Internal communication is extremely important for keeping high-preforming teams aligned. As your team grows, it demands more structure, more thoughtful updates, and the intentional collection of cross-functional information. When it comes to internal communication, Notion can help you stay organized and make sure every team member is up to date on important company topics.

In this Guide we’ll walk through some best practices for internal communications in Notion, and share some pro tips from the Notion Executive Operations team.

Create company-wide structures for sharing information

If teams donโ€™t have structure to their information, it may live in many places, making it hard for team members to stay up to date on company happenings โ€” sometimes resulting in confusion or mistakes. Notion brings all your information together in one place, so you can save time searching for this information.

We sat down with Cuyler Hirata, executive operations at Notion, to ask him how he thinks about internal communication on Notion. Reflecting on common pitfalls heโ€™s seen, he noted the following:

When the team is smaller it’s pretty easy to know where everything is at all times, but as the org grows and more people are added and more docs and pages are created, I think that’s when information can get lost. Setting up your structure early on will go a long way.

Hereโ€™s some tips for ensuring people know where to access information.

Create a “what’s new” database to house important updates like newsletters, memos, and all-hands notes.

A communication playbook can outline everything a new (or existing) team member needs to find information quickly.

As you grow your team or company, these systems will simplify project management, marketing, onboarding, and everything in between.

Build pages with the reader in mind

The average attention span of an American adult is somewhere between 7 and 12 seconds, that means that a reader needs to be engaged immediately with an image, callout, or top-level heading. Using these on-page tools, you can structure information for your readers depending on the situation at hand.

Add visual structure to your page with columns, callouts, and tasteful emoji use.

  1. The visual elements on the page come together to help you communicate information effectively. Because these pages are totally customizable, you can adjust them to the needs of that communication. Sometimes, itโ€™ll be a quick update with a chart. Others will require more text and exposition. Itโ€™s up to you!

Get information in front of your teams

So youโ€™ve organized your Notion and youโ€™re feeling great about availability of information โ€” now what? Get information in front of your teams through intentional distribution efforts.

Because Notion is so open and there’s just so much available for folks to access there needs to be a bit of guidance and direction. That’s why we brought about the bi-weekly newsletter. They’re able to go in and really understand all of the key happenings from the past couple of weeks.

In addition to just meeting notes and announcements, you can also create company-wide updates using Notion (like Blinkistโ€™s newsletter). This helps collect everything your teammates need to know in one place.

Some inspiration for this type of communication includes:

Making it stick

The simpler your communications are, the easier it will be for readers to find and know where to expect information, and the easier it will be to manage. For this, we recommend finding, creating and consistently using templates. There’s a few types of templates in Notion, each with different use cases:

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