University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

The evolution of the internal communications practice and its importance to the survival of organizations

(USC Thesis Other)

The evolution of the internal communications practice and its importance to the survival of organizations

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content THE EVOLUTION OF THE INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS PRACTICE AND
ITS IMPORTANCE TO THE SURVIVAL OF ORGANIZATIONS

by
Shelcie Takenouchi

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(STRATEGIC PUBLIC RELATIONS)

May 2011

Copyright 2011 Shelcie Takenouchi
ii
Table of Contents

List of Figures....................................................................................................................iii
Abstract.............................................................................................................................. iv
Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 2: History of Internal Communications................................................................. 6 The Origin of Internal Communications 6 Early Practices of Internal Communications by PR Professionals 7 The Lull Period 12
Chapter 3: Re-birth of Internal Communications ............................................................. 16 Case Study: GM 18
Chapter 4: The Importance of Internal Communications ................................................. 20 Case Study: Deloitte 25
Chapter 5: Internal Communications Belongs to the Organization.................................. 28
Chapter 6: The Return on Investment............................................................................... 33
Chapter 7: Emerging Trends in Internal Communications............................................... 43
Chapter 8: Tips for Implementing a Successful Internal Communications Program ....... 51
Chapter 9: Conclusion....................................................................................................... 58
Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 60
Appendices........................................................................................................................ 63 Appendix A: In-person interview with Kjerstin Thorson 63 Appendix B: Phone interview with Steven Harris 67 Appendix C: Phone interview with Jerilan Greene 78
iii
List of Figures

Figure 1: High-effective firms align EVP strategy to their brand 35 Figure 2: Few companies are taking the opportunity to revise their EVP 36 Figure 3: Employees at high-effectiveness companies understand their benefits 37 Figure 4: Managers in high-effectiveness companies address employee concerns 39 Figure 5: Highly effective companies train managers to communicate globally 39 Figure 6: Organizations that have increased their use of social media based on region 41
iv
Abstract
The practice of internal communications has been implemented by organizations
since the 1800s, but it has evolved over time and seen a shift in the way it is defined and
applied. A review of the literature and research to date on internal communications
reveals that early forms of the practice involved the distribution of periodicals to an
organization’s external audiences. Following that, large global organizations began to
bring the practice internally and communicate with employees on topics like benefits or
compensation, but communication was very top-down. This thesis examines why internal
communications is so important to the survival and success of organizations in the 21
st

century based on an analysis of the changes in society, advancement of technology and
the emergence of social media channels. It will argue that the internal communications
function belongs to the organization rather than one individual or department within the
company and is supported by the author's interviews with some of the most
knowledgeable communications professionals. Today, internal communications is about
creating a dialogue with employees and giving them the opportunity to have an impact on
the business through idea sharing and serving as public brand ambassadors.
1
Chapter 1: Introduction
Historically, corporate communications teams have focused on the stakeholders
outside the walls of their respective companies. Business leaders focused on delivering a
high level of customer service and most communications professionals were groomed to
reach out to shareholders, customers and all other external audiences. In doing so, they
have nearly forgotten their most important audience of all: employees. Little did they
realize, it was the people within the walls of their companies that mattered the most.
Before the 21
st
century, internal communications was not generally considered a
priority of corporate communications or an essential function to the every day operations
of a company.
1
It was primarily the responsibility of the Human Resources (HR)
department and focused on communicating about employee benefits and compensation.
2

There was no communication to employees about the organization’s business practices,
strategies or goals.

Executives communicated only the information they wanted
employees to know and as a result, internal communications efforts were trivial.
3

Employees were expected to owe gratitude and loyalty to the organization and thus, there
was a mentality that they should keep their opinions or concerns to themselves.
4
In

1
Carol Reuss and Donn E. Silvis, eds., Inside Organizational Communication (New York: Longman Inc.,
1981), 8.

2
Steven Harris (Former vice president of global communications at General Motors and DaimlerChrysler),
interview by Shelcie Takenouchi, February 27, 2011.

3
Carol Reuss and Donn E. Silvis, eds., Inside Organizational Communication (New York: Longman Inc.,
1981), 7.

4
Ibid.
2
addition, nothing was ever shared externally about the internal environment of a company
or employee relations.
More recently, business leaders have begun to realize the importance and value of
employee engagement. Employees are being recognized as contributing more to the
success of a business than any other constituency.
5
As the International Association of
Business Communicator’s (IABC) describes, “It is the single factor that makes an
organization viable, successful, effective, enduring.”
6

Within the last decade, the growth of the internal communications practice is
partially due to the employee evolving into a much different person than ever before.
Today, society is made up of knowledge workers who participate in decision-making,
interact with customers, develop tactical plans, problem solve or determine business
strategies.
7
Employees are better educated and want to know more about the organization
they work for.
8
They would like the opportunity to share ideas on new products or
business strategies that will ultimately shape the future of the organization. They also
want to know how the company is performing in the marketplace and how it affects them
as an employee or possible shareholder.
The internal communications practice has also grown due to the rapid
development of technology and social media platforms. Organizations are becoming

5
Paul Argenti, Corporate Communication (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2009), 183.

6
Carol Reuss and Donn E. Silvis, eds., Inside Organizational Communication (New York: Longman Inc.,
1981), 5.

7
Evan Rosen, “Every Worker Is a Knowledge Worker,” Bloomberg Businesweek, published January 11,
2011, http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jan2011/ca20110110_985915.htm.

8
Paul Argenti, Corporate Communication (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2009), 184.
3
more transparent than ever before and external stakeholders are interested in knowing the
company behind the brand. Different communication channels and platforms have made
it easy for external stakeholders to explore out the internal environment of any company
by reaching out to current or former employees. Thus, employees are increasingly
becoming public brand ambassadors who can share knowledge about the company and
interact with people online as well as offline.
The increase in knowledge workers, change in media landscape, growth of social
media and transparency of organizations all contribute to why internal communications is
so important, which will be argued throughout this thesis. It is essential to build a smart
workforce – one that understands all aspects of the business, is able to speak to external
stakeholders about the company and serves as brand ambassadors. A smart workforce can
support an organization in times of crisis by defending it in a way that would seem less
credible by management. It can become experts in the area of its company’s product or
service offerings that external audiences can rely on for valuable information.
Internal communications is also important in recruiting and retaining talent. It is
quite easy for potential candidates to find out what the work environment is like at any
company. An organization that has strong internal communications is able to clearly
inform candidates of all the areas top recruits look at, like company values and business
goals. Also, internal communications creates dialogue within an organization, which
helps it endure competition and change. Collaboration across the organization creates
new ideas, which helps keep all employees moving forward in the same direction.
4
In addition to the importance of internal communications, this thesis will argue
the idea that this function belongs to the organization. As mentioned earlier, historically,
internal communications was a function of HR. Over time, industry professionals and
communicators have argued that the practice should be in the hands of the corporate
communications team.
9
However, this thesis will point out that internal communications
belongs to the organization because all employees should have a role in the internal
dialogue that takes place. It is important to have a leader of internal communications to
define the roles that employees will have and facilitating the communication that needs to
take place. However, the leader, whether it is the head of HR or PR is not the one that
controls all the messages or internal activities that takes place.
In order to better understand these arguments, this thesis will explore the history
of internal communications and the early practices of it based on a literature review of
communications materials. The history will also address what the author purports as a lull
period in the practice where it was slow to be established in many organizations. This
thesis will also study the re-birth of the practice within the last decade, how it has
evolved and how we should see it today. These points will be supported by interviews the
author conducted with some of the most prominent communications professionals as well
as an analysis of a study conducted by Towers Watson. Finally, emerging trends in the
practice will be recognized based on an analysis of a speech given by Jon Iwata, Senior
Vice President of Marketing and Communications at IBM and one of the forward
thinkers in all aspects of corporate communications.

9
Paul Argenti, Corporate Communication (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2009), 186.
5
The practice of internal communications is constantly evolving, thus the
definition of it remains quite fluid. For the purpose of this thesis, the working definition
of internal communications is: Effective communication to employees through various
channels that encourages them to be involved in the corporate culture. It engages the
workforce to help shape and improve business functions, become smart about all aspects
of the business and be the ultimate brand ambassador.

6
Chapter 2: History of Internal Communications
The Origin of Internal Communications
One of the first forms of internal communications was called the “house organ.”
Although there is speculation as to when it came into existence, it is estimated to have
appeared as early as 1800.
10
The house organ was a periodical that was distributed to
employees, sales personnel and customers.
11
Thus, it did not just serve the purpose of
communicating with a company’s internal audience, but its external ones as well. If it
were compared to modern-day materials, the house organ reflected content that is in a
press release and media kit of an organization.
However, the concept of internal communications far precedes the creation of the
house organ. Over 2,000 years ago, the Han Dynasty in China published circular papers
that were distributed to members of the court.
12
In addition, during the colonial era in the
United States, Benjamin Franklin distributed a publication called Poor Richard’s
Almanac as a way for him to advertise his private print shop.
13
From about 1800-1870,
most house organs were used as advertising media for book publishers.
House organs for pharmaceutical companies and jobbers flourished from about
1880 to the 1920s. In these cases, the house organ was originally used for external

10
Jewell Maurice, "Assistant Librarian, Eli Lilly and Co. ," The Development, Criteria for Selection, and
Uses of House Organs, 341, published 1952,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC234301/pdf/mlab00234-1001.pdf.

11
Merriam-Webster OnLine, s.v. “House Organ,” accessed January 28, 2011,
http://mw4.m-w.com/dictionary/house%20organ.

12
Jewell Maurice, "Assistant Librarian, Eli Lilly and Co. ," The Development, Criteria for Selection, and
Uses of House Organs, 341, published 1952,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC234301/pdf/mlab00234-1001.pdf.

13
Ibid.
7
purposes by the pharmaceutical industry to promote a company’s products, applications
and scientific investigations. It was primarily aimed at those in the medical profession
and to educate the general public. According to Jewell Maurice, Assistant Librarian at Eli
Lily and Co., Frederick Stearns, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, distributed the first-
known pharmaceutical company publication in 1879.
14
The St. Louis Drug Market
Reporter was one of the first jobber house organs published by Meyer Brothers and
Company.
15
These examples prove that the practice of internal communications has been
around for centuries, but there was more of a focus on external stakeholders in its original
form.
Early Practices of Internal Communications by PR Professionals
As the practice of corporate communications grew, the public relations
professional emerged. Former journalist, Edward Bernays, was among a group of
communicators who had taken a company’s external communications a step further than
the house organ. Touted as “the father of public relations,”
16
Bernays had mastered the art
of controlling public opinion through communications. Although he is recognized most
for his work with the American Tobacco Company, United Fruit Company and National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Bernays recognized the
importance of internal communications with his clients.
In the early 1940s, Bernays was hired to provide public relations counsel to the
United Fruit Company, which needed to sell more fruit during the early winter months

14
Ibid.

15
Ibid, 342.

16
Larry Tye, The Father of Spin (New York, NY: Crown Publishers Inc., 1998), 244.
8
when frost made shipment and storage difficult.
17
On a trip to some of the Banana
Republics where the United Fruit Company operated, Bernays noticed low worker morale
and poor living conditions. Workers were required to remove their hats when Anglo
managers rode by on the farmland and they knew they had no chance for advancement.
18

Bernays wrote a long memo to his client and suggested changes, but the fruit company
chose to ignore his requests. Nine years after his proposal, the company considered
Bernays’ advice on reform. Diane Stanley, author of For the Record: United Fruit
Company’s Sixty-six Years in Guatemala, said that by then, the company “had
experienced major difficulties with its Central American laborers […].”
19
As it turns out,
Bernays’ advice for internal change had been rejected by a company that felt its external
communications were enough to sustain its business.
This example portrays the same issues that communications professionals struggle
with today in convincing management of the importance of employee engagement. In
some circumstances, management refuses to accept the fact that workforce morale is low
even though there is clear evidence of this. In others, communicators persist that
management must listen to employees and their concerns. However, leaders do not want
to do this for fear of retaliation.
In 1972, the practice of internal communications saw the advent of an
organization that would lead the way to its evolution and continued existence. The

17
Larry Tye, The Father of Spin (New York, NY: Crown Publishers Inc., 1998), 163.

18
Ibid, 164.

19
Ibid 165.

9
International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) was founded after the
merger of the American Association of Industrial Editors and International Council of
Industrial Editors. The IABC served as the governing body to the internal
communications practice and still does today. It has also set a standard for achievement
in the internal communications practice with its yearly Gold Quill awards. This
prestigious award is highly coveted by professionals in the marketing and
communications fields around the world as it distinguishes the best of the best in the
industry.
In 1973, IABC pioneers at Hewlett-Packard (HP) were among the first corporate
communicators to implement a strong and effective internal communications campaign.
HP created a concept known as “Management by Walking Around (MBWA)” that would
serve as a model for future internal communications activities. Bill Hewlett and David
Packard started the practice of dropping by employees’ workspaces on a regular basis.
According to Olivier Serrat from the Asian Development Bank, HP’s business
philosophy “had evolved into informal, decentralized management and relaxed, collegial
communication styles. Theirs was the opposite of drive-by management.”
20

This style proved to be very successful at HP. Executives were encouraged to be
more visible and get to know the people that worked for them. In turn, employees
appreciated the collegial relationship they had with management and felt like they were
truly valued by the company. The concept behind MBWA is to eliminate the command-

