Transformation

Designing internal communications for a post-pandemic world

What do internal communi­cations teams do when familiar ways of working and key topics change funda­men­tally overnight? When being present at the office loses its importance, and remote working as well as digital communi­cation become the new status quo? When identification-related offerings and dialogue are becoming more and more important, but the right ways to do that have not yet been found?

The pandemic has thrown communi­cations routines in companies, and with them internal communi­cations teams, into total disarray. Over­night, communi­cations managers had to find ways and means to enable infor­mation and dialogue in a time of crisis. Many companies had to improvise and many did it very well. And they still do. The emergency situation has become the new normal. But was that it? Do we want to remain in this improvised state? There'll be no "returning" to the way things were before – the very thought of flying executives in from all over the world to attend manage­ment meetings now seems almost absurd. And going forward there will certainly continue to be demand for online meetings that are un­compli­cated to organise, save on resources and are location independent. However: Is that the best way to shape internal communi­cations, the best way to involve people, to motivate them? The question is how to fine-tune internal communi­cations in the future in order to combine the best of both worlds.

In recent months, we have talked to many communi­cations managers. They are mainly concerned with four key questions:

• What does a healthy balance between virtual and face-to-face approaches look like, in order to foster meaningful dialogue.
• How do internal communi­cations compensate for the fact that the office as the central bonding location is no longer there when employees are in­creasing­ly working from home?
• What do we do about the new look and feel that video calls during the emergency have forced on us, now having become the new normal – right through to CEO communications?
• How will internal communi­cations teams see their role now that new and often more partici­patory communi­cations structures have been created during the pandemic?

We’ve developed Co-Creation-Sessions, a concept in which communi­cations teams work with us in a structured format to jointly address these strategic questions. Here, we dovetail work­shop methods and analysis approaches with input from our many years of experience in leader­ship and communi­cations trans­formation. Based on this interplay, we can develop precisely tailored and operationally effective approaches for communi­cations architectures post-Covid – and this also opens up opportunities for huge cultural progress in communi­cations going forward.

This service is targeted at all communi­cations managers and their teams. Please don't hesitate to contact us.