How to Unleash the Collective Communications Power of Your Team and Deliver Results

When it comes to communicating with your stakeholders, we are all aware of the importance of generating engaging content and positioning team members as experts in their field. However, it can be time-consuming and difficult to know where to start.

I recently spoke at TechFest 2021 on this topic – looking at how organisations can use effective internal communications to harness their team members’ knowledge and experience to drive their external activities. Therefore, having a positive impact on employee engagement and retention, building reputation, and increasing brand awareness.

Here are some of the key steps that will help your organisation deliver tangible business results by leveraging the collective communications power of your team.

Driving effective internal communications

The first step is to optimise how you are communicating with your team internally.

Start with your business strategy and understand how internal communications can help achieve those goals. Then find out which activities and channels are working well by auditing current activity. This will let you see what employees are responding to, and what content works well. From these insights, you can develop a strategy and an action plan that will keep your employees informed, engaged and inspired.

Facilitate two-way conversations

With the new future of work there are challenges all organisations regardless of size, sector or location are going to face, such as, purely transactional relationships, content silos, time constraints and invisible team members.

I recommend that you facilitate time for two-way conversations, giving people the space to voice their opinion and put themselves forwards to share their expertise.

This thinking is supported by the results of our recent national survey conducted with Irish employees. 77% of Irish workers say their company’s internal communications need to be improved and 4/5 survey respondents went on to say that they don’t feel heard or have an opportunity to provide feedback within their organisation.

Championing internal experts

We know that employee content generates eight times more engagement than content shared by brands (Social Media Today). Therefore, it is vital to identify your communications champions – employees with an affinity for creating and posting content or internal ‘thought-leaders’, those with expertise on specific topics of interest to your audiences. This will help you identify potential experts, topics and themes for external communications.

As with all ways of working, a clear policy around employee-generated content and an approval process are important foundations but need to be simple enough that they don’t hamper creativity. By providing guidance and tips, you will give employees the confidence and tools to begin creating content themselves, that you can then potentially amplify to a wider audience.

Integrating internal and external communications

A communications strategy that brings together an organisation’s best thinking, both internal and external, can build brand equity and relationships, whilst also creating new opportunities that align with the overall business strategy.

Aligning your internal and external communications has far-reaching results, including a more positive culture, increased levels of trust and employee advocacy, as well as more effective change management.

Building your reputation through thought leadership

When you have tapped into the talent, experience and passion inside your organisation you can now leverage this network of experts externally to build trust, enhance your reputation and ultimately achieve business growth.

This can be done through interviews and guest articles in both national and vertical media, website articles, video, speaking opportunities and social posting.

By clearly communicating your goals, the ask and the process, you can empower your employees to become effective advocates of your organisation.

Guest post by Susie Horgan. Susie founded Springboard Communications in 2011 and has developed the business into a leading, director-led communications agency. With over 20 years of experience, Susie is the strategic lead on award-winning campaigns, working with clients across sectors including IT, pharma, life sciences and automation.