Internal communications can be challenging for large organizations. It’s sometimes difficult to speak with one voice and reflect the organization’s mission, vision, and values when corporate communications are created by many different people, sometimes in locations scattered around the world. Internal communications reinforce the business strategy to all employees, enhancing and reflecting the culture, so it’s important that they’re consistent, effective, and on-brand.
The solution for many organizations is to create a communications guide or toolkit. Sometimes called a brand book, brand equity playbook, or internal communications guidebook, it’s a compendium of guidelines and templates that’s continually updated to reflect creative components, copy and design specifications, and identity guidelines that make up the company’s brand assets. It helps any team or person painlessly refer to and create communications that properly reflect the appropriate style and messaging.
That’s how a communications guidebook can save your culture. It simply has to contain the following content:
Overview of the Brand
An employee can’t write something that reflects the organization’s brand if they don’t know what it is! The first part of any guidebook should include the company’s mission, vision, and values, as well as its employer branding. (Don’t have an employer brand? Start here.) This will give anyone creating HR communications a foundation for their material, ensuring the information matches the company’s organizational culture and outlook.
Development of the Creative Brief
Creating internal communications is harder than it looks, and some employees will be unfamiliar with the process. I recommend breaking down the creative brief to show the value of each step. These include:
– Identifying objectives, which helps determine what the material will say, who will receive it, and at least one metric for measuring success.
– Clarifying the message, to focus on exactly what the material will say.
– Preparing the budget, since a text-only email has a far different cost from a full-color brochure.
– Planning distribution, whether it’s electronic, “snail mail,” or posted on employee bulletin boards.
– Developing a baseline for scope, schedule, and cost, to get agreement among all stakeholders for the project’s purpose, requirements, and deliverables.
Visual Identity
Internal communications should match either the organization’s consumer brand, or its employer brand, or sometimes a seasonal or event brand such as “Countdown to Summer.” A guidebook should include a section that covers the identity and style for all types of communications. Sections often include:
– General design guidelines that explain the unifying characteristics of all communications.
– Logo guidelines, with approved and unapproved examples.
– Color palette, with official Pantone colors for print and their web equivalents.
– Typography, listing the organization’s official fonts.
– Imagery guidelines, such as photos of actual employees vs. stock photography.
Copy Voice and Tone
Equally important as the look of an HR communications project is its sound. If an organization has an official style guide, it should go here. I also recommend providing a list of the most common rules and terms, such as approved abbreviations and acronyms. Often, words from the company’s values or guiding principles make their way into communications, so that “providing customer service,” for example, is always written as “providing fanatical customer service” (the word choice of Rackspace).
This section should also include the proofreading and editing process, as well as guidelines for establishing how different drafts are labeled and approved.
Samples
As clear as a guidebook’s instructions may be, nothing beats seeing actual examples. The last part of the book should include images and templates for every type of communication, from employee newsletters to recruitment materials to websites.
Improving internal communications requires careful thought, detailed planning, and creativity. A good guidebook improves the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization by creating increased cohesion among employees. It arms them with all the information they need to create compelling, memorable, and easy-to-use HR communications. The effect on the organization’s culture is profound; in some cases, a strong communications guidebook really can save a culture from apathy, low morale, or competing visions.
At Brandemix, we’ve created guidebooks for all types of organizations, from global corporations to non-profits. If you’d like our expertise in creating your own communications guide, contact us. Or add your comments with links to samples of ones you’ve created.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jody Ordioni is the author of “The Talent Brand.” In her role as Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Brandemix, she leads the firm in creating brand-aligned talent communications that connect employees to cultures, companies, and business goals. She engages with HR professionals and corporate teams on how to build and promote talent brands, and implement best-practice talent acquisition and engagement strategies across all media and platforms. She has been named a "recruitment thought leader to follow" and her mission is to integrate marketing, human resources, internal communications, and social media to foster a seamless brand experience through the employee lifecycle.