Credibility is crucial for communicators – but our columnist Steve Doswell believes it’s lacking in internal communications

“Where does professional credibility come from?”

This summer, a new report (Rewiring Internal Comms from Watson Helsby) threw down a challenge to the credibility of internal communication. I highlight a few points from the report (which I largely agree with) below. First, though, it’s worth thinking about where credibility comes from. Does it arise from the work itself, or from the people who deliver it? My answer would be: both - and more. Credibility exists in the work and the people who deliver it, but it is also enhanced through the existence of an established profession with an accreditationbased path to competence.

This path should have recognised norms of practice so that practitioners know exactly how to operate, and so that employers know what they should expect and to what standard. An accreditation structure is now in place for the IC profession, but it will need time to become fully established and thus enhance the industry’s creditability.

Further legitimacy comes when a work practice is underpinned by a body of law that sets out rights and obligations. The law has several touch-points on IC but four years after it was extended to all companies with 50 employees or more, the dream that the Information and Consultation of Employees Regulations 2004 would give IC an added legal imperative has somewhat faded.

Beyond a professional structure and the clout of law, a third potential source of credibility comes from the support of academic research, a body of knowledge and a theoretical base. For IC, the pickings here are thin. While there are several excellent practitioner guides and some papers have been written for peer-reviewed journals on aspects of IC, much of what passes for IC research lacks academic rigour.

I’ve been thinking about the credibility of internal communication since conducting research of my own a few years ago to capture executive team members’ perceptions of their senior communicators. It quickly became apparent that for this sample group, credibility was about qualities rather than qualifications, about the action, personal impact and bearing of individual communicators rather than about the certificates on their wall.

A spread of perceptions ranged from those who held their communication colleagues in high esteem for their ability to present uncomfortable truths about employee perceptions, to organisational chiefs for whom the operational sharp end was remote and distant. The research also uncovered an attitude that was dismissive, even slightly contemptuous, of those who preached the need for executives to sharpen their communication skills but whose own business acumen was frequently found to be lacking.

With further probing, it emerged that this was often an issue of language. IC specialists did not speak the same semi-codified dialect as the executive teams they sought to influence. This struck a chord with me as a linguist. I have argued since then that internal communicators need to have a sound grasp of the substance and language of business in general, and their business in particular, if they expect to have any influence.

The Watson Helsby report contrasts the growth in IC’s profile and resources over 15 years with a paradoxical shortage of influence and authority. It is a sometimes damning report. However, painful reading does not invalidate what it says, although one can cite several public and private sector organisations where IC’s role is well-defined, its governance clear, its impacts demonstrable and its authority unquestioned. The report concludes that practitioners need to be better rewarded and resourced and that this will in turn attract a higher calibre of entrants. For this to happen, though, we need senior executives who see IC as a priority. With that, there can be no argument.

Steve Doswell is chief executive of the Institute of Internal Communication You can find him on Twitter @stevedoswell