective use of Each Media.
• Leveraging technology
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Building Your
“Employer” Brand
Should Not Be Perceived
As Being Purely
Recruitment Related
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…Retention is
Also a Goal of
Internal
Communications
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IMPORTANCE
• Research has revealed a direct correlation
between communication satisfaction and
employee commitment
• Commitment positively related to job
satisfaction, motivation and attendance.
• Commitment negatively related to
turnover, absenteeism, and tardiness.
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EXTERNAL
PERSPECTIVE
• Internal communication needs to be in
sync with the communication strategy
for external environment –
• Customers
• Competitors
• Suppliers
• Communities
• Governments where it operates
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THE NEW REALITIES
• Economic recession
• Employment uncertainty
• Stress on employee productivity
• Organizations in survival mode
• Recruitment freeze
• Decline in training budgets
• Decline in attrition
• M&As lead to need for assimilating
different cultures.
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DIFFERENT
APPROACHES
• Top-Down Or Bottom-Up?
• Formal and Informal channels
• Face-to-face or System based
At the core, the essence remains the same:
• Core values
• Communicate and deliver on brand promise
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COMMUNICATING IN BAD TIMES
Communicators cannot ignore external news stories.
Some lessons from the best brands:
• Focus on all news, not just bad news.
• Use a variety of media.
• Reach out to non-office based staff.
• Be proactive.
• Leverage technology such as web systems for
quick updates.
• Be ready with answers to FAQs.
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ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT
Layoffs or pay cuts can lead to disgruntled

employees.
With social media such as blogs, these

employees may express their angst online and
cause damage to the overall brand and the
employer brand.
There is a need to constantly review, analyze

and manage your online reputation.
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POWER OF INFORMAL NETWORK
• There is a need to pay attention to informal
communication in the company.
• Analyze the influencers and their circles of influence –
the network of relationships.
• Also about informal communications from senior
management. Town Hall is the formal version, what
the CEO says to team members in informal interaction
also has a major impact.
• Reward communication, don’t “shoot the messenger
for the message”
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www.edgepartners.biz
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