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A definitive framework for internal communication

Melcrum’s Framework for an effective internal communication function.

by Victoria Mellor, CEO, Melcrum Publishing and Sue Dewhurst, The SD Group

This Framework was developed in 2008 for members of the Strategic Communication Research Forum, Melcrum’s global membership group for senior internal communication professionals.

Here, we explain the thinking behind the Framework’s creation and the ways it can enable a more value-adding function. We also gain insight from two Forum members as to how they’ve been using the tool and to what effect.

Background to the Framework - from Victoria Mellor
Since starting Melcrum's Strategic Communication Management journal 13 years ago, the
perennial question I’m asked by practitioners and consultants alike is, “what does best practice internal communication look like?” Having pondered this question over the years, I’m comfortable in admitting that I don’t think any one organization has best-practice internal communication.

We see talented communication teams, great intranets, innovative projects and useful tools, but the realities of business life often derail our efforts to hold up everything we do as
“best practice”. With internal communication, you’re never done. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t strive for a gold standard for internal communication management.

In 2008, members of Melcrum’s Strategic Communication Research Forum (the Forum), a global membership group of senior internal communication practitioners, challenged
Melcrum to devise a Framework that would provide a structure for “best practice internal
communication”. They wanted a tool that would clearly define what an effective internal
communication function can achieve, but also help to communicate to leaders in the
organization what effective communication can achieve for the business.

Four uses for the Framework
After consulting with numerous practitioners and examining over five years’ worth of
Melcrum’s research content, we emerged after six months of research with a new Framework, the inner workings of which are described in this article.

The Framework is designed to do four things, which are described below:

1. Act as a synthesis of all of Melcrum’s best-practice research from the past five years
   Melcrum has conducted best-practice research into all the major aspects of internal
   communication management: leadership and manager communication; strategy communication; audiences and segmentation; communication competencies and team development; measurement; change communication; and global communication. The Framework is a synthesis of all the findings from this research and its value is therefore derived from the rigorous research our team has
   conducted.
2. Set a standard for internal communication
   Internal communication is still in its infancy. The Framework is designed to set a standard for the function’s performance, establish what outcomes should be expected and also to scope out internal communication’s “sphere of influence” in the
   organization.
3. Provide a benchmarking framework
   Benchmarking is a critical part of continuous improvement. However, without set criteria to benchmark against, the process can quickly go off track. The Framework, together with the purpose-written Audit tool question set, will enable quick and easy benchmarking activity to take place. (More on the Audit tool can be found below,
   under the sub-heading Two supporting documents.)
4. Communicate the function’s role
   Potentially, one of the most powerful aspects of the Framework is that it provides a succinct way of communicating to leaders and other stakeholders what an effective internal communication function does. Ultimately, using the framework on a daily basis will help you improve the effectiveness of and the results you get from your internal communication function.

The Framework in more detail
The Framework sets out the components for an effective internal communication function. While roles and responsibilities vary by organization, successful functions typically focus on five areas of activity: (These areas can be seen on the left of Figure 1, below)

1. Audiences and stakeholders
2. Infrastructure
3. Leaders and managers
4. Line of sight for business strategy
5. Research and measurement

Figure 1: The Framework in illustrated form

The Framework also acknowledges that their success depends on effective partnerships with key stakeholders. (As shown in the middle of Figure 1.)

CASE STUDY 1: WESTMINSTER CITY COUNCIL
Westminster City Council manages a 24-hour city of 231,000 residents in the heart of London. The council employs around 4,800 members of staff who have a
huge variety of roles from keeping the streets clean to running schools.

There has been an internal communication function at Westminster for five years, which maintained a good level of performance. The aim, however, was
to turn good into great. Paul Middleton, head of marketing, found the Framework to be a good starting point. But the Framework proved to be a good starting point. “This tool
is really helpful for organizations that already have an effective internal comms team and want to know where to focus their priorities.

