Internal communications sometimes gets relegated to the back burner when planning for large corporate announcements. That’s unfortunate, because employees should be told first when a significant change will touch their lives. Everyone wants employees to be the company’s advocates and to drive productivity. One of the steps to make this happen is clear, concise communications.
Here’s how to edit internal communications for a global audience.
Address the Employee’s Point of View
As with all good business communications, internal announcements should answer the basic questions of who, what, when, where and how.
Evaluate the communication from the employee’s perspective. Does it explain exactly how this announcement impacts her job? Does it answer the old WIIFM (What’s In It For Me)? Do you tell the employee whom to contact for more information, or when more details will become available?
For example, if you’re announcing 350 stores will close (what) on Dec. 1 (when), be ready to specify which locations (where) will shutter and whether affected employees (who) will be offered jobs at other stores.
Next, make sure your internal message aligns with any external communications. There should be no inconsistencies between the two.
Once, while working for a financial services software company, we distributed an internal email with details about an impending release of a data feed; the launch had been delayed two weeks, which somehow had already been communicated to customers but not to internal staff. The internal memo was forwarded to some customers, which created mass confusion due to the conflicting dates.
Last, consider time references should you be writing for a global audience. Say your company is headquartered in Tokyo but most of your employees are located in London and Chicago. Any reference to local time in Tokyo should be followed by Greenwich Mean Time and Central Standard (or Daylight) Time in parentheses.
Get to the Point
Good writing is good writing, whether in a news release, a novel or internal communications. Forget long sentences that ramble. You’ve got about four seconds to grab the reader’s attention once they open the message.
For instance, instead of leading with an indirect jab at the president’s handling of recovery efforts in Puerto Rico, go directly into what your company representatives stationed there have done to put corporate social responsibility into action. Make that part of your corporate narrative and align it with your brand’s values.
Since the announcement likely will go out by email or be read on a mobile device, make sure the subject line, headline and first two sentences are concise, specific and direct. Remember, keep the message brief and then link to additional details, such as FAQs posted on the company intranet or any external communications online.
If you need readers to take action, say so in the first two paragraphs—and provide a deadline to frame the right sense of urgency. “As soon as possible” won’t cut it; be specific.
Make Language Precise
Especially for a global company, it’s vital to eliminate country-centric slang or idiomatic expressions, and to spell out acronyms. It’s easy to forget some readers may be new to the organization and others might be less familiar with the nuances of the English language. Someone in the Far East is not going understand what “fixin’ to” means, as in, “We’re fixin’ to introduce the data feed on Dec. 26.”
Good design enhances readability, so pay attention to the basics:
- Keep fonts and type sizes consistent. This isn’t the time for multi-colored Comic Sans.
- Use bullet points to help readers scan for key points.
- If using subheads, the type size should be two points larger than what’s used in the body copy.
- Don’t use all caps; there’s no need to yell.
- Use boldface and italics for emphasis, but don’t overdo it. Too much reduces readability and effectiveness. Underline should be avoided, since it implies readers will find a hyperlink.
- Avoid emoticons, emojis and gifs. While common in the realm of social media and personal email, these are not appropriate for business communications and may not be understood across multiple cultures and countries.
Use Graphics Wisely
In many ways you need to treat your internal audience similar to any other target. Don’t forget to incorporate images and graphics into internal messages. Infographics can drive home important messages in a reader-friendly way, while organizational charts can quickly convey a new corporate structure.
If graphics use color to convey meaning, proceed with caution. 8% of men are color-blind, with red-green color deficiency being the most common. That means some of your audience may not be able to distinguish certain colors when used against certain backgrounds.
When discussing promotions, new hires and other announcements where specific people are mentioned, try to include headshots of those individuals. This helps establish the person and builds recognition among employees.
Consider the Audience
Remember, not all internal announcements need to go out to the entire company. After all, too many in-house communications reduces the impact of important news when it arrives.
Consider which teams, regions and countries need to know the information contained in your message. Whom will it benefit most? Do they need these details immediately, while others can view the information later on the company intranet or in a newsletter?
For instance, workers on the warehouse floor most likely would not need to know the details of a new customer billing process. The better practice is to communicate that message to the teams that need to know, such as account management, finance, accounting, etc.
Keep in mind, too, that internal communications can become external with any employee’s tweet, Facebook message or forwarded email. Therefore, scrub all internal content with an eye for the reactions of an external audience.
Ensure Support Materials are Accessible
Finally, before you hit send, double-check that all support materials are working and accessible. Limit attachments to two and be wary of file sizes.
Avoid large attachments such as PowerPoint presentations or PDFs that can be difficult to transmit or may overwhelm email account storage limits. Store large files on shared drives, file-sharing services such as Dropbox or SharePoint, or on the company intranet for download later.
I learned the hard way what happens when you send a 30 MB PDF attachment of the company newsletter to more than 500 employees—the servers shut down completely for more than a day. Also be sure to verify that all links are working in multiple browsers, including Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and others popular across your global network.
Never Forget the Obvious
After you’ve taken all these steps to make sure your communication will be effective, it’s terrible to commit the all-too-frequent error of failing to proofread your memo. After you proof it have another set of eyes look at it, too.
In addition, using some sort of spell-check program is a must, but a backup should be someone gifted at catching things spell-checkers miss, such as misuse of there, their and they’re, or its and it’s.
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Takeaways
- Remember the employee’s point of view when crafting internal communications.
- Use graphs and charts and write concisely.
- Make sure internal and external communications align.