4 Ways to Improve Internal Communication

Are you confident in your internal communication? Think again. I was, too—until employee surveys showed otherwise.

I have been facilitating Balanced Scorecard Strategic Planning sessions for several years, and 9 out of 10 completed strategies prioritize improving internal communication.

I usually see CEOs and leadership teams scratching their heads over this because they thought they were communicating really well with their staff.

I was one of those CEOs scratching my head. I felt like a good communicator, but employee satisfaction reports kept showing me that people still felt my communication and the communication from our leadership team could improve.

Here are four ways I was able to improve those survey scores when it came to internal communication.

📨 Write a weekly email newsletter to staff. I started writing weekly emails to the staff. I would talk about things we were working on at the organizational level and highlight things happening in different departments. Good news or bad news, I shared it in the newsletters. People commented in their satisfaction survey that they loved the weekly emails, so I knew it was a good way to communicate with staff.

👂Host monthly listening sessions. I would host listening sessions at every health center site nearly every month. No matter how many people would show (or not!), I'd continue to hold them. I gathered so many great ideas from staff in those listening sessions, and it made me (and my position) much less intimidating to staff because we all sat around the table together and listened to each other.

🗣️ Have Communication Policies in Place: It might seem counterintuitive, but limiting internal communications can be effective. Employees often miss important emails because they're overwhelmed by the volume of messages labeled "important." All-staff emails should be approved by the CEO (or designee) and be limited. Staff should not use email to solicit or send non-essential information. This way, employees will pay attention to truly important emails.

🗨️ Use Teams or Slack channels for fun communication. I know tip #3 seems like I'm taking all the fun out of the workplace. Not at all! Messaging platforms are a much better way for staff to send fun messages. You could have a channel called "Mission Moments" where people can share a patient success story. Or "Happy Hour," where people share what made them happy that day. Again, there need to be a few rules, but for the most part, this is a way to let those extroverts have a little fun. ;-)

Improve internal communications by being consistent, intentional, and even a bit fun, and watch your organization's culture improve, too.