Last September, we attended the ‘Internal Communications Conference’ in London. The event saw 400 plus delegates, 10 topic streams and roughly 30 presentations, one of which by Oli Howard.

Having worked in internal communications for over 15 years, holding positions in companies such as the Civil Aviation Authority, Scope and Royal Mail, Oli is a true industry veteran.

He’s currently Interim Head of Strategy Development at the CIPD, the professional body for human resources and people development and also a board member of the Institute of Internal Communications, which puts him in a very interesting position to talk about the complex relationship between internal communications and HR.

I was so impressed by his talk that immediately after the session, I approached Oli and tried my luck to see whether he would be willing to come on The Comms Shift podcast to go even further into the topic. Lucky for us, he said yes.

In this episode, Oli expands on:

• What it is about IC and HR that makes it so difficult for the functions to get along.
• The impact of the industrial revolution on the birth of large organizations and employment at scale.
• How EX redefines the relationship between IC and HR.
• Approaches IC and HR can use to work better together.
• Finding the middle ground between immediate pressures (all the tactical things IC is constantly asked to do) and long-term uncertainty (IC waiting for the heads up on strategic initiatives).
• His one piece of advice for IC folks looking to advance their careers.

I want to thank Oli again for coming on the show and sharing his knowledge with us.

Without further ado, here’s episode #5 of The Comms Shift Podcast with Oli Howard.