20
Oliver Serrat, Knowledge Solutions: Management by Walking Around, published April 2009,
http://www.adb.org/documents/information/knowledge-solutions/managing-by-walking-around.pdf.
10
and-control environment.
21
Even today, many academics and communication
professionals indicate that face-to-face communication remains the best way to create a
stronger, smarter and higher-performing business.
22
Besides fostering trust in the work
environment, leaders are able to witness first-hand the daily activities that are happening
on the ground. They can observe work being done and collaborate with employees on
how to improve processes, creating a much more productive environment.
HP led the MBWA movement and many organizations scrambled to implement
the same system. However, in some corporate environments, the concept was forced and
was not embraced by management. In others, leaders practiced MBWA for a while and
then let it fall by the wayside. Not many were able to be as successful at it as HP because
they did not implement MBWA into their company culture. MBWA was ingrained into
“The HP Way,” which was the company’s management philosophy. This ideology
enforced the highest level of respect for all HP employees.
Following HP, many U.S. companies such as Arco, American Express, Borg
Warner, General Motors and TRW, just to name a few, implemented award-winning,
effective internal communications programs between 1970 and 1990. These organizations
were forward thinking at the time in terms of considering internal communications as an
essential function to corporate communications. They developed several tactics, which
included employee satisfaction surveys, establishing an interactive intranet and creating

21
Ibid, 2.

22
Carol Kinsey Goman, “What’s So Great About Face-to-Face?,” IABC CW Bulletin, published November
2010, http://www.iabc.com/cwb/archive/2010/1110/Goman.htm.
11
an internal television channel.
23
They even had their internal communications function as
a part of the corporate communications team to ensure consistency of internal and
external messaging.
24
This idea was quite novel because most organizations at the time
did not have the communications staff to handle the internal communications function.
Although there were a few great ideas introduced by the companies mentioned
above on how to implement internal communications within an organization, these tactics
were confined to large global organizations. However, internal communications at these
larger organizations was still one-way. It was top-down and management communicated
to employees only what it felt was necessary.
25
In some cases, employees were only
communicated to on information regarding benefits and major change, like mergers or
acquisitions.
26
The challenge that many organizations faced, even the larger ones, was
creating an exchange of information between employees and leadership.
27
There was a
gap that existed between supporting organizational objectives and meeting employees’
needs or expectations.
28
Management still did not understand that employees wanted
more information about the organization and to be included in dialogue about company

23
Steven Harris (Former vice president of global communications at General Motors and DaimlerChrysler),
interview by Shelcie Takenouchi, February 27, 2011.

24
Ibid.

25
Ibid.

26
Ibid.

27
Carol Reuss and Donn E. Silvis, eds., Inside Organizational Communication (New York: Longman Inc.,
1981), 6.

28
Ibid, 6.
12
objectives, policies and programs.
29
The author argues that there came a period where the
practice of internal communications came to a standstill because leadership at many
organizations did not understand the concept of engaging with employees and creating an
open dialogue with them about all aspects of the company. Instead, organizations stuck to
communicating minimal information to employees and there was little movement
forward in involving employees in discussions about the business. In addition, many
organizations were unable to ingrain effective internal communications policies because
of lack of staff or budget, which will be discussed further. Thus, internal communications
was idle throughout the 1990s and did not see much progress toward achieving its full
potential as an agent of employee engagement.
The Lull Period
Although the exact period in which it occurred is open to debate, internal
communications is argued by the author to have experienced a lull period in the 1990s.
As a result of failing to implement lasting internal communications programs, the
attention of chief executive officers (CEOs) shifted back to external stakeholders.
Leaders still believed that these external stakeholders were their most important audience
and employees were largely overlooked.
During this period, companies focused on pushing information out to the public
and engaging consumers, donors, regulators and prospective customers. There was
almost universally poor communication down the chain of command, if at all, and lack of
training/education opportunities for employees. Within the organization, internal

29
Ibid, 6.

13
communicators fell subject to being labeled as having unimportant roles and they were
not recognized as being an integral part of the corporate communications team.
30
They
were given trivial tasks and because of that, some resented senior management.
In an interview with Kjerstin Thorson, assistant professor at the University of
Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, she
expressed having experienced what is described above during the early part of her career
as an internal communicator. In the 1990s, Thorson had an interest in pursuing a position
in internal communications after college. She interviewed for several internal
communications jobs and said,
I distinctly felt like it [internal communications] was an ugly stepsister of
corporate communications. A lot of the things they wanted me to do were very
meaningless and not strategic. […] Most of the companies that I talked to did not
take internal communications very seriously and did not treat it as a ‘grown-up’
part of corporate communications.
31

Thorson’s experience is probably similar to other professionals working in internal
communications during the 1990s, especially at mid to small sized companies. This is a
key point to understand because although some larger organizations embraced internal
communications, by and large, many still viewed the practice in the 1990s as
unimportant.
However, this is not to say that internal communications came to a complete halt
in the corporate world. There were several large organizations like General Motors (GM)
that had employee communications in place. In the author’s interview with Steven Harris,

30
Kjerstin Thorson (Assistant Professor, University of Southern California Annenberg School for
Communication and Journalism), interview by Shelcie Takenouchi, February 3, 2011.

31
Ibid.

14
the former vice president of global communications at General Motors and
DaimlerChrysler, he mentioned that GM started conducting formal internal
communications practices in the late 1960s.
32
Internal communications was a function of
the communications department, which was quite unusual at the time. Granted, the
internal communications was top-down and focused more on benefits, compensation,
healthcare and pension plans. Therefore, even at large corporations like GM internal
communications was elementary.
In addition, many organizations during the 1980s and 1990s were making
cutbacks to their workforce and internal communications was not a priority when it came
to allocation of resources. According to the Academy of Management Executive, “More
than eighty-five percent of the Fortune 1,000 firms, for example, downsized their white-
collar workforce between 1987 and 1991, affecting more than five million jobs. More
than fifty percent downsized in 1990 alone.”
33
Smaller workforces meant that there was
an even smaller communications team in place at most organizations. This explains why
there were only a handful of organizations that could afford to have proper internal
communications. In addition, leadership within companies had a very limited
understanding of the business process of internal communications and thus, they were not
aware of the value it could add to the organization.
34
As a result, the practice of internal

32
Steven Harris (Former vice president of global communications at General Motors and DaimlerChrysler),
interview by Shelcie Takenouchi, February 27, 2011.

33
Kim S. Cameron, Sarah J. Freeman and Aneil K. Mishra, “Best Practices in White-Collar Downsizing:
Managing Contradictions,” Academy of Management Executive, vol. 5, no. 3 (1991): 58.

34
Jerilan Greene (Executive Vice President of Edelman Change and Employee Engagement), interview by
15
communications had gone through a quiet period in the 1990s at many organizations big
and small.
All of this history of internal communications is important to understand because
it is vital to the way it has evolved and how we see the practice today. The history shows
how internal communications started off as a public education piece with the house
organ. Many organizations were originally just trying to find a way to communicate with
the public about their products and service offerings. It then moved into the organization
in the form of communicating benefits information to employees. At the time, this type of
internal communications may have worked for the employee, who did not have high
expectations of being communicated with and was perfectly fine just going to work and
doing his job.
35
However, shifts in society, changes in communication channels and the
growth of technology demanded that the practice of internal communications evolve.

Shelcie Takenouchi, March 4, 2011.

35
Paul Argenti, Corporate Communication (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2009), 183.
16
Chapter 3: Re-birth of Internal Communications
Early in the 21
st
century, the practice of internal communications experienced a
re-birth. It came out of its lull period and companies began to slowly realize its
importance.
A clear indication that the practice was beginning to make headway was when PR
firms began to include it in their service offerings. There was a recognition that many
businesses were looking to improve their internal communications and bring in outside
help. In an interview with Jerilan Greene, executive vice president of Edelman Change
and Employee Engagement, she said, “One indicator of this [shift of internal
communications] for me was that PR firms started to take notice of internal
communications.”
36
In early 2000, Ketchum, one of the powerhouse global PR agencies,
acquired Stromberg Consulting to expand its change management and workplace
communications area of expertise. In 2006, Edelman, the world’s largest independent PR
firm, announced the creation of the Edelman Change practice, which focuses on aligning
corporate strategy with internal behavior.
37
Weber Shandwick, another major global PR
agency, brought on internal communications as a specialty service in the early 2000s as
well.
Not only was internal communications being recognized as an essential
component to all corporate communications activities, but also the way it was defined

36
Jerilan Greene (Executive Vice President of Edelman Change and Employee Engagement), interview by
Shelcie Takenouchi, March 4, 2011.

37
“Grates to Lead Edelman's Newly Formed ‘Change’ Unit,” Edelman.com, accessed March
13, 2011, http://www.edelman.com/news/ShowOne.asp?ID=112.
17
was beginning to see a shift. Internal communications was not just about sharing benefits
and compensation information with employees. According to Greene, internal
communications had evolved into being a “part of the corporate communications area and
part of speaking about reputation as in the past there was more of a delineated view of
it.”
38
Leadership began to recognize that employees should be aware of business practices
within the organization and asked them to provide input when launching new products,
services or strategies. Internal communications became less about pushing out
information to employees and more about having a dialogue with them. It was a time
where employees were starting to become the audience management wanted to
communicate to first.
Another event that marked the end of a lull period was when CEOs began to
realize the importance of internal communications. They learned that employees had no
idea of what the company stood for, its values and business goals. This troubled
management who wanted to ensure their workforce was educated about all aspects of
their business.
39
One example of this occurred at General Motors in 1999 and is outlined
in the following case study based on an interview with Steve Harris. He talked about how
internal communications became a focus area for the then-CEO, Rick Wagner, when
Harris returned to GM after stints at other automobile companies.

38
Jerilan Greene (Executive Vice President of Edelman Change and Employee Engagement), interview by
Shelcie Takenouchi, March 4, 2011.

39
Steven Harris (Former vice president of global communications at General Motors and DaimlerChrysler),
interview by Shelcie Takenouchi, February 27, 2011.
18
Case Study: GM
To provide some background, GM was founded in 1908 and is one of the world’s
largest automakers. Its headquarters is in Detroit, Michigan and has over 150 assembly
and manufacturing plants worldwide.
40
In addition, there are 21,000 GM dealerships
around the globe.
41
Importantly, GM employs 209,000 people and is listed today near the
top of the Fortune 100. Some of its main competitors include other U.S. automobile
makers like Ford and Chrysler as well as foreign makers like Toyota, Honda,
Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and others.
When Harris returned to GM in 1999 after serving as senior vice president of
communication at DaimlerChrysler, he noticed that GM was facing an internal crisis. He
said, “There was a great deal of frustration on Rick Wagner’s part, he was the CEO at the
time, because they were doing these annual employee surveys and the numbers were not
good as far as employees understanding the business objectives of the company.”
42

Wagner became frustrated that employees were not being kept in the loop in terms of the
business practices of GM. At the time, it was quite rare that a CEO wanted all employees
to be aware of the business aspect of a company, but this mentality is what sparked GM
to be one of the leaders in effective internal communications.
To solve this problem, GM hired 100 communications people with five years of
experience or more and placed them in almost every GM location. At first, GM had hired

40
Edelman, “Grates to Lead Edelman's Newly Formed ‘Change’ Unit,” Edelman, accessed March
13, 2011, http://www.edelman.com/news/ShowOne.asp?ID=112.

41
Ibid.

42
Steven Harris (Former vice president of global communications at General Motors and DaimlerChrysler),
interview by Shelcie Takenouchi, February 27, 2011.
19
an outside agency that came up with a robust delivery system that required a scorecard to
be kept for each location. Harris described that the internal communicators were held
responsible for following a recipe of activities each month and the scorecard determined
if they were doing their job.
43
However, Harris was not convinced that this kind of
system fostered two-way communication between employees and corporate headquarters.
He felt it was more meaningful to engage employees in a conversation and that is when
he hired Gary Grates, who is now the president and global managing director of Edelman
Change and Employee Engagement. Harris and Grates worked on deciding what the goal
was in communicating with employees, what messages should be disseminated and how
to deliver these messages. They wanted to get away from the one-way message delivery
system and this decision drove substantial change at GM.
This case study demonstrates that organizations were beginning to see that one-
way communication did not add any value to the organization. This type of
communication did not engage employees in a conversation to understand if they were
aware of different aspects of the organization beyond their job. This is when
organizations began to realize the importance of engaging with employees because of
change in employee expectations, communication channels, and overall developments in
society.

43
Ibid.
20
Chapter 4: The Importance of Internal Communications
The practice of internal communications is becoming increasingly important to
the sustained success of any organization. In order for organizations to survive change
and competition, there must be strong and effective internal communications in place.
There are several reasons why the practice has grown within the last decade and why
there has been a shift toward engaging employees in an internal dialogue.
Within the last decade, there has been an increase in the education level of
employees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2000, 24 percent of Americans had
a bachelor’s degree or higher.
44
In 2009, that same statistic grew to 30 percent.
45
For
young working professionals, obtaining a bachelor’s degree has almost become the norm.
Today, employees have evolved into knowledge workers, who contribute to the decision-
making and idea generation within organizations. Having higher education and better
knowledge of society in general encourages employees to have higher expectations of
what they will get out of their careers.
46
They want to know more about the company
they work for and are demanding participation in the decisions or thought processes that
drive organizational change.
47
They want to hear how the organization is performing,
whether it is positive or not. Ultimately, employees yearn to have a stronger influence on

44
Kurt Bauman and Nikki L. Graf, Educational Attainment: 2000, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department
of Commerce, 2003), 3, table 1, http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-24.pdf.

