Internal Communication Best Practices: A Cheat Sheet for Building a Cohesive Team

Warning :

This article is very long, grab a cup of coffee, make yourself comfortable, and let's take a look at what differentiates good internal communication from excellent internal communication.

Internal communication is a process of sharing information and ideas within an organization.

It's often seen as self-evident - everyone knows how to speak and write: share information, and work should proceed smoothly. But in reality, how many initiatives fail due to misunderstandings or poorly transmitted information? This article explores the essential principles for transforming internal communication into a real performance driver for your organization.

This page is constantly evolving. New tools and best practices are added over time.

Cheat-sheet: the essentials of internal communication to make it an asset for the organization

These factors combine to create a coherent internal communication dynamic that can become a value driver for the organization. Any internal communication strategy should aim to cover these 6 components.

✅ Information:

"What is well conceived is clearly stated"

A well-designed message is like a compass for your teams: it provides the right direction. Too often, internal communication is drowned in complex formulations or unnecessary details. Simplicity ensures quick understanding and strong impact.

A clear message: the foundation of successful communication

Simplicity and clarity are non-negotiable in all internal communication. Too often, HR messages are drowning in jargon and superfluous details, which can frustrate employees and dilute the impact of essential information. Messages must be direct and easy to understand to be truly effective.

HR Message: Be clear and direct in your HR messages. Use simple language accessible to all employees, regardless of their level of understanding. Avoid jargon and technical terms specific to the industry or HR function unless you're addressing a specialized audience.

Example: Before / After

Before: "Effective immediately, the absence management policy includes a request procedure validated by an integrated HR process via the internal platform."

After: "Starting today, submit your absence requests through the internal platform. They will be validated by the HR team."

How to make a message clear?

• Opt for short and simple sentences. Write as you speak to be understood by everyone.
• Highlight key points: Use headings, bullets, or bold text to draw attention.
• Test your message: Have a colleague review it or verify that it meets team needs.

With clear messages, your internal communication becomes not only understandable but also effective.

✅ The right timing: when to communicate for maximum impact?

In internal communication, the "when" is as important as the "what." Delivering relevant information at the right time builds trust and allows teams to make informed decisions. Conversely, information transmitted too late – or too early – can lose its impact, generate misunderstandings, or worse, cause confusion. But don't confuse speed with haste: fact-checking and information verification should always take priority over rapid dissemination.

1. Why is timing essential?

• Trust and credibility: Quick but incorrect communication can undermine trust. Employees expect reliable and well-documented messages.
• Operational efficiency: A message delivered at the right time ensures teams can act immediately, without waiting or speculating.
• Managing the unexpected: Real-time information helps navigate complex or urgent situations.

2. Golden Rule: Prioritize Accuracy Over Speed

While it may be tempting to communicate immediately, thorough fact-checking is paramount. An error in a message can have serious consequences, particularly for decisions related to payroll, leave, or social benefits.

Example: Before / After

Before: "A new remote work policy will be implemented starting January. Details to follow."

After: "The new remote work policy takes effect January 1st. Here's what this means for you: (+ link to details)"

3. How to Master Timing?

Here are three simple steps for well-calibrated communication:

• Identify the optimal moment: Ask yourself: "When will this information have the most impact for the audience?"
• Plan ahead: Use communication calendars to anticipate important announcements and avoid overlaps.
• Prepare emergency communications: For unexpected events, have a plan to disseminate quick but reliable messages.

4. Recommended Practice: Organize Feedback Sessions

Once information is shared, gather team feedback to know if the chosen timing was appropriate. This feedback will help refine your practices.

Concrete Example: After announcing an update to work hours, organize a short meeting or send a feedback form to evaluate message reception and adjust if necessary.

With well-timed communication, you strengthen effectiveness and trust within your organization.

✅ A message adapted to the audience: speak to your audience

An effective message is one that resonates with its audience. Adapting your communication to your interlocutors' specificities is essential to maximize its impact. Whether it's a team leader, frontline employee, or remote worker, each audience has different needs and expectations.

1. Why personalize your messages?

• Increased understanding: A message adapted to the audience's context is more easily understood.
• Enhanced engagement: Employees feel valued when communication addresses them directly.
• Reduced misunderstandings: A targeted approach decreases risks of misinterpretation.

2. Adapt to Your Interlocutors' Profiles

Here are some ways to adjust your messages:

1. By role:

   • Managers: Provide strategic information, details about their role, and clear directives.
   • Operational employees: Simplify messages and focus on essentials at their level.

2. By location:

   • Local teams: Incorporate cultural references or regional particularities.
   • Remote teams: Be particularly clear and structured, considering potential time differences.

3. By hierarchy:

   • Senior executives: Provide synthetic reports with key data.
   • Employees: Emphasize direct impact on their daily work.

3. Practical Example: Before / After

Generic announcement: "A workplace safety training will soon be available."

Adapted announcement:

• For managers: "A workplace safety training will be available Monday. You are responsible for registering your team by Friday."
• For employees: "Register for workplace safety training by Friday to ensure compliance with new standards."

