Our regular look at some of the top news, views and opinions from around the wonderful world of IC…
It proudly declares itself ‘the definitive report on internal communication trends’, and who are we to argue? The annual Gallagher State of the Sector report features global insights from 2,300 communicators who took part in the wide-ranging survey.
Key takeaways include:
- Communicators are getting more strategic input into business decisions as well as how they are communicated
- Communicators that thrive and are more trusted tend to be those that can effectively present data to state a case
- Communicators have mixed feelings about advancements in AI, but this is an opportunity for individuals to thrive by upskilling and becoming a trusted advisor around its implementation
- Purpose, values, and strategy work are as critical as ever
- There are lots of reasons why employee engagement is affected, resulting in it being a communicator’s biggest challenge.
Internal comms professional Carly Murray commented via LinkedIn: “… the biggest shocker was just how much the size of IC teams in enterprise businesses (10,000-plus employees) has shrunk in a year – by 4.1 people!
“I knew it was tough out there for the IC community but that confirms just how much. And of course, your remit has been growing – engagement, culture, employer brand, wellbeing, to name but a few.”
What’s in a name?
Podcaster and writer Monique Zytnik, meanwhile, sparked a BIG LinkedIn exchange about whether we should be using the short-form ‘IC’, or whether we should say internal communications.
She’s writing a new book so had an important question: “Urgent consensus, please. My copyeditor would like to have ‘IC’ throughout the book. What is your opinion? ‘Internal communication’ or ‘IC’?
“I know some fab people like Rachel Miller have IC as a part of their brand. What I’m talking about is what would you use when speaking with business leaders and non-comms people?”
Rachel immediately came back with the wise words: “If in doubt, spell it out.”
Adding: “I’d use internal communication rather than internal communications or internal comms. Too much assumed knowledge there about the difference between having the ‘s’ or not. So go with internal communication.”
Joanna Parsons had a different take: “Given that your audience is non-comms people then I’d go with internal communications in full. I wouldn’t expect anyone outside of our sector to understand the acronym, it’s not widely used.”
Joanna added: “If your editor really wants a shortened version, then you could go with ‘internal comms’ once you explain it at the start.”
To which Martin Stubbs-Partridge pithily replied: “Pedantic moment. Sorry! Internal communications is different from internal communication. There, I’ve said it.”
Just when you thought it was safe to come out, there was a groundswell of support for ‘employee communications’.
Pierre Goad, former Group Head of Communications at HSBC, was among the advocates, saying: “Employee communications is the right answer (and never use EC). Internal communications is too constrained and limiting. Internal communications assumes there is a dividing line between external and internal and there isn’t.”
Can of worms or what?
Data made easy…
And finally, the afore-mentioned Joanna Parsons says businesses need qualitative research to get a really rich, deep understanding of employees.
And she takes to YouTube to explain how to collect qualitative data to help measure internal communications and understand employees to drive employee engagement.
Definitely worth a look if you’re new to the wacky world of data and analytics.
Any thoughts on this month’s topics? Drop us a line or comment below, and we’ll be back with more IC news next month.
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