Most companies treat internal and external communication as two separate jobs. HR writes to employees, marketing or PR writes to the world, and nobody checks whether the two stories match. Then employees read about their own company in a news feed, candidates hear one promise in an interview and a different reality after the first month, and the communication team spends its time putting out fires.
In this guide I explain where the line between internal and external communication runs, why both sides must tell one story, and in what order to tell it. If you have a message to send right now, go straight to the free channel picker.
In this guide I explain where the line between internal and external communication runs, why both sides must tell one story, and in what order to tell it. If you have a message to send right now, go straight to the free channel picker.
What is internal communication?
The definition I use in my course is short: internal communication is the planned use of communication activities to systematically influence the knowledge, attitudes and behavior of employees.
Two words matter here. Planned — not a random flow of emails. And behavior — the final goal is not that people read the news, but that they do something differently. That is why every internal message has three standard goals: what people should know, what they should feel, and what they should do. If you know what employees should do, it is easy to choose what they need to know and feel for that.
Internal communication is also wider than messages from the top. It is listening to employees, different groups of people talking to each other with a common goal, and leaders steering the company. A good internal communicator creates shared context: when everyone is in sync, the organization performs better.
Two words matter here. Planned — not a random flow of emails. And behavior — the final goal is not that people read the news, but that they do something differently. That is why every internal message has three standard goals: what people should know, what they should feel, and what they should do. If you know what employees should do, it is easy to choose what they need to know and feel for that.
Internal communication is also wider than messages from the top. It is listening to employees, different groups of people talking to each other with a common goal, and leaders steering the company. A good internal communicator creates shared context: when everyone is in sync, the organization performs better.
What is external communication?
External communication is everything the company says to people who do not work in it: clients, candidates, media, partners, the local community. In HR we deal with one specific part of it — the employer brand: how the company looks to the people it wants to hire.
The external channels in my employer brand course are social networks, job sites, profile media, business media, and conferences and meetups. Each piece of content has its role: a publication in the media builds knowledge and image, an insider post from an employee builds knowledge and engagement, a job ad asks for an application. More on this in the complete guide to the employer brand.
The external channels in my employer brand course are social networks, job sites, profile media, business media, and conferences and meetups. Each piece of content has its role: a publication in the media builds knowledge and image, an insider post from an employee builds knowledge and engagement, a job ad asks for an application. More on this in the complete guide to the employer brand.
Internal vs external communication: key differences
The two sides differ in almost every parameter except one — the facts.
Audience. Internal: employees, managers, sometimes their families and former employees. External: clients, candidates, media, partners.
Goal. Internal: change what employees know, feel and do. External: build image and reputation, attract clients and candidates.
Channels. Internal: intranet, chats, newsletters, all-hands, team meetings, time with the manager. External: social networks, job sites, media, events.
The main channel. Internal: the line manager, who interprets information for the team. External: employees themselves, when they talk about the company.
What you measure. Internal: did people hear, understand and act. External: reach, image, applications.
Notice the overlap. The audience of internal news is often broader than employees: when you change benefits, you also talk to families and to past and future employees. And the most trusted external channel is internal people. That is why a modern team cannot run the two separately.
Why internal and external communication must tell one story
In the audit of internal communication I teach, one of the questions is simple: is the internal communication strategy consistent with the plans of external communications and HR? In most companies the honest answer is “nobody checked”.
Three reasons to check:
Three reasons to check:
- An information gap is always filled. When there is not enough internal information, people look for it on the market — in the news, among friends at other companies, on review sites. You will not like the version they find.
- Employees are your external channel. One of the roles of internal communication is to promote ambassadorship outside the company. People can only be ambassadors of a story they know and believe.
- The external promise must be true inside. An employer brand works only when the value proposition is activated in HR policies, systems and practices. If the careers page promises growth and inside there is no career path, the first review on a job site will say so.
Who owns internal and external communication?
In practice I see seven variants of where internal communication sits: a separate team or person inside HR; the HR department itself; a team outside HR reporting directly to the CEO; the CEO personally; the PR department; the marketing department; and nobody.
Any variant except the last one can work. What does not work is two owners who never talk. My rule: every message has one owner, and when a message concerns both sides, internal and external owners agree on the text together before anything goes out. For employer brand topics HR usually leads, because HR knows what really happens inside.
Any variant except the last one can work. What does not work is two owners who never talk. My rule: every message has one owner, and when a message concerns both sides, internal and external owners agree on the text together before anything goes out. For employer brand topics HR usually leads, because HR knows what really happens inside.
Who should hear the news first?
