Five Small Ways to Make Big Impact With Internal Communications in Schools

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We're joined by Jamie Bell, Chief Marketing Officer at Workshop. Jamie lives and breathes internal communications, and she's going to bring

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five small moves that punch well above their weight. So, if you'll open up your workbooks to page 32, you're going to

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be in the right spot. And let's welcome Jamie with some applause emojis in the chat, you guys.

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Great. Jamie, I'm gonna stop sharing and the floor is yours.

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Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. Hi everyone. I'm Jamie Bell. I am the CMO at workshop. We're an internal

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communications platform and I happen to just be like generally passionate about the topic as well. So we spend day in

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and day out just talking about how organizations like really talk to their staff, how like some messages will

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stick, other things will get ignored. I love seeing the challenges that you're all putting in the chat to resonate with that all very deeply. You are not alone

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in the world either. So I want to kind of spend this next half hour. You don't need to be like a comm's person.

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You don't need to be an expert on these things to be really great at that. And I know we already have so much going on.

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We're already trying to do so much. You are already probably feeling like you communicate all day long and things just

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don't quite land all the time. So hopefully after this little session here you have a couple of like very easy

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breezy practical ideas to kind of implement next week or next month or something like that. So just five very

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small kind of genuinely doable things that will make all of the communicating that you're doing help to actually like

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build the culture that you came here to build., and you won't need really any new like software or extra hours in your day or anything like that, which I know

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we all like to hear, right? So, I'll pop into it., just to kind of like kick it off. I know you're probably already

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doing a ton of the communication like like day in day out., you probably already feel like you're like on this

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stage and doing a lot of this work already. You're probably texting, you're doing all staff messages, th handling

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things that are urgent, handling other things that are more urgent than the urgent thing that you just handled. Like Sunday night messages, you know

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sticky notes, all of those things. So, I know that you are communicating all the time and I think a lot of the things

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that come back to like that we look at is like is that communication planned or like how can you make that

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switch from like it being reactive and off the cuff and in the moment into being like much more proactive and more

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thoughtful. A lot of times the way we'll describe this is like it just it feels like you're doing it all the time but it feels like random acts of calms

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right? And you shouldn't feel bad about that. I feel like every single like busy leader on the planet is doing it and it

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is a very sort of fixable problem. But also just to kind of reiterate like this fact that like it's every industry. It's

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not just education. Honestly, this is like a universal problem and that's why we get so excited about like diving in and helping create things to solve that.

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But one of my favorite stats is just looking at like team engagement and communication specifically around

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leaders and around managers. I feel like this is something that you don't really learn how to communicate like you off the bat, right? Like you kind of learn

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it through a lot of trial and error, but no one's really giving you like as a as a leader like the playbook on how to

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communicate all the time. But it's so key and like your team's engagement or your staff's engagement a lot of times in these day like this day and age like

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it's coming down to the manager like man you know you've all probably heard those things like people leave because of managers people stay because of managers

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all of that stuff and so that like weight of like communication and leadership is definitely there and employees are kind of telling us

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universally across every industry this is all data from Gallup specifically I've got some of our own data here in a second, but a lot of

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people are saying, you know, like my manager is just not very good at communication or I'm not hearing the things that I want to hear. A lot of managers on the flip side are like,

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listen, I'm kind of uncomfortable communicating to like the whole staff too, right? Like I didn't really get into this job with like that piece of

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it., so I'm kind of learning as I go too. And I think the other thing is just like highlighting like when in a school

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or in a district when like staff communication isn't really working.

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That's where you start to see like a lot of these kinds of questions like oh like we changed this whole schedule or like there was an event nobody told me about

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it and it was like buried in a newsletter somewhere or I found out about this from a parent. I didn't even hear about it from like my own team

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first or from like my leader. I heard about it from like an external source or there's some new group that like I'm

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unclear about what the purpose of that is. So these are the things that you might hear and like sort of resonate with from like a day-to-day basis.

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And then one of the things that gets me like like excited is kind of digging into some of this data from our side of things. So we have a a benchmarks report

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that we do every year and this year's comes out tomorrow. I snuck all the research into this presentation so

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you're getting a little preview. One day early but we pull it by industry and things like that too. So the these are the benchmarks of the like 200 like

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million emails that we have sent out of workshop. This is what we're seeing on average for education. The open rate

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is a little bit lower than what we see as our standard like our average across like all industries is about 73%.

