Behind

the Scenes of an Organizations

Internal Communication

Klemens Ismoyo Djajapurusa

1206290043
Internal Communication Mid-term Exam
October 2013

Introduction
One morning, you woke up from your sleep
and started doing your regular routines. When you
were checking your social media, many of your
colleagues were posting questions about a rumor
that the company you are working for has talks to
merge with a competitor. With no luck you tried to
search the Internet for the truth to this rumor and
decided to ask one of your friends in the higher-ups. When you asked them, they
did not deny the rumor and told you about the companys plan. You had your
answer but the one thing that was not making sense was that, why there was no
announcement of this merger to inform all employees of the company? Then
you had series of questions in your head, such as is my job safe, would I have to
work with people from the other company, should I compromise my working
culture, etc. Now, has this ever happened to you? Would you have all of these
doubts if your company has a better system of internal communication?
Many companies took a lot efforts in planning and creating the best and the
most effective method to engage and communicate with their external audiences,
such as customers, media, NGOs, and community members. More often than not,
they tend to forget their internal audience, who are the people who have the
most control over the future of the company, their employees. High-performing
organizations make employee communications a priority, according to Sarah
Boggess, a communication expert, on Ragan.com.

Definitions
The situation above is one of the many situations I encountered in the
course of my working life. Most of the time the employees hear news like
retrenchment, pay cut, pay rise, and bonus through rumors. Regardless of the
rumors being true or false, the company took no effort in clearing those rumors.
And even though we inquired from the HR department, as there was no
communication department, they did not give us straight answers. The company
only form of communication was a quarterly department meetings to explain the
position of the company against other competitors and what was required of us
to help the company in gaining an edge from the other companies.
According to Fred G. Meyer., Communication is the
intercourse by words, letters or messages. To most dictionaries,
communication is the transmission of a message or information
by speaking or writing. These definitions explain what
communication is. But what is communication in an organization?
Definition of organizational communication refers to
communication and interactions between an organization and
both its external and internal stakeholders as defined by the Institute of Public
Relations (IPR).
When you ask people for examples of internal communication, most of
them would give you answers such as newsletter, memos, notice boards, and
staff meetings. It is not incorrect, but it is incomplete. All of these are the official

channels of communication in any organizations. Internal communication is the

constant interactions within an organization. Hence, it includes not just the
communication from the top to the bellow levels, but also the more casual
communication modes, such as gossips and grapevine.

Communication Modes
Communication in organizations contains several modes, such as
horizontal or lateral communication that occurs between employees, vertical
communication (Upward and downward communication) that helps
organization to perform the chain of command in the case of downward
communication and to gain feedback from the subordinates in the case of
upward communication, and diagonal communication that occurs between
employees from different section of the organization, where one of them has a
higher position than the other.

Benefits
Now that we know the definitions of communication in an organization and
the difference modes, I cannot help but wonder of the importance of internal
communication. Here are a few of the advantages for a company to have internal
communication:
1. We are living in the time where social media has become one of the main
places to get information. It is not uncommon for somebody to air his or
her grievances about their working place in their FaceBook or Twitter
status, I know I have done that. Or for somebody, without realizing it, to
accidentally posts some sensitive information about his or her company
online. These would raise questions to the other employees. It is
important for an organization to educate their employees about the
importance of being discreet towards any information related to their
work. It is also equally important for the company to inform their
employees of the activities that the company is doing currently and those
that the company had planned for the future. This way, the employees
would get the information first hand from the correct source and they
would not second-guess their company.
2. Good internal communication could also reduce the companys staff
turnover rate. How? By evaluating and motivating them to stay on with
the company and informing them of the benefits they might be able to
receive when they achieved their KPIs targets. And when it comes to the
new employees, the company should inform and educate them of the
companys vision and mission, current and future companys plan, and the
employees future if they work for the company.

3. Just like the merger story told above, with good internal communication,
an organization would be able to avoid panic among their employees. The
employees would already know of the news even before they read it
online or hear it from another source. The employees would not be afraid
of losing their jobs as the company has assured them.
4. Employee branding, this is a new term for the modern industries. In
employee branding, the company sees their employees as its
ambassadors. They represent the company to the public. With this in
mind, the company would want their employees to behave to reflect the
image of the company that it wants the public to see.
5. Last but not least, according to Watson Wyatt, the better you
communicate with employees, the better your return on investment
(ROI). Indicated in his book, Connecting Organizational Communication
to Financial Performance 2003/2004 Communication ROI Study, that a
significant improvement in communication effectiveness is associated
with a 29.5 percent increase in market value.
With good communication from the organization, the employees are more than
willing to do their share of helping the company, be it in production or giving a
good image of the company to the public.
Before any communication starts, the communication department must have a
strategy on how to communicate.

