Creating a Communications Protocol

Successful internal communication requires more than a finely crafted message.

That message also must be delivered by the right person, using the right platform, at the right time. And all those decisions should be handled consistently across your organization.

At one of my recent employers, we discovered we had a problem with several of these steps. Some situations that required specific messaging came up frequently, but they were managed differently depending on the team leader involved. That’s understandable, because each of them had a different take on what would be best in the various situations. However, this lack of consistency and standardization with our messaging led to confusion, miscommunication, and misunderstandings, which hurt morale.

When I moved into the internal communications role for that division, one of my initial tasks was to create a communications protocol to clean up this mess. The first step in this process is to make a list of the different types of messages you want to include in your protocol, as well as the specific topics that might be part of each category. For example, at my former employer, some of the breakdown looked like this:

• General messages
• Notice of broad organizational restructuring
• Updates/clarification of strategy
• Weekly business update from the general manager
• Human resources-related messages
• Notice of employee moving to a different team
• Notice of employee going on excused leave
• Message about a death in an employee’s close family
• IT or systems-related messages
• Communication about system problems or outages
• Communication about system updates

I’m sure you get the idea, but to make it clearer, I’m including a sample of the protocol with this post. We ended up with about 25 different messages that were used frequently enough to make our list.

Once that list was done, it was time to determine how to handle the messages. For each one, I indicated who the audience for the message would be, the urgency of the message (low, medium, high, or urgent), the sensitivity of the message, approval/editing requirements, the ideal person to distribute the message, the preferred communication method, notes or follow-up actions, and the final repository of the communication. For several of the message types, I also included boilerplate language that could be used in crafting the message. 

I decided to create our protocol on a spreadsheet, but you could get the same results using project management software or even a simple text document. The protocol doesn’t have to be complex—in fact, simpler is almost always better. It’s important that whatever you develop is clear, concise, and easy to use. It should also be a living document you update frequently as new situations arise.

Once I created a first draft of the protocol, I shared it with the leadership team and managers to get their feedback and ideas. Based on their comments, we made a few tweaks and then officially launched it for all our managers.

This document was a big win for our leaders and our teams. It gave managers a one-stop shop when they needed to know how to handle certain types of messaging. It also fostered more professional, consistent internal communication, which was good for all our team members.

If your organization is struggling with its messaging in these kinds of situations, I highly recommend investing the time to create your own communications protocol. It takes effort, but it will be worth the commitment of work and energy when it’s done.

Have you created a similar communications protocol for your organization? What did you do differently? How has it been received? Please share your ideas in the comments, and let’s talk about it.