Behavioural science has a powerful impact on improving the experiences and engagement of customers in the commercial world. Even the most stubborn of us will have been motivated by the power of scarcity effect (aka ‘FOMO’) which tempted you into signing up for a product before the deadline passed. Yet behavioural science has a more meaningful and helpful role to play in the world of internal communications, which can have the sometimes impossible yet essential task of being mouth and earpiece to the heart of any respected workplace.

Here are three common internal communication challenges, along with solutions that behavioural science can offer. 

Challenge 1: Information overload

Being swamped with too much information is part of our everyday life, but in the workplace it can lead to a variety of negative feelings, like change fatigue and overwhelm, leaving employees disengaged with their role and the business. AI adoption, updated policies, change of leadership; these are just a fraction of what an organisation might experience during a year, and on top of all that some might also have experienced a hefty restructure or merger.

This often goes one of two ways. Either internal communications goes into overdrive delivering employees all the information they might need in a bid to be transparent, and that could also be at high frequency creating a large volume of change communications. Or alternatively it becomes guarded and over-filters information to meet the needs of ‘all staff’. This can lead to the notorious rumour mill cranking up with people left to fill the gaps with their own speculations. 

It must be said that either of these directions is nearly always set by the approach and attitude of the leadership signing the communications off. It can be a real ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ moment for internal communications.

The scientific solution 

• Understand the differences within your audience
  How they consume, what they consume, where they consume, when they consume and why they consume information. 
• Go deeper to understand their motivations and barriers
  What creates friction for them when engaging with internal communications, and what makes life so much easier for them? This knowledge will allow you to segment and personalise as necessary to ensure the message is relevant and delivered effectively. 
• Leverage the power of design
  To make attention and comprehension easy and engaging. 

In a nutshell, get to know your internal audiences and act accordingly. It’ll take time but it’s so worth it. 

Challenge 2: No clear direction from senior leadership

Lack of strategic guidance from those at the top can have a disastrous effect on a workplace, leaving internal communications floundering for clarity and middle management unable to reassure or explain information to their teams. It mostly presents itself at pertinent moments of change, perhaps a change in strategy or unexpected impact on the business from the outside.

Internal communications can help leaders give clear direction and consistent messaging, which foster employee confidence and trust.

The scientific solution 

• Chunk & distil information
  This makes it easier for the receptive brains to process the information. Effective comms bring clarity out of complexity by not demanding so much from the audience to decode.
• Make the story human
  We too often get caught in corporate speak, but our brains have developed over millennia to make sense of the world through stories. Make sure there is a clear and authentic narrative for what is happening so that everyone across the organisation is sharing an understanding. 
• Use the framing effect
  Positive framing can help employees by offering reassurance of benefits and gains, rather than pondering risks and drawbacks. This one comes with a caution as we’ve all been on the receiving end of messages that seem to disguise the truth of a situation!

Challenge 3: Getting dull content to land

This is a challenge familiar to even – perhaps especially – the most learned of internal communicators. Let’s be frank, internal communications content doesn’t always set your heart on fire but that doesn’t mean it isn’t information that employees need to do their job, be safe or be informed. Dull or not, it’s information that needs to land, i.e. be heard, be understood and be acted upon (this is assuming you’ve already established it is indeed content worthy of being distributed to the workplace and not just someone’s personal crusade!) 

The scientific solution 

• Focus on the start and end of the comms
  Make the opener and the closer do the heavy lifting. Then direct towards the ‘peak’ of any content produced. This leverages the primacy and recency effect as well as the peak-end rule.
• Leverage the power of design
  Our brains are wired to appreciate aesthetically pleasing stimuli. Even when words are the only tools we have, we can utilise alliteration and rhyme (e.g., the Keats Heuristic). Or when presenting the words, intelligent design will utilise space, font and colour to make a message more attractive. (Note, however, that attractiveness must not be at the expense of cognitive ease.)
• Play with dull
  Ronseal’s “it does what is says on the tin” is about as dull a message as it gets. Yet most would envy Ronseal’s market performance. Recognising a message as dull but important can also be useful. This leverages something called the pratfall effect, which shows that acknowledged/declared defects often lead to better perceptions. And it makes sense – you're being straight with the workforce; recognising them as people. And that will open reception to your message.

Jen Robinson is an employee engagement consultant at award-winning brand consultancy The Team 

Photos: miniseries/Douglas Sacha/Getty Images/Andriy Onufriyenko/marian/Love Employee