HR or PR?
Many of us are still confused as to which department does
internal communication belongs to. If I were to guess, I
would choose either the Public Relations department or
the Human Resource department. As I have mentioned,
my previous company did not have any internal
communication, all of the communication were planned
and done by the HR department. Some companies
allocate internal communication as one of the job scope
for the HR department because some companies see
Public Relations as a department that does not contribute
to their profit making. Fortunately, most of the modern
companies have realized the importance of Public
Relations and that Public Relations are able to contribute to the well being of the
company from a dollar and cent point of view. A good internal communication
could bridge the gap between employers concerns, which is mostly about profit,
and employees concerns, such as job prospects, job bonuses, leaves, etc. In my
opinion both PR and HR should work together for the different elements of
communication so that the company could have a good internal communication.
Both HR and PR play important roles in communication.
From our perspective, internal communication is probably more important,
more often, than external communication. I see companies that spend million
dollars on an external PR campaign and ignore the internal audience. One

unhappy or misinformed employee can undermine or destroy a million-dollar

campaign pretty easily, says Larry Smith of the Institute for Crisis Management.
One of the main differences between HR and PR would be their department level.
As PR of the company, we have to convince the higher-ups of the importance of
PR to be involved in these few job scopes: companys decision making,
procedures making, and any important issues that are faced by the company.
With that position secured, it would be easy for PR practitioners to help in the
companys internal communication.
The roles of PR and HR department could be seen more clearly when developing
the internal communication strategy.

Developing a Communication Strategy

Before any communication starts, the communication department must have a

strategy on how to communicate. There are multiple ways to develop
communication strategy and although the plans may vary, from one company to
another, each plan consists of the similar elements. PR department should work
together with other department, such as HR to make the communication plan
successful. Here are the elements of a communication strategy:
1. Background research: by doing a research on the company as a whole, it
should provide us with the information we need to develop a
communication plan. It should help us to understand issues that need to
be addressed in the company. During the research, it helps to see the
company from the point of view of different groups of employees in the
company to understand them better, to find out the positive and negative
things about the company. This should help in determining the goal of the
internal communication. Here mostly are done by the PR with the help of
the data given by other departments.
2. Set the communication goals and objectives: once we have the
information from the research, we could then identify the objectives and
goals of the internal communication, which should be aligned with the
companys vision and mission, and present them to the top management
for approval. Besides setting the objectives, we should also decide on the
allocation of the resources and provide an indicator of success. Again, this
step is mostly done by PR.

3. Write up the key messages: PR has the necessary background to write

up a powerful key message. Employees in the workplace do not carry the
same messages; therefore, it is important so that they are aligned with the
company. The messages do not have to be complex.
4. Identifying target audience: here PR and HR should work together.
Although PR should know the different types of employees in the
company, HR deals with them often and directly. It is an important step as
once we identify the audience that we want to communicate, we are able
to choose the right tools to communicate them with.
5. Identifying tools and tactics: after the target audience has been
identified, we have to select the best tools on how to deliver the key
messages to them. Communication tools are the tool the instruments that
can be used to reach the audience and tactics are the way to use those
tools. Different audience may require different tools to communicate
effectively. One of the effective ways to choose the tools are to list down
the availability of those tools in the company. It is unwise to use the tools
that the company does not have the resources. Here PR and HR have to
work together. HR could be more familiar about the types of tools that are
available in the company.
6. Develop an implementation plan: this step is to decide who or which
department to do what. PR can delegate the accountability of the
responsibilities of the completion of the tasks to the different department.
It may require discussing with the management level on the delegations.
7. Budget: drawing up a budget plan is as important as deciding which tools
and tactics to use to communicate the message to the audience. The
resources and the cost needed should be documented to be presented for
approval. PR should decide on the budget plan.
8. Measurement: after the implementation of the communication plan,
measurement should be done to do evaluation. After the measurement we
should be able to know if there are certain things that could be improved.
This measurement should be done continuously every time there is an
improvement. Here PR should be the one doing the measurement in order
to know which need to be improved and do the improvements.

Conclusion
Internal communication is as important as external communication.
Communicating with the employees will align the employees views with the
companys vision and mission to develop an effective management. PR
department should do most of the plan with HR helping along the way. It is not
possible for PR to work together or HR to come up with communication plan by
themselves. For PR to be able to do the communication plan effectively, PR
department should be placed in the management level.

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