17 Internal Communication Examples from Companies Big and Small
As the American psychologist and author Rollo May said: “Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy, and mutual valuing”. When it comes to effective internal employee communications, the principles are no different.
In a world where nearly 80% of employees are not engaged or are actively disengaged, companies with higher levels of engagement can outperform their peers. In fact, Gallup research found low levels of employee engagement correlate with higher levels of absenteeism, safety incidents, staff churn, shrinkage, quality defects, and customer dissatisfaction.
Effective internal communications can be decisive in building a workplace environment where employees feel informed, heard, and recognized. These factors contribute to higher levels of employee engagement and productivity.
Contents
What exactly is internal communication?
17 Internal communication examples from companies
1. Amazon
2. Aviva
3. Banco Santander Portugal
4. Bauder
5. DHL
6. DSV
7. Golf Town
8. H&M
9. Jefferson Dental & Orthodontics
10. Jetblue
11. Lowe’s
12. Nordstrom
13. RHI Magnesita
14. Skyscanner
15. Spotify Technology
16. Walmart
17. Zingerman’s Community of Businesses
Developing your internal communication plan
What exactly is internal communication?
HR-focused internal communication is the two-way flow of information within a company that aims to align employees with the organization’s goals. This is achieved through targeted messaging and feedback loops using various channels to inform, motivate, and engage employees.
Ultimately, HR internal communication aims to foster understanding and alignment and create a positive work environment where everyone feels connected and empowered.
Types of internal communication
The HR department plays a central role in driving the following types of internal communication:
- Strategic communication to inform and align employees with the company’s vision, mission, values, and goals
- Employee onboarding communication to welcome new hires to the company and help them to integrate into your team and company culture
- Employee surveys to gather important feedback on job satisfaction, engagement, and other topics
- Policies and procedures communication to inform your employees about new or updated company policies and explain how they will impact them
- Employee engagement communication to foster a strong company culture and positive work environment
- Diversity and inclusion communication that demonstrates your company’s commitment to DEIB
- Benefits communication to drive uptake of your health and wellbeing programs (and any other perks you offer)
- Change management communication to help employees understand and accept new initiatives
- Performance management comms to provide information on expectations and feedback on performance and skills development
- Employee relations communication to handle issues, such as grievances and disciplinary matters.
Why is internal communication relevant to HR professionals?
No employee wants to be kept in the dark, that’s why internal communications is a critical function for HR to get right:
- Employee engagement: Providing regular updates and creating platforms for open dialogues and recognition through internal comms builds a sense of community and purpose, fostering a more engaged workforce.
- Clear communication from HR: Timely and consistent updates on company news, decisions, and employee contributions create a culture of transparency, which boosts trust and confidence, leading to higher morale and motivation.
- Conflict resolution: By establishing open, two-way communication channels, you can encourage employees to express their concerns early on and resolve issues before they escalate. This minimizes conflict and promotes a harmonious environment.
- Cultural alignment: By clearly communicating your company’s values, expectations, and success stories, internal employee communications can help your team understand and embody the desired culture and behaviors to foster a unified and positive work environment.
- Change management: Transparent, proactive communication about upcoming changes, their rationale, and how they will impact your employees will help to reduce anxiety, enable smoother transitions, and successful change adoption.
- Feedback and improvement: Effective two-way communication channels provide a platform for your employees to supply valuable feedback on their experiences of processes and policies, helping HR to identify areas for improvement and implement positive changes.
- Retention and recruitment: Communications that support a positive and transparent work environment can help you attract top talent and motivate current employees to stay.
- Employer branding: Sharing your company’s achievements, employee success stories, and positive workplace culture via internal communications can also lead to building a strong brand narrative that resonates with potential candidates when your current and former employees communicate their experiences with your organization externally.
17 Internal communication examples from companies
Seeking some inspiration? Let’s take a look at some examples of how other companies are using internal communications to solve HR challenges.
1. Amazon
Like many other US employers, Amazon competes to attract the best talent in its space. To highlight open career opportunities and amplify its employer value proposition (EVP), Amazon produced videos captured by its employees to build trust with their audiences. They did this by having their employees tell authentic stories demonstrating the company’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and climate change to appeal to younger candidates.
