Are you prepared for the challenges that await corporate communicators in the not so distant future?
Much has been said about the advent of social media tools heralding the launch of a turbocharged internal communication 2.0, going beyond old-school, top-down communication tools and towards a more empowered, decentralized and fast-moving approach.
Of course, changes in technology often rapidly accelerate larger societal changes—and none are more apparent than the ones that are engulfing the realm of corporate communication:
- The accelerated take-up of social media tools has provided free and easy-to-use infrastructure for disseminating hostile messages aimed at organizations and their industries (be they factual or slanderous), and for organizing citizen movements with considerable speed and potency. These citizen movements are not only attacking specific corporations and industries directly, but are also opening governments and civic institutions to citizen pressure to an unprecedented degree.
- Due to activist pressure, corporate operational and sourcing practices are under intense scrutiny on sustainability grounds, and some organizations are seeking competitive advantage by visibly moving towards more sustainable practices
- The “Great Recession,” and the “Great Outsourcing” which preceded it, have both contributed to eroding public trust in corporations. Employees are now seen as far more credible than corporate spokespeople
In essence—corporations are now facing an unprecedented political and activist threat. Traditional, controlled methods of external communication are neither sufficiently potent nor credible to address that threat, and that one viable—and potentially powerful—alternative is to mobilize the internal workforce as an external communication channel
Citizen power, citizen responsibility
The challenges facing organizations that want or need to empower employees as external communicators appear formidable. One massive challenge involves reorienting the tone and content of internal communication and leadership messaging to recognize the “citizen power” of staff. Citizen power is the right and ability of staff to accept, reject, reinterpret and replay messages and positions in their own way, and for the most part, on their own terms, with those they choose to interact with.
A second challenge is to imbue a sense of “citizen responsibility”—identifying opportunities for mutual benefit to be derived from employee citizenship and an expanded communication role. Couple that with an understanding of the impact of messages being inaccurately perceived, inappropriately delivered, or withheld from an otherwise hostile public or political process.
Beyond this tectonic shift in orientation, another challenge involves integrating messaging, training and educational efforts capable of empowering internal participants to communicate effectively externally using approaches that have historically been geared toward improving productivity.
Productivity will be no less important in the turbulent economic times ahead, and require organizations to take stock of how exposed they are to the current political, environmental and reputational risk. Such stocktaking will lend itself well to rigorous study and analysis of internal structures, communication processes, operational practices, and threats present in the current environment.
Exposure is key
The most important element in this picture is a thorough analysis of where an organization is exposed—politically, commercially, organizationally, and operationally.
Organizations that are most exposed will face the greatest urgency to integrate their workforces as advocates in the marketplace, the “twittosphere,” and, where advisable, with the media and political systems. They will need to develop new, interactive veins of internal communication that complement and sharpen the current productivity-focused streams, and allow for some degree of management of the networks of conversation surrounding each organization.
Those less exposed have a bit more breathing space, but will also need to recognize that they aren’t immune from the current trends. Corporate leaders will need to become increasingly adept at weaving the organization’s key brand messages, sustainability messages, corporate strategy points and organizational values into their formal and informal conversations. Above all, corporate cultures will need to start recognizing the “citizen” role of those who work therein.
Why this is good for internal communicators
Of course, the role of employee as advocate/citizen/spokesperson is not new, but dates back to the earliest forms of prehistoric employment. But as it was difficult to track and manage informal conversations and networks, organizations embraced what was then an easier-to-manage top-down approach that has proven largely unidirectional in flow and paternal in tone.
While the culture change facing internal communication as this transition plays out will be considerable, internal communicators have much to gain.
As was seen with the failure of internal marketing, merely applying external strategies and tools on internal audiences has the potential to be fiercely counterproductive. The understanding that internal communicators have of the sensitivity, behaviour, structure and passions of internal people—and the depth of their relationships with their organizations—will require that they play a lead role.
Political, environmental, and external communicators will bring a lot to the party, but the integration of the workforce as a structural component of the corporate communication architecture represents a revolution, and a transformation, for internal communication.
Welcome to internal communication 3.0—workforce citizenship.
Mike Klein is a Brussels-based communications pro, and long-time member of IABC boards at the country and regional level, and can be reached athttp://intersectionblog.wordpress.com.
