How to solve the problem of "We created a vision, but the front lines aren't moving."

Why Internal Communication Matters Now

As remote work has become widespread in Japanese companies due to the pandemic, we've seen an increase in client inquiries about "internal communication." These inquiries come from various departments—corporate planning, public relations, human resources, brand strategy—but they share a common thread:

"We want frontline employees to take initiative in line with the vision set by management."

This sentiment is shared across departments.

Even before the pandemic, many large Japanese corporations, facing survival amid rapid changes like declining birthrates, aging populations, digitalization, and globalization, had established long-term visions outlining their new future selves. However, it now appears that concerns are surfacing across the board about the difficulty in getting management's vision to truly resonate with frontline employees.

Compounding this, the pandemic has normalized remote work, making the decline in employee unity and sense of belonging increasingly apparent. How to maintain organizational strength while inevitably requiring a decentralized, autonomous work style? And crucially, how to create a state of high employee engagement—where individual motivation and the corporate vision align—has now become a major challenge.

No matter how brilliant a company's vision or strategy may be, transformation cannot be achieved unless every employee understands and resonates with it, then actively engages in new challenges every day. "How to mobilize the front lines" has become an urgent priority for Japanese companies today.

The Purpose of Internal Communication is "Corporate Culture Transformation"

It is often misunderstood, but internal communication is not merely about fostering camaraderie among employees or simply conveying information to improve organizational transparency.

We believe internal communication is an integral part of corporate branding. Figure 1 below illustrates the "Brand Spiral," which shows the fundamental structure of corporate branding.

Figure 1: Brand Spiral

The "Brand Spiral" summarizes the value exchange process between internal and external stakeholders in corporate branding.

Corporate branding is the activity of permeating the value created by embodying a company's philosophy and management vision to various stakeholders both inside and outside the organization.

Its external goal is "building a positive reputation," while its internal goal is "corporate culture transformation." In other words, the essence of internal communication activities lies in creating a corporate culture that continuously fosters innovation to realize corporate philosophy and management vision.

"We've announced a new vision, yet somehow the momentum for change isn't building."

When this happens, take a moment to reflect: Is your company's transformation effort solely focused on "business transformation"? Are you neglecting "corporate culture transformation," which should be advanced in tandem with business transformation? Being captivated solely by business results—that is, profit growth—and failing to look at corporate culture is, in other words, nothing less than "neglecting the feelings of employees."

Basic Framework: "Visualization," "Personalization," "Action," "Culturalization"

So, how should internal communication initiatives be planned and implemented? The most fundamental framework is illustrated in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Internal Communication Framework

Internal communication involves:
・Visualization
・Personalization
・Action
・Culturalization
We develop measures corresponding to each step to drive corporate culture transformation. Here are the key points for each step.

"Visualization"
This involves a series of activities to gain recognition and understanding of the newly established management vision. Common measures include creating brand books and brand videos, utilizing internal newsletters, intranets, email newsletters, and internal posters, or hosting internal events.

The crucial first step is to strongly impress upon employees the company's "serious commitment" during the launch phase. While announcing the vision through every possible contact point is essential, it is equally vital to develop a unified symbol or slogan to heighten employee enthusiasm for the transformation. Some companies have also distributed a letter from the president to all employees on the launch day. Strongly conveying the top management's commitment to employees is extremely important.

Personalization
This refers to gaining employee empathy for the vision set by management and eliciting a psychological commitment that "each and every one of us embodies the corporate brand." Many companies seem to struggle with this step, making it a significant "barrier" in internal communication.

However, there is no "magic bullet." To elicit employee resonance, a persistent process of dialogue is essential. Here too, management's commitment is vital. It requires "down-to-earth" efforts that go beyond mere intranet announcements or meetings for executives alone. Management must directly engage with each department, job level, and region to draw out candid opinions.

Ideally, this should involve direct visits and face-to-face engagement. However, given the pandemic situation, effectively utilizing online tools can serve as a valuable complement. For large-scale projects, it can be effective to hold "caravans" – where management tours locations to announce initiatives – and "workshops" – where employees proactively consider what they should do – at separate times.

"Action-Oriented Approach"
In short, this means creating a system to recognize employees who take new actions toward the vision. All employees are busy with daily tasks and focused on existing performance metrics. Amidst this, some may perceive initiatives for the new vision as "adding to their workload."

Contests and recognition programs are crucial as a way to signal that "the company genuinely supports new challenges" and to create incentives for employees. While many companies have some form of recognition system, are they merely rewarding quantitative results? Have they become routine annual events, stuck in a rut? It might be worth re-examining them from the perspective of "redesigning them to motivate employees challenging the new vision."

Culturalization
Finally, "Culturalization" refers to measures that establish an environment where internal communication becomes a new corporate culture, rather than ending as a temporary campaign.

For example, many companies that leverage an attractive corporate culture as a strength invest heavily in programs that instill their philosophy from the very start of onboarding, regardless of whether employees are new graduates or mid-career hires. Ultimately, the ideal form of internal communication is when the mindset and behaviors aligned with the new vision become embedded within the performance evaluation system.

When designing internal communication, it is particularly important to ensure that initiatives corresponding to these steps—"visualization," "personalization," "action," and "culturalization"—are developed under a consistent framework.

While the identification of transformation challenges and the formulation of concepts for realizing the vision may be done from a company-wide perspective, it is not uncommon for subsequent implementation phases to fall into the trap of "siloed" efforts by the departments responsible for the measures. However, this leads to employees becoming unclear about "the purpose and the actions being taken," making it difficult to achieve the fundamental goal of "corporate culture transformation."

Therefore, internal communication is never an initiative that should be solely the responsibility of a specific department. Its true nature is a company-wide movement: one that unites all departments to drive forward critical challenges facing the company, while eliciting management commitment. If you would like to learn more about internal communication, please feel free to contact us.