Internal Communications Change during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The outbreak of COVID-19 affected every sphere of social and economic life. Particularly, it caused an extreme jolt in the functioning of the different organizations. Due to the rapid spread of infection, most organizations have not been prepared for this challenge and therefore were unable to adapt to new conditions and new circumstances. In times of crisis – and COVID-19 was definitely a crisis (Carnegie Melon University, 2020) organizations need something to rely on and the most evident thing to rely on are internal communications. Despite the fact that internal communications are present in every company, their format varies drastically, and in some cases, the practice can contribute to deterioration of overall efficiency of the organization during the crisis (Cialdini, 1993). Internal communications can be compared with internal public relations in a sense that they provide a mutually beneficial, balanced and coherent relationships between the company and its audience, only in that case the audience is the workers of the organizations which comprise the lifeblood of the functioning of the company, while in terms of external audience and public relations it can be noticed that the recipients of the communication can be replaced with use of marketing activities.