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But the breakdown of this that's really cool or what I what I found really like compelling for education specifically is that the read rate is insanely high. I

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think it was the highest of any industry that we looked at of tech, of finance, of healthcare, of all of that. So when

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you can get the attention of your staff, like educators have more engagement on those communications and

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are like more into like what the actual content of those comms are than like anywhere else. So people really aren't

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ignoring you. Like the attention is there when you can get it. So you just want to make sure that it's like worth their time and that like you've got kind of consistency and structure there.

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And we'll dive into that a little bit too. And then of course, like I know you can't be everywhere and you can't do everything. This is again like something

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I feel like we're all sort of universally experiencing, but your communication can kind of help sort of

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get you to where you need to go and can be there like even when you can't., so I think setting up the right touch points there, like you'll see like a huge shift kind of in your entire staff.

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So again, like just kind of closing the gap on like that manager and leadership communication side of things. I don't think you need to hire like a full-time

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comm's person. I don't think you need to like dive into like massive platform necessarily. I don't think you need to

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have more hours in the day. I don't think there's like a ton of quick fixes here that we can kind of implement.

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So you I know you don't have like three extra hours in your week to dedicate to internal communication. So, this is just five small ideas. Every one of them is a little win to borrow alpaca's phrase.

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So, hopefully you find something good in here, but we'll go through the five now.

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So, number one is just kind of giving your comms a home. To be honest like when we talk to a lot of like education

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Education leaders when we talk to some of the higher ed universities that we're working with one of the things that we hear a lot is just that the

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number one frustration isn't like I don't get enough information. A lot of times it feels like it's the opposite.

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It's like the info is absolutely everywhere. It's in emails. It's in texts. It's in staff meetings. It's in portals. It's in flyers in the lounge.

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It's like all of those things. and they can't sort of tell what's current or what actually matters or what the hierarchy of those things are. So then

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they miss things and then they feel kind of frustrated. So and even if you're on the flip side where you're like I don't really like I don't think we're getting

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enough communication at all. I don't even know what the one touch point is. I think that's the point of this specifically is just like one consistent

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email can do it or one consistent channel can do it one consistent time and just make that like the absolute

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source of truth so that people know what to expect. I think a lot of what happens with communication is like it is just

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reactive. It is just like way in the moment for anything that doesn't need to be that. I think you create this like one central home or like one consistent

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piece which is usually like an email or a post or something like that where they can go every single time. One of the

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other things that we pulled for education or education specifically is the best time to send an email which we

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found was of all of like our customers in education was Monday at 7 a.m. So just like really kicking off the

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week, right?, so there's like a natural rhythm there that you could really align with. This is again from our benchmarks report., so the idea

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there just being like lean into that, make that Monday email, send it out at 7 a.m. consistently every single time and

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make that like one thing like that they need to know this week or five things they need to know this week, but make it that consistent touch point so people

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know like, okay, Monday at 7 a.m. that is the thing I need to look for. Monday at 7 am is where the most important stuff of the week is. It's like that is

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my single source of truth. I'm not doing like a weekly scavenger hunt all the time. And that's kind of how you build that like trust and rhythm and communication.

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Secondly would be communicate with intent. This is like very core to us. This is a company value for us actually.

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But moving from like that I'm just going to send it to like that quick gut check. So, I think a lot of times you kind of know like what you need to get

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out there., but it is very very easy to just like press send. It's very easy to just send the all staff message over

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and over and over again kind of all day long. But I think one of the things that switches it from like feeling like

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reactive to proactive and starts to make it feel more intentional is really looking back at like those comms and being like, okay, well, what was the

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goal of this? Who actually needs to see this? and what do I want them to act to do and what do I want them to even like

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feel necessarily sometimes you like need them to do something but it's buried and it you don't really like get that sense

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of like oh okay I' the only thing I need them to do is fill out this survey that's like the only link I want to give

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here I don't want to like do a whole kind of outline or sort of distract from that with a bunch of other little

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messages so I think that's what turns things from feeling like oh I'm overwelm med with like a lot of noise to like okay this is like a this is like a

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concrete message. This is something really important to me.

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So another quick like tip like for that one would just be that like this here's like the one thing we need to know at

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the top. If everything in the email or everything in that piece of communications is very bold and like is like bolded or like it's this is urgent

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then like kind of nothing is., so make sure like it's very clear when you're doing sort of like newsletters or like big like long pieces of

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communication. Even just like taking that beat to do like a hierarchy check and be like what's the most important thing is this email is that is it at the

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top? Is it very clear? Because a lot of times especially for us like with newsletters and things you see very clearly that drop off in terms of like

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people aren't scrolling all the way to the bottom. They aren't getting all the way there.