45
The U.S. Census Bureau, “Census Bureau Reports Nearly 6 in 10 Advanced Degree Holders Age
25-29 Are Women,” news release, April, 20, 2010,
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch14/ch14_sec213.html.

46
Paul Argenti, Corporate Communication (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2009), 183.

47
Ibid, 184.
21
all aspects of the business and feel like they have had a hand in improving the
organization. In this case, internal communications is very important in meeting
employee expectations. If there is no internal dialogue that includes employees,
organizations may lose some of their best talent or employee morale will suffer, which
may possibly lead to a decline in performance.
The increase in education level of employees also means they have the ability to
contribute more value to the work place through idea sharing. In the past, executives
made all the decisions within the organization and did not bother to reach out to
employees for their input. According to Evan Rosen from Businessweek,
Command-and-control cultures segment their workforces into knowledge workers
and everybody else. They pay knowledge workers to think and pay everybody
else to carry out orders. In these cultures, collaboration is dead on arrival, because
the organization effectively muzzles front-line workers who know how the
business operates. In command-and-control companies, value creation suffers
because management makes decisions in a vacuum without broad input. In a
collaborative organization, on the other hand, all workers' knowledge counts,
regardless of their roles.
48

Today, internal communications facilitates a dialogue among all employees within a
company and it brings forth the best ideas. As Rosen mentions, employees are the ones
who interact with customers and different people on a daily basis. They are better in tune
with what the customer needs and wants and what people are saying about the company
across all media channels. Thus, internal communication is important because it allows
all the minds of an organization to develop the best strategies and ideas.

48
Evan Rosen, “Every Worker Is a Knowledge Worker,” Bloomberg Businesweek, January 11, 2011,
http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jan2011/ca20110110_985915.htm.

22
Another main reason why internal communications is so important is because it
helps guide an organization through change. In the past, change in the business
environment was thought of as referring to activities like mergers, acquisitions and shifts
in management. Today, change refers to everything within an organization that entails a
shift in direction, strategy, operations or virtually any other facet. Change occurs within
an organization on almost a daily basis. Supporting this point, Greene said that there are
many aspects of an organization that change constantly – employees, leaders, customers,
competition, the market and products.
49
In order for organizations to be able to survive
change, they have to communicate with their employees about it. Informing employees
about change first before any other stakeholder makes them feel as if the company values
them and they are more likely to accept the change even if they do not quite agree with it.
From first-hand experience, Greene states that, “Change starts with a conversation. The
more you can talk about it with people and the more opportunities they have to hear about
it and weigh in on it even if they don’t agree at first, the more likely they are to change
down the line.”
50
Communicating with employees makes change a much smoother
transition and keeps a calm internal environment.
In addition to the increase in knowledge workers and change that takes place
within organizations, there has been a rapid growth in technology and social media.
Numbers indicate that if Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the

49
Jerilan Greene (Executive Vice President of Edelman Change and Employee Engagement), interview by
Shelcie Takenouchi, March 4, 2011.

50
Ibid.
23
world, just behind China and India.
51
This startling statistic shows how quickly people
jumped on to social media platforms like Facebook in a matter of seven years.
52
The
growth of social media has made organizations more transparent than ever because it
enables public conversations to take place.
53
It is now much easier for anyone to find out
information about the internal environment at almost every organization. Chances are that
most members of any workforce have at least one social media profile or account where
they can connect with the public. People can find an employee of an organization through
social media and ask questions about the company, its products or services, policies,
employer agreement and so forth. Now, the internal environment of an organization is
not so secretive and private. Supporting this point, John Iwata said,
One day soon, every employee, every retiree, every customer, every business
partner, every investor and every neighbor associated with every company will be
able to share an opinion about that company with everyone in the world, based on
firsthand experience. The only way we can be comfortable in that world is if
every employee of the company is truly grounded in what their company values
and stands for.
54

It is almost inevitable that internal information of any organization is going to get out into
the public. Therefore, as Iwata alluded to, internal communications is important for
companies to equip their employees with the correct information about all aspects of the
business. According to Gary Grates, President and Global Managing Director of Edelman

51
Barb Dybward, “The Growth of Social Media,” Mashable, May 7, 2010,
http://mashable.com/2010/05/07/social-media-stats-video/.

52
Facebook, “Basic Information,” last accessed March 29, 2011,
http://www.facebook.com/facebook?sk=info.

53
Beth Kanter and Allison H. Fine, The Networked Nonprofit, (San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2010),
53.
54
Pulsepoint Group, “IPR’s 2009 Distinguished Lecture: Jon Iwata, IBM,” Points of View (blog),
December 2, 2009, http://www.pulsepointgroup.com/2009/12/iprs-2009-distinguished-lecture-jon-iwata-
ibm/.
24
Change and Employee Engagement, “You want your workforce to be extremely smart
about your business.”
55
Employee engagement allows them to understand the bigger
picture and how their work contributes to the company’s goals. When employees are
educated on all aspects of a business, they are able to speak to people outside of the
company who may have the wrong idea of what the company does or how it operates. In
crisis situations, employees can defend their company in a way that the chief
communications officer or executive team cannot. Building a smart workforce helps arm
any company’s best brand ambassadors: employees.
Also, when a smart workforce is created, it is easier for an organization to recruit
and retain the best talent. Smart companies have a clear vision of company culture,
business goals, reputation and mission, which are all things top recruits evaluate. With
the emergence of websites and publications that rate the best places to work, the top
companies have one thing in common: strong employee engagement.
56
A great work
environment is not just about having the best benefits, incentives and salary. Potential
employees want to work at a place where they can voice their opinions and where
feedback is encouraged. Had this been a robust economy, employees would not be afraid
to leave companies for their lack of internal communications. An example of a company
that employs effective strategies to retain talent and create a smarter workforce is
Deloitte.

55
Gary Grates, “Hello, It’s Me!” (lecture, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA,
November 1, 2010).

56
"Capitalizing on Effective Communication: How Courage, Innovation and Discipline
Drive Business Results in Challenging Times ," Towers Watson, 2009, accessed January 30, 2010
http://www.towerswatson.com/assets/pdf/670/NA-2009-14890.pdf.
25
Case Study: Deloitte
Deloitte is the largest global private professional services firm. It employs over
45,000 people in the U.S. alone and provides audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk
management and tax services to clients in over 100 offices across the nation.
57
Deloitte
has consistently been recognized as one of the companies at which candidates in its field
would dream of working. In January 2011, Deloitte celebrated its 12
th
year of being on
Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list.
58
To earn and maintain this
status, the company had to create a work environment of which people wanted to be a
part of.
The approach Deloitte has taken recently is using social media and an interactive
intranet to keep its top talent. The company understood the simple, yet overlooked, idea
that employees who are happy with their jobs stay longer and serve as great advocates for
bringing on new talent.
59
Furthermore, Deloitte wanted to make its large and spread out
organization feel smaller as well as appeal to its mostly younger workforce.
60
The
company brought together employees from several departments and across different

57
“Facts & Figures,” Deloitte, accessed March 13, 2011,
http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/press/Facts-Figures/index.htm.

58
“Deloitte Celebrates 12
th
Year on Fortune’s ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ List,”
Deloitte, accessed March 13, 2011, http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/press/Press
Releases/ac84493d5b3ad210VgnVCM3000001c56f00aRCRD.htm.

59
Jeffrey Cohen, “Deloitte Uses Social Media for Recruiting and Retention,” Social Media B2B,
last updated October 16, 2009, http://socialmediab2b.com/2009/10/deloitte-uses-social-media-for-
recruiting-and-retention/.

60
Mary Brandel, “The New Employee Connection: Social Networking Behind the Firewall,”
Computerworld, last updated August 11, 2008,
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/322857/The_new_employee_connection_Social_networking_behi
nd_the_firewall.s.

26
functions to discuss the possibility of integrating social media into the company’s
everyday internal communications. Essentially, Deloitte wanted to build a social
networking environment. Members from leadership, internal IT and communications
came together to dream up a social media platform that would be unique to Deloitte.
61
In
June 2007, the company rolled out D Street, an internal Facebook-like platform that
connected employees like never before. As Mary Brandel from Computerworld reports,
For instance, by enabling connections among employees, the company could
more easily offer flexible work arrangements, establish virtual teams, bring new
employees up to speed, improve collaboration and increase retention among
people who hadn't felt a strong sense of belonging.
62

D Street was originally populated with general information about each employee, but
employees could go in personalize their profiles with pictures, resumes, information on
where they formerly worked and more. Deloitte recognized that early adoption of D
Street was low, but with encouragement from leadership, more employees started to get
more involved. Almost a year later, Deloitte opened up D Street to its shared services
organization and all 46,000 members are in the system.
63

In addition to D Street, the company created a Deloitte Film Festival on YouTube
for its employees. The company invited all of its U.S. employees to create short videos
that gave their answer to the question “What is your Deloitte?”
64
Employees could build
teams anywhere from one to seven people. Almost 400 submissions were received on

61
Ibid.

62
Ibid.

63
Ibid.

64
Jeffrey Cohen, “Deloitte Uses Social Media for Recruiting and Retention,” published October 16, 2009
http://socialmediab2b.com/2009/10/deloitte-uses-social-media-for-recruiting-and-retention/.
27
Deloitte’s YouTube page and the site received over 400,000 views. These videos have
served as a way for employees across the company to come together and be creative.
They were given an opportunity to share their story and describe why they love working
for Deloitte. Also, this served as a great recruiting tool for potential candidates or anyone
interested in learning more about Deloitte. Allowing its employees to speak about the
company openly gave Deloitte a human element, one that can be understood by everyone.
In this case, providing channels for internal communications to take place was essential
to building a more collaborative and energetic workforce, which in turn helped Deloitte
retain its talent longer.
Accepting the shift in today’s environment is important in organizations
understanding why internal communications is a vital component to their success and
survival. All employees within an organization regardless of their level should be
included in internal communications efforts. Today, the practice has shifted from the
original broadcast model to more of a collaborative and engaging experience for all
employees.

28
Chapter 5: Internal Communications Belongs to the
Organization

With the definition of internal communications changing over the past decade, the
author believes it is only natural that there is also a shift in those responsible for leading
the function in an organization. Traditionally, internal communications has been housed
within the HR departments of organizations. Before, this made sense because a lot of the
communications to employees focused on benefits, healthcare and other areas associated
with HR. In addition, many communications teams were very small or understaffed and
could not take on the responsibility of internal communications. There used to be the
mentality that all things related to employees should come from HR.
However, now that internal communications is growing within organizations and
there has been a fundamental shift in the way the practice is carried out, the author
believes that HR should not be the only department responsible for this. During the draft
writing process of this thesis, the author felt strongly that the internal communications
practice should be in the hands of the communicators within an organization. This does
not mean that HR needs to give up this responsibility entirely, but the author felt that the
communicators were better suited to facilitate communication with employees. Today,
we are seeing a lot of communicators take on senior roles within organizations and have
the ability to affect the opinion of executives in the corporate suite. Because of this,
communicators can convince executives of the value of internal communications. They
have the ability to bring together management and employees on an equal level versus the
traditional top-down communications in the past. Also, the author believes
29
communicators are by education, nature or experience better equipped to communicate
with the many different people that make up a workforce.
The author was skeptical of HR personnel having the ability to communicate
beyond benefits or articulate to potential candidates the business practices of the
organization. In some organizations, this argument may be quite valid, especially those at
which the employees were unsatisfied with the communication they were receiving from
HR, or lack thereof. However, throughout the research process, the author realized that
there was more to this argument that needed to be considered.
Jerilan Greene brought up a good point in her interview after having delivered
numerous internal communications campaigns for clients throughout her career. After
being asked which department she felt would be best suited to lead the internal
communications function, she responded,
I think that internal communications is owned by the organization. I think the old
view is that people in HR or communications own internal communications. The
reality is the whole organization owns it. Leaders have a role, managers have a
role, HR has a role and so does the communications team.
65

Essentially, Greene is saying that it is less about what the communicators or HR
personnel are doing and more about what the collective organization does. Sometimes,
communicators can get caught up in being the only content creators and wanting to be in
control of all the messages disseminated. This is an ownership that communicators are
going to have to come to terms with letting go as Iwata described in his speech. In
internal communications efforts, communicators really ought to serve more as facilitators

65
Jerilan Greene (Executive Vice President of Edelman Change and Employee Engagement), interview by
Shelcie Takenouchi, March 4, 2011.
30
to all the different departments or players involved. They help to make the
communication between all employees across departments and even the world a much
more smoother, collaborative and open process than ever before.
One argument supporting this point is that today, we live in world where everyone
is a content creator. There is so much information circulating within a company that it has
become virtually impossible for the communications team to own every message. The
positive side to this is that now, everyone within an organization feels a sense of
responsibility to communicate and share information. If an employee communicates a
message incorrectly, there are usually other mechanisms in place, like the knowledge of
other employees, to correct the message. Trusting employees and other departments
outside of the communications function to generate communication empowers the
workforce to have an open dialogue. This is an important foundation to effective internal
communications.
In addition to the growth in communications taking place within an organization,
it is impossible for any communicator to keep tabs on every group or employee taking
part in the internal conversation. Greene states, “In particular, you can’t break it down to
every individual, but those main groups, – leaders, managers, HR and communicators –
they all play a different role.
66
It is up to the communications team to help these groups
define what their roles are in internal communications efforts. After helping them define
their roles, it is important for communicators to support these groups. For example, often
times, executives or managers do not have experience or education in communications.

