Internal Communications professionals closely work with leaders, managers and in-house communicators, at the place and globally, to help shape their organization's culture, mobilise employees behind change and bring values to life by delivering high quality internal communications that create real, tangible results.
Internal Communications professionals have to play multiple roles to ensure real and tangible results as they have to be work with a very wide range of sectors, including professional and financial services, FMCG, travel & leisure, utilities, government departments and regulators etc. One of the key things that jumped out namely the multifaceted and diverse nature of the roles of these professional and the fact that, as communication professionals, we are expected to be so many things to many people.
Here are few of the points discussing the above facts...
o Communicator as matchmaker - building relationships across the organization, connecting individuals and teams, sparking conversations.
oCommunicator as politician - building consensus amongst diverse board members, circumventing the org chart, oiling the wheels.
o Communicator as educator - building employee understanding and appreciation of business issues and challenges, organisational performance, etc.
o Communicator as listener- developing feedback channels, building champion networks, conducting research, tuning into the grapevine.
o Communicator as facilitator - getting the most out of a dysfunctional group, making forums work.
o Communicator as fixer - responding to employee questions and suggestions, making life easier for the CEO by making things happen, taking action, doing stuff.
o Communicator as bridge-builder - linking leadership to employees, making the top team accessible, breaking down barriers between teams and functions.
o Communicator as coach - being a trusted advisor, helping leaders and managers communicate more effectively (and appropriately), telling it like it is.
o Communicator as fire fighter - dealing with assorted crises, tackling issues, cleaning up the mess when everything goes wrong.
o Communicator as conscience - encouraging people to tell the truth, championing transparency, fighting spin, living values, being ethical.
oCommunicator as artist- coming up with innovative, creative concepts and campaigns, delivering 'beautiful' communications.
o Communicator as business person /all rounder- understanding how the organization works, being able to understand the financial statement and turn it into plain English .
o Communicator as know-it-all - being able to answer any employee question on any topic, knowing how to deal with those obscure calls that the people on reception don't know how to handle.
