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What I think
The return to work
This April, I am returning to work for the second time in my career. The ...
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31st March 2021
Getting the balance right
We are living in interesting times. Like everyone else, I feel as though I’m living ...
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19th March 2020
Top writing tips for internal communications
Last week I ran a writing workshop on behalf of the Institute of Internal Communication ...
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25th February 2020
Why you should volunteer for a professional body
Last night at the CIPR Inside AGM it was announced that I will be stepping ...
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12th November 2019
The reality gap
In Birmingham earlier this month, CIPR Inside started to change the conversation in internal communication ...
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22nd October 2019
The Power of Language
"Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both ...
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7th October 2019
How to embed your values
Companies all around the world have values. Many of them will include words like ‘Trust’, ...
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6th August 2019
Why employee voice matters
If you watched the recent TV show Chernobyl, you will have undoubtedly been fascinated by ...
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19th July 2019
How to help your leaders tell compelling stories
How many internal communicators have a leader who’s a seemingly effortless storyteller drawing comparisons to someone ...
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18th June 2019
Great expectations
Internal comms is all about relationships. Sadly, they can quickly sour when work doesn’t meet ...
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28th May 2019
Why writing will still matter in 2039
“If you want to be a writer, you’re living in the past.” This was one ...
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16th May 2019
Creating a brand identity
It’s been three years since I set up Helen Deverell Communications. It feels like a ...
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22nd April 2019
Transforming line managers into ethical communicators
It’s a dreary Tuesday morning in February when an email pings into every employees’ inbox ...
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3rd April 2019
Making the uninteresting interesting
Trying to engage people with a notoriously dry but incredibly important topic? Look no further… ...
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11th March 2019
How to be an ethical internal communicator
Have you ever run an engagement survey only to be told by leaders to not ...
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10th March 2019
How to run an internal communication survey
Surveys are a great way to gain feedback from your employees, especially when they form ...
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29th November 2018
How to audit your internal communications for future success
I’m frequently asked to run internal communication audits for clients and it’s one of my ...
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26th November 2018
Highlights from PR Week’s Strategic Internal Communication conference
On 6 and 7 November, internal communicators gathered for the annual PR Week Strategic Internal ...
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9th November 2018
Discussing the language of cancer on ITV’s Lorraine
This month I was asked to appear in a segment on the ITV morning show ...
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8th November 2018
Becoming an IoIC Fellow
I was thrilled to recently find out that I’m now a Fellow of the Institute ...
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14th October 2018
Email is not the enemy
Once upon a time email was the answer to all our problems. But in recent ...
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10th October 2018
7 top tips for credible communication
Often the perception of internal communication is far from where we want it to be ...
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14th August 2018
The privilege of running a focus group
Why focus groups are a great reminder of the privileged role we play inside organisations ...
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30th July 2018
Top tips for solo internal communicators
It can feel pretty lonely when you’re an IC team of one, being pulled in ...
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12th July 2018
What’s involved in becoming #CIPRQualified?
On Thursday I was thrilled to find out I had passed my CIPR Specialist Diploma ...
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24th June 2018
Why internal communicators need a strategy…
On 12 June I took part in a panel discussion at AB Thinks Live, a ...
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17th June 2018
Top takeaways from The Big Yak
“There’s a 1000 years of experience in this room.” Benjamin Ellis set the tone for ...
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12th June 2018
Follow the leader
It takes one person to have an idea, a second person to validate it and ...
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5th June 2018
Eight top tips to network with confidence
Conferences and networking events are an opportunity to learn, share ideas and network. But for some ...
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2nd June 2018
IoIC Live 18: Transforming reputation from the inside out
It’s a few days on from IoIC Live 18 and my brain is still buzzing ...
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13th May 2018
Measuring beyond the IC function
Measurement that demonstrates the value we add as internal communicators is essential if we're to ...
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11th May 2018
7 simple ways to make your internal communications more inclusive
As more and more organisations try to attract diverse talent, is it time we took ...
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9th May 2018
Be less Rick, Be more Madonna
Like 80s pop star Rick Astley, internal comms campaigns can often be one hit wonders ...
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17th April 2018
Storytelling 101 webinar
I recently had the exciting opportunity to take part in a Chuck Chats webinar, hosted ...
