Writing Internally For HR Departments

Very few companies get internal comms right like Stripe does. And no one treats internal comms as not just a tool—but a craft—for sharper thinking, better decisions, and company-wide alignment. Brie Wolfson, an early Stripe employee who launched Stripe Press, shared insights into Stripe’s documentation & internal communication practices on First Round Capital’s podcast with Brett Berson. Here's a one-pager for folks who want to uplevel their company's internal comms. Key takeaways: ✍️ Pre-meeting memos were mandatory—no meetings without written context. 📄 Kickoff docs structured every project, defining goals & risks upfront. 📬 Email transparency by default—key decisions documented & CC’d. 📖 Documentation wasn’t bureaucracy—it was a competitive advantage.

Onboarding is not an HR Induction & Welcome Kit Onboarding is not just about handing out a welcome kit or conducting an HR induction—it goes far beyond that. A well-structured onboarding process can boost employee retention by 69%! The true essence of a successful onboarding process is ensuring that new hires blend seamlessly into the organization and have their questions answered promptly. HR plays a pivotal role in this journey by: 1- Facilitating proper introductions with the manager and team. 2- Setting probation objectives either 3 or 6 months by ensuring the new hire has a clear understanding of their goals and KPIs within their first two weeks. 3- Assigning a buddy from the new hire’s team to provide guidance and support. 4- Scheduling checkpoints, such as a mid-probation meeting, to gather feedback, address challenges, and share performance insights from the line manager. These probation objectives help new hires know exactly what’s expected of them, providing a clear roadmap for success and enabling smoother integration into the team. Onboarding isn’t just a one-time process; it’s an investment in fostering long-term engagement and productivity. How do you structure onboarding in your organization?

30 60 90 Day Plans can be a very useful and simple method to drive specific process improvement projects or initiatives I generally use them to plan out specific projects and goals within an overall Continuous Improvement (CI) approach. 💠 I start with identifying a specific issue, and then breaking down the plan into three phases- 30 days, 60 days and 90 days. That's all kept very high-level, as in the visual below. 💠 The first 30 days are usually focused on learning and planning, the next 30 days are focused on implementation and monitoring and the final 30 days are focused on evaluation and optimization. The whole approach is kept in line with Lean Six Sigma thinking: PDSA- Plan Do Study Act and DMAIC- Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control. 💠 Beyond the high-level plan, it's important to get into the nitty gritty details of improvement. This involves setting specific milestones for the end of each of the 30 day periods and agreeing roles and responsibilities with each team member. 💠 It is REALLY important to have systems and processes that support scheduled check-ins. If you are using cycle planning, the team must agree how they will communicate and collaborate. It may be a mixture of daily huddles, weekly team meetings, 1:1's or something else. 💠 It helps to use simple project management tools (e.g. Trello, Asana, or Microsoft Project) to visualize progress and manage tasks. Just make sure that support is high if people are unfamiliar with the technology as technology could be barrier otherwise! 💠 I like to keep it simple and at the end of each 30-day period, review the progress made towards the milestones. Discuss what worked well and what didn’t, and use these insights to improve the next phase. 💠 Remember to recognize all efforts and celebrate the achievements at each milestone. 💠 And when it comes to evaluation, conduct a thorough review of the entire initiative at the end of 90 days. Assess the outcomes against the original objectives. Gather feedback from the team on the process and outcomes to inform future projects. 💠 Really importantly, build in a continuous improvement approach to your process management. Establish a routine of regular feedback, monitoring, and adaptation to continually improve the process. Have you any experience with cycle planning? Have you any tips for people? Leave your thoughts in the comments 🙏 #changemanagement #strategicplanning #goals #continuousimprovement #cycleplanning #projectmanagement