4. Use the Right Channel for Each Audience

The communication medium plays a key role in adaptation:

• Targeted emails: Ideal for formal messages or important announcements.
• Meetings or webinars: Perfect for interactive exchanges or explanatory sessions.
• Collaborative applications: Use Slack or Teams for quick reminders or Q&As.

5. Measure Impact and Adjust

After communicating, ask yourself if the message achieved its objective. Use quick surveys, feedback, or indicators like email open rates to evaluate your approach's relevance.

Example:

• After a newsletter announcement, use a quick survey (3 questions maximum) to ask:
  1. Was the message clear?
  2. Did you receive the necessary information to act?
  3. Suggestions for future communications?

With messages adapted to each audience, you're not just talking to your employees: you're communicating with them.

✅ Visually illustrated (when possible): speaking to both eyes and ears

Visuals are not just about aesthetics; they are essential tools for clear and engaging communication. Images, graphics, and other visual aids facilitate the understanding of complex messages while capturing and maintaining your audience's attention. Finding appropriate illustrations has long been complex, but in the age of generative AI, your requests become commands.

1. Why incorporate visuals?

• Clarity: Visuals simplify complex or voluminous concepts.
• Retention: Employees retain up to 65% of information when it's accompanied by visual elements.
• Engagement: A visually appealing presentation more easily captures attention in a message-saturated environment.

2. What types of visuals to use?

1. Graphs and Diagrams:

   • To explain data or results (e.g., satisfaction rates, quarterly performance).

2. Infographics:

   • Perfect for summarizing a policy or process in a few key points.

3. Explanatory Videos:

   • Ideal for demonstrating steps or presenting tools.

4. Images and Illustrations:

   • Add a human and warm touch, particularly in less formal communications.

3. Practical Example: Before / After

Text-only message: "The new retirement plan has three main options: conservative, moderate, or dynamic investment. Here are their potential returns and respective risk levels."

Visually enriched message:

• Add a comparative table with columns (Options, Return, Risk).
• Include an infographic summarizing the advantages of each option.
• Provide a link to a video explaining the choices in detail.

4. Best practices for effective visuals

1. Clarity First: Ensure the visual reinforces your message without adding confusion.
2. Simplicity: Avoid overcrowded or overly complex visual elements. Each element should have a clear purpose.
3. Accessibility: Verify that visuals are understandable by everyone, including people with visual impairments (add descriptions or alternative text).
4. Consistency: Use a uniform graphic charter to maintain a professional image.

5. Test and Learn

Share your visuals with a small group before broadcasting them widely. Feedback will allow you to adjust elements that might cause confusion.

Example:

• For a presentation of new digital tools, test an infographic with a pilot group and note their questions or comments. Then adjust before sending it to the entire organization.

With well-thought-out visuals, you give your messages clarity and attractiveness that will make all the difference. A striking image is worth more than a long text that's difficult to remember!

✅ Personalized: speak to each employee as if they were unique

Personalizing messages strengthens the connection between the organization and its employees - it's a method applied daily in direct marketing, and you too can capitalize on its benefits. It shows that the company values its collaborators and recognizes their specificities. By adapting your communications, you can better capture attention, improve understanding, and increase engagement.

1. Why personalize your messages?

• Individual Recognition: Employees feel valued when they receive messages that directly concern them.
• Enhanced Engagement: Targeted communication captures more interest than a generic message.
• Increased Trust: Personalization shows that the organization understands its teams' needs and expectations.

2. Strategies for effective personalization

1. Use Available Data:

   • First names, roles, departments, or seniority can be integrated into messages to make them more specific.
   • Examples: "Congratulations on your 5 years with us, [Name]!" or "Discover training adapted to your role as [Position]."

2. Target by Segment:

   • Identify key groups (by department, location, hierarchical level) and adapt your messages.

3. Consider Context:

   • A remote worker's concerns may differ from those of an on-site employee. Adjust your communications accordingly.

3. Practical Example: Before / After

Generic Message: "Welcome to our continuous training program."

Personalized Message:

• For managers: "Welcome to our continuous training program, [Name]. Discover modules specially designed to strengthen your leadership skills."
• For new employees: "Welcome, [Name]! Our continuous training program will help you quickly acquire the essential skills to succeed in your role."

4. Best practices for successful personalization

1. Automate without losing the Human touch: Use CRM tools or HR software to personalize messages at scale while maintaining a warm and authentic tone.
2. Avoid information overload: Provide only details relevant to the recipient.
3. Be consistent: Personalized communication must align with your company's values and tone.

5. Measure personalization effectiveness

Is personalization working? Here's how to evaluate:

• Open rates (for personalized emails).
• Engagement: Are employees interacting more with your messages?
• Feedback: Ask collaborators directly if they find your communications relevant and useful.

6. Concrete examples of personalized initiatives

• Personalized Monthly Newsletter: Include individual achievements, work anniversaries, or significant projects in your internal communications.
• Recognition Message: Congratulate an employee or team for a specific achievement, detailing the positive impact of their work.
• Adapted Training: Offer learning opportunities based on individual roles or career objectives.

Personalized communication isn't just a message; it's a dialogue. Each employee should feel heard, understood, and valued. By adapting your communications, you transform an impersonal organization into a human and engaged community.

