Internal communications advisory
I help communications and people leaders turn consequential business decisions into coordinated execution. We examine the decision, how it will be governed, what behavior must change, how alignment will cascade through the organization, and what employees are telling us along the way. Start with fractional leadership, a focused listening sprint, or a diagnostic. We build what the evidence says the organization needs.
Two ways to move the work forward
Choose the starting point that fits the problem. Both offers connect employee experience, employee communications, and leadership action.
Ongoing leadership
Give leaders a senior partner to set priorities, counsel executives, and carry critical communications through execution.
30-day initial engagement, then month-to-month
Explore fractional supportFocused project
Turn feedback you already have into a clear view of what matters, what leaders need to decide, and what happens next.
Three to four weeks, fixed scope
Explore the listening sprintFractional Head of Employee Communications
A leadership gap, integration, or transformation can put more demand on the team than it can carry. You get senior employee communications leadership with a defined mandate and capacity, without adding a full-time role.
Heather works alongside your people and communications leaders to align decisions, prepare executives and managers, and build the cadence the organization needs. The scope can span employee experience, employee listening, transformation and change, M&A integration, executive counsel, manager enablement, and employer brand.
For a team that can execute and needs experienced counsel.
Your internal team owns production and rollout.
For a team that needs someone to own agreed priorities and produce key work.
Heather leads a defined workstream within agreed capacity.
For a transition or integration that needs more sustained senior involvement.
A part-time mandate with clear decision rights and coverage.
Agree the mandate, priorities, deliverables, meeting cadence, and capacity before work begins. The first month establishes a baseline, advances the highest-priority work, and ends with a progress review and recommendation for what comes next.
Continue month-to-month, adjust the scope, or conclude with a handoff. Monthly fees reflect the agreed work and capacity. Renewal and notice terms are set out in the proposal. Always-on coverage and a full production team are outside this offer.
Employee Listening & Insights Sprint
Survey results, pulse data, comments, and listening notes often sit in separate places. In a three- to four-week project, Heather turns existing feedback into an evidence-based view of what employees are experiencing and a practical roadmap for leadership action.
Survey exports, open-text comments, pulse results, and existing listening or exit-interview summaries can inform the sprint. We agree the sources, volume, segments, and deliverables before kickoff. Timing starts once usable data and sponsor access are available.
Analysis uses de-identified data and agreed reporting thresholds. Small groups and identifiable comments are protected. Evidence gaps are explicit. New survey administration, fresh employee interviews, advanced statistical modeling, and ongoing implementation are separately scoped.
The sprint stands alone. Your team can carry the roadmap forward, or we can discuss further support. A fixed project fee is confirmed after a short review of the data and scope.
When to bring me in
The announcement landed. Now leaders, managers, and employees are receiving different answers. The integration needs a communication architecture that can carry uncertainty, labor-sensitive requirements, and decisions that will keep changing.
More content will not repair a credibility problem. Leaders need an honest cadence, commitments need owners, and employees need to see the organization close the loop.
Requests arrive from everywhere, priorities shift by influence, and the team is measured on output. The function needs governance, decision rights, a channel model, manager enablement, and a measurement baseline.
Managers need context, boundaries, likely questions, and a clear route for answers before the employee conversation begins.
How the work starts
Typical duration: Two to three weeks
A fast, evidence-based view of the decision, governance, behavior, cascade, and employee response, showing what is breaking, what is at risk, and what needs attention first.
Typical duration: Six to 10 weeks
We build the infrastructure the situation requires, from integration governance and manager cascades to a complete IC operating model.
30-day initial engagement, then month-to-month
I stay close while the system meets real work, then transfer the capability to the internal team.
What the organization gets
Built in enterprise conditions
Led the internal communications architecture through multiple years of integration, including executive cadence, manager enablement, governance, editorial planning, and feedback systems.
Helped recover 50 employee net promoter score points over approximately one year while transformation continued.
Built the operating model, governance, SharePoint intranet, executive communications, budget, and a fully remote global team.
Working principles
Useful counsel requires access to the decision, its context, and the people accountable for carrying it.
We name uncertainty, constraints, and what the evidence actually shows before producing more content.
The people who will own the system help shape it, making the work more accurate now and more durable later.
Measurement is there to improve the next decision, so the plan must adapt when employee response or operating reality changes.
Methods that support the work
The Cascade Tool Suite and Signal Suite encode parts of the systems I use to address recurring internal communications breakdowns, including manager preparation, prioritization, audience load, and measurement. They may support an engagement when they fit the problem, but they never substitute for context.
From leaders and colleagues
“I've had the pleasure of working with Heather as both her manager and peer, and what sets her apart is her ability to translate complex, often sensitive business decisions into communications that were clear, honest, and human. Whether she was supporting a major organizational change, a leadership transition, or a company-wide initiative, Heather is driven to strike the right tone, calm and direct when it mattered most, and always with the employee's perspective front and center.”
“Heather is a very knowledgeable and skilled communications professional who is able to digest the business climate and strategy to shape key messages that move the needle.”
“Heather is an exceptional professional who can hit the ground running on a new business, build great client relationships and collaborate successfully with colleagues. Her ability to drive results across multiple programs simultaneously makes her an asset to any team.”
Fit and boundaries
Start with the situation, not a package
We will identify the right starting point, then agree the scope, fee, and first milestone. That may be fractional leadership, a listening sprint, or a focused diagnostic.