Each bullet point was given a score out of 10 by the internal communication manager, myself, the director of communication and some stakeholders from around the organization. The scores are interesting but what’s really important is the process of self-evaluation and external validation by both the chain of command and the key stakeholders. This gives you a clear idea of your
strengths and weaknesses and areas in which you need to improve. I used the Framework to open up a whole dialogue about what internal communication is for and what the organization wants from the function. To
offer the best value, you have to get out there and speak to the people you’re serving and identify what their priorities are.

The Framework helped me to make that conversation happen in a structured, yet informal, way. It’s like a
compass that helps you orientate yourself and work out where to go next. The Framework gives us a clear course of action and helps us to get our organization to understand that internal communication is something that
needs to permeate the whole organization – something we support and enable. It helps people understand that the success of internal communication isn’t the responsibility of one particular team.”

The work of internal communication shapes, and is shaped by, the organization’s strategy and culture. These factors combine to influence the five following key success outcomes:

1. Effective change
2. Engaged employees
3. Customer satisfaction
4. Reputation and pride
5. Recruitment and retention.

Ultimately, this leads to enhanced performance in the organization.

Five areas of focus
Generally speaking (as every company is different), the five main areas of focus for the internal communication team are as follows:

1. Audience/stakeholders
An effective communication function “knows” its audience/stakeholders. It has access to valid insight about them, which is drawn from internally gathered evidence and it uses this insight to guide everything it does, including strategies, tactics and decision-making. Rather than taking a consistently “one-size-fits- all” approach to communication, it segments its audiences where appropriate, making sure communication meets the needs of each segment.

An effective function facilitates dialogue to help the organization listen and act, and invests time in listening carefully to its stakeholders, so it understands their issues and concerns.

It chooses communication strategies and tactics which actively engage and involve stakeholders rather than “talking at them”. In addition, it helps to foster crossfunctional collaboration and dialogue by helping to connect people across the organization. In other words, communication goes from side to side, as well as from bottom to top/top to bottom.

2. Infrastructure
This sums up the underpinning activities and processes an internal communication function needs to have in place to operate. It needs a defined internal communication strategy, which has been discussed and agreed with key senior stakeholders. It uses some form of communication planning process which ensures all communication activity is focused on business outcomes (i.e., the focus is on helping to achieve business objectives, not simply
producing materials or outputs).
CASE STUDY 2: VODAFONE
Derek Ross, head of group internal communications at communication provider Vodafone, says the Framework is a great tool for allowing teams, both large and small, to work out where they are on their journey of development as a function. “It provides the opportunity for self-evaluation, as well as customer evaluation. You can
incorporate it into your own development plan in terms of the function as a whole, the skills of the people within it and the service you provide. It’s a simple, yet very effective and complete system for working out where
we are, where we want to be, and what’s feasible. As a rule, I don’t like using models, but for this one I make an exception.”

There’s an integrated communication plan (preferably linked with colleagues in external
communication and marketing), which sets out all planned activity across the organization and is used to guide timing and messaging.

There should be a clear definition of the range of channels used in the organization, along with the purpose of the channel, the stakeholder group(s) it’s targeted at, what it’ll be used for and how its effectiveness will be measured.

An effective function recruits and develops practitioners with the skills, knowledge and experience to perform their roles professionally, competently and with influence. Through its culture and processes, it encourages best practice to be shared across the internal communication network and embeds consistent ways of working. It anticipates and prioritizes where it can use its resources to add the most value in the organization, pushing back where necessary, and has the appropriate funding in place to support its planned activity.

3. Managers and leaders
Effective communication is about enabling managers to be effective and responsible
communicators with their teams from day to day. An effective internal communication function firstly helps managers to understand what’s expected of them by setting out clear communication standards and/or competencies. “Communication” is a very wide-reaching term – some managers could genuinely think they’re meeting their responsibilities
if they send out regular email updates.