To fill 300 open positions in their Brand Specialist role, Amazon’s Employer Brand team released the video, ‘Brand Specialists, what do they do?’.
The video was featured throughout the candidate journey, embedded on their careers page, shared via social media channels, and included in advertising campaigns. To date, it has been watched over 70,000 times, and when it was launched, it doubled the click-through rate on Amazon’s jobs page.
HR tip
Consider how you can grow your employer brand by leveraging video to give your employees the platform to share their experiences and stories – providing an authentic look into what it’s really like to work for your company.
2. Aviva
As a leading health and protection business, it was important for the British multinational insurance company Aviva to use its expertise to support their employees’ wellbeing.
The company created Wellbeing@Aviva, an internal online hub comprising a suite of products and advice to support its people in staying healthy and providing care when they become ill.
In building the platform, Aviva actively sought data and feedback from employees at all levels of the organization and onboarded ambassadors. Dubbed ‘health heroes,’ employee volunteers keen to make a difference helped to introduce the wellbeing program and build excitement amongst colleagues about it.
This program has reportedly resulted in greater awareness surrounding mental health and general wellbeing in the team and a 14% increase in employee engagement.
HR tip
Enlist the help of your employees in your wellness and other initiatives to generate bottom-up interest – this could be in the form of surveys for input or by getting early adopters involved as ambassadors to assist with promotion.
3. Banco Santander Portugal
Banco Santander Portugal’s Internal Communication team plays a crucial role in the European bank’s ongoing cultural transformation.
While upgrading systems and processes is important, the real challenge lies in shifting mindsets and communication styles.
One innovative initiative that involved a unique spin on ‘Carpool Karaoke’ broke the mold. An informal talk show format introduced employees to their colleagues’ roles and their personalities and interests. This seemingly small act, embedded within a larger cultural movement, humanized the bank and its leadership, demonstrating a shift towards openness and modernity.
This out-of-the-box approach resonated with employees, reflecting the bank’s commitment to building a more open, personal, and modern culture.
HR tip
Individual initiatives such as these that humanize leaders can significantly contribute to breaking down barriers and building a culture of transparency. However, these projects are most impactful when they form part of a comprehensive cultural strategy.
4. Bauder
For more than 160 years, Bauder has been manufacturing roofing products. Today, the company operates eight plants in Germany and Austria and has 16 subsidiaries with over 1,200 employees in Europe.
To counteract internal comms challenges related to an information imbalance where office employees were more informed than their non-desk colleagues, Bauder replaced their quarterly company magazine with a mobile app. Using this app, they can now instantly update all employees daily with built-in translation features to reach 15 different country groups.
HR tip
Seek digital solutions to enable real-time updates and interactions with all your employees to ensure every team member has instant access to company and product information, regardless of where they are based.
5. DHL
Following the pandemic, video calls and video conferencing have become mainstays for many businesses, particularly those operating in physically diverse locations. As efficient as digital interactions are, they cannot replace the immediacy and impact of in-person meetings.
That’s why global logistics giant DHL’s executive team sought creative ways to make its digital communications more meaningful. The company sent out regular video messaging updates about the business, designed to build a resilient workforce with its focus on the ‘three C’s’ – Calm, Confident, and Courageous.
In addition, DHL launched a virtual Employee Appreciation Week, where a different online event would take place each day of the week, including interactive sessions and classes. DHL also built a microsite to amplify its recognition platform and allow employees across different regions to get involved.
HR tip
Digitizing elements of your internal comms enables efficiency and scaling benefits. If you’re aiming for impact and meaning, consider how you can personalize these efforts by involving your executive teams and your employees.
6. DSV
DSV, a global logistics and supply chain company, needed to improve its onboarding process for new hires. They wanted to create an engaging learning experience that would captivate recruits and make them more likely to stay with the company using video. They also wanted to streamline the content creation process so that it would be more time and cost-efficient, so the company elected to use AI avatars to present their content.
With AI video, DSV was able to transform its onboarding process by creating captivating training videos at a fraction of the cost, with time and productivity savings of up to 50%. They also found that learners responded well to the videos and that they helped to improve employee engagement and increase retention of information.
