3 essentials for internal communicators

Employee communication continues to get a bad rap. Communicators who handle internal communication are paid less than the media relations folks (you could look it up!), and frankly, in a lot of cases we deserve it.

When you handle internal comms, what is your responsibility? Populating the intranet? Editing the magazine? Rewriting news releases? How about functioning as the in-house expert on how organizational communication does or doesn’t work? Counseling management on how to be better communicators?

I don’t know why, but the latter couple of tasks seem to be outsourced more often than not. I don’t think I’m necessarily smarter than I was when I worked at KeyCorp, National City, or Goodyear, but I am a bit more experienced, perhaps. Winning an internal consulting effort while in-house was a tough sell. A lot of people were more comfortable with me as a writer/editor, a tactician rather than a strategist, despite my efforts to develop a contrary angle.

There are three really important actions internal comms pros need to take if they aspire to more responsibility, more professional prestige, and/or more money: