Foundations for Successful Internal Communication
Like any other organization, school districts require effective internal communications to build community and achieve strategic goals. With different schools, too many contributors, and ineffective internal solutions, it can be exceptionally difficult for school districts to engage their staff. At Rally, we saw these challenges as an opportunity to create a unified communications platform that would revolutionize internal communications for school districts. Here are five principles we built into our system to make it as impactful as possible - and how you could use the same principles to improve your internal communications system.
The Gallagher State of the Sector 2022/23 report surveyed over 2,000 organizations from around the globe. The results showed some common challenges throughout these different organizations, most notably:
- “Lack of time and capacity in my team (34%)
- Disengaged employees (30%)
- Internal technology and challenges not fit for purpose (22%)
- Lack of analytics or measurement (22%)” (p. 14).
Sound familiar? As the Gallagher Report shows, these issues are common throughout different industries, and we were left wondering why - and what we could do to continue to support our partners in education.
When we asked our partners about their internal communications, we got a little more insight: districts were overwhelmed with documents, too many different contributors and channels, and a lack of personalization, all of which resulted in a discongruent internal communication system with little cohesion. Different departments had their unique systems, and there was no way to know if internal messages were being received. Staff were overwhelmed, checking too many different places for information, shifting through different versions of the same documents, and even filtering through communications irrelevant to their positions. Rather than having a single solution, school districts were using different smaller tools to try to achieve the same effect - which means that staff have more to keep track of. It’s easy to see how such a disorganized system would be difficult for staff to engage with.
We were astounded to find such a gap in the market - and delighted. It was another chance for us to build the perfect solution from the ground up. Afterall, since Covid-19 and the Great Resignation, staff expect more from their employers. As The Gallagher report states, “”the need to shape culture and create a sense of belonging has become much more prevalent” (p. 6). So we designed and developed StaffConnect, our unified intranet solution, to empower internal communications, just for school districts. Knowing the challenges our partners faced, we prioritized five core concepts for successful internal communications: personal, central, simple, secure, and measurable.
Personal
One of the biggest challenges for school districts, and on the Gallagher report, was staff engagement. If communications and resources aren’t relevant to a staff member’s role, they’re not going to engage with it. Too often, internal communications systems don’t offer a personal experience to users. Sure, you can typically sort content based on department, but that might not stop IT reports from showing up in a search for computer curriculum resources. If there’s too much information that’s irrelevant to a staff member, they’ll become frustrated. More than that, they might not feel seen by the organization and feel that their contributions are being overlooked.
Keep your internal communications personal. If your district uses a Google or Microsoft directory, you can use a tool to leverage the staff information within the directory. Staff are sorted into job categories, and a tool such as StaffConnect, can harness that information to ensure that staff only see information related to those established job categories. This segmentation is known as ‘identity-based content delivery’ and ensures that teaching staff have access to teaching resources while administrative professionals do not. Use identity-based content delivery to ensure that staff only see the resources and pages relevant to their role. It’ll simplify their experience and show that your organization understands and values their work. Can staff add their own content and resources? If staff can add their own bookmarks and personalize the system, and they’ll be more likely to use it.
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