Internal communicators have, in recent years, had to prove their worth to business leadership. For a relatively young niche within communications, this may be related to growing pains. In any case, the communicators that gathered in London this week for BOC’s annual internal communications conference, had some answers to that question.

The event, which took place Monday-Wednesday this week, saw speakers from the wide world of internal comms and delegates from even farther afield. The word of the week, in some sense, was strategy. Most of the speakers addressed strategy in some form.

Katharina Auer, head of employee communication at Zurich Insurance, said, “The first step in whatever it is that we do has to be the business need.” She said internal communicators must first recognise the company’s objectives in order to implement programmes that can effect change. Only with an eye toward these objectives can a communicator succeed.

James Harding, head of internal communications and staff engagement for the Home Office, said the way to prove internal communications’ worth to the overall organisation’s strategic goals was through data and metrics. “We need to prove that our strategy supports business objective.s The way we do that is by providing advice and the need to back it up through measurement and data. That’s the door into the boardroom.”

Other speakers addressed the use of storytelling in IC, how to engage employees around brand transformation and communicating during a crisis.

Through many of the methods discussed during the IC conference, can internal communicators continue to develop their strategic outlooks and to prove to be a valuable tool for business leaders.