It’s a guide that extends your brand’s tone of voice and communication standards to internal communications — emails, presentations, meeting notes, internal reports — ensuring the way your team communicates internally is consistent with the brand values and standards you set externally.
Because the way a business communicates internally shapes its culture and reflects its values. If external communications are clear, warm and human but internal communications are bureaucratic and impersonal, there’s a meaningful disconnect that employees notice.
It covers tone of voice for internal contexts, email etiquette and standards, presentation guidelines, how to communicate sensitive information and guidance on written formats like memos, briefing documents and meeting summaries.
Yes. An employee handbook covers HR policies and procedures. An internal communications guide covers communication standards and practices — how people write and present to each other, not what their employment terms are.
It should be consistent in character but can be warmer and less formal in many contexts. Internal communications often benefit from a slightly more conversational register than customer-facing communications.
Yes. Clear, consistent internal communication is particularly important during periods of change. A guide helps leaders and managers communicate change in a way that’s honest, human and aligned to the values the organisation espouses.
Ideally via a format that’s easy to access and search — an online document, an intranet page or a well-organised PDF. It’s most effective when introduced through a training session or onboarding programme rather than simply distributed.
It should be reviewed when the brand undergoes a significant change or when internal communication needs evolve — for example, when a major new channel like Teams or Slack is introduced and needs to be addressed in the guidance.
Yes. Presentation templates are often developed alongside an internal communications guide, providing the visual framework within which internal content is created and the communications guide provides the written standards.
Typically a combination of marketing (for brand consistency) and HR or internal communications (for culture and people implications). Clear ownership ensures the guide is maintained and updated rather than being produced and forgotten.