📣 Internal Communications Introductions: Meet Hannah O'Brien

Head Of Internal Communications at Culture Amp

About Hannah

Hannah has worked across Internal Communications, Employee Experience, Social Impact/Corporate Responsibility, Public Relations (PR) and Program Management. Having spent the last 6 years in London working for companies like eBay and fin-tech, Paymentsense, she has recently moved back to where she grew up in Australia, joining Culture Amp as their Head of Internal Communications. 

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How did you get your start in internal communications?

I grew up in Australia and studied Communications at University, focused on Public Relations and Marketing. Internal Comms was not really a topic that professors talked about in lectures. I knew about it, but it felt like the forgotten cousin in communications.  

Fast forward, a few years later I was working in Healthcare PR and on a media circuit with some of the leadership team. I realized there was such a gap in understanding between employees and the work that was happening. No one was thinking about communicating to them. So, I just started making internal communications plans, introducing a newsletter and organizing Town Halls. I did a lot of research to find people who were doing internal comms well and learned from them. 

In PR, you don’t typically get to talk to the people who are seeing your work. But, in internal communications, I am able to understand how employees are feeling and take action based on it. I fell in love with the field. The opportunity to build relationships by talking to people at all different levels, backgrounds and areas of the business is inspiring. Also, I enjoy being that person who brings it all together and connects the dots for people. From there, I wanted a role that focused fully on this.   

Next, I went to eBay for a couple of years where I did a mix of Employee Comms and social impact work. I worked with amazing people who taught me so much about Internal Comms at a big organization. But, what I really missed was being in a rapidly growing environment with a lot of change communications. I wanted to return to the startup/scale up world. 

At the time, I was living in London and joined a FinTech firm called Paymentsense (now Dojo). It was a new internal communications role during a huge period of growth. There were so many priorities, from a new product to a new brand to new values and a new intranet! Two weeks into my new role, the pandemic hit. I led the communications pivot from an office culture to a remote culture. This experience really cemented to me how much I love internal communications. It is such a critical role. I like talking to the people who it impacts and making their day better. Now, I’ve just moved back to Australia and found my place at CultureAmp, a start-up/scale up culture with exciting change ahead, but no Internal Comms team so I have started building out that function.  

How do you define internal communications?

I help an organization communicate, improve alignment and keep employees engaged. 

There’s so much this role spans -- you become a video editor, a problem solver, a therapist and a translator of very complicated messages to really simple messages. Ultimately, I help employees communicate with each other. 

Often, you don’t get much budget in internal communications so you are hustling, learning how to use Canva, teaching yourself how to edit and stretching your creativity. 

What is a project you are proud of having led?

At Paymentsense, our communications engagement score was 54% when I started. Only half of the employees thought we communicated in a useful and engaging way. Then, we went into lockdown and became a remote workforce. 

I worked in close partnership with the People and Culture team to develop an internal comms infrastructure that had been missing for years. I helped be that driver of culture and connection during a time where people felt disconnected. With the People and Culture team we had an effective combination of a more streamlined and structured approach to communication coupled with fun and engaging initiatives. I worked closely with our two Founders to keep employees informed and aligned and all heading in the same direction - towards our North Star.

Our regular pulse surveys allowed us to tap into the experiences of our employees and act quickly when something wasn’t working. We listened when people told us they couldn’t do another Zoom webinar and tried channels like podcasts and articles to give people the opportunity to consume information in their own time. We were measuring our progress with pulse surveys every 2 weeks within 9 months, we saw a jump to 86% of people feeling engaged with comms. The experience taught me that there is no one-size-fits-all solution and no silver bullet, so improving the overall issues we had around noise was based on: 

• Real change coming from the compound effect of many different initiatives 

• Modifying the strategy with different stakeholders (segmentation) 

• Utilizing channels in a clever way that aimed, wherever possible, not to add to the noise

• Constantly reflecting and iterating by taking an agile approach

• Always listening

I saw the power of comms in helping the culture and company navigate through a difficult time and come out better in the end. Suddenly, there were a lot of people who said we need to get internal comms right and validated it as really important work -- that recognition really mattered and made it very rewarding. 

What are the skills that are needed in internal communications?

I like to work in the start-up/scale up space so being comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty every day is an important skill. You won’t always know what’s coming. It’s important to be proactive and plan, but be adaptable and flexible when stuff happens. So, when someone comes to you with a project launching today and asks for help, you can support them! 

Empathy. It’s important to be able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes to understand how they might feel. I try to be the advocate for the employee in the room when working with people like exec teams, marketing or product. i.e. If I sit in sales or customer service, what does this change mean for me? That’s why it’s so important to build real relationships across the business. The technical skills matter, but those human connection skills are so important. 

Problem solving and being able to hustle and come up with a solution to challenges outside of internal comms. Being comfortable when you are put on the spot and coming up with creative ideas to help solve a problem. You won’t always have the answers to everything but it’s all about your attitude when someone throws you a fire and you haven’t got any water to put it out. 

How do you continue learning about internal communications?

Rachel Miller of All Things IC. She was my savior when I started in IC! I used all her templates and blog articles when I first started in this field. I also listen to her podcast! Rachel is so incredible at simplifying concepts and approaches in a really digestible way.

Jenni Field. She shares great content, especially on Linkedin, and also has a podcast. She just published a book,  Influential Internal Communication which I took a lot away from. 

When I started out, I signed up to many company’s blogs to get their newsletters, articles, research and advice. I even signed up for Culture Amp’s emails before I started here. I enjoy chatting with people in the industry to find out what intranet they are using, how their All Hands is going, how they manage Slack etc. 

Last year, I did a project where I looked at Google, Spotify, Netflix and AirBnB to see what they did during their periods of growth. There are so many podcasts, blogs, articles and books and while they might not always be specifically about internal comms you will find some real nuggets in understanding how companies grow quickly and keep their employees aligned.