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And then lastly, yeah, this was like a this is a communicate with intent is a company value of ours. So we have it like written down as like one of our top

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fives. So a lot of times we are spending that extra time to think about like it's not just what we want to say, but like how are we going to say it? You don't

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have to make this like a formal value by by any means, but just like saying it out loud and just doing that sort of like gut check helps you kind of prioritize the right things.

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Next up would be just like don't sound like a robot., definitely in like the current sort of ecosystem, I

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think it's very easy to like generate comms and like generate like a lot of text and generate memos and all of those

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things. But I think ultimately what all of us want and what like even like the marketing and like internal

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communications trends are moving towards is just ditching that corporate speak.

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So a lot of times like the per my last email and like please be advised like that kind of language a lot of times it

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can just build like distance instead of culture. So, I think like we're seeing this with, you know, leaders or like

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CEOs on LinkedIn, like all over the board, like people want to like interact with people these days. So, even like

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bringing in your own like warmth and personality into your comms is something that's really going to help that resonate more. And finding like

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your authentic kind of leadership voice, that's what's going to make that message really memorable. like that's what makes you more of like the leader side as opposed to just like the administrator.

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And then for 2026, I feel like we're all getting to the point now where you can kind of tell when it's AI, even when you're like, I don't know, like can you

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tell? But I think we can all kind of tell. So use those tools. Like I use it all the time as well, but I tend to

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do a lot of like I'll just talk to, you know, chat GBT or Claude and then I'll be like can you this is my message like this is what I want to get across. This

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is like you know my real voice but can you like synthesize what I just said and like sort of make it into like a

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coherent statement. So there's still a lot of great ways to like use AI as opposed to just like cold I always say it's like cold generating it from like a

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chat GPT or those kinds of things. You just want to make sure whatever comes out the other side still sounds very much like you.

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And I think just asking yourself like what is that authentic calm style either for you or as a leader or for like the

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other leaders within your team. It doesn't always have to be like super polished or clever or anything like

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that. For example, our CEO sends out a email every Friday. It's called the Friday Focus. Like this one, he just

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talked about it opened with like him talking about coaches and how like he used to sit down and go through his like postgame film with his high school

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football team and he turned it into like a lesson about feedback and a bunch of people came up to him afterwards and like talk to him about his football days and like all of those kinds of things.

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So, it's not like very corporate, but it's still like he really wanted to get a message out to the whole company culturally on like being open to feedback and this was the way he did it.

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And people genuinely like look forward to this., which is kind of the whole point, right?

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So, I think like as far as like another quick tip that you can take away, take one of those messages that you send all the time, rewrite it in a way that you

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would like actually say it out loud and then read it back. And if you wouldn't say it kind of in front like to someone standing in front of you, just don't

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like I wouldn't send it. I would keep like working on that until it's something that really feels like yeah, I sent it from you or like it actually

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came from you. I think a lot of times, especially in these environments or when you're in like you're not in like a massive corporation, right? like you

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might have a lot of people, but I think the cool thing about internal comms is that like you know everyone you it's not like marketing where you're like

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"Oh, I'm sending this out for to a bunch of leads." It's like these are the people that are next to you every single day. And so it's like a a huge

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opportunity to really connect with people whenever you're doing any kind of communications. And so I think it's really easy to overlook that when you

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can just like add the all staff distribution list., but I think like this is a really great opportunity to keep building connection.

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And on that topic, like my fourth one here is definitely just saving room for stories. I think this is something that we all crave in our in our internal

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communications or in our companies., we really want to feel like connected to purpose and like what better pl like honestly like what better place to feel

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connected with purpose., so I love just reminding people of the why. Like it's easy to just like stick into like

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the logistic side of things, but really leaning into like those moments those stories that like really reconnect

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people with like why they got into this in the first place. Celebrating that again like it's a smaller group, right?

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Like you know everybody you're hearing probably these stories every day. I love this idea of like a recurring like

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segment or a space. We have we have a slack channel like maybe this is in teams or whatever anything like that.

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maybe some kind of like whatever your sort of like group chat area is or maybe you just get these forwarded to you from

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teachers on a regular basis. But I love the idea of like a space where people can share like cute notes from like teachers or students or like things that

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were just like really rewarding in their dayto-day., and I think that's again like just another great great place for people to kind of build that connection.

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And this is truly where like that comms and that culture sort of like come together., but I love the idea of like creating that kind of space.

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where people can even if it's not like by name or whatever, just like hey, like I had one of like those moments today

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that like really, you know, made me feel good and like was very very rewarding.