66
Ibid.
31
Outside of speaking about profit, stock price and the bottom line, they are unaware of
how to communicate with employees on topics like the future of the business or asking
them to contribute ideas to a new strategy. This does not mean that communicators need
to give up all control over communications within the company. Greene agrees,
“Communicators are still at the center of defining communications in the business
[…].”
67
Communicators cannot get caught up with the messages that are delivered
internally as they are used to doing externally. Employees will catch on to that and realize
that the communication happening inside the organization is not open and honest.
The main point here is that the responsibility of internal communications within
any organization can be fluid depending on skill level and the purpose of the
communications. Greene cited an example of this argument with a client she is currently
working with, but the company shall remain anonymous for the purposes of privacy. She
described that the head of corporate communications at the company really had no clue as
to what effective internal communications looks like.
68
On the other hand, she recognized
that the head of HR is much more knowledgeable about strategic internal
communications and knows what needs to happen. For this particular project, Greene felt
that the head of HR was better suited to lead the internal communications efforts. Thus, it
is not so black-and-white as to who or what department should be in charge of internal
communications. It is about skill level and if the individual really understands how the
internal communications efforts contribute to the company’s overall business goals. It
also can depend on organizational design. Greene states, “Organizational design is not

67
Ibid.

68
Ibid.
32
just about where the function fits. Organizational design is about what we need to
achieve, what skills we need to have and what technology we have to support it.”
69

The best way to choose who should lead any internal communications effort is to
first and foremost, recognize the purpose of the campaign. In so doing, one must take into
account the business practices and goals of the organization and define what the internal
communications within the company should be. Then, decide who in the organization has
the skills to lead and oversee the type of internal communications initiative chosen. It
does not have to be one particular individual, but can consist of a team of people from
different departments across the company. The main thing is to choose the person or
department that knows how to be strategic in implementing the internal communications
efforts rather than trying to find someone to own it. Once that is decided, all employees
should be assigned roles in contributing to the internal conversation.
Being able to respond to change, accept transparency, recruit and retain talent and
allow employees to be idea sharers all contribute to the financial success of organizations.
Many companies have seen an increase in its overall performance when employing
effective internal communications strategies and this will be discussed in the following
chapter.

69
Ibid.
33
Chapter 6: The Return on Investment
Over the years, internal communications has led to lead to an increase of financial
performance within organizations. After analyzing the 2009/2010 Communication ROI
Study Report of Capitalizing on Effective Communication published by Towers Watson,
internal communications has proven to provide a substantial ROI for organizations.
70

Towers Watson (TW) is a leading global professional services company that consults
organizations on most areas related to human resources, risk management and internal
communications.
In its study, TW collected data from 328 organizations worldwide, representing
five million employees in various regions. Company leaders were asked questions related
to their internal communications activities and were measured on several different areas
that included, but not limited to: employee awareness of benefits; addressing employee
concerns/needs; level of communication with employees; communication training for
management; use of social media; and measurement policies that are in place to assess
communication effectiveness. After participants submitted their responses, TW’s
Research and Innovation division measured the communication effectiveness of the
companies surveyed. Based on their responses, companies were segmented by having
high, moderate or low communication effectiveness. In addition, financial data was
gathered from the participating companies. TW measured the correlation between

70
"Capitalizing on Effective Communication: How Courage, Innovation and Discipline
Drive Business Results in Challenging Times ," Towers Watson, 2009, accessed January 30, 2010
http://www.towerswatson.com/assets/pdf/670/NA-2009-14890.pdf.
34
effective communication and financial performance and found that those companies with
high communication effectiveness had experienced financial growth.
Obviously, there are a number of factors that contribute to the financial growth of
a company. TW argues that companies with high effective communication contribute to
increased financial results. TW concluded,
Effective employee communication is a leading indicator of financial
performance and a driver of employee engagement. Companies that are highly
effective communicators had 47 percent higher total returns to shareholders over
the last five years compared with firms that are the least effective
communicators.
71

After the study was completed, the author drew five conclusions about companies
that achieved high communication effectiveness. The first is that these organizations
established a sound employee value proposition (EVP) as shown in Figure 1. Basically,
EVP refers to a mutual agreement between a company and its workforce of what they can
expect from each other. It also outlines and states the qualities of a company that make it
unique and different from its competitors. It is not a code of conduct or a mission
statement, but rather, serves as a way for internal audiences to have a bond with the
culture in which they work. Organizations with high communication effectiveness have a
clearly defined EVP with its internal constituents, which permeate its external brand
image. The importance of EVP is also discussed in chapter eight in a content analysis of a
speech given by Jon Iwata. EVP is a big part of the IBM brand system and has brought
together over 400,000 employees worldwide to shape one culture.

71
Ibid.
35
Figure 1: High-effective firms align EVP strategy to their brand

Source: towerswatson.com, 2009
In addition, failure to update the EVP is just as bad as not creating one all
together. With the downturn of the economy, it is important that companies address how
their EVP is going to change and how it will impact internal and external audiences.
Companies that fail to do so are considered to have low communication effectiveness as
shown in figure 2. The ROI of EVP is maintaining an aligned mission, retaining and
attracting talent, differentiating an organization from others and having employees feel as
if they are being heard.

36
Figure 2: Few companies are taking the opportunity to revise their EVP

Source: towerswatson.com, 2009
The second quality of companies with high communication effectiveness is that
reward programs and overall business decisions are communicated to employees. As TW
states, “our study found that highly effective communicators explain the rationale behind
difficult business decisions, provide leadership training and actively address the impact
37
on employees.”
72
All of these types of communication not only engage a workforce, but
also helps them understand that the company values them. High-performing companies
are able to communicate the value of their reward programs through a branded approach
as shown in figure 3. Other research by TW showed that employees who understand their
benefits are more likely to be accepting of them. When an organization’s leaders are
honest with employees about benefits and rewards, employees appreciate it. The ROI of
employees understanding their benefits is that they appreciate their total package and are
more willing to support the company they work for.
Figure 3: Employees at high-effectiveness companies understand their benefits

Source: towerswatson.com, 2009

72
Ibid.
38
The third way for companies to achieve high communication effectiveness is to
train management how to communicate with employees. Employees appreciate it when
leadership delivers messages directly to them and engages in conversations. However,
many executives are not educated or formally trained to communicate with the workforce
and struggle to appear genuine. Often, they are given talking points by the PR team, but
this does not help managers become effective communicators. Whether it is speaking
with employees or consumers, managers need to know how to communicate the vision of
the organization. During times of mergers, acquisitions or layoffs, leadership will be
better poised to implement change and get the rest of the company onboard. Companies
with high effective communication are helping their managers become stronger
communicators in addressing employee concerns directly as shown in figure 4.
In recent years, members from the company PR team or outside agencies have
worked very closely with managers to achieve better communication skills as shown in
figure 5. Today, many organizations are made up of a very diverse workforce population.
Global organizations have offices all throughout the world and it is important for leaders
at each location to be able to communicate with employees at different branch locations.
Most executives that do not have a formal education or much experience in a
communications function tend to have difficulty communicating with employees. This is
when PR or communications professionals step in to train management on how to
communicate effectively with all levels of employees. For example, Ketchum Pleon
Change, the internal communications practice of Ketchum, developed a program called
“Managers as Communicators” to specifically address this issue many executives face.
39
Figure 4: Managers in high-effectiveness companies address employee concerns

Source: towerswatson.com, 2009

Figure 5: Highly effective companies train managers to communicate globally

Source: towerswatson.com, 2009
The fourth quality of highly effective communicators is their ability to utilize
social media to increase communication among employees. Companies are using social
media as a way to foster team building and collaboration across departments. They use it
as a tool to communicate change and promote overall health and wellness. Face-to-face
communication is still an effective way for managers to connect with employees, but
across large companies, social media allows employees from all over the world to
communicate with each other instantly. Tools such as Skype or video conferencing even
40
increase face-to-face communication to the point that an employee in Europe, for
instance, can see and speak to an employee in the U.S. in a highly cost effective way.
Some organizations use a company-wide Facebook, which allows employees to share
their work experience or hobbies. Others incorporate blogs on their intranet where
different departments can share what they have been working on or management can
provide messages to employees. In worldwide organizations, employees can tune in from
their desk to quarterly meetings given by the CEO or training sessions from HR and
provide instant feedback. All these ways of using social media show how it can enhance
productivity, increase communication, foster collaboration and create one unifying
company culture.
However, many leaders are skeptical of using social media. They claim that there
is a lack of resources, personnel or knowledge to implement social media within their
organizations. What managers do not realize is that the scale at which they use social
media must match the scale of their organization. When companies with only 100
employees look at larger global organizations like IBM, they feel as if they have to use
social media on an equally grand scale. This is definitely not the case. Smaller
organizations can find ways to use social media at little or no cost and suggestions on
how they can do so further outlined in Chapter 8.
In 2009, more than half of the companies that were considered highly effective
communicators increased their use of social media to engage employees (shown in figure
6). It is interesting to see that places like Australia and the Middle East are surpassing the
U.S. in terms of increased use of social media.
41
Figure 6: Organizations that have increased their use of social media based on region

Source: towerswatson.com, 2009
The final, and possibly the most important, conclusion about highly effective
communicators is that they all have some kind of metrics in place to measure
communication effectiveness. In order to do so, one must start with setting the overall
goals and objectives for implementing an internal communications campaign. Goals can
range from having employees better understand the business practices of a company to
retaining talent. Because global organizations must constantly and carefully scrutinize all
expenditures and spending projections, communicators must find concrete ways to
measure effectiveness. Gone are the days when a communicator can claim “the internal
newsletter was well received by employees.” In fact, in IABC’s Gold Quill awards
program, entrants are disqualified if they cannot prove measureable results for their
42
internal communications efforts. According to Professor Jennifer Floto, who has served
as a Gold Quill judge for the past decade, “Leading organizations have devised metrics
for measuring intranet hits/feedback, productivity improvements and employee
retention.”
73
It is important to note that the author believes these metrics could constitute
an entire thesis study, but suffice it to say that communicators can measure their work in
ways that financially oriented managers will accept.
Implementing these qualities within any company will help achieve highly
effective communication, which will in turn improve the way companies operate. As the
TW study states, “Employers that keep the lines of communication open are in the best
position to keep employees engaged in the business, retain key talent provide consistent
value to customers and deliver superior financial performance to stakeholders.”
74
The
ROI of internal communications in terms of providing numbers and percentages of
performance increase can be a gray area. However, it can be argued that aspects like
increasing collaboration and communication among employees will yield more
productivity, which contribute to overall financial performance. The bottom line is that
internal communications makes employees appreciate the company they work for and
want to contribute to the growth of the business. In turn, this improves productivity,
which leads to growth in financial performance.

73
Jennifer Floto (Associate Professor, University of Southern California Annenberg School for
Communication and Journalism), in discussion with author, February 28, 2011.

74
"Capitalizing on Effective Communication: How Courage, Innovation and Discipline
Drive Business Results in Challenging Times ," Towers Watson, 2009, accessed January 30,
2011, http://www.towerswatson.com/assets/pdf/670/NA-2009-14890.pdf

43
Chapter 7: Emerging Trends in Internal Communications
Today, there are still many corporate leaders who are apprehensive about fully
employing internal communications programs. As mentioned in Chapter 4, it will not be
long before organizations become totally transparent. The best way they can cope with
this reality is to embrace the cultural and social changes that are taking place and use
them to enhance internal communication. This communication cannot be limited to just
informing employees about company performance or asking them to provide feedback on
management. Leadership needs to educate their work force about company business goals
and how employees contribute to reaching those goals on a daily basis. Essentially, all
employees need to feel as if they had a hand in shaping the culture at the companies they
work for.
Content Analysis: Speech by Jon Iwata at Kenneth Owler Smith Symposium
When identifying emerging trends in the internal communications practice, IBM’s
Jon Iwata is considered to be a thought leader in this area. The author will dissect the
speech he delivered on March 25, 2010 at the University of Southern California’s
Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. He was the honorary speaker at
Annenberg’s Kenneth Owler Smith Symposium and offered innovative ideas about where
the internal communications practice is heading. His speech is recognized in this thesis
because the author believes it provides some of the most thought-provoking suggestions
on future trends within the internal communications practice.
As the head for the marketing and communications functions at IBM, Iwata has
implemented one of the most inspiring internal communications campaigns to date. He
44
has studied the practice with passion and has devised some of the most revolutionary
insight into what internal communications is today. Throughout his speech, there were
several themes that he touched upon: the rapid growth of technology; how civilization
and the knowledge people possess have taken a great leaps forward; the growing
transparency of companies; consumers caring about the corporation behind the brand; the
integration of company culture and brand; how the workforce should be utilized; and how
the way people search for information is changing. Although the practice of internal
communications has been around for a long time, Iwata argues that it is too early to
predict “best practices” in this field. Rather, he suggests three major emerging disciplines
that will occur.
The first discipline that Iwata suggests is “fusing management of brand with
management of culture.”
75
What he meant by this is that whatever information companies
are communicating externally, they need to communicate the same messages internally,
and vice versa. The brand and the culture must become one. However, it is more than just
uniting internal and external messaging. It is about fostering collaboration between all
departments within an organization to create on culture. Iwata pointed out that it is
becoming more difficult for organizations to live double lives. In the past, companies
were able to manage their external images and brands separately and apart from their
internal communications. In the age of transparency, companies cannot avoid having
information that could have previously been sequestered internally from seeping out to
the external environment, which was argued in chapter 4.

