Internal communication plan: basic elements to build one

13 of October, 2022

Is your staff disoriented or do they seem not to know what is expected of them? The solution to this issue can probably be found in the company’s internal communication plan. One of the secrets to success in any field, including business, is having effective internal communication. After all, employees share the same goal and having a defined internal communication plan seems essential to achieve those goals. If there is no communication between stakeholders, it seems difficult to meet objectives. Let’s see some of the basic elements of this plan.

Internal communication plan elements

On the one hand, having an internal communication plan helps improve communication at work at all levels. On the other hand, it helps to create a series of objectives, strategies and metrics that allow employees to know what is expected of them. There are five key internal communication elements to include in your communication strategy.

Analysis of the current situation

How is communication in your company? The first step is to know where your stand. For this reason, it is necessary to analyze how workers relate to one another and what type of interaction is sought. To get an answer to this question, you can always do an audit or take advantage of the surveys that can be done through software like Sesame HR, where workers explain weaknesses or strengths of their current interactions.

Business goals

Another key element of internal communication is that the entire organization is able to access the short, medium and long-term goals. These objectives are the starting point of any strategy, which will later have to be shown to all members of the organization.

Company’s strategy

Once goals are defined, it’s time to design the way to achieve them. This is another element of your internal communication plan; the steps to meet your goals. This includes everything from the frequency of meetings to the way in which workers must submit reports to their superiors. It is also important to make clear how teams will communicate (notifications and alerts, employee dashboard…). Workers will know what is expected of them, to whom they must report or who to turn to if they have a problem in their daily activities.

Implementation of an internal communication plan

Once having everything on paper, it is time to activate your internal communication plan. For it to be effective, logically the first thing will be to inform the entire staff of its existence so that they adapt their way of working to the new guidelines established in the document.

Evaluation and corrections

Your internal communication plan does not end with its implementation, an analysis of the results is necessary to check if it helps improve communication at work. It is very difficult to make this evaluation in the short term. It is necessary to collect information for it, but it can be confirmed if the measurable goals are achieved. For example, have the planned meetings been held? Do workers and teams communicate through the planned channels? This evaluation should also serve to request feedback from all the workers involved.

As it is evaluated, it is possible to know if the internal communication plan has been a success or not. Even successful plans have room for improvement, so if the expected goals have not been met, or have not been achieved to the desired degree, the situation must be reconsidered and the necessary innovations introduced to provide your plan with the necessary effectiveness to achieve its goals.

4 key elements of internal communication for improvement

When developing a document like this, there are four key internal communication elements in the relationship between a company and its employees that should be taken into account for your plan to be truly effective. All of them must be explained in your internal communication strategy.

• Functional perspective: improving communication at work should serve to make the organization more productive in all its areas.
• Work motivation: it must be one more incentive to motivate workers and involve them in making decisions that affect them.
• Corporate identity: the plan must reinforce company engagement, the feeling of belonging to the company and its image.
• Corporate culture: the internal communication plan must be adjusted to the company’s culture, to the company’s way of working. If not, you will be sending mixed messages.

There are those who add relationships with other brands or institutions here. A communication halfway between internal and external, necessary for the proper functioning of the company. In this case, a communication plan must indicate how this face-to-face communication with other companies will be managed in order to consolidate very useful relationships for the organization.

Internal communication in not a new concept. However, many times the absence of guidelines that govern it limits it to an informal matter.

With an internal communication plan, the organization is assured of having guidelines in the relationship among workers, which provides formality, and this way it becomes a very useful tool in company management.