Thomas Maeder is an independent management consultant and project manager. He has over 20 years of experience with projects and management tasks in the field of digital communication, collaboration and processes. With his company rethink digital, he advises and supports companies/organizations on projects and issues relating to intranets/employee portals, employee apps, social collaboration, digital workplace and employee experience.
Why is internal communication important
Effective internal communication creates added value in a company/organization by:
- Orchestrating the communication of relevant information to various target groups
- Enables company-wide dialogue between employees and between managers
- Conveying the shared values of the corporate culture
- The sense of togetherness strengthens and thus promotes identification.
The importance of (digital) internal communication has once again increased significantly, especially in the current climate where many employees no longer meet regularly at the workplace due to working from home and increasingly decentralized, flat organizational structures.
Many companies work with outdated intranet solutions. What could be the reason why many companies are still struggling to provide a modern employee communication platform?
One reason for this is certainly the fact that in the past, intranet solutions were not seen as business-critical for day-to-day work. Which may be true, depending on the functional scope of an intranet. Accordingly, intranets were/are sometimes very neglected.
Another reason is that intranet solutions are often not seen as an actual application or, even better, as a product/service with clear business responsibility and defined KPIs. As a result, intranets are "only" introduced as a project and nobody really feels responsible for continuous optimization and performance measurement afterwards.
A third reason is certainly the fact that there is often a lack of the necessary digital skills and resources in corporate communications and that people are not even aware of what modern intranets or employee communication platforms can do today.
Internal communication with ALL employees is still seen as a "nice to have" in many companies - especially in industrial companies. What is your opinion on this?
I myself have never understood how companies can create a two-tier society by effectively excluding non-desk workers from internal communication or access to the intranet/employee communication platform. Especially as non-desk workers often represent the largest employee population.
Fortunately, this has changed a lot. In all my current projects, non-desk workers and office workers are now regarded as equal user groups. If required, the necessary technical and organizational foundations are also created, such as identities/logins for everyone, regulations for the use of private smartphones for business purposes, etc.
To what extent has the demand for well-functioning internal communication increased since COVID-19? Can internal communication benefit from increased working from home?
The pandemic has triggered a huge digitalization dynamic. More than ever, functioning, digital internal communication channels have become indispensable - emails to office workers alone are no longer enough.
I think internal communication can benefit from the pandemic to the extent that many companies/organizations have modernized their technology in recent months (cloud, software as a service) and made new tools such as Microsoft Teams available. The task now is to use these new digital possibilities as part of integrated employee communication.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges in internal communication for Swiss companies?
Human resources and digital skills are often very limited in internal communication. This is unlikely to change. On the other hand, employees' expectations of modern internal communication and digital channels have increased. Added to this is the rapid and sometimes confusing technological development. Internal communication is therefore well advised to seek appropriate expertise and support in order to keep pace and continuously improve.
Has the Covid-19 pandemic changed the requirements for communication channels?
Not fundamentally. But I would say that the pressure has increased in a company/organization to have functioning, digital internal communication channels. Channels that are state of the art in terms of both content and technology - and that are accessible to desk workers and non-desk workers from anywhere and with all devices.
What criteria are decisive when selecting the right tool for an intranet
The term "intranet" is very vague and can mean many different things. I therefore recommend criteria derived from these three questions:
- Which processes/use cases for which employee population should be addressed?
- Which technologies are already in use internally, and which skills are available internally?
- What level of expertise and cooperation is expected from the service provider/supplier of the tool?
Of course, one could also mention the criterion of cloud or non-cloud. But here I am quite clear in my opinion that today, only a tool/software as a service from the cloud is suitable for a modern employee communication platform.
In your opinion, who are the most important stakeholders in an organization when introducing a new tool?
Tools and software are always "only" there to digitize and hopefully simplify certain processes/use cases for certain employees. With an intranet or employee communication platform, all employees are affected and are also the most important stakeholders. It is therefore advisable to segment the entire employee population in order to better understand and take into account the specific needs of the individual user groups.
Other stakeholders in intranets/employee communication platforms are, of course, communications, HR, IT, business—in other words, the entire company.