75
Jon Iwata, “Looking Ahead of the Curve: PR/Communication in 2010” (speech, University of Southern
California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism 20
th
annual Kenneth Owler Smith
Symposium, Los Angeles, CA, March 25, 2010).
45
Iwata added, “Lincoln said character is like a tree, reputation is like its shadow.
Many believe their job is to manipulate the shadow rather than tend to the health of the
tree.”
76
Iwata’s point was that PR professionals must stop trying to manipulate a
company’s reputation and rather, work on its character. By character, he was referring to
the uniqueness of a company and what separates it from all others. His assertion closely
mirrors the notion of HP’s internal culture described earlier in this thesis. Iwata
referenced the quote by Lincoln to explain that people care about the organization behind
the brand. They no longer distinguish between brand and company. People are interested
in how a company operates, the way it treats its employees and its corporate social
responsibility practices. People even want to know if a company supports social causes,
is environmentally responsible and has a presence online. Iwata concluded that one day
soon, everyone will be able to share first-hand knowledge about a company. The only
way organizations can cope with this reality is to make sure that employees know more
about the different aspects of their business.
The second discipline Iwata discussed was the creation of constituency. What
Iwata was referring to is establishing a workforce that supports and represents a
company’s culture, and shares that with the public to establish a shared idea. This idea is
quite revolutionary, but the author believes it will be very difficult for many
organizations to follow. Leadership (including communication leadership) within
companies often have a hard time giving up responsibility and control over messaging to
its employees. The thought of making its employees communicators or idea sharers is

76
Ibid.
46
quite scary for an organization. However, as Iwata argues, this is the only way companies
will be able to maintain a strong and faithful external audience in the future.
Iwata said that someday soon, all companies will be broadcasters and publishers.
Broadcasting involves pumping out information to the public. However, this action is just
creating noise, and as Iwata asserts, people encounter enough clutter throughout the day.
With so many channels fighting for people’s attention, a company’s messages will
become lost in the mix. Iwata argues that organizations need to be publishers and affect
knowledge. As a result, Iwata said, “Value will come from providing perspective and
useful information for making a contribution to our audience’s knowledge.”
77

One company that he cited as creating constituency was Apple Inc. The author
notes that Apple along with a few other companies, like Google, are prime examples of
creating constituency. Iwata said that Apple understood its chief constituency –
“contrarian thinkers.”
78
Apple has a distinct corporate culture and its character transcends
throughout the company. Apple employees are creative thought leaders who have passion
for the company and thus, ideas for external campaigns flow easily. What Apple does in
external markets is representative of who they are internally. Iwata said that the
employees at Apple became teachers and publishers because they spent time with and
diligently taught consumers about every aspect of their products and brand. Customers
experience this in-store when visiting the Apple genius bar or speaking with sales
representatives in general. Apple representatives are not selling products; they are
creating a unique experience. Customers appreciate being taught and in turn, become

77
Ibid.

78
Ibid.
47
evangelists for the brand, passing this passion on to their friends, family members and
colleagues. Iwata makes the point that Apple appealed to people’s beliefs and lifestyles.
Another company that Iwata applauded for creating constituency was Michelin.
Michelin has been able to advance its tire-making business by creating constituency. In
essence, not every company has to be an Apple that starts off with a strong and unique
identity. Iwata pointed out that awhile back, Michelin started to lose business because not
that many people drove or traveled long distances in their vehicles. The company created
a series of annual guidebooks and rating system for things like restaurants, chefs, hotels
and destinations. Although none of these activities had anything directly to do with tires,
it encouraged people to travel, which meant using their vehicles more often. Michelin
found a unique way to create a constituency of employees that wanted to become the
influencers and the leading reviewers, which would in turn impact the knowledge of
consumers. Today, many businesses and professionals in the hospitality industry vie for a
Michelin award or high rating. In addition, many travelers purchase Michelin’s travel and
tourism guides. The company found a way to publish information, educate the public and
become a leader in rating the hospitality industry in addition to manufacturing top-quality
tires.
The third and final discipline that Iwata discussed was building the eminence of a
workforce. Essentially, he was referring to building a smart workforce that could in turn,
be seen as experts by the public. The author of this thesis agrees with Iwata when he
stated that 2010 would be the year companies had to realize that employees are engaging
with social media. The hardest part is that employers need to accept the use of social
48
media. It has already become a tool for conducting internal communications and
improving business practices. Today, it matters what people and organizations are doing
on the Web.
In addition to the rapid pace at which social media is growing, the way people
search for information is changing too. Iwata argued that the Internet is flooded with
content, but today, people are more interested in finding experts. Companies can enable
their workforces to serve as experts by allowing them to do what comes naturally to them
– blogging, Tweeting, Facebook posting and participating in other social media
communication. Iwata said that allowing the workforce to be experts in the social media
space should become a standard within every company. Employees should be tasked with
becoming communication experts just as the PR team is within any company. Iwata
sympathized with communicators in saying that it is going to be hard for them to give up
this kind of responsibility. However, allowing employees to communicate through social
media gives brand validity among consumers. Thus, building eminence of a workforce is
crucial to any company.
Future Trends
There were several conclusions made by the author on the future trends of internal
communications based on Iwata’s speech. The first is that companies must make it their
priority to fuse their internal and external images into one unifying brand. When there are
mixed messages being sent internally and externally, people are going to take notice and
an organization can lose all credibility. When people purchase or interact with a
company’s product or service, they should be able to understand the company behind the
49
product or service. As Iwata pointed out, when a customer goes into an Apple store,
he/she can tell that the company is innovative and unique just by picking up its products
or speaking to sales personnel.
Companies need to let their employees contribute and shape company culture, or
in other words, create shared value. Too often, organizations tell employees what they are
responsible for and what they owe to management. To create a more productive work
environment, there needs to be a mutual understanding between employee and manager.
Allowing employees to suggest changes to the vision of the company or employment deal
gives them a sense of belonging to the corporate culture. In turn, this will make
employees passionate about sharing ideas internally, which will create a collaborative and
productive environment. Additionally, employees will want to serve as experts on behalf
of their companies and help educate the public.
A future trend that may seem like a daunting task is for management and PR
professionals to allow employees to become communicators. There is no better brand
ambassador than the workforce of a company. However, employees need to be trained to
be brand ambassadors. They need to be equipped with knowledge about all aspects of a
business and this is why it is so important for them to be included in shaping company
culture. Management cannot be afraid of employees going out into the world and digital
space to speak with the public. Leaders must embrace the fact that employees will be
honest with people about the companies they work for. Even communicators are going to
have to learn to take a step back and allow employees to deliver messages straight to the
consumer.
50
A final trend that companies must pay attention to is social media. Within the last
few years, digital and social media has skyrocketed to stardom and is moving forward at
a rapid pace. For example, Facebook recently passed the 500 million-user mark.
79
Just as
company Web sites were a must a decade ago, having a presence on social media is
imperative. It is important for companies to understand what platforms people are using.
Not every organization can make effective use of Facebook, nor should every brand
manager be engaging prospective customers through Twitter. Knowing this will help
organizations gauge which forms of social media would be useful for internal and
external communications efforts. Employees would be more inclined to participate in
collaboration and discussions internally as well as contribute or drive conversations with
consumers online. Denying social media would be the equivalent of setting an
organization behind the curve. There is no doubt that social media is a standard of
communicating. Management needs to embrace social media and look at it as a tool to
not only become closer with its employees, but also with its external audiences. Social
media gives a company a real personality and an opportunity to share its culture with
everyone.

79
Brian Womack, “Facebook Passes 500 Million User Milestone, CEO says,” Bloomberg, published
July 21, 2010, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-21/facebook-passes-500-million-user-milestone-
ceo-says.html.
51
Chapter 8: Tips for Implementing a Successful Internal
Communications Program

In this chapter, the author will provide insight for organizations seeking to start an
internal communications function based on some of the most successful programs to date.
These tips can be applied to any organization, large or small. The author will also outline
the most common pitfalls that organizations encounter when attempting to implement an
internal communications practice within their organization.
Attributes of Successful Internal Communications Campaigns
Most successful internal communications programs start with leadership. It is
imperative that there is CEO or leadership buy-in to internal communications efforts or
else the initiative will never progress and move forward. It is important that leadership
sees value in internal communications and integrating it as part of the company culture. If
leadership does not truly stand behind internal communications efforts, over time, the
effort will fizzle out. Also, leadership presence is important. Employees want to meet or
see top management, so leadership should implement their modern version of MBWA, as
was done at HP.
One way that communicators can convince leadership of the value of internal
communications is by doing an internal audit. Just as Rick Wagner saw at GM,
organizations may find that their employees know nothing about the business goals or
practices of the company. The majority of employees below the management level may
not even be able to articulate what the mission of the company is and this is alarming. If
employees do not understand what their company stands for, then how can management
expect them to represent the company out in the public? Furthermore, in today’s
52
environment, employees have the opportunity to talk about their company online where
information spreads at a rapid pace. Employees need to be equipped with information in
order to respond to questions about the company from others, whether it is in a casual or
formal setting.
In addition to having leadership buy-in, there needs to be manager involvement
and accountability for the internal communications efforts. It does not matter if it is the
chief communications officer or the director of HR, but it needs to be someone who is in
a higher management level. Being accountable for internal communications means that
this selected person or group of people who make sure that roles are assigned, goals are
being met and overall, the effort is moving forward.
As mentioned in Chapter 5, it is imperative that organizations set a clear purpose
for conducting an internal communications program before doing anything else.
Companies that jump right in to internal communications activities find themselves down
the line wondering what it is that they are working toward achieving. Setting a purpose
for internal communications within an organization is like laying the foundation to any
building. Overall company business goals, practices and objectives should be taken into
consideration because internal communications should align with these. Each
organization is going to have a different purpose for implementing internal
communications and within one company alone, its purpose may change year after year.
For example, a company’s goal for internal communications may be to create a smarter
workforce. An objective of this goal could be to have 65 percent of its employees be able
to articulate the company’s mission, practices and products/services by the end of the
53
fourth quarter in a fiscal year. Having a purpose helps all internal communications
activities fall in line and be relevant to achieving the end goal.
Organizations that have strong internal communications in place research their
workforce thoroughly. Companies find out things like how employees prefer to
communicate, what kinds of issues influence them and how they like to receive
information. Are employees involved in social media? How often? Which platforms and
do they wish it was integrated more into the internal communications? The research of
the workforce does not have to focus solely on how employees communicate. It can find
out the general interests of employees, if they understand what customers need and if
they feel disconnected from the organization. In some cases, companies may find that
their employees are starving for information from them and are waiting to be
communicated with. In others, employees may express that they wish it was more of a
collaborative environment and that they were aware of what was going on in other
departments across the world. It is about understanding as many aspects of your
workforce as possible to create an internal communications program that they can relate
to. However, researching the workforce should not be undertaken solely before the
implementation of internal communications. It should be done regularly (i.e. annually)
because as Greene said, “Successful programs have their finger on the pulse in terms of
what employees are looking for.”
80

It is also important that internal communications is looked at as a dialogue that
occurs within the organization. When a company roles out a new strategy, there is a

80
Jerilan Greene (Executive Vice President of Edelman Change and Employee Engagement), interview by
Shelcie Takenouchi, March 4, 2011.
54
difference between asking your employees to read over new policies or white papers
versus seeking their input and feedback. Greene said that companies should be saying to
their employees something like, “We are rolling out this new strategy and we still need
the best of all minds around here in order to make it work.”
81
When you invite employees
to be a part of the conversation, they feel as if the company values them and that their
opinions matter. Not only that, but employees feel like they have had a hand in shaping
the company’s new ventures. This dialogue should take place across all departments and
levels within the company. One example of creating dialogue is the Jam Sessions that
IBM started in 2001 and supports the argument that every employee has a role in the
internal communications that takes place within an organization. In these Jam Sessions,
IBM brought together its more than 300,000 employees from across the world to
participate in an online dialogue. In describing the Jam Sessions, Liam Cleaver, program
director of the Jam program office, said, “They serve as a spark – really a catalyst for
change within an organization. It’s a way to really harness the creativity and innovation
of a group of people on a specific group of topics.”
82
Jam Sessions at IBM have not been
limited to just discussions about the business. In 2003, IBM held a ValuesJam, which
allowed its workforce to redefine the company’s core values, the expectations between
employer and employee, and vice versa.
83
In 2006, InnovationJam was a huge
brainstorming effort on behalf of all employees, which resulted in 10 new IBM

81
Ibid.

82
“A Decade of Jamming Video,” IBM Jam Events Page, accessed March 15, 2011,
https://www.collaborationjam.com/

83
“Jam Events,” IBM.com, accessed March 15, 2011, https://www.collaborationjam.com/.
55
businesses.
84
In doing these Jam Sessions, IBM has made sure to set the topic beforehand
to keep the dialogue focused and progressive. The point here is to create an environment
where all employees can be a part of the conversation that takes place around the
decisions that are being made in progressing the company.
For smaller companies, taking half a day in which all employees in the company
come together to talk about a new strategy, product launch or year-end review is
something that is feasible. Not every collaborative process has to include the high-tech
intricacies of an IBM, but fundamentally the dialogue should look the same. At smaller
companies, management can start the dialogue and employees can take the information
with them and provide feedback over several days through the intranet. Some may look at
this time taken away from work as unproductive, but what they do not realize is that there
is in fact productivity taking place. Better ideas may be brought up during dialogue and
employees will become more invested in the company. Having a dialogue also works
well in change management situations. Whether it is a merger, acquisition or change in
leadership, dialogue helps employees to better understand where the company is headed
and eliminates the unknown.
A final attribute that many successful internal communications campaigns have is
constant evaluation. It is important for companies to perform pulse checks within the
organization. Measure how people are engaging with the information presented and how
they are engaging with each other. Look to see if real dialogue is taking place versus just
chatter or one-sided conversations. Check if employees’ expectations have changed or