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And I think everyone else can kind of see that too. We have that like it's called a customer love channel but anytime we get like a nice message from

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someone or a nice review that is like oh like this is like transformed my business or like I can't imagine like

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this is the hill I would die on like you would can take this out of my salary like those kinds of things like we share those and it just kind of reminds you

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why you're in all of this in the first place.

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So yeah, just to kind of highlight that again, but save save a spot for that.

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Make sure there is room for that and it's not just based on like logistics and practicality and all of that. One other like really cool note is that we

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often see with emails especially, but like don't like you don't have to do a lot of like generic like stock imagery

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and things like that. Again, especially because this is like your own sort of team, bringing in images, even if they're like not professionally done, it will outbeat like a stock photo anytime.

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So, if you can get like, excuse me, candid photos or like people to send in photos or anything like that

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that you could incorporate in your comms, like again, it's like the people want to see like their co-workers, the people they actually work with day to

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day in day out. So, we actually do see like a performance lift from people who are using like photos of their actual

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like teams and co-workers as opposed to like just a stock image.

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All right. And then last point here is just making it a two-way street., and this is really all about feedback.

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So, I think right now like a lot of comms tend to flow in one direction from you to kind of everybody else. I think

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most places never get out of that. It just becomes like top-down communication. And what we always are

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working with companies on is moving from just top down to things that feel more collaborative, things that feel more even like employeeled., so

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trying to get past that just like first rung of just like, oh, it's top down communications and it's all announcements all the time, but that

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moment where like teachers and staff can actually like talk back and start really like seeing themselves even like visually like I said with photos, but

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seeing themselves in the communications and seeing their colleagues and the stuff that you're sending out. Communication then it becomes something

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where it's not it's not just being done like at them and it becomes something that really feels like it's a part of the culture., and a lot of times

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especially like you might not get those people that are like, "Yeah, I'm willing to like stand up in a in a staff meeting and give you feedback, but I might reply

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to an email." And it's just kind of like different communication styles, right?

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So, always trying to find a little opportunity to get feedback there and ask people for their thoughts. I mean, a

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lot of times, like our CEO email, as an example, he will end the email with a question. And yes, we don't get like,

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you know, 150 replies, but he'll get like seven very, very thoughtful ones.

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And those are things that like, you know, they probably wouldn't they wouldn't be doing that in a meeting.

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They wouldn't be doing that in like a one-on-one with the CEO, but they're still like getting that steady stream of feedback, which I think is really really powerful.

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So, closing that out, take that, steal that one., and just like ask like one very real question at the end of your

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comms to try and get just like open the door for feedback a little bit. Again, you'd probably be surprised at like what

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the actual results are there. And even if it's just a few comments, it's it's things that you didn't have before, right?

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So I think like ultimately this is kind of like the hierarchy of what we talked about here a little bit, but this is what we're constantly working with

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companies on doing is like sort of building that true culture of communication. So moving from that top

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down comms into like collaborative comms and finding ways to sort of balance things out again. And then like the dream is kind of being like that culture

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that really values comms. Things feel more employeeled. We talk about a lot about like how you can you know yes you

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should have like your sort of like principal email or like your senior leader email or whatever the case may be but then also you can have a lot of fun

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by creating like different beats and campaigns from other people within the organization who just like have fun

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voices that you want to elevate. They might have specific stories. They might be really passionate about like this area and you can kind of give them

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a platform internally to do that. And that's where like the real kind of engagement comes in. Again, it doesn't

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feel like it's all on you. I know like me as a as a manager like one of the things I always talk about is like

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icebreaker. I outsource ice breakers because if I implement like an icebreaker for something I'm the boss and like it's like no one it feels forced. It feels like forced fun, right?

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So, I will like outsource it to someone on the team who is like, you know, really into that. Like right now, it's like someone who's a theater major and like loves doing like group exercises.

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And I think you can have a lot of fun with that kind of thing. And and that's kind of like the spirit behind this like employeeled comms is it just gets easier

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when you have a bunch of people involved that are passionate about it and helping you co-create that stuff as opposed to just the top down version.

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And then like why that matters just like the translation of that is like it this is why like we kind of have that

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hierarchy or like that employeeled comms as like the sort of top of the ladder here because at the beginning with like

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topdown comms you're looking at like things like yes your team is more informed right like they know what's going on. When you move into like the

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collaborative comms you're looking at teams that feel much more aligned.

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they might start to understand like the why and not just the what. And then on the engaged teams or employeeled comms, the relationship there is like they're

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talking back, they're contributing, they feel like they're genuinely a part of it., and that's where we like the our mission statement is creating more happy Mondays for employees everywhere.