“Marketing used to be seen as order takers,” explained the CMO from a $190m services firm, “but after several years, we’re now seen as business drivers.” Several years! And that’s your internal audience. Imagine how long it takes to change external perceptions. Like it or not, marketing leaders must devote time to marketing their marketing. Not once at an “all hands” town hall. Not twice via follow-up emails. Relentlessly. Fearlessly. Consistently. Across all possible channels. Personally. And via surrogates. Why is this so important? Marketing often gets a bad rap in the C-suite which trickles down to disrespect across the org. Disrespect that manifests as unsolicited advice on all aspects of marketing. Advice that can derail your well-conceived plan especially if it is centered on tactics.  Marketing is not a snowball fight. You can’t just gather your ammunition, and hurl it at your target one toss at a time. Well, you can try. But that approach inevitably fails to leave a lasting impression. Instead, think of marketing as the ball of snow rolling down a mountain, gathering girth and speed (i.e. force = mass x acceleration). Marketing is the cumulative impact of all your activities over time – starting with your internal audience. Here are several sure-fire ways of marketing your marketing internally: 🐧 Involve employees in your repositioning work. 🐧 Field and share quarterly employee surveys 🐧 Own and indoctrinate BDRs 🐧 Help employees build their personal brands 🐧 Orchestrate innovation days 🐧 Create an entertaining “this week in marketing” update Involve employees: If you expect employees to believe in the brand, make them part of the process from Day 1. Keep them updated throughout the process. Before launching publicly, create a brand certification program (easily done now with GenAI) that all employees must pass. Quarterly surveys: Don’t leave this to HR. Surveying is too important. Measure eNPS. Ask if they are proud to work for your company. Include at least 2 open-ended questions. [I’m happy to share a sample survey] Indoctrinate BDRs: Half the CMOs in CMO Huddles “own” BDRs. Ensuring that Marketing delivers qualified opportunities to Sales, BDRs also become marketing evangelists once they move up and around the org. Enable personal branding: Employees are “free” brand ambassadors and can be awesome advocates if properly trained. By teaching employees how to build their personal brands, you’re helping their careers and your company. Orchestrate innovation days: Ask your employees to work together in small teams to develop innovative solutions to your biggest challenges in one day. Have a panel of judges. Offer prizes. Implement winning ideas. Count the smiles. Update weekly: A pithy yet entertaining weekly update will educate employees on how Marketing is helping to drive the business. After a few weeks, employees will look forward to your reports.    What’s your approach to marketing the marketing?

Remember that bad survey you wrote? The one that resulted in responses filled with blatant bias and caused you to doubt whether your respondents even understood the questions? Creating a survey may seem like a simple task, but even minor errors can result in biased results and unreliable data. If this has happened to you before, it's likely due to one or more of these common mistakes in your survey design: 1. Ambiguous Questions: Vague wording like “often” or “regularly” leads to varied interpretations among respondents. Be specific—use clear options like “daily,” “weekly,” or “monthly” to ensure consistent and accurate responses. 2. Double-Barreled Questions: Combining two questions into one, such as “Do you find our website attractive and easy to navigate?” can confuse respondents and lead to unclear answers. Break these into separate questions to get precise, actionable feedback. 3. Leading/Loaded Questions: Questions that push respondents toward a specific answer, like “Do you agree that responsible citizens should support local businesses?” can introduce bias. Keep your questions neutral to gather unbiased, genuine opinions. 4. Assumptions: Assuming respondents have certain knowledge or opinions can skew results. For example, “Are you in favor of a balanced budget?” assumes understanding of its implications. Provide necessary context to ensure respondents fully grasp the question. 5. Burdensome Questions: Asking complex or detail-heavy questions, such as “How many times have you dined out in the last six months?” can overwhelm respondents and lead to inaccurate answers. Simplify these questions or offer multiple-choice options to make them easier to answer. 6. Handling Sensitive Topics: Sensitive questions, like those about personal habits or finances, need to be phrased carefully to avoid discomfort. Use neutral language, provide options to skip or anonymize answers, or employ tactics like Randomized Response Survey (RRS) to encourage honest, accurate responses. By being aware of and avoiding these potential mistakes, you can create surveys that produce precise, dependable, and useful information. Art+Science Analytics Institute | University of Notre Dame | University of Notre Dame - Mendoza College of Business | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | University of Chicago | D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University | ELVTR | Grow with Google - Data Analytics #Analytics #DataStorytelling

Is HR only responsible for recruitment? No Onboarding & Orientation:  HR welcomes new employees with an induction, a welcome kit, and team introductions. New employees to company policies, culture, and team. Documentation & Compliance: Collect and verify necessary documents (ID proof, certificates, experience letters, etc.). Obtain signed agreements (NDA, company policies, etc.) IT & System Setup: Providing system access, email, and required tools for work. Training & Development: Offering learning programs to enhance employee skills and performance. Employee Engagement & Support: Creating activities and support systems to keep employees motivated. Performance Expectations & Goal Setting: Defining job responsibilities and setting measurable goals. Probation & Confirmation Process: Monitor the new hire’s performance and engagement during the probation period. Conduct a probation review meeting and process confirmation upon successful completion. HR Helpdesk & Support: Assist with salary, leave policies, benefits, medical insurance, and other queries. #HR #Onboarding #EmployeeExperience #HRBestPractices #HRprocess

When I first started in communications, internal and external messaging lived in two separate worlds, but wow, has that changed. If you’re navigating this evolving landscape, here are a few strategies that have worked for me: 🧩 Integration: Align your internal and external channels to create a unified message across the board. 💪 Consistency: Build trust by delivering communications on a predictable schedule. 🔨 Utility: Repurpose your existing tools in innovative ways to tackle multiple communications goals. 🤝 Engagement: Make even the smallest details engaging to keep your audience interested. 🎨 Creativity: Strive to balance informative content with creative storytelling that resonates. Today, “#mixternal” communications or integrating internal and external communications to reinforce a company’s message is the new path forward. Don’t forget, your colleagues are one of your most important audiences—and biggest advocates externally.

