Value‐adding communication: Innovation in employee communication and internal marketing

It takes more to succeed in today’s global marketplace. More responsiveness. More flexibility. More commitment. To compete, organisations need their staff to understand business goals and brand values and feel personally committed to their achievement. To flourish, they need their people to act as champions of their business and their brand, both internally and with customers and other external stakeholders. Many businesses realise this and have started talking about staff “buy‐in”. Yet they have failed to achieve the results they need. This paper explores what staff buy‐in really means and how it ultimately affects customers, using the findings of two major surveys commissioned by MCA and conducted by MORI. It also looks at the managerial implications of new approaches to employee communication and internal marketing and the potential impact on business performance.