6 Tactics Leaders Can Use to Communicate Internally and Drive Change

Have you ever called a company to inquire about a service that, surprisingly, the person on the other line knows nothing about? You’re left wondering why the company advertised it but forgot to tell the employees.

Financial advisory and law firms, like many other companies, prioritize marketing and sales efforts that revolve around external communications. While this is critical for business development, it’s just as important to apply the same strategy inward to communicating and marketing key initiatives to employees.

According to research by Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., 60 percent of companies do not have a long-term strategy or vision for internal communications. Why is this so important? When you engage with employees effectively, not only are they more informed about your value proposition and differentiators, but they’re also more likely to become brand advocates. In addition, regular communication helps build trust and boost productivity across all job functions.

We know that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution in the marketing world, so when we think about the best way for leaders to communicate with their teams, we encourage them to take a similar, multi-channel approach. Naturally, when messages are repeated in different ways, message retention increases.

“Delivering your message in different ways over time not only increases retention and impact, but it gives you the chance to describe what you’re doing from several angles.” –Seth Godin

Here are six tactics leaders can use to effectively communicate across the firm:

In-person meetings

A Gallup study shows that employees are usually up to three times more engaged when managers hold regular meetings with their teams. Whether that’s weekly staff meetings or quarterly events, the intent is for leaders to share reports on how the company is doing, forecast what is to come, and provide an environment that encourages interactive Q&A. It’s a great way to share important news from the top down.

Remote workers can “zoom into meetings” so they remain engaged and maintain connection with others. For those who can’t attend, opt to record and/or summarize meetings, then share on your intranet.

In-office digital screens

It’s hard to miss a colorful animated screen on the wall. Having one or more screens throughout your office allows you to serve up a variety of messages on repeat, with high visibility. This one-to-many approach should capitalize on your “what” and “why,” so this won’t be a channel to

convey everything in extensive detail. For example, this is an ideal place to highlight new hires and milestones, promote involvement in community or industry events, or call attention to client testimonials.

Slack

This technology solution provides an internal messaging chat service that can connect leaders with employees without intruding on the email inbox. Leadership can create channels for company announcements, recognitions, and industry news and insights. The intent is that this communication is relayed quickly and easily. However, don’t forget to be clear on what is not to be shared for security purposes.

Intranet

A company intranet is another way to give employees easy access to company news and updates, which also encourages engagement and feedback. Employees can set the company intranet to populate as their homepage, seeing it first thing when they get to work and then throughout the day. Intranet blog posts can be used to inform the everyone, including remote workers, about initiatives or concerns.

Whether your company has Slack or an intranet, you’ll want to identify a single “source of truth,” a channel that all employees have access to in the event they miss a meeting or email, and need to play catch up.

Desk drops

If you’re a law firm promoting a new practice group, you might consider delivering a desk drop to partners. This could include a branded tchotchke that relates to the new group’s target industry, plus a brief sales deck with scripted emails that partners can use to share the capabilities of the new group with existing clients.

If your budget allows, include the employees in the branded item drop. This warm and fuzzy strategy has a dual purpose in sharing your initiative and showing employee appreciation. Don’t forget to include a brief quick reference card on the new group so employees can speak about it as well.

Email newsletter

Possibly the most obvious form of internal communication is email marketing. Communications can be relayed in a more formal internal newsletter sent through your branded email service, for example, with content spotlights every month. Your firm could choose to send a “Letter from the Managing Partner” email for a certain type of communication. Either way, email communication is informative if you’re wanting to share a message to your entire team.

Frequencies can be established for formal newsletters so employees know when to anticipate updates. Plus, emails are scalable, meaning you can analyze email metrics to figure out how many employees are opening your email, how many are engaging (by clicking through links), and see if you’re sending emails at the best time.

Don’t forget that emails can get buried and overlooked. They are not a silver bullet for internal communications. Newsletters do require some time to gather information from different teams, and they do restrict two-way dialogue. That’s why it’s so important that your internal communications plan is based around a multi-channel strategy.

As part of your internal communications approach, evaluate your company’s channels and make sure you’re choosing the channels that best serve your purpose.

Need help developing and implementing a full-scale internal communications strategy? Contact KSGilmore Consulting today.