Agreements, deadlines, protocols, culture, behavioral norms and teamwork. These are all aspects that fall under internal communication. Almost all of the current heroes within the business community score so well partly due to the fact that the internal organization is rock solid. The arrival of new media ensures that internal and external communication increasingly overlap, making the importance of your internal communication increasingly important. How do you deal with that? Where are your opportunities and which pitfalls should you guard against?

How do you improve your internal communication? 

Internal communications is the making available, passing on and receiving information by employees of an organization. It all seems so logical and easy, but it has been one of the biggest problem areas in companies for many years. Departments do not work together, reinvent the wheel and therefore lose efficiency. Moreover, employees are often not well informed about their employer's positioning, which means they cannot express themselves properly to the outside world. Good internal communication is a prerequisite for good external communication, especially in our modern economy. We would like to give you some practical tips to work on internal communication in your organization.

From bottom to top and from left to right

A common mistake is to 'impose' internal communication in a top-down manner that is also impersonal. 'The management has decided…'. You know it. It is important to work in a personal way and realize that everyone within the organization has a role in improving the internal communications. No one in the link can forsake. Internal communication is possible from top-down to bottom-up. From staff to management, horizontally and diagonally: communication exists in all directions and between all departments. If this does not happen, it causes internal frustration and miscommunication between employees.

Choose your communication channel consciously

The smaller the organization, the simpler the internal communication. After all, a problem can be solved faster if the company consists of 20 people than if the organization consists of 200 people. Especially for larger organizations (50+), there are more and more tools available to shape your internal communication in a fun way. Consider, for example, the growing popularity of the intranet, but also tools such as Yammer, which has now become a permanent part of Office365. A new player also announced its arrival in the internal communications field last week: Facebook. It launched 'Workplace', an internal social network.

Stay away from hip management speak

Which killers are used at your business? 'Involvement' perhaps? Or 'dynamic and flexible'. Or perhaps the absolute highlight 'transparency'? In your internal communication, avoid using empty terms that mean nothing to anyone. Make your internal communication concrete and clearly understandable for everyone.

Make an internal analysis

What is the current status of the internal policy? What do employees think about your company and its position in the market? Where do you want to grow and does that feeling also exist in your team? What are employees currently being held accountable for? These are all questions that need to be answered in a short, concise internal analysis. In order to create a good internal communication plan, you must first carry out a baseline measurement.

The power of simplicity

Above all, your internal communication must be clear and simple. For example, developing personas can help enormously to give your employee a clear idea of ​​which target groups they are working for. Within the ANWB, for example, a number of personas are used that are distributed throughout the office by means of posters. And lingerie brand Hunkemöller also uses a persona (the 'shero') to make its target group known internally.

Don't go too far

It is important not to go too far. Not too much complexity and especially not communicating about every little thing or thing. This creates communication fatigue within the organization. Collect a number of smaller things and communicate them simultaneously.

Internal and external communication flow into each other 

Partly due to the advent of new media, nothing remains secret anymore. Internal and external communication are increasingly overlapping. Successful companies use this in a proactive manner. It gives them a human and informal character. Rotterdam-based Coolblue is a textbook example of this proactive approach. They implement a strong internal branding strategy in which, for example, their own employees are given a role in external commercials. But also on social media, where office workers are frequently depicted. They are also proud of their culture and dare to make it public to communicate.

You could even say that external and internal communication are partly the same. Your employees could easily also be your external target group. A good example is Hunkemöller's HKMX sportswear collection, which was promoted earlier in 2016. To bring this collection to life internally, an internal sports day was organized. This means that internal and external aspects really merge and reinforce each other.