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And so like that's the ultimate dream and that's where we believe like our our happy Mondays all live., I also love that on my education side, it's like the

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best time to send an email is Monday at 7 am. I'm like, see, look at that. That just really came together nicely. But ultimately, like I think that's like

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the culture I know that we're all we're all trying to build here. That's why you're here today. And I do think communication is like one of the most

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like kind of direct levers that you have to get there. I like to talk about internal communication as like the

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practical way to engage employees more frequently or like every single day., and you can kind of get that feedback

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every day as opposed to like those, you know, waiting like long distances of time or whatever. And I know alpaca's poll surveys and things are all we're

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all sort of very aligned on all of these things for sure.

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So just to sum this up, those five small ways., so creating a home for your comms, communicating with

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intent, sounding more like a human, especially these days, making it two-way with, more feedback., and then

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sharing those stories as well., hopefully, again, like none of these cost you money or more staff.

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they're just kind of little change in habits., so that's how you can kind of get those little wins. And then just to kind of like close it out here

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ultimately I think we all we all know like you are a major part of the culture. You don't have to like go become something different. That's like

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something you already are today. And communication is just again like one very very practical way to shape culture

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and make sure those teachers and your staff feel that every single week. So, we just want to make sure again like it's more intentional and we're kind of

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starting to make that shift from re reactive comms into proactive comms., so yeah, that's kind of all I have for

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today. I know there's like a nice little workbook session to dig into that., and I'm happy to chat more anytime.

26:55

Amazing. Thank you so much, Jamie., this was great. We actually have a couple of minutes to spare if you'd be open to a question or two.

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Always.

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Perfect., anybody want to come off mute and ask a question or put one in

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the chat and we can get it answered for you.

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Not not feeling particularly question asky today, so that's okay. I know it's been a lot, but this was phenomenal content. So, thank you so much, Jamie.

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We're going to take all of you guys and put you Oh, here's a question., wondering how you help streamline

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communication when there are multiple communication channels.

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Oh, that's a great one. So, we talk a lot about like a communication sort of matrix., so I think like being really

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intentional about what purpose each of those channels play. So again, like it comes back to let's take like urgent comms. What is the channel for urgent

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comms? If something like urgently is happening, it's probably not going to be email, right?, but you want to kind of identify that a little bit and be

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able to say like to your entire staff like this is what this channel's like purpose is for as opposed to like I think it's very easy to get in that land

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especially like as an employee of like do I really have to check 17 things this morning like to see everything? But if

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you can be more of that sort of that play that like internal communications director role a bit and say like okay

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this is what like again like on email you're going to see like the five things you need to know this week every Monday

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at 7 a.m. That's what that's for. So I think like that's very very important is to kind of take a step back and be like what are these channels used for

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and kind of try and help shape that a little bit more.

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I have a question also and it's kind of along the lines of the multiple communication channels, but so my district is very interested in making

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sure that we communicate with families in the community. However, we may have gone too far in that all of our

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administrators are posting to the same socials and there is no differentiation between

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like this is going just to middle school or this is going just to high school or this is more of a all community message.

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And what I found as a parent myself is I stopped I stopped them because they're coming to

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my cell phone as a text. They're coming to my email like it's duplicative and then it's also going to all the social

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media platforms. So I've tried to bring this up to my other colleagues but they're like well people will just ignore what does not apply to them.

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Whereas I'm like no they're ignoring everything. What advice might you give me to give to my colleagues about

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about maybe it's the communicating with intent? Just I I'd love to hear your advice because I don't have the right words.

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Yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean it's very true like if it's not especi if it's not relevant to them, you will just tune it

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out. And so it the I think the standards for communication have raised because of

30:26

that because you don't like you don't want to look at especially like even social media it's like your feeds are like curated for you at this point. So

30:35

if it's not relevant to you not only do you not engage with it but like the algorithm were will completely deemphasize it too. So it will never

30:43

resurface again because it it wasn't something that you were interested in.

30:48

So, I think it's like a Yeah, it's a definitely a unique challenge in terms of like trying to figure out like say

30:54

how to use a social profile for like a whole district as opposed to like oh this is for like this school and like

31:03

it's going to be like it would be better for us to just like segment those comms like entirely or like create properties

31:11

and channels like specifically for the parents of kids who are at that those schools and who are bought into that

31:18

school. Because it's probably I mean, yeah, it's it's probably I would imagine like there are probably some

31:27

things that apply districtwide, but you would probably just want to see those pop up on the school stuff even as

31:33

opposed to like here's everything in one umbrella view.

31:43

Nice. Jamie, thank you so much for taking a couple minutes to answer some questions for all of us.

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