So, we’ve come to the end of Series 1 of the Engaging Internal Comms Podcast, and what a first season it’s been. We started the podcast in April, during lockdown, with the aim of using our time positively and productively. Most importantly, we wanted to create something that would prove useful for others. We haven’t been disappointed.

We reached out to potential interviewees, and they have undoubtedly proved to be the stars of the shows that we hoped they would be. We’ve enjoyed some amazing discussions with amazing people. The experiences and insight they have shared are second to none and have generated quite a response from a rapidly growing audience.

While we would encourage you to dip in and out of the episodes as you wish – and there are details of how to do so at the end of this message – the highlights include:

• Our first episode, in which Craig discussed using internal brand to develop extreme employee engagement with Arafa Heneghan, Head of Brand at ao.com
• Meeting Sarah Carr, Global Communications Insights Lead for Aviva, and learning of her insight as she explained her 7 myths of internal communications
• Chatting with the amazing Tracey Brower, and learning of her thoughts about the future of the workplace – one of the most listened-to episodes in Series 1
• Speaking with Hilary U, Executive Internal Communications Leader for the Salesforce security team, and learning about the strategies she uses to overcome the challenges of communicating from the C-suite
• Hearing Head of Internal Comms at XE Chris Coburn’s thoughts about the role of a line manager in episode 22, and how organisations can develop the role of the line manager as a conduit for communications

We must emphasise that while these are a few of the highlights, it’s impossible to mention everyone that we’ve been fortunate enough to speak with throughout the series. We must, however, thank all our interviewees. Every single episode has helped to develop the conversation and engage a growing audience.

As 2020 draws to a close, we can only reflect on what a very strange year it has been. We don’t think anyone is under any illusion that 2021 will be anything other than another tough year. However, let’s take what we have learned through the challenges we’ve all faced over the last few months and approach the new year stronger and more resilient as individuals and internal communicators, and with optimism for the future.

2021 will be the year to ensure that you get your people behind your purpose and values, and ensure they return to work with renewed enthusiasm. Let’s build back better than we had before, both personally and at the organisational level.

Before we sign off this first season, we’d just like to repeat our thanks to all our interviewees for their incredible contributions, and to our listeners for their gracious and continued support.

We’ve got some fantastic episodes lined up for 2021, kicking off with Linda McCormack from Anglian Water, who discusses employee advocacy and the great work that Anglian Water have been doing during the pandemic as...

In this episode of Engaging Internal Comms, The Big Picture People’s Craig Smith talks to Jennifer Sproul, Chief Executive of the Institute of Internal Communications since 2016, and currently leading the institute through the most uncertain and difficult times in the profession.

She is also the co-presenter for IoIC’s podcast, for which you can find a link at the end of these show notes.

The IoIC celebrated its 70th year last year and is the only independent professional body that is solely dedicated to promoting a deeper understanding of internal communication. It has 1,800 members, who work mostly in corporate organisations and the public sector.

Prior to her role as Chief Exec for the IoIC, Jennifer worked in the Market Research Society and a variety of senior marketing and comms roles.

For some time, internal communications has been used as a broadcasting function, acting as an executive megaphone to transmit messages.

Today, internal communication means much more. It provides essential access to engagement within an organisation and empowers learning and organisational development. Internal comms is now a key mechanism in successful and forward-moving organisations.

Through communicating internally, organisations can learn:

• How people share information, through feedback and dialogue
• How line managers can communicate effectively amongst teams
• What’s important to the organisation
• How people perceive their role and how engagement creates empowerment, purposefulness and inclusion, resulting in employee loyalty

In 2020, communication became more important than ever before. “In this pandemic, if we’ve learned nothing else, we’ve learned the power of communication,” says Jennifer. “It’s our tool in the fight against what we’re dealing with right now in the world.”

Currently, internal comms people have a clearly defined role in facilitating greater communications. However, the future of internal communication as a profession will lead beyond message distribution. Internal comms will assist the learning and development of middle and line managers to act as communication conduits directly with their teams.

As we emerge through a game-changing pandemic, Jennifer identifies this current climate as a pivotal opportunity to develop managers’ skills to communicate more effectively with their teams. This includes helping them to:

• Digest and understand the context of an organisation’s message
• Understand employees’ reactive feelings and behaviours as feedback

Internal comms people are now helping managers upskill to become better communicators, an advantage felt even more acutely in remote teams.

“It’s about redefining what good management is,” says Jennifer. “As we move to more distributed working, where the line managers are going to play more of a pivotal role, now is the time to really be thinking about making that seismic shift and helping to embed that good facilitation skill throughout the organisation.”

Another development in internal comms is that secondment to positions to which they are communicating is now more common. This helps internal comms people to understand the issues that people are experiencing, thus deepening their knowledge of the organisation from the ground floor up.

2020 has been a historic year. It forced individuals and businesses of all sizes to adjust rapidly to survive. There has also been immeasurable trauma – mentally and physically to individuals, and logistically and financial...

In this episode of Engaging Internal Comms, The Big Picture People’s Craig Smith talks to Lindsay Uittenbogaard. Lindsay is Director at Mirror Mirror, which is an employee engagement consultancy based in the Netherlands.

Mirror Mirror has built around 120 practitioners in 17 different countries. It is a tool that identifies and measures alignment gaps, by capturing the way that people perceive their context at work and comparing them in other team levels, to identify common ground and differences. It helps organisations and employees create clarity and engagement, enabling teams and organisations to develop more effectively.

Prior to Mirror Mirror, Lindsay held senior internal communication roles at Shell, T-Systems, VEON, and FEMS (Federation of European Microbiological Societies). Lindsay also has experience in micro-businesses.

Employee alignment is often viewed as a consequence of employee engagement. In reality, alignment is a precursor to engagement. Alignment is crucial to employee engagement.

Lindsay explains this in three levels of alignment in an organisation:

This provides a strategic frame in which employees can operate, ensuring an organisation’s systems and processes are all pointing in the same direction.

How the context can be shared with employees to enable them to align with the strategy.

With the strategy and communication in place, this level ensures employees can collaborate and interact to fill the gaps.

Lindsay explains that without alignment and a clear view of the strategy on how to collaborate and implement it, employees will not be engaged. However, she also puts forward that employees may be aligned yet not engaged.

When employees understand the vision, the strategy, their team’s purpose, and how they can implement it, engagement is achieved to advance the organisation’s mission through their role.

Thankfully, world culture and organisational culture now encourage diversity and the embracing of differences. However, it may appear contradictory to combine this with alignment, with all employees expected to sit on the same page.

Lindsay is quick to clarify that alignment must not be confused with the idea of everybody thinking the same thing. “We don’t want you to just kind of memorise a message, because that’s not really going to have them internalise it,” she explains. “People have to make sense of things in their own ways.”

Alignment is not a uniformed and rigid message. It’s about cognitive and behavioural compatibility.

Organisations must both deliver a strategy and allow employees to express their interpretations and views within it.

Employees and teams must take time to discuss their interpretations, healthily challenging each other without confrontation or conflict, with respect for differences in opinions. Doing so will pave the way for alignment as employees adapt to each other’s views and decisions and come to agreement on how to move forward together.

Therefore, communication must focus on engaging people in conversation to surface misalignments and resolve them as a team.

Communication through conversation is widely accepted as the best method to engage people in organisations. But how one person hears a message can be very different to how others hear it. The result could be engaged teams that are misaligned.

Organisations must take car...