The changing role of internal communications in corporate communications

The changing role of internal communications in corporate communications

Katie Marlow
Katie Marlow Director and Communication Lead

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About this Whitepaper

At a time of tumultuous change and uncertainty, it pays to take stock. To look at how work and the working environment is being utterly transformed, and with it the role of internal communicators.

What exactly is our role now and what should it be? What’s changing and what needs to change?

And when we ourselves can contribute to and control the change agenda, why are too many of us holding back waiting for direction from someone else?

These are just some of the questions we address in our new white paper, The Changing Role of Internal Communications in Corporate Communications, written by Katie Marlow, founder and CEO of Little Bird Communication.

She has drawn upon extensive international research, and incorporates insights from some of the world’s most respected voices in internal communications to assess the challenges facing IC, and how to overcome them to cement the function’s position as a critical business driver.

Katie explores the changing role of IC in the context of the current changing work environment and where we’ve come from as an industry, the evolving expectations of what we do, how we need to focus less on tactics and outputs, and more on strategy and outcomes. How we need to shift from being the reactive order taker to proactive trusted advisor.

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