Instead of getting exercised about these four age-old obstacles to effective internal communications, let’s do something about them in 2023.

 Jim Ylisela

The last few years have been exhausting but quite rewarding for anyone who works in employee communications. The COVID-19 pandemic thrust internal comms professionals into the spotlight, and they responded with timely and relevant communications — often daily or several times a day.

They turned their emails, intranets and executive messages into must-have news about the pandemic and its real impact on their organizations. They kept employees connected to their managers and leaders in more and better ways — yes, I’ll say it — than they ever had before.

Despite internal communicators’ accomplishments and their elevated status on the comms food chain, they remain haunted by four barriers that shake their confidence and get in their way. Warning: Serious cringing ahead.

1. “A seat at the table.” Communicators complain they’re not in the room where the big decisions get made. Instead, they are relegated to what the Italians call the “tavalo per bambini,” the kid’s table at the big family holiday dinner.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, among others, is credited with saying, “If you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu.” Enter the Chief Communications Officer, who not only has a seat at the table but sometimes winds up at its head. The number of CCOs in U.S. companies stood at 8,071 in 2021, up from 5,021 in 2012, according to online recruitment service Zippia.

And while CCOs are expected to drive day-to-day business results and focus on their public (external) communication roles, they haven’t forgotten about the value of internal comms, either.

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