The Democratized Internal Communications Platform - A Framework

Today, the corporate communication segment of an organization has a
wider role to play rather than mere PR & media handling, content management, collateral delivery or event management department. There are new frontiers to be discovered, fought and addressed as this segment re-orients itself
to the changes in market and digital space. 

Further, the internal communications function has gained a lot of momentum with

shifting times. From following traditional communication channels to a transparent multiple media enriched scenario, the internal communications platform has been gaining a lot of democracy with the coming of citizen journalists, employee bloggers and more.

The initiative to start up a current corporate communication segment thereby, requires strategizing of certain emerging trends and practices. And this is the way

it grows -

Re-orienting talent management and brand positioning

Re-thinking brand activation and talent pool along with internal communication platform has become the crux of the corporate agenda. The communication flowing within the cross-functional segments of an organization needs to be tapped into a think-tank corpus of best practices. The aim should be to collect opinions from subject matter expert, media analysts, consumers, influencers, buyers & sellers, financial experts and from our own employees. The idea being to refine the efficient knowledge coming in , defining it according to the specific requirement and then sharing it with the stakeholders. Build a strutured talent pool and reap the harvest. The recreation of the communication channels with the evolution of social media applications, online reputation management and digital tools has democratized the internal communications platforms. What we are facing right now is an autonomy corresponding between the employees and leadership. This brings an end to the tradional channels of employee PR and corporate communication where information was pushed and pulled to and fro.

The challenge is to build a collaborative workspace.The employee's perception about their workspace experience, their roles and responsibilities and overall standing in the organization structure matters significantly. An highly engaged workforce becomes the need of any organization with continous high yields, ROIs and productivity. The engagement of employees within their organzations in consistency with the internal communications platform is the mantra here. The emotions are at play here, that that is what does the trick. Sculpting the belongingness feature in the employees leads to re-thinking of the brand aspect. The satisfaction levels of the engaged employees then rolls out across the cross-functional channels towards the different stakeholders who inturn re-activate the brand of the company directly or indirectly. Thereby, the whole organization become the base of brand activation and this gives it an unique cultural identity.
           

Mapping employee engagement

Defining employee roles, engaging them at work and extending relationships beyond workspace is like embarking on a journey. The terrains you cover while mapping it helps you in developing an efficient employee engagement charter for practical application. The social ambience at workspace does influence the employer persona. Engaging employees in a 2-way conversation, creating shared workspaces enables developing a sense of ownership at workspace. A strategic visual approach to internal communication should be the focus here. Creating online employee connection centres using platforms like intranet, communicators, messaging tools helps tap on the creative side of the employees.  Placing engaging mechanisms with outlet options at workspace enables employees to express themselves and open up. This also pops up hidden talents and redundant profiles for taking further action. Organizations also set up innovations lab and idea generation systems and promote them by creating rewards and recognition programs. Defining the corporate culture simplifies the rigidity of relationships at work and helps in community building initiatives. Working out CSR programs to get aligned to the industry you are in, becomes imperative these days. Highlighting CSR initiatives intelligently as part of the online reputation management plan reaps unquestionable benefits. Further, employee engagement activities may also include voluteership by being part of the talent management team, mentorship or transfer programes, social service etc. Fun on the floor, weekend outings, food festivals, hobby ideas, employee oriented health campaigns are other prevalent engagement tactics. The challenge is to keep the spirit of the employees going making engagement as interactive and experimental as possible.

Employee communication methodology

The need of the hours is to monitor, analyze, influence and then focus on what is being said, what affects your brand, making the influencial interactions to eliminate negativities and then concentrate on the results for re-use. There is no end to the varied tactic tools to be put in use to materialize this MAIF methodology mentioned above. The social media innovates itself from time to time to offer a boutique of tools including platforms for employee conversations, community management house, interactive messaging boards and discussion forums, webinars, desktop alerts and newsfeeds, internal newsletter and blogger sections, online quiz and pop-up surveys, creativity lab, productivity tools like 'to do list', 'calender', 'organizer', 'notifications', 'Status updates' and more. The need is to make communication as accessable and transparent as possible and also plug-in monitoring agents to curb confidential disturbances.

Concluding, a corporate communication segment which gives autonomy and transparency to its work and that of the organization will accomplish its actual identity.