84
Ibid.
56
find out why they did not like a particular internal activity. With the rapid pace of
technology, employees’ preference for receiving information may change over time and
in the next decade, it may not be all about social media. Organizations should stay on top
of the changes in their internal audience as they would for their external audiences.
Pitfalls to Avoid
One thing that a lot of companies are guilty of is communicating with employees
only when a crisis unfolds. Often times, organizations put all of their energy toward
creating a strong external program that they forget to communicate this to their
workforce. If a problem arises during the external program, management scramble to
inform employees about what has been going on externally just to keep them up-to-date
on why there is now a crisis. In some cases, it may be years of information that
employees now need to be aware of. Sometimes, when management tries to reconnect
with employees during a crisis, it does not work and they lose their internal audience. At
that point, a lot of employees become fed up with being ignored and do not care to hear
from management. This can create an internal crisis within the external crisis that makes
for a huge problem.
In other cases, not communicating with your employee base can inhibit the
progress of external campaigns. In a campaign for a global beverage company (which
shall not be named for the purpose of privacy), Greene said that the organization had
rolled out a new corporate reputation initiative.
85
Because the initiative was about 50
percent different than what it had been in the past, naturally, the company put a lot of

85
Jerilan Greene (Executive Vice President of Edelman Change and Employee Engagement), interview by
Shelcie Takenouchi, March 4, 2011.
57
effort toward communicating this externally. The company created messages about its
new initiative and tested them across a global audience. It delivered the messages to
different global markets and made sure that CEO included these messages into all of his
communication. The company engaged several different leader ambassadors to share the
same messages in forums across the world.
86
It is very apparent that all of these activities
are very external. The problem is, the company moved forward with these external tactics
without even mentioning to employees what they were doing around this new corporate
reputation initiative. Now, Greene and her team are working with the company to
communicate to employees about this initiative and the external activities that have taken
place over the past couple of years. The problem now is, the company lost the
opportunity to have an impact with employees. It did not have an integrated approach
where it kept both internal and external audiences aware of what the company was doing.
Therefore, some of its external activities around this new initiative have been slowed
because the company is trying to get employees on track. There is a way to communicate
with internal and external audiences at the same time, but the author argues that more
often than not, it is better to inform the internal audience first. A lot of companies look at
internal and external communications as independent of one another, but that is not the
case anymore.

86
Ibid.
58
Chapter 9: Conclusion
In conclusion, the author believes that internal communications is the new
buzzword in the corporate communications industry. Already having grown significantly
from its inception, internal communications will soon be a practice that all organizations
will have in place. In addition, all large PR agencies across the world will have internal
communications, employee engagement or change management as one of its main
practices.
It is important for communicators and leaders to understand that internal
communications is owned by the organization. Today, it is not a practice that is solely
facilitated by HR, but rather, by many departments across a company. It is important to
have someone lead the internal communications efforts, but it is up to all employees to be
involved and have a role.
With the rapid growth of technology and cultural change taking place,
transparency is unavoidable. Almost anyone will be able to know everything about an
organization because of the way in which information is passed on through many
different channels like social media. The best way for any organization to face this is to
create a smart workforce. This type of workforce has employees who are well educated
on all aspects of the business from its mission and offerings to competition and future
outlook. A smart workforce also enables companies to have a voice beyond its walls into
the world and can affect public opinion like never before. People are looking for experts
to talk to, so why not use employees to speak to them?
59
Lastly, internal communications should build an internal community that
collaborates on a number of different topics. Until now, leaders have largely ignored their
employees and little did they know that these same employees were bursting at the seams
with great ideas. The CEO or leadership team can make decisions, but the thought
process should include all employees. It is the workforce that interacts with customers,
builds the products, provides the services and does the everyday work that keeps the
company running. They have a lot of knowledge about what people expect from the
company and leadership should tap into this information. They are the best brand
ambassadors that any company could choose. Until now, employees have been
underutilized and under-communicated with, so it is time to include them in the
conversation.

60
Bibliography
“A Decade of Jamming Video.” IBM Jam Events Page. Accessed March 15, 2011.
https://www.collaborationjam.com/

Argenti, Paul. Corporate Communication. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2009.

Bauman, Kurt, and Nikki L. Graf. Educational Attainment: 2000. Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of Commerce, 2003. Table 1.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-24.pdf.

Brandel, Mary. “The New Employee Connection: Social Networking Behind the
Firewall.” Computerworld. Last updated August 11, 2008.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/322857/The_new_employee_connection
_Social_networking_behind_the_firewall.s.

Cameron, Kim S., Sarah J. Freeman, and Aneil K. Mishra. “Best Practices in White-
Collar Downsizing: Managing Contradictions.” Academy of Management
Executive, vol. 5, no. 3 (1991).

"Capitalizing on Effective Communication: How Courage, Innovation and Discipline
Drive Business Results in Challenging Times." Towers Watson. Accessed January
30, 2010. http://www.towerswatson.com/assets/pdf/670/NA-2009-14890.pdf.

Cohen, Jeffrey. “Deloitte Uses Social Media for Recruiting and Retention.” Social Media
B2B. Last updated October 16, 2009. http://socialmediab2b.com/2009/10/deloitte-
uses-social-media-for-recruiting-and-retention/.

“Deloitte Celebrates 12
th
Year on Fortune’s ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ List.”
Deloitte. Accessed March 13, 2011.
http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/press/Press
Releases/ac84493d5b3ad210VgnVCM3000001c56f00aRCRD.htm.

Dybward, Barb. “The Growth of Social Media.” Mashable. Published May 7, 2010.
http://mashable.com/2010/05/07/social-media-stats-video/.

Facebook. “Basic Information.” Accessed March 29, 2011.
http://www.facebook.com/facebook?sk=info.

“Facts & Figures.” Deloitte. Accessed March 13, 2011.
http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/press/Facts-Figures/index.htm.

Floto, Jennifer. Associate Professor, University of Southern California Annenberg School
for Communication and Journalism. In discussion with author. February 28, 2011.
61
Goman, Carol Kinsey. “What’s So Great About Face-to-Face?” IABC CW Bulletin.
Published November 2010,
http://www.iabc.com/cwb/archive/2010/1110/Goman.htm.

Gary Grates. “Hello, It’s Me!” Lecture, University of Southern California, Los Angeles,
CA, November 1, 2010.

“Grates to Lead Edelman's Newly Formed ‘Change’ Unit.” Edelman.com. Accessed
March 13, 2011, http://www.edelman.com/news/ShowOne.asp?ID=112.

Greene, Jerilan. Executive Vice President of Edelman Change and Employee
Engagement. Interview by Shelcie Takenouchi, March 4, 2011.

Harris, Steven. Former vice president of global communications at General Motors and
DaimlerChrysler. Interview by Shelcie Takenouchi. February 27, 2011.

Iwata, Jon. “Looking Ahead of the Curve: PR/Communication in 2010.” Speech,
University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and
Journalism 20
th
annual Kenneth Owler Smith Symposium. Los Angeles, CA.
March 25, 2010.

“Jam Events.” IBM.com. Accessed March 15, 2011. https://www.collaborationjam.com/.

Kanter, Beth, and Allison H. Fine. The Networked Nonprofit. San Francisco: John Wiley
& Sons, 2010.

Maurice, Jewell. "Assistant Librarian, Eli Lilly and Co." The Development, Criteria for
Selection, and Uses of House Organs. Published 1952,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC234301/pdf/mlab00234-1001.pdf.

Merriam-Webster OnLine, s.v. “House Organ.” Accessed January 28, 2011.
http://mw4.m-w.com/dictionary/house%20organ.

Pulsepoint Group. “IPR’s 2009 Distinguished Lecture: Jon Iwata, IBM.” Points of View
(blog). December 2, 2009. http://www.pulsepointgroup.com/2009/12/iprs-2009-
distinguished-lecture-jon-iwata-ibm/.

Reuss, Carol, and Donn E. Silvis, eds. Inside Organizational Communication. New York:
Longman Inc., 1981.

62
Rosen, Evan. “Every Worker Is a Knowledge Worker.” Bloomberg Businesweek.
Published January 11, 2011.
http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jan2011/ca20110110_985915.ht
m.

Serrat, Oliver. Knowledge Solutions: Management by Walking Around. Published April
2009. http://www.adb.org/documents/information/knowledge-
solutions/managing-by-walking-around.pdf.

Thorson, Kjerstin. Assistant Professor, University of Southern California Annenberg
School for Communication and Journalism. Interview by Shelcie Takenouchi,
February 3, 2011.

Tye, Larry. The Father of Spin. New York, NY: Crown Publishers Inc., 1998.
The U.S. Census Bureau. “Census Bureau Reports Nearly 6 in 10 Advanced Degree
Holders Age 25-29 Are Women.” News release. April 20, 2010.
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch14/ch14_sec213.html.

Womack, Brian. “Facebook Passes 500 Million User Milestone, CEO says.” Bloomberg.
Published July 21, 2010. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-21/facebook-
passes-500-million-user-milestone-ceo-says.html.

63
Appendices
Appendix A: In-person interview with Kjerstin Thorson
Assistant Professor, University of Southern California
1. Can you briefly describe your position at Martha Stewart Living?
Thorson: There were two of us, so my boss and I. We had an outside crisis agency
and day-to-day agency. We had a very small internal team and primarily my
responsibility was in external corporate communications. The time I was there was in
2002 when the whole crisis started and I spent most of my time with “the problems.”
It’s not that big of a company. I think at the time we had around 650 people or so. We
would help write and or edit all the internal memos, like if the CEO or the CFO sent
out a memo we would work on those. Sometimes we would actually write these
memos or we would just edit them. We did not do any of the events planning
internally, like Christmas parties.
2. Did internal event planning fall in the hands of HR?
Thorson: It is a funny company because it is a creative company. So, the creative for
all that stuff would come out of various departments. If we had the Christmas party in
some place elaborate they would have the creative team decorate it and so forth.
3. So it was a combination of different departments coming together?
Thorson: Yeah
4. Did most of the internal communications you had at the time consist of memos
and letters to employees?
Thorson: It was more about explaining the world of Martha Stewart and its impact on
the employees. It was just a nervous time because the company was negatively
64
impacted. Ad sales for the magazine just went through the basement. The coverage in
the newspapers in New York, which is an intense media market with all the tabloids,
was just crazy. There would literally be cameras from CNN and MSNBC outside the
front door for the more heated moments because Martha came to work pretty
regularly since it was her company.
5. Due to circumstance, were you and your boss had to handle more external
communications than internal?
Thorson: All the phone calls to the media that wanted a statement or interviews, I
took care of. We vetted speaking opportunities for Martha. However, I am not sure
though that had it not been the crisis time there would be much internal at all either. It
was a pretty casual company.
6. How do you think employees felt about having a lack of internal
communications at Martha Stewart?
Thorson: Honestly, I don’t really know. My first job in communications, I was
actually doing internal communications. We had a newsletter and had branches
internationally, so it was necessary. I guess part of doing internal communications is
that you are incredibly in touch with what is happening on the ground, but that wasn’t
my experience there [Martha Stewart]. We were so blitzed by disaster and I’m sure
people were upset. A lot of it for me was structural and where in the company we
were physically located. In corporate communication at Martha Stewart, we were
with legal and finance, so those were the people I saw. It was the kind of company
where if you had a newsletter people would find it patronizing. At the time, it was a
65
company that had grown pretty quickly and it did not have a lot of turnover, so people
had been there for a long time. It was a very intimate corporate culture and a kind of
‘we drank the Kool- Aid’ type of culture. Everyone thought the company was very
amazing and I think that was the form of internal communications that worked there.
7. In general terms, based on your experiences, why do you think internal
communications is so important to any organization?
Thorson: I think it’s variably important depending on the company. The company that
I worked at where I actually did internal communications was a science research
company, but it was very divided. There, our mission was to make sure that everyone
felt like they were a part of something. At Martha Stewart, given that it was a damage
control time, people already felt like they were a part of something because the
corporate culture was really strong. I’m not sure that an intentional campaign to do
that would have achieve that it was sort of existing organically because it had a brand.
Companies like a Ben & Jerry’s or a NorthFace, companies that have a strong brand
that make you feel good, do companies like that need the same kind of managed
communications campaign inside that don’t have that kind of culture?
8. That’s an interesting point.
Thorson: At the science research company, the main branch was in Minneapolis and
there were smaller satellite offices throughout Europe and the east coast. The
employees at these smaller branches would call me and say that they felt left out. We
made mistakes – if you sent out a memo to everyone saying “Christmas party,” not
everywhere was going to have a party, so you have to think about how you target
66
your message through digital communications. Not everyone all over the world is
going to get the coffee or be there for the gift exchange or participate in the United
Way campaign.
9. Do you think there was a lull period in internal communications during the
1990s?
Thorson: You know, I was never high up enough to have that kind of a view on the
situation. I think it makes sense that there are always cycles of trends and variations
within the practice.
10. Is there anything else you would like to add or any experiences you had while
working in the field?
Thorson: The reason I took the job at the science research company is because I
started making a newsletter at a library because it was sort of a low morale kind of
place. Then, I realized that’s what I liked and looked for a job in internal
communications. I interviewed for a lot of internal communications jobs. I distinctly
felt like it was an ugly stepsister of corporate communications. A lot of the things
they wanted me to do were very meaningless and not strategic. I was fairly low down,
but that was my perspective. Most of the companies that I talked to did not take
internal communications very seriously and did not treat it as a ‘grown-up’ part of
corporate communications. Maybe this was the case at middle-sized companies where
they weren’t enough in the corporate eye. This was around the late 90s, early 2000s.

