Internal communications manager

Spark Trajectory Intranet and Digital Workplace Roles and Teams > This role

What does the role Internal communications manager do?

The Internal Communications Manager plans, produces, and delivers employee communications across internal channels, managing campaigns, announcements, and ongoing editorial output. The role typically owns the day-to-day running of the editorial calendar, coordinates with business stakeholders to handle incoming communication requests, and ensures messages reach the right audiences through the right channels. It sits below the Head of Internal Communications in larger teams and may line-manage an Internal Communications Executive.

Also known as

  • Channel manager
  • Internal comms manager
  • Employee communications manager
  • Staff communications manager
  • People communications manager
  • Internal communications business partner
  • Corporate communications manager (internal)
  • Employee engagement manager
  • Communications manager (internal)
Standard prevalence

This role is pretty much always in all larger organisations

Primary responsibilties

  • Plans and produces employee communications across internal channels
  • Manages the editorial calendar and incoming communications requests from business stakeholders
  • Writes, edits, and schedules content for newsletters, intranet news, and other channels
  • Coordinates with senior leaders and subject matter experts to develop messaging
  • Monitors channel performance and reports on communications effectiveness
  • Line-manages the Internal Communications Executive where applicable

Related teams

We've known this role to be part of the following teams:
Internal Communications

Skills profile

Note: This is what we documented as an exemplar. It's unlikely to always be the case and relates to a role's involvement with the delivery of digital employee experience and perhaps not everything they do. You can open this in the Skills Profile Builder if you want to customise it.

Apprentice

Limited but increasing capabilities based on learning and on-the-job experience, but guidance and mentoring is required to fulfil potential.

Practitioner

Good professional capabilities sufficient for many circumstances and roles. Able to guide and mentor apprentices.

Master

Abilities that are the best in the professional field, gained from significant experience. Able to teach and guide others in their development.
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Outline job description

The Internal Communications Manager is the engine room of the internal communications function: the person who keeps the editorial operation running, manages incoming requests from across the business, and makes sure the right messages reach the right people.

About the role

This is a mid-level practitioner role, typically sitting below the Head of Internal Communications in larger teams and potentially line-managing an Internal Communications Executive. In smaller organisations, it may be the most senior internal communications post.

You'll own the day-to-day delivery of employee communications: writing and editing content, managing the editorial calendar, coordinating with stakeholders, and administering the channels the function uses. It's varied, fast-paced, and often involves juggling multiple competing priorities at once.

What you'll actually be doing

A significant part of the job is handling what comes in — communications requests from business stakeholders who want to reach employees — and turning those into clear, well-structured messages that actually land. That involves a lot of writing, but also a fair amount of negotiation: reframing poorly scoped briefs, pushing back on unrealistic timelines, and helping people articulate what they're really trying to say.

You'll also be keeping the operation ticking: scheduling sends, monitoring channel performance, and making sure the editorial calendar reflects what's happening in the organisation. Where you have a direct report, you'll be supporting their development too.

What we're looking for

Strong writing and editing is the foundation: you should be able to write clearly and credibly across a range of formats and tones, and improve other people's drafts quickly. Equally important is the ability to manage stakeholders well: this role gets a lot of incoming requests, and you need to be organised, responsive, and good at managing expectations.

A working knowledge of internal channels such as intranet, email newsletter, video, digital signage, and how to deploy them effectively for different audiences and messages is expected. Some experience with analytics and performance reporting is also required.

Typical background

Most people in this role come from journalism, PR, marketing, or corporate communications. Internal communications is increasingly a direct career route in. Sector background varies widely; experience in large or complex organisations is an advantage.

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Errors? Disagreements? Omissions?

We have hopefully created these exemplars with thought and care. It is not the only way of looking at these roles and teams in the world, and relates specifically to the intranet and digital workplance profession. It therefore concentrates on some things and ignores others.

If you find an error, disagree wholeheartly or feel there is a glaring ommission we'd love to know.

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License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.