7 copywriting tactics to take your employee communications up a gear

No idea where to start when it comes to writing for your employees? Do your HR communications need an overhaul? Or perhaps you need to re-write your policies so they’re clear, understandable and easy to action? As an HR copywriter and employee benefits communications specialist, I’m sharing my seven top copywriting tips to help you create high-impact communications that will enhance your employees’ experience. 

1 - Understand your audience

• Create employee personas

• Use these to create messaging themes

• Write for specific personas

Understanding your audience prevents comms from being organisation-focused and instead makes them employee-centric. Creating employee personas helps you fully understand your employees’ concerns, so you can address them in your comms. 

For example, with employee benefits communications you need to talk to the right audience about specific benefits in the right way. Communicating with someone in their twenties about their pension will be very different to talking to someone in their fifties about their pension. 

You can create employee personas with workshops, by using employee data and by harnessing internal knowledge. Ask questions like: what motivates your people? What keeps them up at night? How do they make decisions?

2 - Branding

• Create an employer brand

• Align with your external branding

• Use it to help employee comms stand out

If you don’t have an employer brand, it’s time to create one. Just as you would for external marketing, create a brand and a brand guide for internal use. This will ensure all your employee communications align. A strong employer brand also means your employees will take notice because your comms are consistent and eye-catching. 

3 - Tone of voice

• Build an employer voice

• Align it to business values

• Build a relationship one-on-one

• Create a style guide

How do you want to talk to your employees? As a minimum I’d recommend clear, warm, engaging copy that aligns with your company values. It’s also important to be direct and talk to people on a one-on-one basis wherever you can.

For example, even if you’re writing an all-employee email, use ‘you’ throughout and, if you can, use email software to add each individual’s first name at the start of your email. Small changes like this applied over time can create a valuable connection with your entire team. Simplicity and consistency are the keys to building trust. A solid tone of voice and thorough style guide will ensure all your copy aligns and that anyone who’s writing for your business internally will know what to say and how to say it.

4 - Messaging

• KISS

• Jargon-free, values-led

• Break up copy

• Use headlines

• Benefit-led

• Think about cascades

Keep copy short, simple and relevant. Comms can be very organisation-centric, but by writing with your employee personas in mind, messaging will become more employee-centred. It will also help you write benefit-led copy - this means letting your audience know what’s in it for them for reading. By understanding what matters to your people and using this insight to shape your comms, you’ll create even stronger connections with your team.

Usual good copywriting practices apply: put the most important information first, use subheadings, make it scannable and have a clear call to action so employees know what to do next and it’s easy for them to do it. And keep jargon and acronyms to a minimum - even if they’re well known within your business.

Think about cascades and targeting. Segment the audience to get different messages to different people. Not everyone can - or needs to - know everything. In these times of information overload, less can often be more. 

5 - Channels

• Multichannel communication

• All year round

Your organisation will have lots of different channels to communicate through. It’s worth listing all the channels you have available and creating content to suit each channel. Take webinars and videos - two similar audiovisual channels. But webinars are two-way and tend to be much longer than videos, allowing more detailed information and questions and answers. Whereas videos tend to be shorter and snappier with the communication going in one direction only. So they need to be super clear and not overloaded with information. 

Channels might include an intranet as well as an external-facing website or microsite, internal social platforms, face-to-face and TV screens. Often overlooked channels are HR-specific platforms like total reward statements or flexible benefits platforms and your company’s LinkedIn page and recruitment platforms. Think of all the different employee touchpoints from attract and hire to retire to gain a thorough overview of all the places you communicate with your people.

Then make sure your copy is strong and compelling and, where possible, ensure comms are two-way, for example with surveys or (if this is appropriate for your organisation’s culture) by turning the comments on for social activity/blogs. Ensure there’s someone to review and act on feedback and feed it back into your comms plans. 

6 - Measure and adapt

• Assess performance versus your measures

• Quantitative data 

• Qualitative data

• Adapt your strategy

• Change your comms

How do you know how well your communications are performing? By putting some measures in place. Quantitative measures could include intranet site hits, time on page, email open and click-through rates, HR programme participation and use, meeting and event attendance, employee engagement survey results.

Qualitative measures could include employee feedback, focus groups, social media comments and employee survey comments. People often have a lot to say about the level of communication they receive so it’s well worth compiling feedback and acting on it.

Are you moving the needle on important HR and communications metrics? Use the insights to make changes and help your copy deliver even more for employees.

7 - Build the right team

• Create an internal comms role in the HR team

• Train the HR team

• Source external support

Good marketing teams hire specialists to write copy. Businesses and HR departments can do the same. If you don’t have HR copywriting talent in-house, or you haven’t got the time or budget to upskill, then outsource to an expert. 

I’ve learned about these seven tactics since becoming a copywriter. And I wish I’d known about them when I worked in HR. So, I’m sharing them with you, so you can create compelling human resources communications that connect with your employees and inspire them to take action. 

Writing HR communications is a specialist skill. Many HR teams outsource their copywriting to me. If you’d like to know more, get in touch: 07703 155 404 or at becky@clarioncallcomms.co.uk.