Camps split on the aim of internal comms

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

To some it may seem strange for an audience of consultants and practitioners to discuss the aim of internal communications, but it appears the global economic downturn has perhaps forced many of you to rethink and refocus the ways in which you do business. Budgets are tighter, staffing slimmer and, as a result, IC skills are in many cases in short supply. A new way of thinking is needed. And if your Linked In messages are anything to go by, it seems to have ruffled a few feathers.

On the surface the issue is split into two camps, strategy and engagement. But if you pull out the binoculars, and do a 360-degree scan of the hillside, the battleground is divided into a much larger spread of armies and their respective crests tied firmly to their opinionated flagposts.

There is one army however, forced to switch to the blindside of the valley after narrowly avoiding a barrage of arrows from an evil band of marauding economic downturn driven archers, that seem to be adopting a sensible set of tactics in the face of adversity.

“The aim for senior management is to exchange actions for words and pretty images, clever events and funky videos,” said one respondent. “I'm sure that internal communicators have far loftier aims, but for me it's not engagement. It’s too ill defined as a concept.”

“It has to be productivity, quality and reduction in corporate risk and resulting losses,” explained another.

“If comms cannot prove impact on the bottom line it becomes irrelevant as a function. In so many businesses IC is toothless, fluffy and cannot demonstrate its worth,” said another Linked In member rather angrily.

The downturn is forcing us to get back to basics, to reconsider spending vast sums on “clever events” and “funky videos” and to find practical solutions to some of the hardest challenges faced in recent corporate memory.

You seem to “get it” and you appear to be in control of many of the goings on within your companies and the issues facing clients. As one online commentator said, “it’s all about simple messages”, making people stay and feel great about staying, getting people to work harder on the right things, getting people to say the right things about you, getting people to support and see through change and sticking to the law”.

If only our politicians could do the same. It took Gordon Brown and his cronies six days to say sorry following a calamitous email blunder. They have a lot to learn from a much slimmer but much more eagle-eyed IC profession.

Comments

[Dirnov]

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