Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Less Chatter, More Matter - the podcast with practical, actionable tips and tricks for comms [00:01:00] pros, and those who are interested in being more effective with your communication. If you remember way back in episode one, I spoke a little about the different types of comms roles in modern corporate affairs teams.

It really used to just be a case of external or media relations, maybe some government relations. Now, we have people dedicated to not just media and government, but also investor relations, corporate social responsibility, change, internal comms, and public relations. So, today I thought we'd niche down a little and give you the one Oh one on differences between change and internal comms.

Why is this topic for a podcast? You may be asking. The simple reason being that many people I've come across assume they are one in the same. That if you're an internal comms expert, you must also be a change comms expert and vice versa. And while there are some areas of crossover and similarity, the reality is [00:02:00] they are actually two distinct specializations as distinct as external and internal comms in my view.

It's important to know this, if you're looking to hire someone for particular roles and responsibilities, or if you're starting to think about niching your career, because you may start working as an internal comm specialist and be expected to know all the ins and outs of change comms and around the other way, right?

So, before we get stuck into that, could you do me a small favor? Just take 30 seconds today, even while you're listening to this episode, if it's safe, to rate and review the show. Every rating and review makes a big difference in terms of me knowing this is a worthwhile venture, what topics people want to know more about, and it also helps the podcast to be more visible to more people, which means more people become better communicators.

Hopefully. Thanks a million to those of you who have already done this. You're legends. I love you. So anyway, back to the differences between change comms and internal comms. [00:03:00] The first thing you need to know is that communication is only one element of change. It is not the silver bullet that will solve all the problems.

There are four other elements to change, including leadership, stakeholder engagement, Learning and development and governance. That's things like policies and procedures. Communication does help to support those elements, but it cannot work alone. So if you are a change communicator, you're aware of the other elements of change and how to work with them to get the information you need to develop a great change comms plan.

Now, unfortunately, many people, including senior executives and decision makers, assume communication is the only element of change. So that puts a lot of pressure on the communication guys to make the change happen when in reality, it's only one piece of the puzzle. Also, quick rant, I am sick and tired of seeing people advertise roles for change and communication managers, [00:04:00] or change and communication specialists, or change communication managers, just smushing it all together.

I'm sick of it because it infers again, that communication is the most important part of change. And it usually means there is no change manager, involved in this project. The comms person will be expected to fill that role as well, whether anybody realizes it or not. The fact is change management and communication management are two very different skill sets and should be treated as such.

And I'm certainly not seeing any roles advertised for change and leadership managers when I would argue that leadership is actually the most critical element of the five elements of change. So that's my rant. Anyway, knowing these five elements exist and comms is one of them, that gives us a foundation for some of the differences between internal and change comms.

Now I've worked in both and it's become clearer to me over time just how different they are. So let's [00:05:00] start with internal comms. Internal comms roles typically support the broader organizational strategy. So their job is to use internal communication to build support for the strategy and help drive employee engagement.

And they do a lot of this by supporting senior leaders like the CEO or the CFO to build their brand internally, get people listening to what they're saying and so on. So in my previous life as an executive manager in corporate affairs, my team and I supported the CEO, CFO, and the chief people officer to engage their teams through communication.

So this could be coming up with their key messages for the quarter, their comms plan, writing their messages, running town halls, all that sort of thing. So internal comms really partner with business unit leaders to get their messages out there and build their brand internally. Another key element of internal comms is that their work is often campaign focused, where the primary objective [00:06:00] is to build awareness.

So, for example. Safety campaigns during National Safety Week or Wellbeing Communication during Mental Health Month, Harmony Week and so on. It's usually drawing attention to an issue or an event. Internal comms also encompasses operational comms. So this is about supporting frontline teams for their BAU day to day work.

So for example, weekly newsletters, updating call centre team members on new marketing campaigns they might be asked about, or changes to processes, rostering. So on and so on. It's the stuff that supports them to do their work every day. These can be quite busy roles because often, especially in really big organizations, there are a lot of comms coming down the line from "the mothership" to the frontline teams and internal comms folk need to apply a set of principles, kind of like a filter to help make sure these teams don't get bombarded with messages.[00:07:00]

And I've certainly seen that in a lot of the organizations I've worked at. Which leads to other tasks of internal comms, which are managing and governing internal comms channels like intranets, group emails, internal social media networks like Yammer or slack, uh, events. They are the custodians of these channels.

