This article is written by Kariane Charron, senior communications advisor at Transport Canada

“Hey Kariane, how’s it going? I have a position available within my team. Want to come work for me?”

Some variation of these words finds their way into my inbox once every few months. Sometimes they’re from past co-workers or managers. Other times, they come from hiring managers I don’t know.

How did they get my name and why would they want to hire me? Very often, the answer is there in black and white: “We see your involvement with the InterComm Network and we think you would be a great asset to our team”.

The InterComm Network is an interdepartmental group for those who work in internal communications across the federal public service in Canada. It’s been around since at least the early 2000s, though I became an active member of it in 2013. In late 2018, I started leading the community with a colleague.

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The network is hosted via an online social media/information exchange platform internal to the Government of Canada. We call the network a community of practice, by which we mean an informal place for people who work in the same field to connect and increase their skills and knowledge. Over the years, the network has gained over 800 members from more than 70 federal organisations. Active members of the InterComm Network meet regularly online to help connect hundreds of communicators by hosting internal communications learning events for public servants.

If you are part of an online network, here are tips that have helped open new doors in my career, and make the best use of my time at work.

Keep track of who posts about what on the platform, and where they work

I always keep track of threads posted, as well as a list of colleagues’ names, their organisation, and what they posted about. This means that if I ever have to deliver communications on that topic, I know exactly who to reach out to.

If you don’t have a community of practice in your field, you can always look to build one.

This is also very helpful when I need to reach out to colleagues from another organisation, but don’t necessarily have key contacts there. The InterComm Network helps me know where to start, as members may change email addresses if they change jobs, though they often keep the same profile.

Sharing is caring. You’re not alone!

I often reach out to my network before starting a communication product, such as a communication plan or a message to employees on a common theme or priority. A communicator somewhere may be drafting the same product as I’m about to, or I might be lacking the time or inspiration to do a good job of it. Posting on the network can produce solid starting points that benefit everyone I write for and the clients I serve.

Whenever possible, I upload products that I am proud of, whether they be communication strategies, messages to employees, internal newsletters, articles, employee stories or intranet content. Where confidentiality allows, I upload these to my online network’s file repository. On many occasions, I’ve received a thank you note from an InterComm network member for giving them a starting point, and then I know I can count on that person if I need help in the future.

Get the scoop before you get the task

Working in internal communications in the public service means often getting tasked with the same things across different organisations. Many requests to promote an initiative or a survey come from Canada’s top public servant, known as the Clerk of the Privy Council. Alternatively, they come from the Chief Human Resources Officer. These are then sent to deputy ministers across organisations.

The information needs time to reach us internal communication advisors. Often, the first to get the request in their organisation will post a heads-up to others to say that something important has been tasked across government. This helps communication teams in departments plan their communications and dedicate resources to that task.

Receiving a heads-up on the InterComm Network that the Clerk of the Privy Council is going to ask all internal communication teams to share his holiday message with public servants on a certain date, for example, can help us coordinate other holiday message requests from senior leaders. This allows us to come up with a plan about which order to send them in and how we can diversify similar messages. This allows us to present a united front for our internal communications, by sending only one email to our employees instead of three seperate ones. We know that our employees already receive too many emails, and combining messages where it makes sense is something we do to reduce the burden on their inboxes.

Maximise the use of technology to inform the community

As the network’s lead, I always ensure others in the community of practice benefit from my findings.

So let’s say it is time to renew and improve our departmental intranet because it is outdated, and new studies have meanwhile found better and more user-centric ways of presenting information. It can be overwhelming to decide the best way to present information online, and which tools, widgets and functions should be incorporated to best help employees find what they are looking for. Here’s where the community of practice comes in handy once again.

I would start my research by asking InterComm colleagues if they could give me a quick demo of their intranets. We could do this through one-on-one meetings, or by using the screen-share function in virtual applications. Why stop there though? Why not make this a learning opportunity? After all, I surely can’t be the only one who is working on updating an outdated intranet and its content.

See who else is interested in screen-sharing and giving short demos of their recently renewed intranets. You can easily turn this into a learning event, after which you can create a one-pager highlighting the neat features you noticed throughout the process, and posting this tool in your group files, so that everyone can benefit going forward.

Pulling together learning events used to be very complex and very costly, but with the use of virtual platforms to host events, and free tools to facilitate registration, collaboration becomes so much easier. It’s just a matter of finding (and taking) the opportunities that exist out there.

If you don’t have a community of practice in your field, you can always look to build one. Start small, and find the right online platform that meets your needs, where people can share insights and tools. Communities like this can take years to build, but they are well worth it, and each is a great career development initiative. — Kariane Charron

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