Any internal comms experts out there?!

[Romanarama]

I have a job interview next week, and part of the role is internal comms. I would like to impress with some good ideas and would be grateful for tips on internal comms strategy (the main challenge I think is getting 5 different offices in 3 different cities to feel like one team rather than spending their whole time scoring points off each other.

Any weblinks or ideas for docs to read, or basice principles of internal comms all very welcome!

Depends what they are wanting you do to - are there comms channels in place already and they just need improved, or are they looking for you to set something up from scratch?

I think it could be either. There are comms channels but they might need completely reinventing. There's a big change involving centralising all the management support function in one office, meaning that the regional offices all have to refer elsewhere for a lot of things, which they didn't have to before. They don't like this much as feel they will have to answer to someone else over whom they have no control. So it's about change management and getting everyone on board as much as poss (as well as running the whole centralised management function).

I'm a bit rusty but here are some random thoughts. I'm sure someone else will be along in a bit to give you a much more coherent approach....

I think your first objective would be to do a comms audit, to find out who gets what, how they get it, what currently works, what people feel they are missing out on etc. You could do this by a survey, focus groups, inviting people simply to comment or a mix of all three.

Once you've got this, can then design a better comms approach giving colleagues the comms the way they want to hear them.

If you're looking at doing comms during a period of huge change, then I would say the key thing is to get "management" on board and committed to being as open and honest as possible.

One thing that i have done quite succesfully in the past with comms to several locations is to get yourself a comms rep in each location who acts as a two way link, both disseminating information onsite on your behalf and also giving you valuable on the ground feedback about how it is working. They also feed back local stories and information that you can use in your comms. You'll generally be able to find someone who is interested in helping you ike this, las it gives them good experience to put on their CV.

Sorry, this is all jumping around a bit but as I said earlier, I'm a bit rusty. Hope this helps anyway.

Very helpful, thank you!

May sound daft, but I work with a very experienced bloke who recently had to set up something similar for me and my colleagues ( 5 fairly small teams in 4 cities). He really emphasises getting all the varied teams together for shared food and social events as well as for work, having different teams host different events, using different media (Twitter, video on YouTube, etc) to keep communications going between meetings, etc. It's very noticeable that his groups of teams do work together, and that the other two groups of teams don't. This might not work for you if the offices are very large, but it seems to work very well with small groups.

Grendelsmum, that's really interesting. Can I be cheeky and ask, re the twitter/you tube stuff, are your team all relatively young and techno savvy? I'm wondering how an older, less computer literate demographic might find that? (I'm thinking of particular groups in my area that would go 'eh?' if you suggested that!)

I'd second the idea of different groups hosting different events though - occasionally holding a regular event (like management meeting, briefing session etc) in a 'satellite' office rather than the 'main' can do wonders for making them feel involved. And you can tie it in with a 'meet the managers' kind of session, where colleagues can get to meet managers and ask them anything.

No, the interesting thing is that the team members are not all young by a long way, although we are supposed to be okay with technology (professionals in the public sector, oldest coming up to retirement, youngest just graduated). We were not happy about being asked to do this, and all sat in a corner muttering and saying 'bloody Twitter, just for twats in't it, who does he think we are etc. etc.' But the leader made the point that our teams were asking our colleagues to change their working practices and to do things that they weren't comfortable with, and that we could see this as being at the very least an opportunity to have the same experience that we were asking our colleagues to have. So we as a group agreed that we would try it whole-heartedly for a week, and reconsider at the end of the week if it was useful or not. And at the end of a week, we'd agreed it was useful for our context, and we've kept using it ever since. The video we were dubious about too, but also worked very well. So in the specific change management context, it was excellent.

We also have got very competitive about who can organise the best event for the other teams. It's worked to get everyone working together, but also with some productive rivalry between teams about minor things like catering.

Thanks Grendelsmum.

(PiffPaffPoff shamelessly nicks takes note of idea for future use.)