Tips for Aligning Internal Communications with HR Goals (And Why It’s Important)

A string of back-to-back, high-profile tech layoffs over the past year has put the spotlight on companies’ internal communication strategies. Botched internal communications soured the worst layoffs, leaving behind major financial, reputational, and operational damage. 

For example, Elon Musk’s blunt internal email to Twitter employees informing them of their employment status during layoffs caused an overwhelming backlash on Twitter itself, with laid-off employees using the hashtag #LoveWhereYouWorked on their posts. 

Later, following another unusual internal email from Musk titled “A Fork In the Road” (asking employees to commit to a work culture with long, arduous hours), several remaining Twitter employees quit on their own terms, amplifying the attrition. 

CEO of digital mortgage firm Better.com, Vishal Garg, fired 900 people via a Zoom call, which garnered considerable criticism from both inside and outside the company––resulting in his temporary suspension and the resignation of three top company executives. 

Interestingly, in most cases of internal communications gone wrong, including the two above, it’s not about a faulty internal communications function, it’s usually about the faulty relationship between internal communications and other key departments––especially HR. 

The Internal Comms Problem 

Internal communications is about keeping employees connected and informed and creating a shared understanding of company mission, goals, values, and guidelines. It’s key for keeping employees up-to-date on the company’s latest initiatives, establishing a voice of authority and trust, and facilitating streamlined communications among different departments. Having a sound internal communications strategy becomes especially important during times of change at a company (like layoffs) when delivering the right message at the right time is mission critical. 

In these ways, internal communications is a company function––a strategic company function. 

The problem is, however, that internal comms rarely sits in its own department with a direct line to the CEO (and a direct line to company priorities). Instead, it sometimes sits in marketing because it’s partly a communications function, but, more often than not, it sits in HR because it’s partly a people function and shares several overlapping goals with HR (i.e. engagement, retention, and productivity). 

While there is a lot of overlap between internal comms and HR, internal comms is focused on creating and sharing organizational messages, while HR is focused on managing employee relationships. When internal communications sits in human resources, then, it often gets used as a mouthpiece for HR––a tool for getting maximum compliance and minimum friction in the employee-HR relationship. A tool solely for driving HR KPIs and pushing things like open enrollment when it could (and should) be pushing the entire company agenda. 

How to Align Internal Comms and HR 

That’s why collaboration and alignment are needed between HR and internal communications––to ensure that the company is getting maximum value out of its internal communication strategy and that HR goals aren’t clouding company goals in these powerful internal channels. Here’s how. 

Listen 

When creating high-level strategies and frameworks that guide internal communications, HR professionals should collaborate with internal communications leaders to ensure that company priorities are factored in and weighted appropriately. 

Hire the Right Person 

HR leaders are responsible for staffing internal communications professionals. While many employers just choose a junior employee and task them to figure it out, HR can set internal comms up for success by choosing someone more senior with communications experience or hiring a part-time expert. After all, internal communications is a strategic company function, so it should be staffed as such. 

Provide Budget

When internal comms sits in HR, its budget depends on an already-tight HR budget. HR leaders might have a hard time justifying allocating budget to internal communications when their goals seem so similar, but internal comms needs adequate budget to drive key company messages and initiatives (like departmental alignment) that fall outside of HR goals. 

Co-Create, Don’t Dictate

When brainstorming, drafting, and finalizing emails, Slack messages, presentations, and other communications to be shared with the company, HR professionals should collaborate with internal comms to select content and determine messaging.   

Share the Data 

Often, HR believes they own the internal data collection process because they own the employee engagement survey. However, HR surveys are uniquely mispositioned to gauge the effectiveness of internal comms because they don’t ask the right questions––they don’t actually track the messages flowing through the business. As such, HR pros should allow internal communications professionals to get access to the data and data collection process. 

Make Room At the Table

It’s all about risk management when it comes to crises and big changes (like layoffs). While HR represents one side of risk management for the company (i.e. ensuring compliance), internal communications represents another. Internal comms professionals have the expertise necessary to assess, plan for, and reduce risk via communications; they can help limit damage via messaging and the coordinated delivery of those messages. 

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