HR tip
Have you considered using AI avatars to enhance and scale your company’s onboarding and training efforts? Vendors such as Colossyan and Synthesia provide access to high-quality AI presenters, AI voices, and built-in translation features.
7. Golf Town
Canadian golf retailer Golf Town wanted to equip their frontline workers with timely facts and figures on major golfing tournaments like the PGA to make sure their team could converse knowledgeably with their golf enthusiast customers.
To do so, they sent out real-time golfing updates to employees and used survey tools to engage their team by having them predict who would win the trophy.
HR tip
Consider communication, digital channels, and messaging to better equip your frontline team with the knowledge they need to have quality conversations with your customers.
8. H&M
When clothing retailer H&M restructured its North Europe division, it realized there were 22,000 employees spread across 640 offsite locations in seven countries. The majority of them had not worked with one another before and were not used to seeing themselves as a single team.
The company turned to internal communications to engage its diffuse workforce. It built a regional community through locally relevant messaging that showcased a shared sense of direction and purpose between colleagues working in different countries.
H&M North Europe leveraged videos and storytelling to create various stories. This included employees sharing results and quarterly presentations, seasonal messaging, training videos, recruitment videos highlighting career success stories, campaign launches, and more.
The content has been shared across a variety of channels and now resides on H&M’s Internal Communication platform.
HR tip
Take a creative approach to forge deeper team connections and boost a sense of shared purpose by having your employees showcase their work and unpack their experiences using videos and storytelling.
9. Jefferson Dental & Orthodontics
Jefferson Dental & Orthodontics (JDO) operates more than 70 outlets in the US. When its employees returned to work following the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, the company had to communicate a host of new protocols and safety procedures to all its workers in all locations.
To do so, JDO took a light-hearted approach with multimedia micro-communications. They switched to fun activities instead of dry training sessions, embedding their messaging into trivia contests, team updates, and scavenger hunts. This approach boosted morale and helped everyone stay up-to-date on crucial procedures and protocols.
HR tip
Critical internal comms don’t have to be boring. Consider how you can inject more fun and levity into your critical communications to increase interaction, understanding, and retention of important information.
10. Jetblue
To make its content more engaging, US carrier Jetblue Airways transformed its employee handbook into a visually-driven read on its culture and values.
HR tip
Remember, it’s not simply about the wording of your internal comms. When you want to engage employees, pay attention to how well your information is packaged and how impactful its visual appeal is.
11. Lowe’s
US-based home improvement retailer Lowe’s believes that training should be continuous. To ensure their frontline teams are equipped to perform to the best of their ability, they have digitized their entire training journey – from onboarding to interacting with customers and updates on products.
Now, all Lowe’s associates have access to bite-sized training and communications on every device to upskill without leaving the shop floor. Content is personalized to each department and comprises over 800 micro videos, plus quizzes, photos, illustrations, and hands-on activities.
Today, over 80% of Lowe’s employees log in between two and five times a week to access company communications and complete quick training sessions.
HR tip
How can you digitize your onboarding and training materials to enable your employees to access the information they need anywhere, anytime?
12. Nordstrom
Nordstrom’s approach to onboarding employees into their customer service ethos is succinct. So succinct; in fact, it’s just one sentence: “Our one rule: Use good judgment in all situations.”
Published in their employee handbook and reinforced through ongoing training and messaging, it’s an instructive lesson in the power of simplicity and brevity in internal communications.
HR tip
Sometimes, less is more. Use internal comms to build a strong organizational culture by often focusing on a single core value and reinforcing it.
13. RHI Magnesita
Located on four continents, RHI Magnesita is a supplier of refractory materials and products with over 14,000 employees, 60% of whom are plant workers. Before its merger, RHI and Magnesita existed as two separate entities.
The company launched its MyRHIMagnesita app to replace outdated modes of internal communication materials, such as its printed newsletter. The initial purpose of the app was to keep employees informed with change management comms throughout the merger process and maintain optimal performance.
The app included an App Manual available in eight languages, plus press releases about the company, fact sheets, brochures, event registration forms, surveys, quizzes, and shift schedules. The company credits the app as one of the main drivers during its cultural transformation and a contributor to the 11% revenue growth after the merger.
