PR Fundi Masterclass, in conjunction with the Africa Public Relations Association, organized a free virtual masterclass on Strategic Internal Communication for PR Professionals on Thursday, 27th March 2025. Participants learned how to enhance organizational culture through internal communication, emphasizing that “internal communications affect external reputation.”
Asare Okae-Anti, Lecturer (Strategic Comm. Dept.), University of Winneba, Ghana; and Regine Le Roux, Corporate Reputation Specialist, South Africa, were the facilitators of the class.
Internal communication influences corporate reputation.
If management resists transparency, internal comms will fail. Go through an exercise of making organizational values with your entire team not only with senior management. Communication globally is transforming by the minute, and so is Internal communication.“Internal communiction can no longer be an isolated case.”— Ian Rumanyika. How then do we ensure authenticity, emotional intelligence and integrity remain of high value and standards amidst these evolutions? For internal climate surveys, always look at culture in terms the communication.
2025 Internal communication trends to look out for
- Staff are now more pronounced in expressing their values, sexuality, and religion.
- Growing diversity at the workplace – Navigating varied cultural, generational, and ideological perspectives.
- The shift to AI has transformed communication workflows and engagement strategies.
- Re-evaluating tools – Prioritizing intuitive platforms that align with hybrid/remote work demands.
- Staff have widespread access to recording devices. Demanding transparency and accountability in messaging.
- Employees as activists – Balancing personal advocacy with organizational alignment.
- Generational divides – Bridging communication gaps between Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X/Boomers.
- Data-driven decision-making – Leveraging analytics to tailor messaging and measure impact.
Communicators must learn to speak with numbers and be consistent. Organizations must carry out internal climate surveys and not assume things. Strategically, ensure employees of organizations become the first audience before communicating externally.
Reputation Management.
“The role of your employees is what your reputation looks like. Your internal message is what is being communicated externally.” —Regine le Roux
PR professionals were reminded to invest in research especially internal communication audits through polls. Ask yourselves how internal communication will support overall organizational growth. How will Internal communication support engagement?
We need to have internal staff as influencers.“We need to have a very clear set of values that we have. I want to say it needs to be ingrained in your DNA because it’s your values that guide your behaviour And it’s that consistent behaviour that drives your reputation?” —Regine le Roux
Organize basic communication training for staff. Internal comms is important and how it’s aligned to the strategic growth of the institution. The culture that will be built for internal communications to thrive is dependent on the PR professional. If management is not ready to run the organization in that sort of open class you clearly won’t have the opportunity to also be open and transparent. ”Have your values that you communicate. Live by your values.” —Regine le Roux
Consistent staff engagement
Have conversations regular with your staff. “Change communication should not happen too late with staff.”—Asare Okae-Anti. Employees are a key public in any organization who must be treated as part of an organization and never taken for granted. PR professionals should collectively handle internal communication with HR and Management. Induct staff after they join. It is your value that guide your behaviors.
“Well-informed employees are the organisations’ best goodwill ambassadors” —Asare Okae-Anti, If you don’t know your values, there is a problem. Remote working shifts bring challenges to internal communication but allow you to use other channels to engage with staff. Ask staff about their preferred communication channels and how often they need to receive organisational updates. Embrace owned media in internal communication. Leaders must make sure that the organizations have an open culture where honest feedback and continuous engagement are there.
PR Fundi Master class programme runs over 100 PR practice topics designed to give participants mastery over PR tasks. The PR Fundi public Master classes are monthly. PR Fundi also runs customized sessions for particular organizational staff needs.The Master class is an answer to the ever changing PR practice landscape.
PR is a 24/7 Job. This requires PR people to be creatively prepared for the situation room time because the world expects PR people to be overnight experts. PR people constantly need mastery skills on a case-by-case basis. Having template approaches to PR in this digital age is disastrous.
PR Fundi master classes evoke critical thinking. We use different expert perspectives on PR issues to prepare participants for all-round work challenges. After each training, Participants will be able to creatively prepare for any situation room. Each PR Fundi master class has an aspect of PR theory applicability, PR thought leadership and realistic PR case studies.