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9th April 2018
Finding the simplicity in complexity
What IC pros can learn from comedian extraordinaire, John Oliver, about making the complex simple ...
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29th March 2018
What a chicken crisis can teach us about language
Chickens and communication don’t usually have a lot in common. But in recent weeks the ...
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2nd March 2018
Storytelling with Chuck Chats
This week I had the honour of chatting to the excellent Chuck Gose as part ...
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30th January 2018
Finding stories in the ordinary
A story about how internal communication brought me a little closer to a grandad I ...
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15th January 2018
Leap in to agency life
Considering making the leap from in-house to agency? Unsure about what to expect? In this ...
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7th January 2018
Are you ready for GDPR?
GDPR is coming and internal communicators need to be prepared. Coming into effect on 25 ...
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3rd January 2018
Keep calm, it’s only Christmas!
The ability for people to differentiate between urgent and important is difficult at the best ...
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13th December 2017
Everybody’s talking about reputation. Are you?
From Taylor Swift to Uber, gender pay gap to GDPR, reputation keeps hitting the headlines ...
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6th December 2017
Six highlights from #SmileLondon
On Monday I attended #SmileLondon hosted by Simply Communicate. As always it was an event ...
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21st November 2017
Inspiring ideas to boost your professional development
We all know professional development is important, but when you barely have time to make ...
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8th November 2017
What do CEOs really think about internal communication?
This is what the CIPR Inside committee wanted to find out through their first ever ...
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2nd November 2017
Ready, set, change!
Soggy bottoms, erect biscuit structures and a rather inappropriately shaped snail. It can only mean ...
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1st October 2017
Get a 1/3 off Smile London
This November communicators will be gathering to learn about and discuss the Future Digital Workplace ...
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26th September 2017
Who’s afraid of the big, bad boss?
The perks of being an internal communicator are well-documented, but even the best jobs have ...
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7th September 2017
Making it count: CIPR Inside research
At the Making it Count conference in November, the CIPR Inside committee will be revealing ...
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4th September 2017
Black Box Thinking – book review
In this week’s #ICBookClub, we discussed Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed, a book about ...
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20th August 2017
Why so serious?
Have you heard the one about the security guy, the IT pro and the safety ...
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4th August 2017
Getting down to business
As more and more business leaders are sitting up and taking notice of internal comms, ...
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5th July 2017
Being busy is a choice – book review
Last night I took part in CIPR Inside’s #ICBookClub on Twitter, expertly run by Annique ...
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5th July 2017
Measuring the value we add
Having spent last weekend judging a few categories in the IoIC awards, the topic of ...
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21st June 2017
Lost in translation
At some point in our career, we’ve all received a brief that’s vague at best ...
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14th June 2017
Reaching the unreachable
Being married to an engineer has its advantages and disadvantages. There are times when walking ...
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26th May 2017
Our key takeaways from Smile Expo 17
Chat bots, social amplification, and ESNs were just some of the key themes to come ...
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26th May 2017
How to avoid magpie syndrome
Magpie syndrome: an irrational affinity for shiny objects. Or in the case of IC pros, ...
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21st April 2017
Freelance life – one year on
It’s been a whole year since I set up Helen Deverell Communications and I’ve spent ...
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20th April 2017
What IC pros don’t do
Communicators are well-versed in answering the age-old question, “what is it you actually do?”. But ...
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15th March 2017
Lessons I learnt from my Writing Masterclass
Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of delivering my first Writing Masterclass in London to ...
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26th February 2017
A lesson in PR from Melissa McCarthy
Fictional political press secretaries have long been immortalised on our TV screens. We’ve aspired to ...
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13th February 2017
Dusting off the DeLorean – how IC pros can become time travellers
Ever wished you could time travel? Chances are if you work in internal communications, you ...
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1st February 2017
The power of storytelling
I love stories. As a little girl I would lose myself in books. One minute ...
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29th January 2017
A lesson in marketing – what IC pros can learn from their glamorous communication cousins
There’s a great quote that goes “Don’t envy what people have, emulate what they did ...
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14th January 2017
Does your brand colour tell a story?
‘Greenery’ has been officially announced as the Pantone Color of the Year 2017. I have ...
