How to Build Internal Communication?

Individual companies, teams, and people are all unique in their diversity and makeup. This makes it extremely difficult for internal communication strategies to reach and especially impact all areas of a business; with added obstacles for not only for white but also for blue-collar and decentralized employees.

Here we break down how to create successful internal communication that speaks to each employee, and increases motivation, engagement, and promotes a culture of feedback. 

• Understand your target audience

Like all facets of life, the workplace is made up of a diverse group of people. Although your employees will share at least one trait (they all work for your business!), they will also differ greatly. Their job preferences, moral systems, beliefs, mindsets, viewpoints, and most important job roles are all part of this.

Effective audience segmentation in internal communications can help you reach the right people with the right information. If you are an internal communicator, usually you get this feedback: "There is too much information", "It's not relevant enough", or "I didn't see it."

When it comes to employee engagement, understanding is critical. Without this in-depth knowledge, any strategies you devise will fall flat and fail to provide a practical and realistic internal communication strategy that is beneficial to your employees. 

• Identify different personas 

The workforce of today is extremely multigenerational. Employees may have a wide range of interests when it comes to the type of material they choose to consume. Furthermore, employees who perform special job functions, such as frontline personnel, do not have access to the same resources that office workers do.

Therefore, internal communicators need to understand their workforce and define employee personas based on various criteria such as:

• Job nature
• Job functions
• Geographic locations
• Spoken languages
• Generations
• Content preferences

Personas will help communicators build content that employees may want to interact with. It's much easier to build engaging internal communications content once you've established employee personas. It will increase employee motivation, performance and ease healthy feedback. 

• Create personalized communications

Many internal communication experts are having trouble getting employees to pay attention to and participate in their campaigns. 

The main explanation for this is that the material is irrelevant. To put it another way, not every employee should be given access to all company information. Instead, hyper-personalized communication can be used. This should be a very important part of your company culture.

When you consider why people use social media, you'll see how important personalization is. We would not use social media to the degree that we do if our feeds were not so customized and tailored to our tastes. So personalization and segmentation will be your two guides in the way.

• Choose the right internal communication app based on your needs

Without the correct employee communication applications, all of the preceding tasks will be difficult to do. Such tools are intended to help communicators streamline their efforts, gain a better understanding of their employees' communication preferences, segment audiences, and, as a result, deliver more targeted and timely employee messages, regardless of their location or job function and to increase employee motivation and performance. However, in the sea of various communication tools available on the market, it may be hard to choose the one that best fits your organization’s needs.

When searching for a workplace communications tool, these are the must-have features to look for:

• Robust audience segmentation and filtering
• Easy content creation, management, and distribution
• Ability to break down results based on employees’ location, job function, generation, etc.
• Ready to use content
• Push notifications for reminders and important updates
• Integration with various communication channels (Intranets, email, Microsoft Teams, and others)
• Integration with HRIS systems for easier user management and implementation
• Analytics, dashboards, and actionable communications insights
• Employee advocacy features such as external content sharing to all the major social media channels

BONUS: Choose a tool that employees and HR teams love to use. For this, check Sorwe!

With such help, you can publish stories or hear from the company in a personalized way for different target audiences. You can follow different audiences' interactions with your message, in real-time. You can get healthy feedback knowing how effective your message is. You can also post surveys and training in relevant groups. Briefly, understanding the human being is the basis of a strong internal communication that encompasses all differences, as in all areas of life.