PR Days 2024 Tackles Key Trends in Internal Communications

PR Days 2024 Tackles Key Trends in Internal Communications

During the session "The Competition of Corporate Worlds: Defining a Company's Internal Environment" at the 28th annual "PR Days 2024" communications forum, industry leaders grappled with a core challenge: how to build an internal communication strategy that unites employees as diverse as a warehouse worker in Khabarovsk and a team lead in Moscow.

The session addressed the critical issue of effectively communicating corporate values to a dispersed workforce, as well as to potential talent. The topic is especially relevant given today's labor shortages and the ongoing focus on productivity.

Alexey Firsov, Vice President of RPRA and CEO of the "Platform" Social Design Center, moderated the session. He opened by presenting a joint study by "Platform," RPRA, and SCAN-Interfax, which highlighted a major shift in employee expectations. People of all ages and professions now seek more flexible, agile corporate environments with strong horizontal connections and greater employee empowerment. Traditional, vertically-integrated corporate cultures no longer meet the expectations of younger generations—the most promising segment of the workforce.

However, the picture is nuanced. Olga Golyshenkova, President of the "MAKO" association, argued that the core values and behavioral patterns of youth have remained consistent through the centuries. "Russia has a cultural DNA of pioneers," she explained. Consequently, companies that can project an image of being a team of trailblazers—even at a regional level—become highly attractive. "There is a deep-seated need for community in Russia, for finding 'one's own people.' The more communities a person belongs to, including corporate ones, the happier they feel," she noted.

Dmitry Zhuravlev, Executive Director of ESG at Sber, partly agreed, noting, "The theme of community is reflected in our platform's name, 'Sberegaem Vmeste' (Saving Together)." He also shared the origin of the internal "dancing elephant" meme used to describe Sber's transformation, a metaphor first coined during an internal employee comedy show. He cautioned that lofty statements about "human-centricity" lead employees to ask when they will be treated with the same care as the company's clients.

Ekaterina Kumanina, Director of External Communications at Russian Post, addressed the limitations of using the media index to measure internal communication effectiveness and the overall challenge of building an HR brand solely through traditional media.

The importance of the public image of top leadership was a key point for Anastasia Mishanina, Head of Communications and Investor Relations at Severstal, who noted that for IT specialists, the "vibe" within the team is paramount. Meanwhile, Natalia Tomashevskaya, HR Communications Manager at Sibur, shared a successful case study on integrating TAIF's personnel into Sibur's corporate culture following its acquisition.

Maria Zaikina, Director of Business Communications and B2B Marketing at OZON, spoke about the need for multimodal communication and varied messaging. While OZON is seen as a tech leader in the professional community, 70,000 of its 86,000 employees work in warehouses. For them, the image of a "high-flying tech entity" is less important than stability, reliability, and a predictable work schedule. In her view, it's pointless to "force a square peg into a round hole" by searching for a single message and a single channel for people from different worlds, even within the same company.

Andrey Sharomov, Associate Professor at HSE Graduate School of Business and the school's PR Director, concluded that the industry must find new ways to communicate, as companies now have no more than 3-6 seconds to capture an audience's attention. He believes the focus is shifting to personality and emotion over facts, and that PR professionals should borrow from the playbook of bloggers to create engaging content.

The lively discussion provided valuable and actionable insights for professionals across the industry.