Embedding a more human internal communications style

The challenge
Give senior leaders and communicators at a large UK bank the guidance and confidence to adopt a more human, warm and pragmatic style of communications. This approach had evolved during the pandemic and was very popular with employees.

The solution
We helped to articulate the new style and be clear on what was different. Being human, transparent, adult-to-adult, and dropping the jargon were all core to the new approach, as was thinking carefully about what needs to be communicated and when. We then created guidance for communicators and leaders to give them what they needed to give it a go and ran virtual sessions to introduce people to this new way of doing internal communications that was better suited to employee needs.

The impact
Six months after the rollout, employee listening explored the success of the approach. The employees had noticed a marked improvement in communications; they were getting fewer and they were better. Employees were positive towards the new approach and applauded the focus on personal stories: “It’s brave for a colleague to openly share their personal story, but the organization is also brave to support them in all the right ways so they feel comfortable doing that.”