At Uber, a company with teams that have members in multiple offices, remote workers and business units that span the globe, there’s a deliberate process to building a memo that hits the right notes.
“When you’re communicating with thousands of employees around the world, the biggest priority is making sure you’re not overwhelming them,” Kristin Komar, senior manager of global communications at Uber, told Ragan. “We’re constantly coordinating messaging across the company so employees aren’t getting hit with too many updates at the same time.”
Here are several practical steps communicators can use to build more effective internal memos for dispersed organizations:
Step 1: Check the internal editorial calendar before writing the memo
In large organizations where teams span regions and time zones, there might be multiple updates going to employees at the same time, covering different topics based on region. If the internal comms team doesn’t coordinate its cadence, messages can get buried or overlooked.
Komar said that her first step in building these sorts of memos is understanding the full slate of internal communications that employees will see in a given time frame and choosing a cadence based on that knowledge.
“Whenever we’re sending something globally, I work really closely with colleagues who focus on internal comms,” she said. “We make sure we’re aligned on timing and approvals before anything goes out to employees.”
For example, Komar told Ragan that if Uber’s workplace team plans to send an internal memo about a new office program or workplace initiative, the timing may be adjusted depending on what other priorities are being communicated that week. In addition, she said that clearance for all internal memos needs to be factored into the timing of the process.
“For global communications, there’s usually a series of approvals and checkpoints we go through,” she said. “That helps make sure the message is aligned with what other teams might be communicating across the company.”
Step 2: Construct the memo so it can travel through multiple channels
Once timing is aligned, the next step is making sure the memo can actually reach employees wherever they work.
In a global company like Uber, employees might encounter a memo on different channels. Some employees might see the memo first in the company’s global Slack channel, while others encounter it through a company-wide email or during a leadership update at a global all-hands meeting.
“We use a few different methods to ensure that our memos get to our global employees,” she said. “First, we have our global Slack channel that all employees are in, regardless of whether they’re in an office or remote. We use that for a lot of our memos. We also have email aliases that hit the whole company, so we’ll use those if it’s something specific that needs to be sent out to everyone.”
Step 3: Plan for the full life cycle
Some workplace initiatives, like office moves or expansions, can take months or even years to come to fruition. Employees need consistent updates to understand what’s happening and how it affects them.
Komar recommended treating global internal memos like content campaigns rather than disparate one-off announcements. She builds out a three-step comms timeline:
- The initial internal memo
- Follow-up updates on a regular cadence
- Messages tied to milestones along the way; can be irregularly timed
For example, Komar employed this tactic during Uber’s Amsterdam office overhaul, which involved adding a new floor and redesigning workspaces. She said employees were notified as soon as the new lease was signed, although the changes were on a much longer timeline.
“As soon as we know a project is happening, that’s my trigger to start communicating with employees,” Komar said. “We’ll announce it early so people know what’s coming. Then we typically provide full updates every month or two, depending on the project. The goal is to bring employees along the full life cycle so they feel part of it.”
Once the communication cadence is mapped out, the final piece is building a system that makes the memo process replicable.
Step 4: Ensure you have a repeatable workflow
Creating a standardized process for memos that reach global or dispersed teams helps communicators move faster and stay consistent. Komar said that templatizing her memo process ensures messages are clear and cuts down on drafting time.
“I try to templatize every single project so I’m not starting from scratch every time,” Komar said. “I can have rough drafts ready to go and just plug and play the information.”
Komar also works closely with subject matter experts and automation to ensure her memos have the right amount of detail for audiences.
“I connect with whoever my subject matter experts are on a given topic and gather key dates, photos and details that need to go into the memo,” she told Ragan. “Then I’ll use AI to help generate a draft to start from there, and after that, it goes through a review process depending on the scope of the project.”
For Komar, the biggest lesson is that effective internal memos are the result of careful coordination, planning and collaboration across teams.
“We’re always thinking about the timing, the channels and what employees are already seeing,” Komar said. “If you’re intentional about those things, it makes it much easier for the message to actually land.”
Sean Devlin is editor at Ragan Communications.