So they determine how they're going to be used. And if you go back to episode 19, you'll hear me chat about a comms channels governance matrix as one of the key documents comms teams should have. Internal comms roles and teams typically have a lot of channels to manage. So the matrix is a really good tool for them.

So they'll develop a schedule of what's being posted to what channel, by whom, how frequently, and so on and so forth. They are making sure the content is strategically aligned. It's high quality, it's relevant, it will resonate. And again, that we're not bombarding people with messages or not bombarding them [00:08:00] just with a lot of crap, basically.

So that's a pretty big remit for internal comms. Specialists in this area have a great understanding of how to support senior leaders in their comms. They stay up to date with trends in channels, particularly digital channels, and they have really good skills in campaign creation. They also have really great, as you would expect, relationship skills internally as well with their stakeholders.

Now, let's compare that to change communication, and I want to preface this by saying neither internal or change comms is better or more important than the other. Both are integral to an organization, especially big organizations going through change. They're just different scopes of practice and they require different skills and experience.

So change communication is built on an in depth understanding of the scope of change. They really get into what's changing, when, how, [00:09:00] why, who is impacted and so on. And they tailor their plans to different audiences based on the change impact. So change communication also draws on a really deep understanding of human behavior.

Change comms specialists know how people respond to change and therefore how to adapt communication processes and styles to help get change over the line. There is no one size fits all approach, which is quite different when you think about the group wide comms that internal comms is usually responsible for, like intranet news and emails from the CEO.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, one of the key elements of change is leadership. So change comp specialists have a big emphasis on leadership communication. They'll not only plan and develop the leadership communication pieces for the change plan, but they'll also coach leaders to help them deliver the comms effectively.

I mean, ultimately their primary goal [00:10:00] is to support people through change. There's a very strong emphasis on those no feel and do outcomes that I bang on about all the time because typically we want people to know, feel and do something differently. You could argue that's the same for internal comms, especially the strategic stuff.

It's true. We are trying to influence with that work, but it's not usually big transformational change, but rather, more building awareness so people are more engaged or happier to support the strategy or its leaders. When you look at a communication plan for change versus a communication plan for a campaign, they are very different.

A change communication plan is very specific in its audiences, and there are usually different know, feel and do outcomes for each audience. There is a focus on the impact of change and what that means for the comms approach. It's very much audience led, whereas a plan for a campaign [00:11:00] typically only has one or a few broad audience groups and the outcomes you want are usually pretty similar across those groups.

There's often less risk involved in that work as well. So let's recap some of these key differences. Internal comms typically supports the broader organisational strategy rather than a specific change program. They are often campaign focused where the primary objective is awareness. They also encompass operational comms and managing and governing internal comms channels.

And if they have capacity, they're likely also supporting senior leaders in their BAU comms activity.

On the other hand, change comms is built on that in depth understanding of the scope of change and tailored to different audiences based on the change impact. It draws on a really deep understanding of human behavior and it's very people focused. There's also a really big emphasis on supporting leaders in [00:12:00] communicating throughout the change process and their primary objective is to support people through change. Now hopefully that's given you some food for thought if you're thinking about your next career step or designing a role, or even if you're just a bit curious about the world of comms.

Now, of course, this is the world according to Mel, but I've worked with and in a lot of comms teams over the last 20 plus years, and these two areas of comms have become much more separate and distinct over those times, which is great. It provides us opportunities to specialize and shows really deep value that we can offer organizations.

So that's it for today's episode. If you have any questions, feedback, or you're keen for me to cover a particular topic, please, please, please get in touch. I'm easy to find on the socials. You can shoot me a message by my website, but in the meantime, have an incredible week. Keep doing amazing things. I will see you all back here next week for another episode of less chatter, more matter.[00:13:00]

Bye for now.