Internal communications

Internal communications (IC) is the function responsible for effective communications among participants within an organization. The scope of the function varies by organization and practitioner, from producing and delivering messages and campaigns on behalf of management, to facilitating two-way dialogue and developing the communication skills of the organization's participants.

Internal communication is meant by a group of processes that are responsible for effective information circulation and collaboration between the participants in an organization. Modern understanding of internal communications is a field of its own and draws on the theory and practice of related professions, not least journalism, knowledge management, public relations (e.g., media relations), marketing and human resources, as well as wider organizational studies, communication theory, social psychology, sociology and political science.

Large organizations have a long history of promoting pride and a sense of unity among the employees of the company, evidenced in the cultural productions of Victorian-era soap manufacturers as far apart as the UK's Lever Brothers and the Larkin Soap Company of Buffalo, New York.

Internal communications is fundamentally a management discipline, but as a discrete discipline of organizational theory it is relatively young. Stanford associate professor Alex Heron's Sharing Information with Employees (1943) is an outlier among texts which focus solely on the factors involved. During the 1970s the subject attracted more attention in academic circles but it is only since around 2000 that employee communications has really attracted attention to a significant degree among scholars.

Writing in 2013, Ruck and Yaxley explore how the discipline evolved from the days of employee publications in the late 19th century. As organizations became more complex, the impetus to communicate with employees grew and led to the emergence of an increasingly specialised discipline.

In the UK in 2023, Michael Heller and Joe Chick were undertaking an Economic and Social Research Council-funded project, An Institutional History of Internal Communication in the UK. The project integrates historical research with organizational theory and involves 20 organizations, six involved in the practice of IC in the UK, and 14 which historically practiced internal communication.

The job of an IC manager or IC team will vary from place to place and will depend on the needs of the organization they serve. In one, the IC function may perform the role of 'internal marketing' (i.e., attempting to win participants over to the management vision of the organization); in another, it might perform a 'logistical' service as channel manager; in a third, it might act principally as strategic adviser. Kevin Ruck argues that the role may include acting as the ears of the organization and a conduit for employee voice.

There is a practical distinction to make between managed communication and regular interactions among teams or between managers and subordinates. Minzberg talks about the fact that communicating is intrinsic to the work of a manager - especially so in an information society. Interpersonal communications in the workplace are explored by writers such as Phillip Clampitt and Hargie and Tourish.