Internal communication in South Africa finds itself at a turning point that of a shift towards a strategic rather than operational focus. As it becomes apparent that traditional communication platforms alone can no longer deliver behavioural change or impact for the organisation, there is a growing need to place emphasis on strategic counselling, effective outcomes-based measurement, and leadership communication.
Assisting communicators in South Africa is the recently released King Report III, a document that sets out the code of good governance across business performance areas such as risk management, internal auditing, compliance, performance assessments, boards and committees, and more. The third revision of the document introduces a section that deals with the governance of stakeholder relations. This has effectively opened the doors for communicators to walk into c-suite, but the onus is now on the profession to demonstrate strategic insights that can deliver against business and financial objectives.
Section eight of King Report III deals extensively with the role of Stakeholder Relationship Management and promotes the importance of two-way communication between an organisation and its various stakeholders. The first step is to ensure that all communication plans are aligned with business objectives and are integrated across both external and internal communications. It is essential to ensure that the messages sent to the public, which effectively create a brand promise and raise people’s expectations, are aligned closely with the messages delivered to employees, which in turn should highlight key business imperatives that will help deliver on brand expectations.
Internal communication should not be limited to purely operational and tactical elements. Many communicators get caught up with day-to-day administrative issues, and are preoccupied with seeking approval for messages instead of concerning themselves with the strategic alignment of those messages with their target audiences and their business. Increasing focus is being placed on audience understanding and stakeholder analysis, to ensure that communication is targeted at the right people through the right platforms at the right time, while taking into account the balance between what the business needs to say and the audience wants to hear.
For communicators to remain relevant over the next decade, a focus must shift away from the process and content of delivering messages towards the impact that engagement can have over a specific time delineation. This means asking tough questions that will determine not only whether audiences have been made aware and have changed perceptions about the subject matter, but also whether employees have bought into the key messages AND changed their behaviour, to deliver the desired end objectives.
As many astute leaders have observed, communication is a means to an end, not the end itself. Therefore simply distributing messages does not achieve any desired objective, other than to produce volumes of content. The ‘end’ is indeed the business and financial impact; the latter being measured as an intangible asset.
To start moving in a new direction, internal communication should be as much about leadership training as it is about creating well written content for distribution in a well structured delivery platform. Internal stakeholders must be provided with the relevant tools and knowledge, so that they are aligned with the goals of the organisation when facing the outside world. It is also critical to maintain message uniformity throughout the ranks. King Report III is a watershed for communication in South Africa, but has in effect only opened the door for more strategic buy-in from senior management. It is now incumbent on communicators to present strategic communications plans with a business imperative that secures ongoing buy-in from leadership. The business case is most certainly there, as many communicators are well aware, but it requires a change in approach from leadership in order to remain relevant in perpetuity.
As research around the world shows, leaders have lost a great deal of trust among their workforces in recent years. One of the best ways to start rebuilding that trust from the inside is by uplifting managers to be seen as effective, transparent, and accountable communicators. The creation of management toolkits on communication effectiveness is fast becoming a key task for internal communicators. Face-to-face communication is a strong element of a good communication plan, which can be supported by traditional and new media communication tools, such as posters, newsletters, intranets and mobile.
A simple example – values. Every organisation has them. And many are in fact so similar that they could be misconstrued as the same! The differentiator lies in the behaviours staff demonstrate in living up to those values in their daily routines. While posters with fantastic-sounding words hang up in many organisations, the reality is that when employees are asked what behaviours they need to demonstrate to truly live the values, every staff member has his or her own interpretation of how to act. Strong internal communication campaigns, such as a ‘look the part, act the part, live the part’ concept, should be run concurrently so as to personally engage employees with relevant messages.
Adding a third, and most powerful dimension of this, is leadership communication – engaging key leaders and enablers to act within their sphere of influence to further inculcate the desired culture of an organisation. Managers should be trained on a pyramid of communication fundamentals and equipped with powerful toolkits to engage their employees. Trust, professionalism, and accountability, soon follow.
In South Africa, business communicators seem to be embracing these challenges, as they focus on the important fundamentals around engaging stakeholders and the consequent business impact of such communication. More forums to address communication at a business level, and greater involvement from trade thought leaders, will ensure that the industry and profession successfully navigate through the obstacles of the next decade. These include academic qualifications, business alignment, the role of internal communication and the shaping of stakeholders’ relations as a strategic (not operational) role.
AUTOPOST by BEDEWY VISIT GAHZLY
