It’s 2002, and in my job as a marketing co-ordinator, I’m working on new point of sale for a new range of garden arbours when I think to myself, “hang on, what are we telling our own people about this?”
From that small spark, I organised a newsletter, and an event to show off the new range to the colleagues who’d actually be making it in the factory. It went down a storm, and that was my very first experience of internal communications.
I didn’t know there was even a name for it at the time, but when I was made redundant from my marketing role and saw an internal comms job advertised elsewhere, suddenly everything slotted into place, and I knew I’d found the career for me.
I found that internal comms encompassed lots of things I was really passionate about. Writing, for one. Being able to tell stories in a creative way. Liaising with designers and videographers and find new ways to reach people. Being nifty with a spreadsheet. Being able to have a helicopter view of what was going on in an organisation. Speaking to people across the business, including leaders.
Speaking to leaders…yeah, that took me out of my comfort zone. As a natural introvert, being in front of the big cheeses and not having the first clue about all the fancy acronyms flying around, this was a real learning curve. A great tip I got early on was to make sure that you understand the business and understand the lingo leaders speak, as it’s your job to translate that into something meaningful for everyone else. So I read up on the business and its place in the industry, started to understand why marketing and operations sometimes clash, and kept on top of what the people throughout the organisation actually needed to know, as opposed to what people thought they should know.
This understanding gave me the confidence to coach leaders in how I could help them bring their priorities to life, because as well as spending time with them, I also spent as much time as possible with the guys on the road, or in the call centres. Getting out and about was essential because there is no way you can be an effective internal communicator if you’re sat behind a desk all day. Yes, you have to go into meetings, but you should also be on the shop floor, or going on ride outs with your drivers, or listening in on customer service calls. You have to experience the day-to-day reality to make the connections between business strategy and what your customers experience, and bring these to life in an engaging way.
Because internal comms is about making connections. It’s a job that many of us still struggle to define. When asked, I tell people I connect workers to their company’s purpose, so everyone understands what they need to know, feel and do. It’s not just about being the lady who does the newsletter. Or who ‘pops something on the intranet’ or sticks a poster up on the noticeboard. It’s much more fundamental than that. It’s a type of magic, the oldest type – storytelling.
And when it works, and people feel that connection and understand how they make a difference in their job, no matter what it is, the business thrives. That’s why I’m still in the profession over 20 years later, because whether it’s through an intranet article, a big event, a meme or a video, I’ll never tire of seeing the power of storytelling in action.
It’s just one of the reasons why I’m an IoIC Ambassador, encouraging a new generation of people who are just as passionate about making creative connections, to choose internal comms as a rewarding and long-term career choice.
Find out more about the #IChoseIC campaign
