Resources
Internal communications guides
They are written to be useful without buying anything. If one of them solves your problem with the cork noticeboard you already have, it has done its job.
Planning
How to write an internal communications plan you can actually run
The whole structure, section by section: diagnosis, objectives with a number on them, audiences, channels, editorial calendar and measurement. With examples from a company with several sites and shift patterns.
·9 min read
Channels
How to reach the staff who have no company email
What to do when half your workforce has no company account: why the answer is not handing out more email addresses, which channel actually works, and how you sign up people who are not in any directory.
·7 min read
Measurement
How to measure internal communication without falling foul of UK GDPR or the union
The measures that let you decide something, the ones that only measure how busy the department is, and where the line sits between an aggregated figure and monitoring your own staff.
·7 min read
Shifts
Internal communication on shifts: nights and weekends
Why the night shift is always the last to know, how to write a notice for somebody who will read it eight hours later, and what you can reasonably ask of people without eating into their rest.
·7 min read
Compliance
Read receipts for documents issued to staff: what the law expects and how you prove it
Which documents need a record of delivery, what a receipt has to contain to stand up as evidence, why the signing sheet falls over, and what a confirmation button does not prove.
·8 min read
Crisis
How to announce redundancies, a merger or a change to terms
The order the announcements go in, the time of day, what you can say and what you cannot yet, and how to stop people finding out from a WhatsApp group before they hear it from you.
·8 min read
Induction
Induction on the shop floor: what has to happen in week one
What has to be ready before day one, what gets explained on the first day, who walks alongside during the week, and the three things nobody ever explains that cause half the early leavers.
·8 min read
Channels
Work WhatsApp groups: what you can ask for and what you cannot
Why it is always the supervisor who sets them up, the real problems they create with personal numbers and out-of-hours contact, and how to move official communication off them without banning anything.
·7 min read
Buying
What to look at when you compare internal comms tools
A buying committee's checklist: the questions to put to every supplier, how to compare a price properly, how to run a pilot that actually decides, and the red flags.
·7 min read
Reference
Internal communications glossary
The terms that turn up in a plan, in a product demo or in a meeting with the reps, explained in one sentence and without the smoke. From 'reach' to 'deskless'.
·10 min read
Membership
One federation, thirty houses: how to put the channel in order
Who talks to whom when there is another organisation sitting between head office and the member: the three levels, the agreement about what gets shared, one named person per house, and what you can measure without it looking like an inspection.
·9 min read
Membership
Talking to people who are not on your payroll: members, registrants and volunteers
What changes when the person has no shift and no duty to read you: what basis you write to them on, which communications have to be on the record, why volunteers cannot be sent the same as paid staff, and what you can measure without it looking like control.
·8 min read
Why we write these
Because the questions that reach us by email are nearly always the same ones, and not one of them starts with 'which tool should I buy'. They start with how you reach the night shift, what you can measure without the employee representatives blocking it, and how you prove a procedure got to the ninety people who work to it.
None of these guides needs you to buy anything. Where the product fits, we say so at the end, and we say what it does and what it doesn't, the same as everywhere else on this site.
Something you need that isn't here?
If you have a question these guides don't answer, email us and we'll answer it. If it comes up more than once, it ends up as a guide.