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7th January 2017
Employer Brand Management Conference 2016
I’m thrilled to be a media partner of Transform Magazine’s Employer Brand Management conference. It’s ...
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28th November 2016
Coaching 101: a guide for communicators
Being a communicator can be pretty awesome. We get to wear many hats whether it’s ...
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10th November 2016
Turning lemons into lemonade – how I experienced the power of storytelling first hand
Humans have been storytelling for thousands of years, however it was often confined to the ...
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28th October 2016
Communicating communication – are we our own worst enemies?
Have you ever had your hair cut beautifully by someone who has theirs scraped back ...
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23rd October 2016
The communication conundrum
An internal communicator, HR manager, and an L&D manager all walk into a CEO’s office ...
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22nd October 2016
How important are awards?
I was thrilled to be asked to judge one of the categories in the IoIC awards ...
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23rd September 2016
Wake up to employee branding
Internal communicators have been rolling their eyes for a while now, as our organisations slowly ...
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26th August 2016
Closing the gap
As a member of the CIPR Inside committee, I’ve been involved in planning the next ...
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11th August 2016
Creative failure
Imagine if Mozart had been so afraid of people’s reactions to his music, that he ...
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4th August 2016
Delivering a top notch community service
Community is making a comeback. While we still may not know our neighbours, many of ...
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22nd July 2016
Going for gold – what internal communicators can learn from Olympians
While you could argue the likes of Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah aren’t ...
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16th July 2016
How to write riveting copy
Ahead of my writing masterclass in November and my guest spot on #commschat this Monday ...
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14th July 2016
Writing in a world of wonky comms
In a world of wonky comms, do internal communicators still need writing skills? Absolutely. I ...
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19th June 2016
Shhh…I’m having an idea – introverts and creativity
"We need a creative idea and we need it now.” The phrase guaranteed to send ...
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7th June 2016
A lesson in future proofing
How often do we as internal communicators take the time to look ahead and consider ...
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17th May 2016
Talkin’ bout a reinvention
When we were planning #ioiclive16, we knew we wanted to be bold, to challenge thinking ...
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7th May 2016
My first week as a freelancer
With my first full week as a freelancer firmly under my belt and a glass of wine ...
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30th April 2016
A royal lesson in leadership
Gun salutes, beacon lighting and a cake baked by the winner of the Great British ...
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25th April 2016
With a little help from my friends…
A while ago a friend asked me how many followers I had on Twitter. When ...
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13th March 2016
Lost in translation – the language of cancer
As an internal communicator, I’m used to being invited to take deep dives off burning ...
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20th February 2016
Why do I blog?
Every couple of months I have the same conversation with my colleague Paul Thomas. I ...
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6th December 2015
Fancy winning a day’s consultancy with All Things IC?
Let’s face it, who wouldn’t? Rachel Miller has very kindly donated a day’s consultancy and ...
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5th October 2015
The return to work
At the beginning of June I returned to work following a six-month absence to receive ...
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12th July 2015
Shaking the world gently
I wanted to share with fellow introverts an exciting new development from Susan Cain, author ...
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12th March 2015
Creating a community – my interview with YBCN founder Victoria Yates
Since my recent breast cancer diagnosis, I’ve been a member of the Younger Breast Cancer ...
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22nd February 2015
Controlling the message: how I told the world I had cancer
In this age of social media, there is a running joke that it didn’t really ...
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23rd January 2015
In the shadows
Having reached the one year milestone in my first in-house role, I’ve found myself reflecting ...
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10th August 2014
The Big Yak: a snapshot
There's not many conferences where people happily give up their Saturday to attend and the excitement ...
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1st July 2014
The power of Jam – live blogging at our partner conference
As a child I dreamed of being in the centre of the hustle and bustle ...
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11th May 2014
Is video on your Agenda?
It’s not often you get to while away the afternoon in a TV studio all ...
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7th December 2013
The introverted revolution in internal comms
Having faced accusations of being too quiet or shy for most of my life, I ...
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17th September 2013
Future proofing – the IoIC annual conference 2013
In keeping with the theme of ‘the future’, I predicted on Twitter that the IoIC ...
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17th September 2013
Be brave
Awards ceremonies used to be glamorous Hollywood affairs where actors and actresses were congratulated and ...
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17th September 2013