Demonstrating your value as an internal comms professional

It’s been a busy week. Alongside my usual client work, I’ve presented at the CIPR Non-Profit Conference on how to communicate organisational change, judged industry award entries, and joined communicators from around the world at the Communication Leadership Summit in Brussels. The summit ran as an ‘unconference’. It’s a brilliant format where there’s no fixed agenda, and participants vote on the topics they most want to explore.

Across all of these very different settings, one theme kept cropping up: how communicators demonstrate their value.

It’s a conversation we’ve been wrestling with in internal communication for years. At times it can feel like we’re not making progress. Our colleagues in Finance or HR rarely have to explain why their function matters, their role is understood and embedded. IC? Not so much.

The role of internal communications

Internal communication has two roles in an organisation. The first is a strategic function acting offering insight that shapes planning and decision-making. The other is more tactical, focused on delivering messages and carrying out decisions on behalf of leaders.

Both are useful. But it’s the first—the strategic role—that really demonstrates the strategic value of communication. Staying only in the tactical space keeps the wheels turning, but it doesn’t unlock our full potential.

So, what do we mean by value?

Demonstrating value isn’t about talking about how many Town Halls, intranet posts, or events you run. It’s about whether those activities help the organisation achieve its goals. The goals will vary from organisation to organisation and so you need to understand what drives the business. If you don’t know what matters to leaders, you’ll struggle to prove communication’s worth.

To understand value leaders need to see how internal communications connects to business.

And when it comes to restructures or resourcing conversations, remember this: making the case for more people in your team isn’t about workload. Leaders don’t invest to make you less busy. They invest when they see how additional resource will deliver more value. You need to frame your case in terms of outcomes, not effort.

Five ways to demonstrate value in practice

1. Link your work to strategy. Don’t just report what you’ve delivered show how it advances organisational goals. Whether it’s improving safety, embedding behaviours, or driving customer focus, tie your efforts to priorities leaders already care about.

2. Show outcomes, not outputs. Clicks and channel metrics are useful, but they don’t prove value. Focus on what changed did colleagues understand, act differently, or trust leaders more because of your communication?

3. Look ahead, not just behind. Use horizon scanning to spot risks and opportunities before they land. Position yourself as a strategic adviser by showing how comms can help the organisation prepare, not just react.

4. Tell the story of your impact. Bring your work to life with examples. Instead of “we launched a new channel,” say “leaders now connect directly with frontline colleagues and resolved a long-standing issue.” Stories make value tangible.

5. Keep value visible. Perceptions are shaped over time, not in one big moment. Share regular summaries of how comms has contributed to business outcomes a steady drumbeat builds credibility.

The reality is, value is in the eye of the beholder. Our job is to make sure our leaders see it by consistently showing the difference internal communication makes.