A perspective on internal communications role in employee awareness with Sue Dewhurst.
Over the years, and as part of my research, it’s pretty clear that good all round communication is a core skill and experience which can contribute to an effective awareness strategy. With that in mind, I thought it was time to re-visit the world of internal communications and dig around to see what we could find.
In this episode I specifically wanted to tackle what is good communications, how changes in our understanding of how behaviours are formed and influenced were challenging the acknowledged “best practices” of the internal communications industry, and how we need, to ensure that stakeholders, we work with, on changing employee behaviour and culture, can demonstrate how they’re applying the most recent understanding of human behaviour to their work.
With that in mind I asked our guest, Sue Dewhurst, to come on the show. I remember reading Sue’s book, and thinking to myself, how, not only was she defining what was good communication differently, but how she was weaving strands of behavioural science into her thinking. And why wouldn’t she?! After all Sue absolutely believes that internal communications is all about influencing behaviours and her argument for this is compelling.
It’s this more leading edge thinking, within the internal communications industry, which has made her a sought after speaker and drawn attention to her work. For me Sue’s work highlights how even stakeholders we, within the information security industry, have looked to as “experts” are having their traditional frameworks, models and practices challenged by advances in sciences understanding of human awareness, behaviour and culture. We’re just lucky that Sue, an internal communications specialist, has made it a mission to help the internal communications industry re-think the human factor.
Key Topics
- The state of the internal communications industry and the opportunity for change on a need for change.
- What is internal communications and what is good internal communications.
- The value to organisations of internal communications.
- Internal communications and behaviour.
- Where does the internal communications industry stand when it comes to skills needed to influence awareness, behaviour and culture.
Biography
Sue Dewhurst is an internal communications specialist with experience both in-house and in consultancy. She has worked for UK national and international sectors in financial services, telecoms, energy, manufacturing and retail.
Books
Sue has given me a code to share with you to get a 20% discount off her book. Here it is!
code AMKSEC20 for 20% off at www.koganpage.com/employee-comms