Whats the purpose of the internal communication discipline?
This was our first question, and the answers are familiar but show how different organizations look for slightly different outcomes from their internal communication discipline as follows: • Create understanding of strategy and direction • Support organizational change • Keep people informed of company news • Build company pride • Help people to live the values What complicates the role of internal communicators is the way the discipline doesn’t work in isolation but alongside, and reports into, functions such as HR, marketing and external communication, creating a specific bias. When linked to HR, internal communication focuses on employee engagement. When working with marketing it’s on customer service. And when working with external communication, it’s geared towards the internal management of the news agenda and corporate social responsibility. At HSBC, where the Group internal communication team reports into corporate communication, the discipline is heavily involved in day-to-day