In the 8-step campaign model from my course, step 7 is called “launch the campaign”, and its first task is to decide who will learn the message first. For news that concerns both sides, the order I recommend is always the same:
- Leaders agree the key message, what people should know, feel and do, and the answers to the hardest questions.
- Managers are briefed before their teams. A manager is a channel: they convey and interpret information, and they influence how it is perceived.
- Employees hear it inside the company.
- People outside hear it only after that, with the same facts.
Which channels to use inside and outside
Do not solve everything with email. If all you have is a hammer and a screwdriver, you will repair the whole house with them, and the house will not thank you. Sending more and more emails increases awareness, and awareness is only one parameter of communication.
Before choosing channels I ask five questions:
Adapt the mix to how people work. Remote locations — video calls. Shift workers — at the beginning or end of the shift. Different languages — in their own language of communication.
Outside, pick channels by the role of the content: media for image, social networks and employee posts for engagement, job sites for applications. The calendar that puts all of this on dates is described in the HR communication plan article.
Before choosing channels I ask five questions:
- What goal do you want to reach with the channels?
- What kind of company are you? A mobile developer will naturally use a mobile app.
- Who will you communicate with? At a car factory it is everyone from workers to office staff.
- What is the right balance between personal communication and technology?
- Who will communicate?
Adapt the mix to how people work. Remote locations — video calls. Shift workers — at the beginning or end of the shift. Different languages — in their own language of communication.
Outside, pick channels by the role of the content: media for image, social networks and employee posts for engagement, job sites for applications. The calendar that puts all of this on dates is described in the HR communication plan article.
Examples you can copy
Example 1. A new bonus system (change, company and outside). Use the effective message template from the course: one main goal for a specific audience, one memorable idea, and three lines — know, feel, do.
Audience: all employees; later — candidates.
Memorable idea: your result now affects your bonus directly.
Know: what changes, from what date, how the bonus is calculated, where to read the rules.
Feel: the system is fair and understandable.
Do: agree your goals with your manager by the deadline.
Order: leaders → managers (with a Q&A sheet) → all-hands → team meetings → written FAQ → after that, a line on the careers page and in job ads about how performance is rewarded.
Compensation is the most emotional topic: people measure their own worth, not the worth of the position, so communicate the change very accurately and focus on the position, not the person.
Example 2. Bad news. Here the checklist from my course works as a script:
Example 2. Bad news. Here the checklist from my course works as a script:
1. Be honest and open.
2. Explain the situation the company faces.
3. Describe the choices and alternatives.
4. Explain how and why the decision was made.
5. Explain the expected positive changes as a result of the negative decision.
6. Share the facts early and often.
7. Prepare for the Q&A session.
The external statement is written after the internal one and contains the same facts. If a journalist or a candidate asks a question, any employee should be able to give the same answer.
Example 3. Good news that goes public. The company wins an award. Inside: the CEO thanks the people who made it happen at the all-hands, with names and stories. Outside, the same day or the next: a post on the company page, then employees share it from their own profiles. An employee post is the insider view that a corporate post cannot give.
Example 3. Good news that goes public. The company wins an award. Inside: the CEO thanks the people who made it happen at the all-hands, with names and stories. Outside, the same day or the next: a post on the company page, then employees share it from their own profiles. An employee post is the insider view that a corporate post cannot give.
How to measure internal and external communication
For internal communication I use five areas of analysis, from the simplest to the most valuable:
- Initial data. Are we using resources correctly? A useful benchmark from my course: the cost of a communication campaign should be 5–30% of the cost of the program it communicates.
- Output. Did we do what we planned? Quality, reach, reaction.
- Satisfaction. Are people satisfied with the communication? Measured by a survey.
- Being heard. What did people hear, understand and remember?
- Results. Are people doing what the business needs?
Seven mistakes in internal and external communication
- Employees learn news from outside. Brief managers and employees first.
- Two owners, two stories. Agree the facts before anything goes out.
- Only email. Awareness is not behavior.
- Corporate chatter. “Synergistic effect of digital transformation paradigms” is bullshit bingo. A good message is simple, relevant to the audience, true and ends with a call to action.
- One message for everyone. Universal approaches do not work: segment the audience for each task — by role, management level, career stage, channel access.
- An external promise that is not true inside. Activate the value proposition in HR practices before you advertise it.
- Saying it once. Follow the rule of seven: an audience may need up to seven contacts with a message before it internalizes it.
Internal and external communication are two sides of one reputation. The communication audit, audience research, message templates, the channel mix and the evaluation report are in my Internal Communications Course for HR.
