Businesses spend hours (and we mean hours) fine tuning a tone of voice for external audiences. It’s a significant and worthwhile investment. The right tone of voice can help businesses better connect with customers, reflect their values in all their communications and stand out from the competition.
Yet much less thought is given to how tone of voice can help support internal communication. This has always surprised us. According to Korn Ferry, 80% of executives place culture in the top five factors to drive value in a business. And internal communications is one of the key ways that culture is shared and reinforced within a large organisation. We see tone of voice as a strategic tool to embed culture and elevate an employee experience. When it comes to transforming a corporate culture – something that many businesses are focusing on as they compete for the best talent – getting your internal tone of voice right can be a valuable step in bringing your people along with you.
Consistency through change
A business’ leaders are the main channel via which employees will experience cultural change. But in a large organisation there will be a range of personality types and writing capabilities within the leadership team. Practical tone of voice guidelines will help leaders reflect the cultural change in their communications and establish consistency across different areas of the business.
Having guidelines in place also acts as a reference point for others to share feedback on communications. They can be especially helpful if people disagree about how best to communicate.
Culture identity
In a survey conducted in June 2024, we found that the top tone of voice challenge many businesses face is a lack of personality in their writing*. Generic language is even more common in internal communications compared to external marketing, because there is less focus on brand image.
But just as tone of voice reflects your brand personality externally, it should also reflect the internal culture. In fact, with many elements of culture unspoken, internal communications can be one of the most tangible ways to reinforce the culture of an organisation.
Ensuring that your tone of voice aligns with your culture transformation will help to reflect your culture and values throughout your internal communications. This can encourage people to put these values into practice every day. For example, if your culture values inclusivity, this can come through an open tone with clear phrasing.
Tone of voice will also personify your ideal way of working. Moving beyond processes alone, it can encourage openness, trust, autonomy or collaboration. Because the way people communicate is a huge part of the employee experience.
Uniting teams
It is human nature to mirror the language you hear and read in conversations, something known as the chameleon effect. We reflect everything from hand gestures to facial expressions to tone of voice as a way of creating a bond with others.
This often translates to written messages too, where we reflect the kind of language that others are using. In large businesses, employees can fall into a pattern of using corporate or overly formal language, and tone of voice guidelines can help people communicate in a more authentic way. When investing in a culture transformation, it is valuable to bring tone of voice along with the work to give employees a shared way of communicating.
Giving people a voice
The process of creating a tone of voice can be an insightful part of the culture transformation. Running workshops brings people together and gives people the opportunity to share their views on the culture and their preferred way of communicating.
Once the tone of voice has been defined, training can include the rest of the business. These sessions will giving large teams a shared understanding and involve people in the transformation process.
Individual voices count too
Applying tone of voice to internal communications isn’t about asking people to sound the same. Instead, the guidelines give people a reference point for how to communicate in the way that reflects the company culture. We see guidelines as a way to bring people closer together, not to copy each other. Rather than giving people set phrasing to use, tone of voice guidelines provide a ‘feel’ to aim for, leaving room for each person to choose their own words.
Authenticity matters
As with culture transformation, tone of voice is most effective when it reflects the true values of an organisation. It should be authentic to the people who drive the culture and the behaviours everyone shares, otherwise it is at risk of coming across as false. And when a voice reflects the people, it should be easy for the people to implement.
We work closely with our sister agency People Made – Brand & Culture Agency to create value through company culture, from defining your employee value proposition to communicating in the right way. Speak to us about your vision.
*Survey of 28 participants during our webinar, ‚Winning loyalty with words: How to connect through verbal identity‘, on 28 June 2024. Rewatch the full webinar here.