67
Appendix B: Phone interview with Steven Harris
Former vice president of global communications at General Motors
1. When you were at American Motors and Chrysler, did either company have
internal communications programs/philosophies in place? If so, what did it
consist of and who was responsible for managing internal communications?
Harris: I started off at GM in 1967 and there was definitely an attempt to
communicate with employees. It was fairly top-down, but it was in the
communications department, which was a little unusual at the time for some
organizations. It was aimed at developing brochures and overseeing plant newspapers
and things like that to communicate information to employees and of course at that
time, it was very much top-down. Whatever messaging management felt it wanted to
deliver to employees it did. It was very much supported of a variety of themes around
improving equality and efficiency and that sort of thing. There was a great deal of
communication of personnel issues like pay, benefits, changes in healthcare and
pension plans and very little, if any, what the company was doing, what was going on
in the industry in general, what was going on with competitors and other global and
U.S. issues that might affect them [employees] or their jobs. It was pretty much about
their jobs and about what the management wanted them to be aware of.
2. I find it quite interesting that a company like General Motors had internal
communications within the communications function in the organization as early
as the 60s.
Harris: I think General Motors and the AT&Ts of the world recognized early that for
consistency among communications to whoever your audience was, you should only
68
have one area working on communications because you don’t want to have vast
inconsistencies in what you are saying to one audience and what you are saying to
another. At Chrysler, when I went there in 1987, at that time, employee
communications/internal communications was just transitioning from personnel to the
communications department. So, it happened later and I’m sure today there are still
some smaller and medium sized companies that don’t have a communications staff to
handle the internal communications function.
3. During the merger of Chrylser and Daimler-Benz in 1998, what kind of internal
communications campaigns were put in place to help employees adjust or
understand the direction of the new company?
Harris: Number one, there was a large group put together of all the functions within
the company, both from Daimler Benz and Chrysler. This was considered the
transition group that was going to communicate and make the
decisions/recommendations about the actual merger of the two companies. There was
a communications person from Chrysler, Tony Servone, and there was a
communications person assigned from Daimler Benz. These two were there to make
sure we were communicating to employees and other audiences, like the media,
dealers and suppliers. They decided what we could and could not talk about. The
things that were restricted were the financial elements of the deal and that kind of
stuff. This didn’t mean you couldn’t talk about what the vision was, what the
combined entity would be together, how you would merge the cultures or what the
business objective would be. You just couldn’t get into a lot of the specific things that
69
had investment ramifications. The feeling early on for the Chrysler side in that kind
of a situation was that employees were really anxious, concerned and hungry for
information, but it was really impossible to communicate too much. We
communicated a lot more to our employees, who were being much more affected than
the Daimler Benz employees were in Germany and other parts of the world because it
really didn’t have any impact on them. For us, here was a partner which, while there
was a lot of conversation of this being a merger of equals, and a marriage made in
heaven it was very much Daimler was going to be in control of this new entity. So,
there was a lot of anxiety on the part of the Chrysler people. A lot of the
communication was sort of educating people about who was Daimler Benz, what
were their products, what was their history and vice versa.
4. At the time, who do you think was the most important for you to reach out to
first?
Harris: Well, I must say that at Chrysler, there were communications people assigned
to the sales and the dealer area. There were communications people assigned to the
purchasing and supply area. There was a large contingent of people assigned to
employee communications. So, it was pretty much simultaneous because each of our
audiences was very critical. In general, when we communicated, depending on the
sensitivity of the information, we always had a bias to communicate to employees
first and to let them know when either SEC regulation would allow us or just from a
timing standpoint. But that doesn’t mean that there weren’t two or three people who
were totally obsessed with what the dealers needed to know and trying to come up
70
with the information that would answer some of the questions the dealers would
receive about product, distribution and where new sales points were going to be and
all things that would come into a dealers mind that might impact his business or have
him concerned.
5. What were some of the communications tactics that you used at the time of the
merger?
Harris: We did a lot of e-mails. At this time there was an intranet at Chrysler, so a lot
of information was on the intranet and it was highly used at the time. There was very
little printed, but there was some because wherever there was still print publications
that were hanging on at various locations we would use that. We tried to do a lot of
video. Chrysler, kind of uniquely, had a television network that went to every facility,
like in a lunchroom area where there were TV sets. That was an opportunity to be
able to broadcast to a large number of people simultaneously information, updates
and appearances by senior management. Then, we tried to do as much face-to-face as
possible. Material was prepared that could be rolled out to the supervisor level on the
plant floor. He could take his employees in his area, maybe the 30 to 40 people that
reported to him, and have a little break meeting giving them the most recent update
and try to answer questions based on the material we had provided him. We would do
Q&As for them to work off of to make them as knowledgeable as possible.
Occasionally, we would have a really big town hall meeting where we would bring in
all the employees at a given location or area to one site and make a presentation to
them and try to answer questions.
71
6. When you returned to GM in 1999, was internal communications something that
was high on your list of priorities as a communicator within the company?
Harris: There was a great deal of frustration on Rick Wagner’s part, he was the CEO
at the time, because they were doing these annual employee surveys and the numbers
were not good as far as employees understanding the business objectives of the
company. Rick wondered why the company was having this problem and he quite
frankly out of frustration, was not satisfied that the communications staff had the
capability to do this. He went outside, hired a large consulting firm and gave them a
huge amount of money to analyze communications to employees at General Motors
and come up with a plan for better communications. They [the consulting firm] came
up with a very robust delivery system that had a scorecard for each location as to
meeting objectives of communicating to employees. GM, to their expense, when on a
huge hiring move and hired 100 communications people that had like five or more
years of experience and put somebody in each GM location. So, every plant, zone
office, corporate office and every staff of any size had their own internal
communications people. They [internal communications people] were responsible for
following this sort of recipe of activities each month, each week and each year. There
was a scorecard that was kept on each facility and each communications person as to
whether or not they were doing the job. There was nothing magical about it; you
could have gone to any textbook and seen the same recipe of ideas and activities. The
problem really was that we had this really robust delivery system, but it’s kind of like
garbage in, garbage out. If you aren’t saying anything meaningful to employees or
72
engaging with them in a conversation, then how much are they really receiving and
how much value is it really? So, that’s when I brought in Gary Grates and we worked
on what is the message to employees and how do we deliver it. Is it going to be a two-
way conversation or is it going to continue to be one-way conversation and that was a
major shift at that time.
7. In my opinion, this shift that you talk about is quite innovative for that time
period. Not many companies were considering having two-way communication
with employees and were afraid to do so.
Harris: Yup. Well, I give Gary all the credit. This was Gary’s concept. He believed in
this and he had done this in smaller organizations. That’s how I was able to attract
him to GM. I told him if he wanted to play in the world’s largest internal
communications sandbox, GM was the place. He was able to win the confidence of a
lot of senior management and get them to slowly act in the way he had hoped for.
8. I am assuming that when GM started to shut down assembly plants in 2009,
many employees were disheartened and upset by the decision. Did GM
implement any internal communications to inform employees of what was going
on with the company? Were there any communications targeted at retired
employees?
Harris: On the plant closings, first and foremost, the environment that we were in was
not a surprise to employees. It is always hurtful and makes them very anxious about
what is going on or what is their future. Closing plants is considered material
information, not only by the SEC, but there are other government regulations as to
73
how soon you have to notify people at a facility that will be shut down. These things
all had to be closely coordinated with the legal, government relations and
manufacturing staff. What we would do is make an announcement, and because of
SEC regulations we had to broadcast it broadly at the time; it was considered
information that people were making their investments on in the company stock. So,
you had to make sure that general shareholders, Wall Street and others got a hold of
this information too. We would try to communicate with employees simultaneously
either by broadcasting the actual press conference where we were making these
announcements or providing the information and having a timeline where in the plant,
managers could have a meeting with their people. Every effort was made to make
sure employees didn’t hear it from someone else or that they got up in the morning
and saw in the newspaper that their plant was closing in six months. We really
worked hard to provide every scrap of information that we could to the effected plants
so that they were aware and in general, provided information to the rest of the GM
organization. If a stamping plant was going to be closed then the other seven or eight
or ten stamping plants would be affected because that work would likely have to go
someplace else or shifting work and people around.
9. What kind of system was put in place to relay information to plant managers
and employees?
Harris: We had really detailed timelines and we did it for every significant
announcement. The timeline would say hour-by-hour and minute-by-minute who got
called, when stuff was released on the PR newswire, when things were e-mailed to
74
somebody and when interviews would be done. So, the choreographing of how the
information would be rolled out and to what audiences was carefully planned. When
you’re dealing with the manufacturing world, GM is basically at its core a
manufacturing company, and so manufacturing has a very strong presence and role
within a General Motors or any auto company. The information disseminated to plant
workers was very much controlled by the manufacturing people. There were lawyers
involved, but manufacturing people had a strong voice because these were their
facilities and their people. The retiree issue, it wasn’t really related to the plant
closings as much as it was that we had lost touch with GM retirees. If you remember
Dan McGinn [guest speaker in Steve’s class] talking about building this army of
advocates when you are in a tough situation and wanting to have that army built
before you are in that tough situation so that you aren’t trying to make new friends
when you are in trouble. We started reaching out to retirees because a lot of things
had been done that had antagonized them. In the lead up to these difficult times,
benefits had been reduced or taken away and all sorts of things that they felt had been
promised to them were suddenly gone; things like healthcare, pensions and access to
care. They were not a happy group and we had not been communicating with them
very much. We started asking them to send us their e-mail addresses through the
pension checks we were sending them in the mail if they wanted to receive
information about General Motors. Very quickly, in less than a year, we had about
30,000 people starting to respond. Now, you have to understand there are hundreds of
thousands of GM retirees out there that had worked for the company over the 100+
75
years it had existed. We started communicating with them and having programming
where we would reach out to retiree clubs scattered around the country. We would
have phone conversations with the presidents of those clubs to keep them updated so
that they could report back to their membership. We would send people to speak to
members during their once-a-month lunch meetings to talk to them about new
products or what was going on financially and other things just to keep them up to
date. We thought that they would be great advocates and spokespeople for us in their
local communities when a lot of people were questioning General Motors and its
capabilities.
10. How did the retirees respond to this kind of program?
Harris: There were still a lot of people extremely upset with what they had lost and
upset with GM. I’m sure many of them decided that even though they were GM
retirees they would never buy another GM car or support the company that had not
supported them. A lot of them had been upset at what had been done and realized that
it was unique times and that GM didn’t have any choice but to make those decisions.
As we got closer to bankruptcy, we were forced by the government to make a lot of
very substantial cuts and the retirees understood this. They didn’t like it, but more of
them appreciated being in the loop again and were at least a part of GM from a
communications standpoint. I’m sure a lot of them were very effective spokespersons
for GM and we saw it. On occasion, we saw them popping up in interviews and in
their local newspapers and I’m sure they were talking to friends at service clubs they
were a part of where people were saying ‘what’s wrong with General Motors?’ or is
76
‘GM going to survive?’ At least there was someone with information he/she could
provide. We tried to build as big a group of those people, not just retirees, but
charitable organizations we had contributed to, suppliers, dealers and we identified
people that were just interested in GM. We built this group of people that we
constantly fed information to and some were very active. I remember the mayor of
Lansing, who ran for governor of Michigan this last time and lost, he was extremely
active on his own. He did national media all the time and he booked it himself. He
became an outspoken spokesperson if you will. He could say things that GM didn’t
feel comfortable talking about given the state of affairs of negotiation with other
groups or with the government. Yet, other people could give their opinion and we
could provide them our point of view and they could go out and express that point of
view as if it was their own. It was a very effective way to get our messaging out
through other sources when we were in a really hard lockdown as far as what we
could say.
11. Did you every use employees that were not at the executive level to speak to
media when launching new products?
Harris: We started going a lot deeper into the organization. It wasn’t just the head of
design, it might be someone that the media person could relate to more because they
were younger, more passionate and closer to their own sensibilities than maybe the
guy who is the vice president of design and had been at the company for 45 years.
The other thing we did that sort of came and went was we started bringing in hourly
workers, people that were actually going to build the cars. This was in part because
77
we wanted to talk to the quality of how the car was going to be manufactured, but it
also had to do with building the relationship with the United Auto Workers Union and
making them more a part of the success or failure of the company. Putting them
upfront helped people understand that the union and the company were working more
closely together to produce better cars. Those kinds of things were done as far as
bringing in lower level people and hourly workers and that went on for like a decade.
You don’t see this much anymore.
12. Almost two years later, GM seems to be in a better position and has won back its
credibility/positive image in the media. What kinds of internal communications
activities contributed to the rebound of GM?
H: I think that’s definitely the case. What was started out of pure necessity at the
really difficult times. That set a new bar as to what employee expectations were about
the speed of communications, the candor of communications and in better times, I’m
sure they have backed off a little bit. The employees probably won’t let them back off
too much though because they become used to a certain style and standard of what
they are going to hear and how fast they are going to hear it.