“I have been taking all the efforts on my team members for keeping them satisfied, but despite this- they resign and leave.  I feel frustrated because the moment I feel they are almost ready for a critical project, they put in their resignation. I feel frustrated and helpless! Deepak was sharing this experience while attending my leadership workshop recently.  In my experience there are very few leaders who focus on truly 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲. Here are 6 ways to create a great sense of belongingness and strengthening your trust so that they choose to contribute and grow with you. 📌 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤-𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲- A leader I have known has created a practice where he leaves the office on time and does not celebrate people who stay late. He also is a fitness person, so he role models this behavior and encourages others to follow too. 📌 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐠 𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞- Benefits such as clear and frequent communication on company happenings, individual and department direction, and big-picture company direction make all the difference in employee happiness. 📌 𝐁𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭- After a recent companywide engagement survey, we chose to share our results with all employees. We not only communicated our top areas of success but also our areas for improvement and how we planned to address them moving forward. Transparent communication and a simple acknowledgment that we heard you can go a long way. 📌𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬- Planning career conversations once in a quarter at least not only helps them to bridge the gap between their aspirations and abilities but also creates a sense of belongingness. 📌 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧- Employee recognition can be attained in a variety of ways, and team leaders have the opportunity to lean on their creative side. Peer-to-peer recognition programs, value-based recognition (identifying value champions), team outings and get -togethers, personalized thank-you notes and recognition boards. Timely appreciation goes a long way in not only boosting the self-esteem of the individual but also encourages him/her to repeat that behavior. 📌 𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬- You can offer an extra level of life insurance or disability insurance for employees to protect their incomes. Other ancillary benefits, such as dental, optical [and] wellness, are all well received by employees. And gym memberships and transit benefits are great perks to keep employees happy and healthy. It is important to [provide] higher benefits, so your employees know that you truly care about them and their families. If you have similar concerns like Deepak, send me a DM. I will be happy to work with you. #MeetaMeraki           #Leadershippractices

Employee engagement surveys are broken.   There, I said it.   Companies spend thousands each year on surveys. Promising insights into how their people feel.   Yet the results are often inaccurate, incomplete, and unreliable.   And why is this?   1. Mistrust of anonymity Employees open up when surveys feel safe. But 45% think HR can track their answers, so they hold back. Reframe surveys as confidential and explain how the data is used.   2. Outdated survey design Generic surveys miss the mark. Every company is different, so should its questions be. Tailor surveys to your culture and goals to get useful insights.   3. Timing matters Annual surveys? Outdated. Engagement shifts all year. Regular pulse checks give a clearer picture.   4. The trust gap Nothing kills engagement like ignored feedback. If employees don’t see change, they stop caring. Share results, communicate next steps, and follow through.   How do we fix it?   - Run shorter, more frequent pulse surveys. - Focus on patterns, not individual responses. - Follow up with action and communicate results.   Employee engagement builds trust. Not simply collecting data.   Are your surveys doing that?

Communication is not about saying what we think. Communication is about ensuring others hear what we mean. Internal communications is about making employees feel good, engaged, informed, & connected. 🚙 It’s the engine behind culture, alignment, & business success. 🔗 It’s the bond that holds the teams together. 🩵 It’s about influence, not control. 📘 It turns corporate strategy into something real for the people. 💪 Internal communications is imperative. However, if everything is hyped to the max, then what is truly important? If all things are A+#1, then which one is truly first among equals? Thanks to technology, we can reach pretty much all employees all the time with everything that ever needs to be communicated. ❌ Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. ✔ We should limit broadcasting & embrace narrowcasting. Segment messages based on employee roles & locations. Defining clear segments & working groups for communication allows you to quickly send a message to the right individuals at any time. ✔ Make communication asynchronous. One example would be a post made on an employee App that others can respond to at any time. Asynchronous communication can be particularly effective for remote teams & those working across multiple time zones or languages (‘inline translations’ is a must). ✔ Move from broadcasting to conversation (interactive channels, Q&As, polls, surveys, feedback loops). ✔ Include your frontline workers. They hardly complain about too much communication. They miss it & too often miss out. ✔ Put in meaningful efforts to truly understand what your employees want. There is no bottom-up communication fatigue … as long as people don’t feel that their voices fall on deaf ears. ✔ Adopt an internal communications platform to connect with your employees at the right time, with the right information, & where they want to receive it. A platform that allows employees to opt in or out of certain information & updates.  ➡️ What has worked for you to reduce internal comms fatigue? Share your tips 👇👇👇 🍯