Engaging Internal Comms

Craig Smith talks to Hillary U, who is Executive Internal Communications Leader for the Salesforce security team. Hillary is currently based in Washington, Seattle. Good internal communication is imperative within a company to ensure that changes, messages, and transformations are effectively and accurately communicated throughout an organisation. The source of the communication begins in the C-Suite. However, with the C-suite housing a corporation’s most senior executives, there’s a risk to overall trust and clarity if this level within the organisation does not communicate effectively. With decision making and technical issues requiring prioritisation, communication beyond the C-Suite can often become jarred, preventing the seamless flow of communication that is required throughout the organisation.

In this podcast, Craig talks to Chris Coburn of XE about the overlooked topic of the comms role of a line manager. They discuss the importance of line managers, and the relationships they must build to create internal communications of engagement within an organisation. Chris talks about how one business will have quite a different communication strategy to another, yet they all need line managers to identify any issues within their teams. But with large organisations, it is imperative that the line managers themselves also fully understand what is being communicated before representing their company’s message.

The Big Picture People’s Craig Smith talks to Leader of the Volunteers Hub for Engage for Success, Vlad Levitsky. We learn about the positive impact that volunteering can have on employees, and why it can be a great strategy to boost employee engagement. Volunteering creates a rich culture within an organisation. Vlad explains how giving them the freedom to act in favour of what they believe in or enjoy, or the time to help where it is crucially needed and therefore rewarding, will enrich a company’s workforce tenfold. Employees will be engaged in their organisation and all that it supports: freedom, encouragement, collaboration, and pride – the golden ingredients for a thriving company.

The Big Picture People’s Craig Smith talks to the FT's Megan Dold about the challenges of communicating within an organisation, and how to overcome them by using empathy. Communicating effectively across a business internally requires empathy in a sense that internal comms people are understanding of the importance of employees’ roles, and are adaptable in their approach to ensuring a message, that they will care about and is of importance to them and their company, reaches them.

While the world has adjusted to communicating remotely, there are still a lot of challenges to overcome. Where previously ideas could be discussed ‘on the fly’ and teams could create ideas and solutions together in a working environment, conferences must now be scheduled, taking distractions and home life into consideration. In this episode of Engaging Internal Comms, The Big Picture People’s Craig Smith talks to Rob Woodhead, who is the MD at Simply Better about how they’ve adjusted to new ways of communicating, and how he believes this will change the future of face-to-face communications at work.