Hey there, I'm Devin!
Most of the time you can catch me deep in the world of internal comms at Workshop (yes, the Happy Mondays folks!), and while I love AI, there are just some comms questions that need a human who really gets it… that’s me!
Hey Devin!
In March, my company hired their first dedicated internal comms team member — me! I’m currently a Director and a team of one, but my boss and I have been talking about building a roadmap for what the future of internal comms could look like, i.e., how I can move us into more of a strategic function versus staying reactive. I already have the basics — I’d like to eventually bring on a Sr. Specialist and then a Manager so we can have more dedicated functional support, giving me more room to focus on our culture, employee value proposition, and communications counsel for leadership.
What other capabilities do you see more “mature” internal comms teams possessing that I should think about now? For reference, my workforce is very diverse, with about 2,500 associates spread across 9 product lines, so there’s a lot of opportunity!
Okay, I LOVE this framework of thinking — what does mature internal communications actually look like? So much of the advice out there assumes everyone’s starting from the same place, i.e. a team of one, early in the role, etc. etc. But there are people who’ve been doing this work for several years, and the question of how the function itself evolves doesn’t come up nearly enough in my opinion! So I’m really excited you asked this question!
The shift I’d point you toward first: moving from executing the narrative to helping shape it. Early on, a lot of comms work is reactive by nature — someone hands you an update, and your job is getting that message out the door. Mature internal comms looks more like being an advisor or partner to leadership: someone in the room helping decide what the priorities even are, why they matter, how they tie back to your company goals/OKRs, and how you’re going to measure whether they landed. That’s a completely different seat than “the person who sends things,” and it’s usually the biggest leap a growing function makes.
I’ve actually just gone through a version of this myself. I recently moved from our company’s marketing team into our office of the CEO (very fancy-sounding for a team of three haha). Even a few weeks in, it’s already given me a much clearer line of sight into company priorities and how to translate them down to the rest of the org, instead of just receiving direction after the fact and figuring out how to package it… even though it was beautifully done due to my proximity to marketing! But that’s the difference I’m talking about — going from communicating the priorities to influencing them.
As far as what to build toward with your Specialist and Manager hires: I’d think of it less as “who does what task” and more as what it frees you up to own. Once you have dedicated functional support handling execution, you get room to focus on the stuff that’s harder to hand off — culture, your employee value proposition, being a sort of comms counsel to leadership — exactly what you already mentioned. That’s a great instinct, and it tells me you’re already thinking like the leader of a mature function, not just a bigger team of one (which happens more than you’d think!).
Given your size and the number of product lines you’re working across, I’d also start thinking now about how narrative gets translated consistently across really different parts of the business. That’s less about adding headcount and more about building the muscle (think a shared message framework, a rhythm for how updates cascade) so nine product lines don’t end up telling nine slightly different stories. Again… happens more often than you’d think!
One more thought (and maybe a spicy one!), but don’t be surprised if the function eventually outgrows the name “internal comms” entirely. I’ve heard people start calling it a narrative or storytelling team, or something in that direction, and I love that — it signals the shift from purely operational to something much more strategic.
