Now is the Right Time to Invest in Internal Communications

When is a good time to invest time and money into your health and fitness? Typically, it is done in one of two instances: You do it when you fall sick and realize you need to start taking better care of yourself now, or you proactively take charge before you need to, so you avoid falling sick altogether.

The same holds true with your company’s internal communications

It’s obvious that the latter is the more sensible approach. However, a large percentage of people tend to adopt the former. We can probably chalk it up to common human behavior.

What is interesting though, is that the same isn’t necessarily true when it comes to our careers or love lives. People are more likely to get intentional, and often preemptive, in these areas of life. My assumption is, this happens because they are simply “louder”.

For instance, money is a necessity that makes itself heard every day. Whether it’s when you put food on the table or pay your child’s school fees or simply take the bus home. Whereas our health has a more silent demeanor.

It tries to request our attention in subtler ways such as a headache, an ache in the back, or a rush of prolonged anxiety—but we usually ignore the cues until they’ve passed so we can move on to something more pressing, like our jobs.

Something similar happens at our workplaces

The sales department brings in the dough, and much like our personal finances, this cannot be long ignored. Marketing speaks loud enough to ensure we understand its growing importance.

And these and other such projects tend to grab a large chunk of company attention and budgets for this reason, while something like internal communications ends up taking a backseat.

Much like with our health, the bare minimum in the form of sending emails is done and ticked off the list. Because there are bigger fish to fry. That is, until we are forced to take notice.

How do you fix what’s broken?

There always comes a time when your health suddenly gives you a wakeup call. And you have to prioritize it. One such instance of this on the workplace front was during the pandemic.

The often-diminished role of internal communications was suddenly needed more than ever before. But the problem was, in most companies, it had grown weak owing to the lack of care and investment over the years.

Some companies heeded the wake-up call and completely revamped the way they communicated with their employees, while others adopted the band-aid approach of temporarily fixing what was broken until the wave had passed.

Decoding the behavior of high performers

That being said, there will always be exceptions to the rule. The smaller percentage of people who proactively prioritize their health, for example. The ones who understand the importance of internal communications and move ahead of the curve. One such company is Tata Realty.

Internal communications has only begun to grow as an industry in India in the last two years and even then, it is at a very nascent stage. It is only now that we have several companies starting to build the foundation to take on this big change.

But Tata Realty identified this need very early on. They made the decision to move away from ad hoc communication via WhatsApp groups and static intranets, towards something more centralized, intuitive, engaging, and measurable.

The compounding effect

The result? A single, cohesive communication platform, overcoming hurdles of geographic separation by getting everyone to embrace a common way of staying informed and sharing information. 

The involvement of top management at the launch had a huge impact and helped ensure high adoption rates from the start. 

70% of the company was registered on the communication platform in the first 24 hours. This level of proactivity helped the company glide successfully through big events such as a merger and the pandemic.

The most exciting part? The story didn’t end there.

Having mastered employee communications, they continued to grow in other areas such as employee engagement and community building.

Next stop: employee advocacy. Even today, the company enjoys 93% active users on their platform.

It is no surprise then that their accomplishments have been externally recognized and celebrated too.

At the recent Corp Comm Vision & Innovation Awards, Tata Realty won in not just one, but three categories:

1. Effective Internal Change Communication
2. Internal Branding and Culture Building
3. Digital Transformation Communications

The lesson? Investing in internal communications now will benefit you long into the future

There is no doubt that the way we manage internal communications is evolving. At some point, your company will have to make changes as well. The only real question here is whether you will wait until you have no other choice, or take action today and reap the benefits of its compounding effects.

There is a reason “health is wealth” is such a cliché. If you don’t have the former, the latter will eventually suffer too.

So, be sure to take care of the health of your organization first.

Until then, join us in celebrating Tata Realty. Not only for their efforts and accomplishments, but also for paving the way for the industry here in India.

We can’t wait to witness the positive ripple effects of their forward-thinking initiatives! The field of internal communications is changing and we are here for it!