• Home
• About Us
  • Our difference
  • Our values
  • Knowledge centre
  • Special focus
  • Latest news
  • Events
  • Survival Tool Kit
• Our Team
  • Our Board
  • Our Consultants
• Our Services
  • Internal communications audit
  • Developing employment opportunities
  • Service improvement & excellence
  • Governance & co-regulation
  • Property & asset management
  • Resident involvement
  • Change management
  • Reshaping business
  • Procurement & partnering
  • Value for money
  • Coaching & mentoring
• Special Projects
  • Give us a chance
  • Kent Housing Seminar
• Our Clients
• Contact

Internal Communications

The social housing sector – like every other – is faced with a great deal of change. A new government is bringing with it new policies and new regulation. An austere economic climate is placing current business plans and objectives in question. When faced with change – both organisational and cultural – internal communications becomes an essential weapon in the armoury of every organisation. In this Special Focus we examine how to get the most from an area that has quickly become a strategic business operation for every social housing provider.

It's not only the business environment that's changing so is internal communications as a discipline. If we say that the first generation of internal communications was a top-down flow of information, through tools such as staff newsletters, team briefings and information cascades. The second generation added a bi-directional element through staff surveys and employee consultations to create an effective feedback loop.

The new generation of internal communications adds a horizontal aspect to what has been a heavily vertical communications path. It understands that word of mouth, social networks and 'water cooler conversations' are where real people have real conversations that can demonstrate and determine how they feel and act. The scary thing is that these are the conversations that management has very little ability to control.

Why are effective internal communications so important? The Local Government Improvement and Development agency suggests that internal communications is important so that staff become advocates for your organisation.  According to the agency, the way that frontline staff behave and talk to customers has a major impact with customers and the wider community. In an excellent report entitled 'The definitive analysis of current internal communications practice' (available to download here], The Work Foundation suggests a key role is to create a 'common purpose' across the entire organisation - creating the sense of a team where everyone feels ownership in their roles and in achieving the organisation's objectives. More than this, the report states that “Internal communications is one of the key ‘intangible’ factors leading to high performance.”  For example, where communications work well within an organisation, you'll find that frontline staff are empowered to deal with issues as and when they arise giving the customer a quicker response time and a much better experience. It makes excellent financial as well as business sense to resolve any customer query at the earliest possible point. In short, organisations that perform poorly are likely to be those who consistently treat their staff like mushrooms  – keep them in the dark and only feed them rubbish (that's not quite the original quote but you know what we mean!). Success comes from an open, honest, consistent dialogue throughout the organisation where opinions and ideas are listened to and valued.

The seven steps to an effective internal communications strategy From the outside, developing a successful internal communications programme can seem deceptively simple. It's really just working out what you want to tell your staff and then working out how you're going to tell them, right?  Well, not quite. It's about working out how your communications strategy will help you achieve your business objectives, how your staff will make this happen and how they can influence those business objectives if what you have planned isn't quite working. Remember that by far the best and quickest way to know whether your policies and procedures need to be altered, whether your customers are really satisfied or where the problems are within your business processes – say, in repairs and maintenance – will always be through feedback from the frontline. Of course, every internal communications programme will be different. It will reflect the unique set of circumstances faced by that provider. However, there are seven stages that all organisations should go through.

1) Align internal communications with business objectives It is all too easy when faced with a massive workload to take the easy route with internal communications – even for the communications department. You know you need to get that newsletter out or arrange the content for the next team briefing. You ask: “What have we got that we can say?” It's very understandable and, at one time or another, everyone's done it. However, what you should be asking is: “What are our business objectives, in the short and long term? What tools do we need to be giving our people in order that they can achieve these objectives? What do they think we should be doing to hit our targets?” And finally: “What's the best way to communicate all this?” Only by very clearly aligning internal communications with business objectives can you engage staff in a way where they feel involved and motivated to drive through any necessary changes.

2) Audit current activity You need a baseline to work against. That means understanding what works and what doesn't, what you're currently doing well and where there's room for improvement, what other people are doing that perhaps you hadn't even thought of. Luckily, the idea of co-operation and peer reviewing is already well established within the social housing sector. Yet, it is worth working with a third party that can look at your practices from a dispassionate point of view and analysis the findings. Little surprise then that The Work Foundation research found public sector organisations favoured external audit as a key way to measure the effectiveness of their internal communications programmes.

3) Clearly define roles and responsibilities Ok, this one can be repeated like a mantra: Communications is not just the responsibility of the communications department.  For no strategic business initiative will fully succeed without the buy-in, commitment and active participation of senior management and the board. The person most overlooked in all this is the line manager. New communications channels such as intranets, email and surveys mean that the role of the line manager in internal communications appears less important than before. This is a mistake that many organisations have made. If anything, it's more important. Whether or not they are being asked to disseminate information or collect feedback, how a manager feels about or reacts to any changes that are proposed will have a profound affect on how well they are implemented. Once you know what has to be communicated, take time to work out who will be doing the communicating and the support they need to communicate effectively.

4) Select the appropriate communication channels The Work Foundation report identified 25 different communications channels that organisations currently use internally - everything from formal team briefings and regular staff newsletters to streaming training videos and SMS messages. The key is to select the channels that are appropriate to your organisation and culture. If most people have little access to a computer then investing in an intranet may not be money well spent. However, the report did uncover communication channels that people expected but were not very effective. When asked, 91% of public sector communications professionals said they used regular email updates. Yet, the same people ranked email updates as the least effective communications method. Then there the emerging tools in the social media environment. Do you use Facebook or Twitter? Do you use business equivalents like Yammer to create a private social network? Does your CEO blog? If they do, can staff comment on what they've written? Do you allow other people to read those comments even if they are negative?

5) Listen, listen and listen again Surprisingly, there are still a significant number of organisations that still view internal communications as a top-down process. The truth is that it can only reach its full business potential when the right information is flowing around the organisation at the right time. Finding new and innovative ways to tap into staff feelings and opinions will always be time smartly invested – as long as you are prepared to act upon them.

6) Develop honest and consistent communications No one likes spin. No one likes to feel that they are being excluded. Yet, that can easily become the way that staff view your internal communications. If you have meeting after meeting and hold survey after survey, yet, not one idea from a staff member ever makes it into the business plan, then people will soon realise there's no point to giving their opinion at all. Worse still is when you tell your staff one thing and the newspaper has a story saying completely the opposite the next day. The simple rule is openness and honesty - it doesn't always have to be good news. We're all grown ups and we know there's bad things in the world as well. We just want to be kept informed. The correct delivery of bad news can, paradoxically, be far more powerful in terms of motivation and cohesion than a deluge of good news.

7) Invest in training The old adage goes that most people would rather die than speak in public. Although this is obviously an exaggeration, the point is a good one. Communication is a skill and like any skill it has to be nurtured and developed. If you want a clear and consistent message communicated across the organisation then you need to ensure that those responsible receive the support they require.

Are you ready? All organisations use different mechanisms to communicate internally. The challenge is to ensure that what you communicate is closely aligned to your business objectives and that how you communicate can be easily heard so that your staff are engaged, motivated and prepared for the changes, challenges and opportunities that lie ahead   Capturing  and listening to feedback both formal and informal can have a hugely positive impact on culture and performance and can help take your organisation from good to great. If you'd like to discuss finding out how well your internal communications work and how they could be improved, please call Barbara Thorndick on 020 7766 5224 or you can email us

12 Top Tips for
Internal Communications

Download our handy, practical tips for internal communications.

PDF (320Kb)

How can we help?

To discuss your needs in strictest confidence.

Call 01732 749422 or 07796 266994
Email us here