HR Zone recently reported on the findings of a study by the British Association of Communicators in Business claiming that 87% feel internal communications should not be part of HR; we invited Bettina Pickering and Rachael Brassey of PA Consulting Group to present their responses.

Whilst we are in agreement with the findings , we do, however, feel that the report fails to provide an answer to the question as to where internal communications should sit within the organisation. Neither does it answer the question of how internal communications would interact with other functions to ensure that internal communications are involved in new/current change projects and are kept up to date of functional communication requirements.

What do “internal communications” do?
In order to answer the question where internal communications is best placed within the organisation or whether it should be a function in its own right, we need to establish what the role of internal communications is.

In our experience, internal communications tends to communicate the organisation’s strategy, strategic direction and goals to all levels of the organisation. It acts as the mouthpiece of the CEO and board members and thus represents the organisation’s values in all messages.

Internal communications co-ordinates messages from various functions which affect either the whole or a significant part of the employee base, for example they might communicate a new HR policy to staff on behalf of the HR function or key changes to ways of working resulting from an organisation wide change programme. Without this co-ordination messages might clash or employees might drown in a barrage of similar or conflicting communications from various initiatives or programmes.

The communications professional also provides direction on branding, styles and formats and reviews messages written by other functions or programmes for consistency and compliance with corporate guidelines. These messages – once signed off by internal communications may then be communicated by these functions or programmes directly.

Usually internal communications would prepare an annual communications plan which, on a high-level, lays out what the key messages are, key annual communication milestones due to be delivered by what channel (for example newsletters, staff meetings) and to whom (for example managers, all staff). Any new communication need raised by a function or programme will be slotted into the plan to avoid message overload and conflicts. Any internal communications plan must be aligned to the organisation’s external communications and media plan.

In most organisations, external communications or public relations sit along side or within the same organisational unit as internal communications although in a number of organisations these two areas are split.

Where in the organisation would be the ideal place for communications?
Popular homes for communications functions tend to be in marketing, or HR for internal communications, the office of the CEO or more increasingly as a function within its own right sitting along side the other support functions.

Although a number of the skills of a communications professional may be similar or overlap with skills of other function professionals within the organisation that is HR or marketing, locating these communications functions in either of these may make it appear biased.

HR, in particular, has a lot to communicate to employees on a regular basis for example new or changing employment legislation, policy changes, appraisal deadlines and so on.

However, HR does not usually get involved in every single programme an organisation undertakes and most employees would not think of HR first when thinking about communication branding, channel management and media plans. That is what marketing does of course, but in most organisations marketing has their main focus on product or service marketing with a view to increasing sales rather than internal/external communications.

When deadlines draw near most functions will divert staff to their primary activities for HR that might be getting the salary review finalised or for marketing getting a product campaign out the door.

To avoid possible bias or diversion of resources to other activities, communications (both internal and external) should be an independent function. Its natural home would be as staff function to the main decision makers in the organisation that is the office of the CEO/board or as reporting to the CEO. Internal communications and external communications should be combined into one function to ensure consistency of messages and look and feel internally as well as externally.

How can HR and internal communications work together?
Internal communications should treat HR as a “customer” that is a function with organisation wide communication needs. HR, as every other function, should provide input into the annual and the monthly communications plan, highlight any communications needs to internal communications and if appropriate use internal communications to manage employee surveys and polls.

The relationship between the two functions should be a two-way street, with HR (and any other function) keeping communications in loop on planned communications and employee wide or segment specific initiatives and with communications helping HR (and other functions) to communicate HR external messages to employees.

However, HR is not just another internal communications customer. Increasingly, organisations are actively embracing employer branding as a subset of the corporate brand with HR leading on the employer branding often supported by marketing and internal and external communications. As employer branding is all about making sure that the way an organisation treats its employees matches the way an organisation wants its employees to treat its customers, all customer and employee focussed messages and activities must be aligned and consistent.

To achieve this consistency and alignment the three key functions (HR, Marketing and Communications) taking the brand as the key focus must work closely together.

Conclusion:
Internal communications has a critical role to play within the organisation in delivering and co-ordinating key organisation-wide messages ranging from clear articulation of the organisation’s strategic direction, to programme communications and functional messages.

Due to its critical role internal or indeed external communications should not be tied to a specific function as it may make it biased towards the goals of that particular function including diverting communications resources to support key activities of the host function.

Rather it should be a function in its own right and report to the CEO or the board. HR as one of the internal communications’ key “customers” should support internal communications with its employer branding expertise and insights on employee expectations and segments to ensure messages are consistent with the employer brand and strike the right note for each employee segment.

Bettina Pickering is a Managing Consultant for PA Consulting Group and Rachael Brassey is a Principal Consultant for the organisation.