Lost in internal communication

The benefits of well-organised knowledge management

Have you ever spent months looking for the right apartment without ma-king, what our marketing colleagues would call, a “purchasing decision”? If so, then you realise that you are not actually just being picky, but are rather more likely insecure about the whole idea of settling on a final commitment. For the past ten years of my career I have had the same strange feeling about internal communications. It is not a result of lack of knowledge and experience in handling internal communications, but rather it has more to do with the views and expectations of superiors regarding exactly which department this-or-that should definitely belong to. “Is it us? Or human resources? They are handling staff, aren’t they?”
If we look into our terms of references we will find a bullet point stating “maintaining or handling or implementing internal communications”. Yet this means different activities for each and every one of us. For example, you could count just how many times you have received an e-mail from the personnel/human resources department which should have been sent from your account instead, but was not because you were not involved. It is practically a miracle to communicate any information of minor importance to your colleagues, not to mention those of major importance such as staff cuts or change in salary grading, simply because PR is not involved in any part of  the creation or delivery of the message. If these cases do not sound familiar then I would like to congratulate you, because in Eastern Europe this is more often the rule than exception.
 
 

Asja Čengič

Asja Čengič is a communications analyst and spokesperson of the United Nations Development Programme, a position she took up in 2006. Previously she worked as head of the PR Communications department at the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council. Čengič has also worked as a public relations manager for the Sarajevo Film Festival and as Regional PR/Information officer at the Office of the High Representative of the Sarajevo Region.