Picture this: at a recent client meeting, the CEO announced a sales incentive and said to the marketing manager, ‘Make sure everyone is aware.’ HR, sales, production, and marketing were all in the room, yet no one owned internal communication. A couple of weeks later, in the same meeting room, the team discussed staff disappointment over a newly introduced reward system. Again, the problem was glaring: an internal communication gap.
This is the reality in many organisations: they prioritise external communication but have no internal communication strategy, process or structure. So, there is a disconnect between management and employees, and in the long run, reputation suffers because employee misalignment and dissatisfaction translate to poor customer service and experience.
PR is not press release writing or posting on social media. It is a strategic management function that integrates:
- internal communication
- media relations
- community relations
- public affairs
- marketing communication
- financial communication
- stakeholder engagement
- reputation management
- issues and crises management
- CSR and sustainability
When they are integrated, organisations communicate with one voice – internally and externally – and communication becomes a driver of business performance. In other words, public relations manages relationships across all stakeholder groups and supports the organisation in achieving its business objectives.
So, what was wrong with asking the marketing manager to ‘make sure everyone is aware’?
It is the assumption that ‘awareness’ equals ‘buy-in and participation.’
In organisations with well-established PR functions, internal communication is not an afterthought. It is designed into the departmental structure from the word go. Employee campaigns are planned with the same rigour as marketing communication campaigns targeting consumers. SMART objectives, audience segmentation, messaging, tactics, channel selection, timing, and evaluation are all built into the plan. In essence, an internal communication campaign is an internal marketing campaign.
It doesn’t stop there. It’s with the same mindset that an organisation must approach any stakeholder engagement – community, consumer, investor, government, distributor or supplier. That is the difference between treating PR as a tactical activity and a strategic function.
If you’d like help designing a corporate public strategy or structure, email hello@thebrandsparks.com.
