Are you ready for your internal communications to sparkle in 2025?

Hello there, I don’t know about you, but I can’t quite believe that next week is December already! (where has this year gone?) I’m guessing that festive plans are all now locked down in your organisation, but if not – get your skates on. I find December a great time to share ‘end of year’ thoughts and to thank colleagues for all their efforts for the year.

How can you support recognition and celebration?

Last year, I was working with an organisation who really got behind the lead up to the Christmas break, with a full month of recognition and celebration. It was great to see and went down a treat with colleagues. How are you celebrating and recognising your colleagues? It’d be great to hear what you’re up to at this time of year.

Looking into 2025: your chance to get ahead of the game

Speaking to some of my contacts, their plans for 2025 are already locked and loaded for the new year, but I’m also aware that there are some teams who are working hard on the day to day and have not been able to even think about what the new year looks like.

Stop

Now is the perfect time to pause, celebrate, review and focus on your plans for next year.

So, let’s get down to it…

Reflect:

While the focus should be about looking ahead, don’t forget to look back…

Ask yourself the following questions:

• What worked well?
• What are you most proud of over the last year and why did these activities work so well?
• What could have been better, and how are we going to fix it for next year?

I’d also encourage you to ask these questions to other colleague across your organisation – the more feedback, the better. This may be a tough exercise, but I promise it will be worthwhile.

Curiosity helps us find a new path. Don’t be afraid of not having the answer, be brave and ask the question.

What are you going to achieve in 2025?

Armed with your learning, you can now start to think about what you want to achieve in 2025.

Before you run headlong into this activity, I’d suggest speaking to key stakeholders in your organisation (if you’ve not done it already) Try to find out what’s going to happen in 2025 that will help shape your plans (it may be a brand new strategy launch, a new way of working, or a new direction and focus – you get the idea).

If you can, I’d encourage you to be as specific as possible in what you want to achieve, this will mean you can measure your success.

Aligning your plans to the organisation will allow you to achieve success

Don’t be afraid to get back to basics:

I’ve been lucky enough to work with many different organisations, and the most successful Internal Communications teams are flipping amazing at the basics. It’s great to look at new shiny communication tools (see below), but never lose sight of the basics – after all, they are the glue that hold your communication plans together.

When building your plans for 2025, focus on these three areas:

1: Clarity & purpose: how are you going to make sure that all of your messaging has a purpose, with this don’t forget to keep your messages simple, relevant and have an action.

2: Consistency: I’m a strong believer in a content calendar / plan – what are your regular touchpoints through the week / month? While it’s vital to have this as an electronic document, I’d recommend printing it off (as big as possible) so you can map it out and see what’s happening and when – if it’s seen, people start to take notice.  

3: Tools: closely linked to consistency, make sure that you are clear on the tools that you’re going to use to share your messages through the year. Get them all written down and make sure that you’ve got plenty of opportunities for two way communication.

Don’t forget these principles when building your plans, they are your bread and butter.

Shiny, new and exciting things to support your plans:

Like many people, I love a new communication tool (who doesn’t?). There are loads of new exciting ways to communicate, and this is great… BUT don’t get carried away by this.

Like it, or not, Artificial intelligence (AI) is going to be your friend, with so many ways to help speed up content creation or streamline thinking. How are you making sure that you’re using these tools to help you and your team (if you’re lucky enough to have one).

Connecting the hard to reach with the use of communication apps is now becoming the norm. If you’ve not gone down this route as yet, maybe this year is the time. With more colleagues either working remotely or not having access to a workstation on a daily basis, it’s more important than ever to help share messages with these colleagues.

One watch out on this, it’s important that you are part of these conversations from an early stage – far too many times have I seen a department roll out an app for something that can’t link in with any other tool (holiday booking, payslips, legal training, benefits – you get the idea) This can lead to confusion, so if possible, be the glue in the organisation to help align these requests together.

On all of these tools (and there’s plenty more!), create time to learn more about how they work and can be used in your organisation, so you can use them to your advantage in your day to day communication.

Don’t forget the importance of your colleagues:

Your plans for 2025 are ultimately not about processes, tools or fancy communication plans (well, they of course help, but…), it should be all about colleagues

When building your plans, make sure that you understand each audience in your organisation and how communication works for them. By understanding this, your plans will be perfectly aligned with what they want and (more importantly) need.

Don’t be afraid to segment your colleagues based on their roles or locations, this will help make sure that your messages land in the right way. If you’re not too sure on how to approach this, go right back to the first task we spoke about, be curious and ask teams what they want to see and hear.

For me, listening is central to any internal communications plan, so make sure that you plan for plenty of time through the year to gather feedback and thoughts from colleagues.

When you focus on the people behind the work, the impact of your communications can only get better!

Not sure where to start?

Don’t worry – I’ve got your back… To help, I’ve created a 2025 internal communication planning toolkit that you can use to set you on your way.

This document includes:

• Reflection Worksheet: questions to help you reflect on this year (that will get you set for 2025)
• 2025 Goal-Setting Template: A step-by-step guide to defining your 2025 objectives. 
• Focus on you: how are you going to develop in your role in 2025?

If you’re interested in getting a copy, drop me a line and I’ll send it through to you!

In summary:

Internal communications in 2025 are going to be so important for all organisations, and I hope that your organisation is ready for it.

Remember, you don’t have to do everything all at once. Reflect first to help build ideas and plans for the future, focus on the basics and the rest will naturally come.

What are your goals for internal communications in 2025? Share it in the comments - I’d love to hear your plans!