✅ Measured impact: communication doesn't stop at sending

Effective communication isn't just about delivering a message. It requires careful monitoring to ensure that information has been understood, accepted, and is producing the intended effects. By opening dialogue and measuring impact, you transform communication into an interactive and evolving process.

1. Why track impact?

• Reception Validation: Verify that information has been well received and understood.
• Continuous Improvement: Identify what works (or doesn't) to adjust your practices.
• Trust Building: Showing that you're listening creates a culture of transparency and engagement.

2. How to measure communication impact?

1. Direct feedback tools:

   • Use quick surveys or questionnaires.
   • Integrate a "Give Your Feedback" option in your emails or collaborative platforms.

2. Behavior Analysis:

   • Track open and click rates for digital communications.
   • Observe concrete actions taken following your messages (e.g., training registrations, event participation).

3. Follow-up sessions:

   • Organize workshops or meetings to discuss important messages.
   • Set up Q&A sessions to clarify ambiguous points.

3. Practical Example: Before / After

Without Follow-up: "Our remote work policy has been updated. View the details here."

With follow-up:

• Step 1: "Our remote work policy has been updated. View the details here."
• Step 2: A week later, send a reminder: "Have you reviewed the changes? Don't hesitate to ask questions here."
• Step 3: Organize a FAQ session to gather feedback and answer questions.

4. Encourage dialogue

Communication should never be a monologue. Create opportunities for employees to respond, ask questions, or share their viewpoints.

• Example: Integrate a discussion space on your internal platform (e.g., Slack, Teams) for each major announcement.
• Tip: Appoint "communication ambassadors" in each team to collect feedback and relay concerns.

5. Best practices for effective follow-up

1. Plan the Follow-up: From message conception, integrate control and evaluation steps.
2. Be Proactive: Follow up with recipients who haven't reacted or responded.
3. Make Follow-up Visible: Share feedback results and actions taken in response to comments. This shows that every voice counts.

6. Example follow-up indicators

• Interaction Rate:
  • Email open and click rates.
  • Participation in announced events or training.
• Reception Quality:
  • Percentage of employees who understood the message (via survey).
  • Qualitative feedback (questions asked, suggestions).
• Measurable Impact:
  • Observed changes (e.g., increase in compliant remote work practices).

7. Continuous improvement through feedback

• After each major communication, ask employees:

  • Was the message clear?
  • Were the materials useful?
  • What aspects could be improved?

• Example: After an information campaign about a new process, offer a quick survey:

  1. Did you understand the steps of the new process?
  2. What additional support would be helpful?

With rigorous follow-up, communication becomes more than just an information tool: it becomes a vector for collaboration and continuous improvement, anchoring trust and efficiency in the organization.

✅ Bonus: internal communication isn't just top-down!

Internal communication also flows through employee exchanges. These discussions are the sounding board for your messages, and depending on your ability to facilitate and monitor how teams receive and interpret your messages, they will take on a whole new dimension.

1. Create conditions for employee exchanges

Beyond existing informal moments, create appointments where employees can discuss among themselves, share their feelings about your organization's news and developments. You can schedule random 15-minute weekly one-on-ones between employees, giving them the opportunity to open up to each other in a completely free setting.

2. Guide these discussions

For these exchanges to go beyond discussing the day's weather or their favorite sports teams' results, provide your teams with discussion topics that will add value to your organization. Create flash cards, ice-breakers, display the latest news in your premises - in short, highlight topics that can generate conversations related to company and team challenges.

3. Gather feedback after these conversations

This feedback will help you gauge how your messages are received and perceived, and take the organization's temperature.

This is certainly the most complex part when these exchanges are 100% informal. You can rely on your relationship skills to get debriefs from some employees, use survey tools, rely on managers' feelings, or why not install a suggestion box.

You can also rely on a tool like Serendly, which handles organizing one-on-ones between employees, facilitating them by pushing discussion topics designed to strengthen relationships between people, and provides you with an analysis of the most discussed topics (while fully respecting the confidentiality of exchanges).

Conclusion: internal communication, a strategic lever

Effective internal communication isn't limited to information dissemination. It's a dynamic process, focused on clarity, personalization, adaptation to employee needs, and impact monitoring. By mastering the six pillars discussed — a clear message, good timing, audience adaptation, visual use, personalization, and follow-up — an organization can transform its communication into a true strategic lever.

Such an approach doesn't just inform: it engages, unites, and inspires. It creates an organizational culture based on transparency, recognition, and collaboration.

But internal communication is never static. Tools, practices, and expectations constantly evolve. That's why it must remain an area of continuous improvement, enriched by employee feedback and available innovations.

Taking action

• Evaluate your current practices: identify the strengths and areas for improvement in your internal communication.
• Prioritize your actions: work on one pillar at a time for measurable and sustainable results.
• Involve your teams: internal communication is everyone's business. engage your collaborators in the process so they become actors in this change.

By placing your teams at the heart of your messages, you transform each interaction into an opportunity to strengthen bonds, clarify objectives, and achieve your organization's ambitions together.