We need to help them understand what it means in practice, and emphasize that it’s about behaviors and actions, as well as words. Managers need to understand and buy in to subjects themselves before they can communicate them clearly to others. An effective communication function provides effective communication channels for the leaders themselves.

Some managers may have the right intentions but lack the skill to be effective communicators. The internal communicator’s role here is to help them by providing appropriate training where appropriate. We also need to make sure any communication materials we provide them with are appropriate and provided in a timely manner, so they have adequate time for preparation.

Through working with its partners, an effective internal communication function helps managers to be accountable for communication through formal objectives and/or measures. After all, what gets measured gets done.

Finally, an effective function provides effective counsel to the senior leadership team, in an
influential manner.

4. Line of sight for business strategy
This means that any employee in the organization should be able to translate the business strategy to understand what it means for their part of the organization, their team and themselves personally, so that they know what they need to do to deliver it.

By establishing line of sight, an effective internal communication function helps make sure the strategy is clearly defined and supports people translating the business strategy into action. It also makes sure the way the strategy is defined will stand up to questions and scrutiny from employees. It translates the strategy into language managers can understand and will be able to take and translate onwards to others.

It’s important that the strategy is made meaningful to every part of the organization
rather than remaining at an abstract, high level. It’s also important that employees understand how the strategy links to their team and personal goals. When communicating the strategy, an effective team uses tactics that enable managers and employees to discuss, engage with and internalize the strategy so that they can bring it to life, understand what it means to them and translate it into everyday actions and behaviors.

Finally, an effective function reminds people about the strategy regularly and updates them on how the organization is performing against it.

5. Research and measurement
An effective internal communication function uses research and measurement with judgement to guide and prioritize communication decisions, strategies and tactics. It’s clear about its measurement objectives and has a research and measurement framework that
sets out what should be measured, and the most appropriate tools and tactics to be used in each case.

Once findings are received, it makes sure they’re followed up with clear action plans. Insight and data are shared with stakeholders as and when it’s appropriate, to provide input to business decision making and continuous improvement.

Finally, an effective internal communication function benchmarks with external organizations to identify opportunities for continuous improvement.

Two supporting documents
Melcrum is currently working on two documents to support the framework. The first is a simple tool which takes the framework and invites people to rate how their own internal communication function is currently performing against the five areas.

It can potentially be used to ask internal customers how they would rate the team’s performance, and/or to ask members of the internal communication team how they would
rate themselves. The tool invites participants to rate current performance on a scale of 1-5 and also to rate how important they see each element, again on a scale from 1-5.

The second document will provide links to Melcrum case studies and research, which offers
further background behind each point listed under each of the five areas. For example, the point about “segmentation” in the “audiences/stakeholders” area may direct you towards Melcrum’s report Mastering Audience Segmentation or a segmentation case study.

You may also find it helpful to refer to the research into communication competencies carried out by Hub editorial board member, Sue Dewhurst and Liam FitzPatrick and published in the Melcrum report How to develop outstanding internal communicators. While the Framework for an effective internal communication function refers, as its name suggests, to the function, the competency framework looks at the competencies required by individual practitioners within the function to carry out their roles effectively.

If you're interested in the Framework which includes the audit tool, you have access to this service as a member of Melcrum's Strategic Communication Forum, for more details please contact Simon Abrams.
Producing this framework wouldn’t have been possible without the guidance of a few key individuals: Sincere thanks go to Katharina Auer, Russell Grossman, Paul Middleton, Sue Dewhurst, Mandy Thatcher and everyone else who contributed their thinking towards the Framework.

Have your say
Have you developed a similar framework to use within your organization? Has it "done its job" or do you struggle to get buy-in for it from your senior managers?

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Recommended resources:
Melcrum report How to develop outstanding internal communicators

Melcrum report Mastering Audience Segmentation

AUDIO GUIDE: Following the strategy map for engagement

ONLINE LIBRARY Access all Setting Your Strategy and Plan articles