78
Appendix C: Phone interview with Jerilan Greene
Executive vice president of Edelman Change and Employee
Engagement

1. Based on my research, I noticed a period in the 1990s where internal
communications came to a standstill in terms of other companies outside the HPs
and AT&Ts of the world catching on to the practice. Having been a practitioner
in this field, would you agree? Or do you think internal communications has
always moved progressively forward?
Greene: I think that there have been ebbs and flows. I think there has been progress
along the way. When I first got into this business a lot of the people that were focused
on internal communications were in the HR communications field. I think the way we
define internal communications today is different than it is has been defined in the
past. I think today we think about it more broadly and there are a lot more different
connotations about internal communications now than maybe there were in the past.
The discipline of internal communications has evolved to the point where now it’s
something that is part of the corporate communications area and part of speaking
about reputation where as in the past, there was more of a delineated view of it. It was
something that people thought was just inside the company and that it was something
that was handled by HR. So, I think there have been some shifts in terms of how
people view it. I know there are companies like General Motors and HP that have led
the way, but I still think there has been a fundamental shift in terms of how people
think about internal communications in the past and the way they think of it now
across a number of different dimensions.
79
2. What time frame did you feel internal communications started to make this shift
toward what you described it is today?
Greene: I would say sometime in the 90s, maybe toward the latter part of the 90s. One
indicator of this for me was that PR firms started to take notice of internal
communications. Also, we started to see organizations making internal
communications part of the corporate communications and PR function versus
something that was strictly housed in HR. Now, to be honest, there’s still a lot of
variation in terms of how employers approach internal communications and where
it’s housed and all of that. So, it’s not as if the shift that I’m talking about that now
everybody is aligned in terms of how they approach it – there is still a lot of variance.
3. In my thesis, I argue that the responsibility of internal communications should
be in the communication department at all companies. Is this something you
believe in or have advocated among clients to make this shift?
Greene: No, I mean I think that internal communications is owned by the
organization. I think the old view is that people in HR or communications own
internal communications. The reality is the whole organization owns it. Leaders have
a role, managers have a role, HR has a role and so does the communications team. I
think in the communications team, it should be less about what they produce and
more about what the organization does. There’s actually a research paper that was
done by IABC in early 2000 that said just that. Effective organizational
communication is less about what the communicators do and more about what the
organization does. So, that’s why I mention it really is owned by the enterprise. When
80
people recognize that and communications professionals start to play a role where
they are facilitating everyone playing their role versus being the only content creator,
then there’s progress. The reality is there is so much communication going on right
now that it’s impossible for the communications team to own all the information that
should be disseminated, shared, or should be explained and clarified. Everybody is a
content creator and everybody has the responsibility. In particular, you can’t break it
down to every individual, but those main groups, – leaders, managers, HR and
communicators – they all play a different role. So, defining that role, facilitating that
and making sure they are supporting those roles, it is up to the communications team
to raise that and lobby for a certain way of doing things. To me, it’s like, should
internal communications functionally be a part of corporate communications? I guess
I think I would prefer it to be that way, but there are a lot of different variables within
companies that may make it so that solution in itself may not be sufficient to drive
effective internal communications. For example, a lot of it boils down to skill level.
I’m working with a company right now where the person that is the head of corporate
communication has no clue about what good internal communications looks like. In
fact, the head of HR is a much better strategic internal communicator and knows what
needs to happen specifically more so than the person in corporate communications. In
that particular case, there’s a lot of confusion because you have the head of HR
saying, ‘hey we need to do things this way,’ and then you have the head of corporate
communications saying, ‘well I don’t know about that.’ That’s an example where you
know what, internal communications probably would be better suited in the HR
81
department because of the individuals and skill levels involved. The other thing too is
historically, who knows, there may be a set of practices that inhibit internal
communications from actually being strategic inside the company. In that case, it
wouldn’t matter where it is situated. There are a lot of different variables when you
think about organizational design. Organizational design is not just about where the
function fits. Organizational design is about what do we need to achieve, what skills
we need to have and what technology we have to support it. Those kinds of decisions
come into play when you talk about where internal communications should sit.
4. Are you saying it is about going into an organization and analyzing first who
would be the best to lead the internal communications function?
Greene: Well, I think it is understanding what is the purpose of internal
communications in this organization or defining what that purpose is – understanding
the business circumstances that define what internal communication should be – and
then from there, figuring out what’s the best way to orchestrate this inside the
company. Should it be within HR or should it be within corporate communications? If
it is that way, who does what? You can continue to go down the list of things that
might be owned by HR, internal communications, corporate communications,
business unit communications or leaders in the business, etc. I’m just saying there’s
no one size fits all answer. Lot of people get caught up with who should be reporting
to whom. In general, for corporate communications, the chief communications officer
of a company really should report to the CEO, but if you are not reporting to the
82
CEO, then what do you do? You have got to figure out what kind of influencing skills
you have in order to manage around that or still achieve the best outcome.
5. So, is it about sharing the responsibility among many different departments
within the company?
Greene: Communicators are still at the center of defining communications in the
business process and helping others to play their role in the company. For example,
think about the financial processes within a company. The finance department says,
‘Look, this is going to be the rule for how we do this thing.’ Then, everybody falls in
line. I have to get my expenses in at a certain time. My performance is going to be
evaluated based on how I am driving the bottom line, what kind of revenue I am
generating and how much profit I’m doing. That is an example of where the system of
financial management is something that is integrated inside the company and
everybody plays their role, but I’m not defining the financials. I’m doing what I need
to do to influence the outcome. It is the same thing with communications. The
communications people should have the same purview over communications within
the organization, but the reality is most of the people don’t understand that at the
leadership level. It is very hard for people, leaders whoever, even communicators
sometimes, to grasp what internal communications is as a business process. By
nature, it is defined in a lot of different ways and it’s not about what you said, but if it
was effective.
83
6. During the 1990s/early 2000s, was there a company you worked with that
dismissed their internal audience and realized that there was a need for internal
communications?
Greene: Well, I’ll give you a more current example because all of these companies
sort of run into each other. We are working right now with a huge global beverage
company, but they make more than beverages. They just rolled out a new, what they
called, a corporate reputation initiative. Actually, a number of different companies in
the same market have done the same thing where they have a platform that stands for
who they are. It [corporate reputation initiative] is about 50 percent different than it
has been in the past. Their approach has been to clarify the message globally, test the
message globally in different markets, make sure the CEO incorporates all of this in
his communications and then engage a number of different leader ambassadors to
share that same message. We need to train them [leader ambassadors] on the message
and then we need to place them in forums around the world where they are talking
about this message. The reality is this is a very externally based strategy. We are now
working with them on internal communications, but the challenge is they never made
it important to communicate about this internally first. We are in a situation where we
feel we should be further along in the process because they have been driving this
initiative externally for the last couple of years, but they never made it important to
communicate it internally. So, that’s an example of where a lot of companies continue
to embark upon this path where it’s all externally focused and then they go, ‘Oh, oh,
we need to talk to the employee base.’ It can either be too late or they don’t do it until
84
there is a problem. Or, when they start to do it, it’s not as relevant as it could have
been. They lost the opportunity to have an impact with employees too. There isn’t one
company; I think there are a lot of companies that are guilty of this, but they think so
much about external that they forget about internal. They lose the opportunity to have
an integrated impact and in some cases, they lose the employee audiences. In other
cases, they create problems for themselves because they’ve gone out and said
something externally, but nobody knows what they are talking about internally.
7. You mentioned that companies realize they have to communicate with employees
once a problem arises. What kinds of problems make companies realize they
need to communicate with employees?
Greene: Usually this happens when there is a crisis. Or when an executive wants to
make an impact in terms of performance. I was working with one company, a medical
device company that basically fired the founder and then hired a new CEO. The CEO
then brought on new people to the leadership team and they were also in the process
of trying to make clear what the business strategy was because they’d always done it
a certain way when the founder was in charge. People found themselves asking,
‘What is the vision?’ and ‘Where are we going?’ They didn’t understand what the
new CEO was saying and didn’t trust him either. There had been some things that
were announced, for example new hires had been made at the senior level and a new
facility had been built. This is an example of this person [new CEO] who had been
acting in a vacuum and didn’t understand in this world, you are operating in a fish
bowl when you make decisions as a leader. You have to be very clear about what you
85
are saying and what you are doing because if the two don’t match, people are going to
call you out on it. That is just a micro example, but there are a lot of organizations
like this that make decisions, don’t communicate them, don’t engage the employee
audience and then find that there is some clean up they have to do later down the line.
8. Do you think that companies with a strong internal culture where “everyone
drinks the Kool-Aid” do not need formal internal communications plans in
place?
Greene: I think that a strong culture doesn’t necessarily mean it is a good thing. It
could be good or bad. You could have a strong culture that is designed to do all the
wrong things. For example, if you have a strong culture that in an organization is
designed to execute well and they are just great at execution, but at the end of the day
the environment now requires them to be innovators, that’s not necessarily a good
thing. You need people to do something differently. In this world, there’s a lot of
change that goes on in the economy. It is really important for organizations to be agile
and to be able to take another direction if they need to and respond more to
competition, which ultimately means to be able to survive as an organization. The
good thing about a strong culture is that it acts consistently. Whether that consistency
works for situations depends on the situation. So, because the world is not a static
place, you need to have the ability to change and communications helps you do that.
In many cases, you need to formalize your communications in order to exact the
change that’s needed for the organization to survive. So, I don’t agree with this point
at all. I think it really depends on the situation whether you need formal internal
86
communications. I think when an organization is actually designed and
communicating well and certain practices and behaviors are a part of how the
company operates then yes, that makes it much easier. That makes is such that you
don’t have to have formal communications, but things change. Circumstances change,
skills change, people change, customers change and so there is definitely the value of
formal communications. That being said, you can define formal communications any
way you want.
9. What are some of the attributes that have made the internal communications
campaigns you worked on successful?
Greene: I think having senior leadership buy-in is important and also having a
dialogue about things. It’s not just about pushing the information out, but giving
people the opportunity for them to weigh in on it and talk about it. For example, you
can introduce a new strategy to an organization and direct your employees to just look
over the PowerPoint or online. Or you can say, ‘We are rolling out this new strategy
and we still need the best of all minds around here in order to make it work.’ You can
plan to schedule a half-day, an entire day or two-hour discussion, but you can walk
through it and ask for feedback. You can have employees take the strategy and ask
them to come back with other ideas or to flesh it out. Involvement and engagement in
the participation of decision-making is an aspect of a well-done program. Change
starts with a conversation. The more you can talk about it with people and the more
opportunities they have to hear about it and weigh in on it even if they don’t agree at
first, the more likely they are to change down the line. Having a manager level
87
involvement and accountability for communications is important. Having employee
voices and understanding what is the worldview of the employee is also important.
What do they know about the business, what do they think about the future of the
business, how do they communicate and what kinds of things influence how they like
to get information. Are they very involved in social media? If that’s the case, they
might appreciate internal communications that had more social media involved. Are
they somebody that seeks out information or do they wait for information to come to
them? So, really understanding more about how they communicate, what they are
looking at, what is of interest to them and what their passions are – all of that will
help. Do they understand the business? Do they understand what the customers need?
Or are they starving for information? It’s really more about how the employee thinks
rather than the channels. Successful programs have their finger on the pulse in terms
of what employees are looking for.
10. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Greene: The communications function in general is very much in flux right now. The
environment outside has completely changed. In 1995, the environment was
completely different. Communications schools were focused on journalism. Even
how we use the terms are different now. At one point, the term used to be integrated
marketing communications. Now, we don’t really use that here as much at Edelman.
The communications is in a lot of flux, so as a result, it is a little bit hard to draw a
line where things are going.

Abstract (if available)

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

The civic responsibility of professional sports teams: Exploring the role of a team in its community

PDF

Social innovation: Crowdsourcing and the new face of corporate social responsibility

PDF

Web 2.0: An examination of its effects upon U.S. public relations practices

PDF

Intercultural internal communication: Engaging with multinational employees

PDF

Facebook and the ideal social marketplace: a study of the marketing benefits of social media practices

PDF

Public engagement, media relations and the future of the PR industry

PDF

Multinational corporations and corporate social responsibility: how history, non-governmental organizations and international groups are changing business

PDF

Brand Israel: an analysis of nation branding concepts as they relate to the state of Israel

PDF

Politics, public relations and internal communications: a look at the DNC

PDF

Social media best practices for communication professionals through the lens of the fashion industry

PDF

Babies without borders: exploring perceptions of international adoption

PDF

Branding luxury: finding a balance between exclusivity and the inclusivity of a digital world

PDF

For the love of the game and community: evaluating professional athletes' charitable giving

PDF

The influence of brand placement in Bollywood on the Indian consumer

PDF

The missing link: the role of organizational culture in technology change management communication

PDF

Municipal place branding for economic development

PDF

It's not you, it's me: Generation me and the public relations stategies to reach it

PDF

Surviving the "Made in China" stigma: challenges for Chinese multinational corporations

PDF

An analysis of internal communication practices in Marvell and tentative optimization suggestions

PDF

A comparison of corporate PR practices in U.S. and China: a case study approach

Asset Metadata

Creator Takenouchi, Shelcie (author)

Core Title The evolution of the internal communications practice and its importance to the survival of organizations

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Strategic Public Relations

Publication Date 04/30/2011

Defense Date 04/01/2011

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag brand ambassador,corporate communications,employee engagement,Employees,internal communications,OAI-PMH Harvest

Place Name USA (countries)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Floto, Jennifer D. (committee chair), Swerling, Jerry (committee member), Thorson, Kjerstin (committee member)

Creator Email shelcie@gmail.com,takenouc@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m3818

Unique identifier UC1156029

Identifier etd-Takenouchi-4441 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-457939 (legacy record id),usctheses-m3818 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Takenouchi-4441.pdf

Dmrecord 457939

Document Type Thesis

Rights Takenouchi, Shelcie

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu