Life at Blink | Ai Vandegeerde

What makes him awesome?

Phil has been with Malcolm group since 2017, working on the logistics side of the business. It’s been challenging to get our Drivers on board with Blink, but Phil has been a true champion of the app from the start. Sharing pictures on the road, offering guidance to fellow drivers, and now he is a trained Mental Health First Aider for Haydock, he uses the platform to communicate and support with his peers who might be struggling.

How has Blink helped in his role?

We have drivers on roads all over the UK and Blink allows Phil to reach them when he otherwise couldn't. It also means drivers can easily reach office colleagues and others across the business.

What does he want to do next?

Phil loves driving so I’m sure he’ll keep trucking on!

Nominated by: Aaron Thomson, Internal Communications Coordinator

What makes him awesome?

Mike is always willing to help out where needed. He has run the loader on days when we are very busy and does a great job of training new employees in processes and the culture here at Holcim.

He recently received a new 12-yard mixer that he works diligently to keep as clean as possible throughout the week — so much so that his truck was recently used at an NRMCA event!

His great attitude and friendly demeanor makes him a joy to work with every day and he embodies what Holcim is all about.

How has Blink helped in his role?

Blink has helped Michael get new employees set up with the things that are most important to them and helped show the culture that makes Holcim great.

What does he want to do next?

Mike would love to become a Master Driver Trainer in the near future, so he can continue teaching new employees in the future.

Nominated by: Joseph Bockenfeld, Plant Manager Sandcreek RMX

‍

Movement is your bread and butter. The movement of goods. The movement of passengers. But when it comes to the movement of information, transit and logistics organizations have it tough.

Reaching employees who aren’t tethered to a desk isn’t always easy. These employees don’t tend to have a company email address. And they don’t have easy access to desk-based tech and tools. This means they can’t access the traditional intranets that many organizations still use.

If you’re anything like thousands of transit and logistics companies up and down the country, you may be experiencing an employee communication gap. And this causes no end of organizational headaches.

Frontline managers bear the brunt. They already juggle competing demands. But they also spend a big chunk of their workday relaying messages between the C-suite, HR, and frontline workers.

Remember, every minute a frontline manager spends sending out comms or fielding inquiries is another minute diverted from delivering speed and quality.

Frontline workers suffer, too. When internal communication is patchy, they feel less connected to their organization. And less satisfied with their jobs.

You can put an end to these headaches with effective workplace communication. It’s a bridge that connects HQ with your transit depot, warehouse floor, and drivers. A solution that eases a frontline manager’s workload and helps you better reach transit and logistics employees.

In this article, we explore all the ways you can develop effective workplace communication in your transit or logistics organization. So buckle up and let’s take a closer look.

Importance of reaching your transit & logistics employees

When the people within your organization struggle to communicate effectively, it isn’t simply an inconvenience. Poor employee communication can cause serious problems for your company. Problems like inefficiency, employee disengagement, and staff churn.

Luckily, the converse is also true. Prioritize communication and find ways to reach your transit and logistics employees and there are valuable business benefits to be gained.

You improve manager efficiency

Currently, managers spend a lot of time using ineffective methods to reach employees.

They stick paper memos on the depot noticeboard. They make phone calls. And they take on the role of messenger, carrying information between HR, leadership, and frontline employees.

When you make employee communication more effective, managers get valuable time back. They can get messages out quickly and effectively. So they have more time to focus on other tasks.

You empower your frontline

Good employee communication empowers your frontline. You help them thrive in their roles and feel connected to the larger mission. You put the tools and resources they need at their fingertips.

For example, employees find it easy to get the latest company updates. They can also access information on their shift schedule and pay stubs. And get support from managers when they need it.

You boost staff happiness and retention

Focus on communication and you make your workplace friendlier and more connected. Managers and leadership can communicate with employees. But employees can also communicate with one another. And they have a direct line to decision-makers

This connection supports engagement, which supports employee loyalty. When an organization has good internal communication, staff are less likely to leave.

We know that it’s difficult to hire frontline staff right now, in both transit and logistics organizations.  Labor shortages are impacting a company’s ability to operate and turn a healthy profit.

Engaging your employees better — with the help of effective internal communication — makes it more likely that they’ll stay working for your organization.

8 strategies to improve how you reach your transit & logistics employees

We know how important good employee communication is to a frontline organization. So let’s take a look at all the ways you can achieve it.

Use an employee app

Some of your transit and logistics employees sit at a desk. But many of them spend their days on the road or on the warehouse floor, away from the office.

These frontline team members don’t necessarily have an employee email address. And they very rarely have access to a work computer. This makes them hard to reach — particularly if you’re using traditional, desktop-based communication tech.

A mobile-first employee communication tool, like a frontline app, bridges the gap between head office and frontline workers.

A few standout features?

An employee app doesn’t require an employee email address or a desk-top device. Employees can access all company comms securely via their smartphones.

An employee app is easy to use. Its interface is like that of popular social media apps. So employees find it intuitive to use and adoption tends to be high.

An employee app is a one-stop-shop. Employees get everything from pay stubs to shift schedules, co-worker messages to mandatory updates. All in the palm of their hand.

An employee app is effective. Updates and tools are available for employees to access at a time and place that suits them. So fewer messages are missed.

Implement regular meetings

Whole-team meetings help you to create an open dialogue. Employees get up-to-speed on the latest company news. Managers can answer employee questions. Everyone feels more connected to co-workers and the wider organization.

You can also use meetings to find solutions to problems. When you have a full range of perspectives and priorities in a room, it’s easier to make decisions that work for everyone.

Regular meetings are an important tool in internal communications. But they’re not always easy to arrange for transit and logistics teams. When everyone is working different shift patterns – across many locations – implementing whole-team meetings is a challenge.

There are a couple of ways around this.

You can rotate the time and location of meetings so employees on a fixed shift pattern aren’t always missing out. You can also keep meetings short and sweet to maximize the number of people who can attend.

And don’t forget to harness the power of tech. Virtual meetings are just as valuable as in-person meetings. As long as everyone is able and encouraged to give real-time input.

Provide training opportunities

Continuous training gives employees the skills, knowledge, and confidence they need to excel. It helps employees to make better decisions and provide better service. It also helps your organization to comply with safety regulations.

But frontline employees often miss out on training opportunities.

According to McKinsey research, 20% of frontline employees says that their employer offers no resources to adequately prepare them for advancement opportunities. And 65% say they are unsure or unaware of how to achieve career advancement.

Employees feel more engaged — and therefore more receptive to company comms — when they feel valued, enabled, and supported.

As well as offering role-based training equitably to both frontline and desk-based teams, you can use training to support your comms goals in the following ways:

• Teach new hires about company culture and communication norms
• Offer training on the communication tools you use
• Incorporate training on company goals and how an employee’s role supports them

Training makes employees better at their jobs. But it can also help them to feel more connected to their work and the wider organization.

Establish feedback loops

A one-way conversation, where we can’t get a word in edgewise, is no fun. We’re happy to listen – but we want our voices to be heard, too.  

It’s no different for company communications. The most connected and engaged organizations welcome two-way conversations between employees and leadership.

Of course, top-down communication has its place. Leaders need to share company updates and essential information with employees. But ideas, queries, and opinions need to flow in the other direction too.

You can encourage more bottom-up communication from your transit or logistics employees by creating feedback channels. Try to run:

• Pulse surveys: to get a snapshot of how employees are feeling
• Annual surveys: to gain in-depth insight into the employee experience and benchmark your performance

If you don’t have survey tech that frontline employees can use, suggestion boxes are an alternative. You could also run a regular schedule of 1-2-1 meetings so employees can speak up about any issues they’re facing.

Just remember that facilitating regular, anonymous feedback is only the first step in the process. To ensure employees get involved with your feedback program, you need to establish a feedback loop.

This means telling employees what their feedback has revealed — and any changes you plan to make. You can then give them further updates on the actions you’re taking and the results they’re producing.

Promote transparency

Trust is the foundation of positive internal communication. Employees are more likely to engage with your comms when they trust in what you’re saying. And they’re more likely to be transparent in their own communication when they have your example to follow.

So how do you make your employees more trusting? It all starts with transparency in the way you share information.

Transparent communication helps employees to understand leadership logic. When they understand the reasoning behind decisions and changes, they’re more likely to get behind them. And when you’re honest about challenges and problems, they may also be able to offer helpful solutions.

Ultimately, when employees can count on open, valuable communication like this, they’re less likely to avoid noticeboard memos and the company emails that land in their inbox.

Transparent employee communication is easier when you have the right communication channels — like town hall meetings, a frontline app, and regular 1-2-1s. Training can also help managers and employees to embrace a company culture where sharing information is the norm.

Recognize your employees

Recognition is a form of employee communication that fosters connection between employee and employer. It helps to create a positive work environment with high morale and engagement.

If you feel you could do more to recognize employees, start by thinking about your company culture. What are the behaviors you want to see in your organization?

Then align recognition with these behaviors, celebrating and rewarding employees when they demonstrate them.

Here are a few ideas for ways you can weave recognition into your day-to-day:

• Celebrating work and personal milestones
• Peer-to-peer recognition (where co-workers get to highlight the successes of their peers)
• Employee of the Month awards
• Public recognition via employee communication channels

By offering regular, timely recognition you motivate employees to do a great job. And by recognizing employees publicly, you inspire their co-workers to follow suit.

But it’s not just about performance and productivity. Recognition feeds your internal communication efforts, too.

That’s because engaged employees are more likely to read and respond to company messages. And because recognition helps to strengthen workplace relationships. Show that you value one another and open, trusting, effective communication becomes a whole lot easier.

Support collaboration

Collaboration supports internal communication — and vice versa. That’s because collaboration translates into all the following:

• Effective knowledge sharing: when employees have the right communication channels, they can share insights and learning with other team members
  
  
• An aligned organization: when your teams work together, you align employees around company goals and objectives
  
  
• Improved problem-solving and decision-making: two heads are better than one, so when employees regularly share ideas and perspectives you end up with better solutions and decisions
  
  
• Strong relationships: employees who work together develop stronger relationships and find it even easier to communicate and collaborate in the future

You can encourage collaboration by celebrating collaboration when you see it. You also need easy-to-use communication channels that break down silos. This means frontline teams can work together, even when they’re physically apart.

Imagine a bus driver comes across a patch of black ice on their route. With a clearly defined, mobile-first communication channel, they can quickly and easily alert other drivers to the hazard.

With good collaboration, everyone’s work gets safer, easier, and more satisfying. And employees have the support they need to be better at their jobs.

Offer clear internal communication channels

Think about how your organization communicates with employees in the here and now. You and your teams might be using some (or all) of the following:

• An intranet
• Noticeboards
• Phone calls
• Emails
• Word of mouth
• A suggestion box
• Personal messaging apps
• Town hall meetings
• 1-2-1 meetings

These communication channels don’t meet the needs of every employee within a transport or logistics organization.

Drivers and warehouse workers don’t always have access to a company email address or the company intranet. It’s pretty much impossible to schedule a town hall meeting that everyone can attend.

Some of these methods of communication are also unreliable and inefficient. Memos on a noticeboard are quickly out-of-date. Individually calling employees about their shifts takes up a lot of manager time. And messaging via personal apps isn’t always secure.

A modern intranet or employee app is a more effective alternative. When you put a clear communication channel in place — and train employees in how to use it — you cut the noise.

You also reap the following benefits:

• You create one source of reliable information so employees learn to trust company comms
  
  
• Managers spend less time on comms because they can quickly and easily reach all employees on the same communication channel
  
  
• Frontline and office-based employees get equal access to internal communication – no one is left out of the loop
  
  
• Employees get targeted comms, relevant to their roles, so they’re much less likely to ignore the messages you send

Get more internal communication inspiration. Read: The top 5 internal communication trends you need to know in 2024

Blink for transit & logistics

Blink is an employee app built for frontline organizations. It helps transit and logistics companies to achieve better communication, connection, and efficiency. It also acts as the digital front door for your organization. 

Communication

With a built-in newsfeed, messaging function, and content hub, you can achieve effective company communication. You can share your mission and acknowledge top performers. Managers can post mandatory reads, conduct 1-2-1s, and direct communications to specific regions, sites, and departments. All while avoiding information overload.

Connection

You help to combat driver loneliness with employee chat, employee surveys, and an engaging, personalized news feed. You bring connection to solitary roles and help employees to feel seen, heard, and appreciated.

Efficiency

With Blink, you connect frontline staff to management and resolve issues faster. Staff are empowered to file accident reports and outage updates. Managers replace time-consuming paper-based processes with digital ones. Leaders also get valuable data and reporting features that allow them to visualize communication flow and further improve their comms strategy.

A digital front door

Via Blink’s user-friendly dashboard, employees can access all the apps and tools they use. Shipment details, shift schedules, digital order forms, health and safety notices, training materials, pay stubs. With the Blink frontline app, you put everything at the fingertips of every employee.  

Blink case study: Stagecoach bus company

UK bus company, Stagecoach, has already put Blink’s frontline app into action. They needed a way to connect their 21,000 bus drivers and improve staff engagement.

Thanks to Blink they have:

• Reduced staff turnover by 26%
• Increased employee satisfaction by 46%

And with 89% of drivers opening the employee app an average of six times per day, they’ve managed to reach the majority of their frontline workforce each and every day.

Read more about Stagecoach and Blink here. 

‍

What makes her awesome? 

Dee has been with Arriva since Christmas 2016, working 3 days a week so she could care for her three children. When the 2019 Covid pandemic hit, Dee started to work 6 days per week and stepped up to become acting supervisor. During this time, the team was nominated for (and won bronze at!) the Made A Difference Awards for the initiative and depot leadership they showed. They were also recognized for having the fewest rates of drivers contracting the virus within the area.

After the pandemic, she continued to work 6 days each week — her children were getting older, and she  had a lot of ideas to improve the standards! She continued to invest in herself and in Arriva: In 2023, she passed the passenger-carrying vehicle test, and when the previous supervisor retired, she became the supervisor in April 2024.

She gives immense credit to her team. In her own words:

“The two ladies I work with, Abby and Megan, are not only colleagues but friends as well, and that makes a difference. The friendship and team spirit within the team is very high and we all work together brilliantly. The goals and cleaning standards are at a high standard and we all work together to achieve this — when drivers compliment the cleanliness and difference is what I love most about the work we do.”

Nominated by: Lee Coleman

‍

Not every team is going to bring maximum energy every single day. That’s normal.

But if disengagement feels less like an occasional bad Monday and more like a permanent setting, something deeper is going on. For frontline workers especially, the gap between what they experience and what office-based employees take for granted is real — and it shows. The right employee experience platform (EXP) can close that gap in ways that matter.

An employee experience platform for frontline organizations gives every employee — frontline, remote, hybrid, and desk-based — access to communication, recognition, feedback, and connection. All in one simple, mobile-first space.

One login. One experience. One shared culture. And a big boost for employee morale.

Here, we explore what low morale really looks like — and how the right workplace culture platform can help turn it around.

{{human-internal-comms="/callouts"}}

Understanding low employee morale

Employee morale is the attitude, satisfaction, and emotional well-being workers experience in relation to their job, team, and organization.

Employee morale is closely linked to employee engagement (the degree to which employees feel invested in their work and workplace) and employee motivation (the energy and enthusiasm employees bring to their work).

Causes of low morale

Causes of low morale in the workplace are varied. They include poor leadership, lack of recognition, unclear goals, unsustainable workloads, and limited growth opportunities.

The quality of internal communication and employee engagement strategies make a difference. Company culture is also a big factor.

57% of people who rate their organizational culture poorly say they are actively or soon will be looking for another job. And just 45% of those working in poor or terrible cultures are motivated to produce high-quality work.

Symptoms of low morale

Signs of workplace disengagement and low morale include:

• Absenteeism
• Avoiding collaboration
• Missed deadlines
• Negativity
• Lower employee satisfaction metrics

Impact of low morale

Low morale can lead to disengagement, lower productivity, and increased turnover. Despite these risks, 3 in 4 employers fail to regularly check in on how motivated their workforce is feeling.

How a workplace culture platform improves morale

A workplace culture platform (also called an employee experience platform or employee engagement platform) brings together everything employees need to feel good about their work.

Instead of scattering culture across emails, noticeboards, PDFs, and disconnected tools, it puts everything in one place.

For organizations with complex, decentralized workforces, a workplace culture platform provides tools for:

• Employee communication
• Recognition and rewards
• Feedback and pulse surveys
• Knowledge and resources
• Co-worker connection

What difference does this make to morale? Let’s look at some stats. After launching Blink’s employee experience platform:

• 95% of Elara Caring employees feel more connected to their employer and company culture
• Bus company, Go North West, experienced a 26% reduction in employee turnover
• More than 8 in 10 employees at Domino’s are using the platform every month to check in with updates and celebrate team wins

As a platform for workplace culture, Blink builds morale into daily work. It allows you to collect feedback, increase psychological safety, and deliver timely manager support.

As a mobile-first platform, Blink makes these collaboration tools and resources available on employee smartphones. So you can bring a better employee experience to every member of every team.

Key benefits of using a workplace culture platform

Thinking of launching employee experience software for frontline organizations? Here are the benefits you can expect:

• Recognition at scale. Employee recognition tools make appreciation easy. You improve employees’ sense of value and belonging, driving employee retention and engagement in the process.
• Better business performance. According to Gallup, highly engaged teams have 17% better productivity, 23% higher profitability, and a 10% increase in customer loyalty.
• Visibility into engagement metrics. With one centralized platform and a dashboard for employee sentiment, it’s easy to spot issues with morale and engagement, then prioritize interventions.
• Less “busy work.” Centralized communication, recognition, and culture-building tools simplify work. So teams have more time for creative and value-add tasks.

{{less-is-more="/callouts"}}

Addressing hybrid, remote, and frontline workforce challenges

For years, organizations unintentionally built workplace culture around office life. Town halls. Team lunches. Desk-side chats.

Effects on morale may once have been minimal. But things have changed.

A large proportion of employees are now working remotely or on a hybrid schedule. And frontline employees are simply fed up with being forgotten.

This is causing problems for frontline, remote, and hybrid workforce engagement:

• 21% of frontline employees in the UK are quiet quitting — they say a lack of recognition, ineffective communication, and poor relationships with co-workers and managers are to blame.
• 41% of remote workers feel disconnected from company culture
• Just 1 in 3 remote organizations take active steps to foster community and a cohesive remote team culture

A centralized, mobile-first employee experience platform can change all that. It overcomes barriers of time and geography, giving every employee access to the company culture and connection they crave — straight from their smartphones.

Wondering how to welcome non-office workers onto your platform? Here are a few ways to use a culture-building tool for all employees.

Build connections

Support your teams to build connections and a sense of belonging with easy access to chat and company news feed tools.

Provide digital access to resources

Forms, shift swap tools, company policy docs, L&D, career progression, and operational tools — make everything available to all workers in just a few taps of the app.

Make frontline employees visible on the platform

Use employee-generated content and behind-the-scenes insights to make frontline, remote, and hybrid voices heard on your platform.

Personalize content

Use targeting tools to ensure each segment of your workforce sees personalized content and resources relevant to them and their roles.

Creating a virtuous employee lifecycle using data and feedback

Start using employee experience management software for your frontline organization, and you create a positive feedback loop.

You build a more positive company culture, ensuring every employee feels part of it. And you have the tools you need to measure the success of your morale-boosting initiatives — so you can become laser-focused in your approach.

The best workplace culture platforms provide platform usage data and employee feedback, plus actionable insights. Actionable insights are data-driven discoveries that prompt specific improvements to processes, policies, or engagement strategies.

To convert these insights into tangible improvements, you need to move from platform data and analytics and employee feedback to action. You have to close the loop with visible change.

For example:

A pulse survey reveals worrying levels of employee burnout in a particular team.

                                                                              ⬇️

You tell employees what you’ve found and what you plan to do about it (perhaps reallocating workloads or offering more flexibility).

                                                                              ⬇️

You make changes. Then, continue to report back, sharing results and progress transparently with employees.

By taking this approach to workplace sentiment analysis, you embed employee voice as an important part of company culture — and successfully use comms and HR analytics for engagement, satisfaction, and employee morale.

{{mobile-onboarding="/image"}}

Launching a workplace culture platform: tips for success

The way you approach culture platform implementation can make or break adoption. You need a good handle on change management in HR tech and a solid employee experience strategy.

As you roll out, you need to:

1. Define culture and engagement goals. What do you want your new platform to achieve? Develop SMART goals and take benchmark readings.

2. Get leaders on board. Ensure leadership buy-in. Emphasize the difference that C-suite input and interaction make. Then, develop ways for them to be visible on the platform.

3. Transparently communicate changes. Tell employees that a new platform is coming and how it benefits them. You may like to incentivize early adoption.

4. Train users. The best platforms have a minimal learning curve. But ensure everyone (particularly frontline and remote staff) is up to speed to ensure high platform adoption rates.

5. Integrate with your tech stack. When your culture platform plays nicely with other workplace tools (for example, HRIS system, shift booking tools, and learning platform), you encourage adoption and amplify impact.

6. Integrate communication tools into daily routines. Create a comms calendar that details when you’ll share recognition, employee surveys, and community updates, ensuring regular cultural touchpoints.

7. Use metrics to iterate and adjust. Keep an eye on platform analytics to find out which of your cultural initiatives are having the most impact and which need to be tweaked.

These adoption strategies will help you maximize return and avoid common pitfalls.

Workplace culture and technology: What’s next?

The right tech tools support a better, more inclusive, more inspiring workplace culture. But where are things headed next?

As ever in the world of tech, there are changes on the way. Here are the shifts in technology and employee expectations we expect to see over the coming months and years.  

• New platform features. Features like AI-powered content, hyper-personalized recognition, predictive workforce analytics, and mobile-first experiences will become the norm. AI in employee experience is here to stay.
• Super-apps for workforce management. In response to app overwhelm, organizations will seek to simplify their tech stacks. They’ll avoid point solutions and, instead, choose tools that support every element of workforce management — with either in-built features or deep integrations.  
• The rise of employee voice. Organizations that really listen to their employees keep their finger on the pulse and can respond to engagement and morale challenges in real time. Soon, continuous listening will be the norm.

The future of digital workplace technology is already on its way. And it’s clear. Organizations are focusing on fewer tools and better experiences.

We’re already seeing the “platformization” of culture. Disparate tools are being brought together in unified, employee-centric apps, and organizations are realizing the power of tech to transform productivity and morale.

Blink. And create a culture that boosts employee morale and motivation.

Workplace communication is evolving fast. If you’re an HR, internal communication, or IT leader within your company, your job hinges heavily on staying updated on the latest developments and best practices. 

But knowing where to look for unique ideas and advice is another matter. It's not always easy to identify who to turn to for the best insights. 

The good news? We've done the research for you. We have been following and learning from many thought leaders over the years. And with this post, we’ll share the list of our favourite internal communication influencers with you. Let’s begin.

Best internal communication influencers to follow in 2022

Jenni Field, Redefining Communications

Jenni Field is a communications strategist with more than 20 years of experience spread over several industries, including the public sector, travel, hospitality, and defence. And she has served in a director-level role at many global companies, such as the pharmaceutical giant Perrigo. 

Besides that, she has been quoted by numerous renowned publications like The Times and Raconteur, and she is one of the Inspiring Workplaces’ Top 101 Global Employee Engagement and Experience Influencers. 

You should follow her especially for her insights and research into deskless workers, workplace culture, leadership, hybrid working, boundaries, and productivity. Apart from running a consulting firm, Jenni speaks often at industry events and organizations, along with hosting an award-winning podcast. 

How to learn from Jenni:

• Follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn.

• Read her book — Influential Internal Communication.

• Listen to her podcast — Redefining Communications.

• Follow the Redefining Communications blog.

Steve & Cindy Crescenzo (Crescenzo Comms)

Steve and Cindy Crescenzo have been in the communications space for over 20 years each, and have worked with thousands of communicators.

Steve started as a journalist for trade publications like The Ragan Report and Communication World. And it has been 15 years since he started Crescenzo Communications to help organizations through speaking at conferences, workshops, and consulting. The same goes for Cindy Crescendo. 

The duo focuses on simplifying internal communication processes and providing the tools to streamline and extract performance data from these processes. So their expertise also covers conducting surveys, executive interviews, and focus groups.

How to learn from Steve & Cindy Crescenzo: 

• Connect with Steve on LinkedIn and Twitter.

• Connect with Cindy on LinkedIn and Twitter.

• Follow the Crescenzo Communications blog.

Priya Bates, Inner Strength Communication Inc.

Priya Bates is an award-winning communicator with a strong emphasis on performance. As the owner of Inner Strength Communication, she takes charge of internal communication and transformational change that connects business goals and employee behavior. 

In a career that spans over 20+ years, Priya has managed communications for companies like Compaq, Loblaw Companies Limited, and HP in Canada. And all of these companies have been recognized as top workplaces from time to time. 

Priya is an Accredited Business Communicator (ABC), was awarded the Master Communicator (MC) designation in 2010, and IABC fellowship in 2016, which are among the highest global honors for a communications professional.

How to learn from Priya Bates:

• Connect with her on LinkedIn.

• Follow her on Twitter.

Rachel Miller,  All Things IC

The founder and principal consultant at All Things IC, Rachel Miller is a globally recognized expert on internal communications. 

She helps communication professionals and organizations via training, consulting, and mentoring. And companies like ARM, Lego, BBC, NHS, and British Red Cross have been her clients. 

As an experienced and award-winning professional, she has also been teaching Masterclasses since 2014, training hundreds of comms professionals. And her articles and podcast episodes are jam-packed with actionable internal communication strategies. 

How to learn from Rachel Miller:

• Follow her on LinkedIn and Twitter.

• Check out her blog and podcast.

Advita Patel, Comms Rebel 

Advita Patel is an experienced speaker and the director of Comms Rebel, helping executives and organizations with solutions that improve internal communication and workplace diversity. 

She has been working in internal communications and change management fields for over 17 years, and has helped companies in multiple business verticals including education, transport, healthcare, and energy. Her client list consists of businesses like Royal Mail, Puma, Amazon, and Magnox. 

How to learn from Advita Patel:

• Connect with her on LinkedIn.

• Follow her on Twitter.

• Listen to the Calm Edged Rebels podcast.

Liam FitzPatrick, Donhead Consultants 

Liam spent several years as a PR professional, eventually discovering his passion for change communication. Since then, he has helped many well-known companies in retail, fashion, pharma, transport, and other sectors with this specialization.  

From safety improvement to strategic reviews, and from crises to quality improvements, he has worked on almost every kind of transformation. 

He also lectures at many universities and has authored two books on best practices of internal communication. 

How to learn from Liam FitzPatrick:

• Connect with Liam on LinkedIn.

• Follow him on Twitter.

• Read his book — Successful Employee Communication.

Paul Barton, PBC

Paul Barton has spent years helping senior leaders and managers connect with their workforce and customer base. And his advice has been featured on several podcasts, blogs, and magazines.

His career spans over 20 years and six large organizations, after which he started a consulting firm. Through this company, he provides strategic guidance, workshops, coaching, as well as hands-on support. And his clients include a wide range of businesses such as CBRE, Banner Health, Swire Coca-Cola, and more. 

Apart from that, he is also the author of the book Maximizing Internal Communication, a designated member of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), and a sought-after speaker. 

How to learn from Paul Barton:

• Follow him on Twitter.

• Connect with him on LinkedIn.

• Read his book — Maximizing Internal Communication.

Harriet Small, Comms Over Coffee

Harriet Small is the founder of Comms Over Coffee and a communications expert with over 12 years of experience in a wide range of business sectors. She has worked with companies such as Hackney Council, Transport for London, the European Union, NHS, and more. 

In 2019, she won the IoIC rising star award, and she was recently shortlisted in the internal communication category for The UK and Europe Employee Engagement award. She has also been in charge of communication and employee engagement in the Strategic Insights Team at Sky. 

Her insights come from a keen visual awareness and observations on how social media, podcasting, videos, and other digital technologies can aid in corporate communications. 

How to learn from Harriet Small:

• Connect with her on Twitter.

• Follow her on LinkedIn.

• Listen to her podcast — Have you got 5 minutes? 

Tony Stewart, freelance consultant

Tony Stewart uses his expertise in technology, communication, and collaboration to form digital employee engagement solutions for big brands around the world. From social media platforms to chatbots, he deeply understands both the medium and the message. 

Before he freelanced with Scarlett Abbott in 2016, Tony worked on launching a digital workplace platform for a global media company. And he has demonstrated the application of digital communication in various sectors including financial and administrative services. 

How to learn from Tony Stewart:

• Connect with Tony on LinkedIn.

• Follow Tony on Twitter.

Andrea Greenhous, Vision2Voice

Andrea is a globally recognized expert in internal communications with 25 years of experience. Plus, she is the founder of Vision2Voice, an internal communications consultancy in Canada. She has led internal communications and business transformation projects at several large corporations. 

As a certified change management professional, published author, and speaker, she helps companies improve employee communication by following a people-first approach. 

How to learn from Andrea Greenhous:

• Follow her on Twitter.

• Connect with her on LinkedIn.

• Follow her blog.

Wrapping up: top 10 internal communication influencers to follow

Investing in internal communication is a must to differentiate yourself in today’s competitive landscape. But the right investment will require due diligence and awareness of what works and what doesn’t.

That’s where the above list of internal communication influencers can provide tremendous value. These are the people who were once in your shoes and know the challenges of being a communications leader inside and out. 

These great minds bring unique and proven insights to the table based on their years of experience — insights that you can implement with confidence in your own company. So take advantage of their wealth of knowledge and connect with them on your favorite social platform today!