I was fascinated to read this article in leading industry publication HR Magazine, which explores internal communications as a function and highlights its increasing importance for companies in, amongst other things, retaining talent.

Law firms depend on their culture and their people to succeed. There are numerous factors that help firms achieve a motivated and engaged workforce, but (as underlined in HR magazine’s piece) transparent and honest internal communications play an important role. Over the past three years, lockdowns and then hybrid working have, in my view, significantly increased the importance and value of being able to communicate effectively with your people. In one of my recent posts, I talked about the challenge of maintaining a firm’s culture in this new hybrid world. Internal communications done well help businesses to maintain and evolve their culture. They also allow a company’s leadership team to reinforce messaging around strategic objectives and help leaders demonstrate that purpose statements and objectives are authentic.

Internal communications should not however be ‘one-way traffic’. If you are to engage effectively, you need to know what motivates your people. To do that I (and others in the Burges Salmon leadership team) hold regular listening sessions with all of our teams (legal and business service professionals) across the firm. The benefits of such sessions are huge and, I know from feedback received, that those attending feel valued, supported and empowered.

We want to be a business that embraces innovation and the best source of ideas to change the way we do things for the better, is our own people. Listening sessions provide an opportunity for our people to discuss their ideas and encourage a different mind-set. The thinking shifts from ‘getting the work done’ to ‘how can we support, and deliver, the highest quality of work to our clients more effectively’.

It is patently obvious really. If you provide a means of gathering feedback, show that you value that feedback and then deliver improvements based on that feedback this has a positive impact on culture, values and working environment. Effective internal communication plays a vital role in retaining talented people and creating an engaged workforce.

We will be running our next series of firm-wide listening sessions later this month and I am looking forward to the dialogue that will ensue.