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Many employees at a major textile company first learned of the organization’s portfolio review plans not from internal corporate sources--such as HR, a corporate announcement or their individual managers--but from a radio news broadcast or news leak they heard while driving to work.

When a consulting firm implemented a peer evaluation process for employees, the first time many heard about it was when co-workers started making casual comments, instant messaging and tweeting about having received “a survey.” HR expected Managers to tell their employees; managers thought HR would “take care of it.”

Do such communication “glitches” have a negative impact on employee trust, commitment, loyalty and the perception of how the firm is being led? Most communications and HR professionals would say yes.

It is said that whatever is said in secret shall be exposed on the housetop, someday, somehow. We should expect this even more with the swathe of communications tools and social media options available to employees and organisations. Organisations more and more are finding it challenging to manage the flow, pace and media, of what is shared internally versus what is shared externally. When the synchronisation of internal and external messaging is well managed, organisations at least will maintain an even keel with employees, stakeholders and investors; and when badly managed, it could easily create industrial relations problems or a stakeholder crisis respectively. In a few cases, you could have a crisis with both internal and external stakeholders at same time.

Your people are your most valuable assets (and I dare add that how you connect and engage with them extends or diminishes the value you get out of them!). Furthermore, your people are your most accessible and low cost ambassadors, reaching nooks and crannies that normal external communication channels may never reach, with a passion and credibility that can be only ascribed to people. Your employees will also provide timely and often unbiased feedback, if you care to listen to them!

Internal communication is about employee engagement, fostering internal stakeholder engagement and feedback, and providing information and avenues for dialogue that energises and enables staff to work effectively towards achieving the strategic business goals. Internal communication is also the art and act of managing the internal constituency of stakeholders including senior leadership on what to say, how to say, whom to, where and when to say.

This is all firmly in the HR domain and is also strongly aligned with external communication.

The case for HR-led internal communications is pretty clear and it is, about the HR function creating an environment where employees are engaged, where they offer and exchange ideas that increase employee and ultimately, customer satisfaction. It is also about creating a work environment that improves individual and organisational performance, enabling staff across all levels to experience a greater level of job satisfaction.

The real challenge is who develops message and who manages messaging or dissemination of the message? Should it be HR for the internal or the external affairs department for the external? For sure, since it is one message, though with a different slant, it should developed by one function, and that should HR in my view.

Communication of information to either internal or external parties should be consistent with the corporate values; it’s position on profits, strategy, crisis management branding and the value proposition to employees, customers and stakeholders – after all there should be no difference between internal and external values, for that matter! HR is the value custodian!