Business Down, Internal Communications Up: 4 Survival Steps

Ram Charan’s Fortune article entitled Managing Your Business in a Downturn does something that most business articles overlook – the art of internal marketing. “Communicate intensively” is Ram’s second point of five for how to manage your way through a recession.

Think about your own situations. In tough times, does management ratchet up its communications…more town halls, more emails? I’ve worked for a number of CEOs, and there was only one that ever altered his (and the company’s) communication habits to keep employees at a fully informed level. Employee perceptions run wild in down times and should be proactively managed.

Ram states, “Get information from where the customer action is, and get it to the operating people – fast. Companies should do so routinely, of course.  But they don’t. It’s counterintuitive but true that when the economy slows down, the pace of decision-making has to speed up, because you can’t put off the tough choices anymore.”

Here are some ideas that any company should consider when managing in a downturn.

1. Company Intranet – Company Intranets can be created for a song with products such as vBulletin, phpbb, or even something like Facebook. Employees want to communicate with each other. Sometimes they just need a mechanism to do it.
2. CEO Blog/Email – Whether it’s in a blog format or email format, if the CEO is not communicating significant information at least every two weeks, you’re going to have problems. Easiest method may be to set up an internal blog and integrate it with your company Intranet. In a down time, if the CEO is not communicating, employees will assume the worst, even if everything indicates otherwise. And most importantly – be honest and don’t sugar coat the information. Your people deserve better.
3. Town Hall Meetings – In-person meetings still count for something and are perhaps the most effective tactic during downturns. Set your schedule for regular meetings at each office (especially sales offices). If you run a small department, increase the frequency of your meetings. As Ram states, decisions have to be made at a much faster rate when the business is in crisis mode. Make sure the communication lines are open so those decisions can happen.
4. Internal Webcast – This might be my favorite. Go out and get one of your customers to speak to the company. With a small company, this can be done in person. With a larger company, do an internal webinar or webcast. Nothing helps employees more than to hear what is going on in the marketplace than from the customers themselves. Side benefit – this usually strengthens customer relationships as well.

Although the above activities should be a mainstay in a company, they are ever so important during a business downturn. An investment in any one of these on a consistent basis is an investment in your employees and your company.  Good Luck!

To subscribe to more quality content like this post, receive the email update or get the RSS feed!

Related Articles:

• Internal Marketing on the Rise at Continental Airlines
• Internal Culture Builds External Communications – bnet Interview with Tod Martin
• The Importance of Internal Marketing on the Brand