Why

Aligning on right tool, right message right time improves alignment and helps folks work better together. It also benefits new hires to have clarity on this and manage everyone’s expectations.

It’s important to make agreements as a team on how you communicate. You can include this in your personal ‘readme’ or ‘washing instructions’ but also fill out the template as a team below:

Agree on what you use what comms channel for. For example; on what channel do we communicate if you’re sick in the morning? Keep whatsapp as a strictly informal comms channel (for example)

Tip: think about re-communicating regularly your most important guidelines/ways of thinking. E.g. communicate it in Slack as a ‘highlight of the month’ or ‘did you know that’. Regularly talk about your benefits, what you’re offering.

Think from the perspective of your audience. What questions would they have in each phase of their employment journey? In this way you can proactively answer the questions before they even occur. Handy tool to map the different steps in the employee journey and the different questions/feelings that come along with that: https://www.pynhq.com/blog/employee-journey-mapping/

What

An example:

Comms

Expert Ideas

• Information Penetration - communicate the same message 7 times in different ways.
• The CEO creates a weekly 5 min video about the most important updates/news that the team should know. So they kinda filter all the info that’s been coming up throughout the week as a service to the team, making sure everyone’s informed about the things that matter most.
• Agree on how you communicate that people are leaving. Often people are in the dark about who’s leaving and when. Tip: let managers write something about the leaver in the monthly internal newsletter. There’s something good to write about everyone, regardless of the way people are leaving.
• Structure your weekly/all-hands in a way that sticks.
• Find ways of communicating about your OKRs that aren’t so dry. Organize an OKR market/fair where people can visit other teams’s OKR stand so they can learn & understand on a deeper level about each other’s goals.
• After an All-Hands: Email as a follow-up after the All-Hands, TL:DR at the top, Loom video with a summary.
• Great blog article here by Siobhan at Humanmade
• Internal and External - Post a round-up of the month with key numbers, achievements, and activities. Highlights and progress.

Employer branding inspiration:

• Employer branding starts with really good internal communication, and just reuse that content for external purposes. Repurpose your internal comms for external comms (of course with the approval of those involved). E.g. if a new joiner writes their intro, ask them if you can use that text to also introduce them on LinkedIn.
• If you want employees to post, make sure it’s easy for them. Remove the friction.
• Offer branded LinkedIn banners, giphies for joining and anniversaries etc.
• Give employees something to share - or even better, create experiences they want to share!

📚 Useful resources