HR tip
Employees do not necessarily fear change, they fear uncertainty. Consider how you can make your internal change management comms more transparent and effective by adopting a digital app.
14. Skyscanner
Skyscanner is a travel agency and search aggregator with over 100 million users per month. Maintaining a distinct culture can be challenging for a fast-growing company with a workforce distributed across seven different time zones, comprising over 60 nationalities and 40 languages.
Skyscanner’s internal comms team uses a range of digital tools to maintain a network across the globe that enables its employees to connect across time zones via video conferencing, Slack, its Intranet, and weekly online ‘town hall’ meetings.
The business encourages building face-to-face relationships using video interactions, and the over one million messages sent via Slack every month build rapport with colleagues in different regions.
HR tip
Not every internal employee comms initiative requires a custom-built app or a large investment. Leverage your existing tech stack and other cost-effective tools and connect employees with their peers to build comradery and shared purpose.
15. Spotify Technology
Music streaming giant Spotify says this about its HR blog: “Our company is changing the world, all while growing at hyper speed. For us to stay ahead, both our people and the company must develop faster than the world changes. This demands us, the HR department, to create an environment where a diverse crowd of innovative and passionate people can work together and be their best.”
Perhaps one of the most interesting posts on the blog is about their Manager’s Manifesto. It’s a great internal communications example of codifying and amplifying your company’s management principles to build a strong culture.
HR tip
A manifesto is a public declaration of your aims and commitments – publishing your own management manifesto will help your organization determine and remain accountable to its highest principles.
16. Walmart
Global retailing behemoth Walmart operates one of the world’s largest distribution networks and private trucking fleets. The challenge? How do you create and reinforce a safety culture and change employee behaviors to dramatically reduce the risk and cost associated with accidents and injuries?
Walmart rolled out a digital platform that allows 75,000 workers across 150 distribution centers to log in for 3–5 minutes per day and play a fun game while answering safety questions and getting instant feedback.
This online system is integrated with on-the-job performance criteria, enabling Walmart to measure behavioral changes on the job. A 54% decrease in incidents was recorded during the pilot program.
HR tip
Consider how you can digitize and gamify your internal safety procedures and policies for greater traction with your employees.
17. Zingerman’s Community of Businesses
How do you create a baseline standard for customer experience across different businesses and locations? Zingerman’s will tell you.
Having started with a deli in Detroit, US, Zignerman’s now operates bakeries, coffee shops, candy stores, creameries, and roadhouses. Zignerman has launched the offshoot, ZingTrain, a consultancy that provides a behind-the-scenes look at how the company equips its 700+ employees and builds a healthy organizational culture.
At 88 pages, its Staff Guide is a thorough and fun-to-read employee training and development manual designed to onboard recruits into the organizational culture effectively.
HR tip
Zingerman’s Staff Guide sticks with the food theme by unpacking information in simple-to-follow ‘recipes,’ such as its 3-step recipe for great service. Consider how you can theme your employee handbook to make it more engaging.
Developing your internal communication plan
- Set clear goals and objectives for what you want to achieve with your internal communication plan and how you will measure success
- Get buy-in from senior leadership to make internal communication a priority and secure the necessary allocation of funds and resources
- Identify your audience by getting specific about who you are trying to reach and what their needs and preferences are
- Decide on the communication channels that will be most effective for reaching your audience
- Consider a mix of traditional and digital channels, such as email, newsletters, intranets, apps, meetings, and town halls
- Ensure your communications are clear, concise, and consistent across all channels, and identify ways to reinforce your core messages
- Use visuals and storytelling to make your communication more compelling and engaging
- Personalize your internal comms whenever possible
- Celebrate successes and recognize employee achievements
- Build trust with employees by being open and honest in your communication; admit mistakes and be clear about the challenges your company is facing
- Create opportunities for employees to ask questions, provide feedback, and share their ideas
- Track your progress towards your goals and objectives and make adjustments to your plan as needed.
To sum up
Effective internal communication is crucial for HR professionals to get right because it fosters employee engagement, builds trust, and promotes a positive work environment.
This, in turn, translates into benefits such as stronger cultural alignment, better conflict resolution, and more successful change management – ultimately leading to improvements in employer branding, recruitment, performance and retention.
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