Internal Communications Style Guide
An intranet style guide for grammar, word choice, formatting, accessibility, channel patterns, and publishing checklists that help employees create clear, consistent content.
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Overview
The Internal Communications Style Guide is a multi-page intranet site that gives employees a shared standard for creating clear, consistent, accessible content. The home page routes authors to writing principles, grammar and mechanics, approved word choice, scan-friendly formatting, accessibility guidance, channel patterns, and a pre-publish checklist. Its hub-and-spoke navigation helps a communicator start with the rule they need instead of searching through one long document.
Use this template when several teams publish employee-facing pages, news, announcements, emails, or campaign messages and readers encounter inconsistent terminology or formatting. It works especially well as a company or department site_type with role-based links for communicators, editors, HR partners, and subject-matter experts. Keep the home page as the orientation layer, then use focused content pages for deeper guidance and examples.
This is not a substitute for a brand platform, legal review procedure, crisis-communications plan, or records-retention policy. It should not be the only source for regulated claims, emergency instructions, or accessibility conformance testing. Assign an owner, define an update cadence, and connect the guide to your editorial workflow so the rules remain visible at the moment content is drafted and approved.
Standards & compliance context
- The accessibility guidance aligns content practices with WCAG 2.1 AA concepts for headings, links, images, tables, documents, and readable structure, while final conformance still depends on the platform and content.
- Use the guide alongside organizational privacy, records-management, employment, and legal-review policies when communications include personal data, regulated claims, or required notices.
- Keep approval ownership and revision history visible so published standards can be traced when internal policy or regulatory language changes.
- Do not use the style guide as approval for safety, medical, financial, or legal advice; route those messages through the organization’s designated specialist review.
General regulatory context for orientation only — verify current requirements with counsel or the relevant agency before relying on this template for compliance.
How to use this template
- Replace the organization placeholder, sample links, approved terminology, channel names, and owner details with your internal standards before publishing the site.
- Set the Style Guide Home page as the landing page and verify that its quick links point to every grammar, word-choice, formatting, accessibility, channel, and checklist page.
- Assign communicators and subject-matter experts to read the writing principles and select the relevant channel pattern before drafting employee-facing content.
- Draft the page, announcement, email, or campaign message using the heading, list, link, terminology, and accessibility rules from the linked guidance pages.
- Run the pre-publish checklist, including owner, audience, action, dates, links, permissions, plain language, and accessibility checks, before submitting the content for approval.
- Review published content after launch for reader questions, stale links, unclear calls to action, and recurring exceptions, then update the guide when a rule or approved term changes.
Best practices
- Lead every employee-facing page with the audience’s task or decision, then place background context after the action.
- Use one clear heading hierarchy and short sections so readers can scan the page before committing to a full read.
- Maintain a single approved spelling for product, program, benefits, and team names, and record deprecated terms with a replacement.
- Write link text that describes the destination or action instead of using vague labels such as “click here.”
- Put owners, deadlines, time zones, and escalation paths next to the action they govern rather than burying them at the bottom.
- Keep examples realistic and channel-specific, showing how the same message changes between an intranet page, announcement, email, and campaign.
- Run a keyboard, heading-order, link-label, alternative-text, and document-accessibility check before publishing audience-restricted content.
- Review the guide’s quick links and navigation after every structural change so authors do not encounter buried or broken guidance.
What this template typically catches
Issues teams running this template most often surface in practice:
Common use cases
Frequently asked questions
What content does this internal communications style guide cover?
It covers writing principles, grammar and mechanics, approved word choice, page formatting, accessibility, channel-specific patterns, and pre-publish checks. Use it for intranet pages, announcements, news stories, emails, and campaign messages. It is designed as a multi-page internal resource rather than a single reference sheet.
Who should use and maintain the style guide?
Internal communications, employee-experience, content-design, HR, and department communicators can use the guide when drafting or reviewing employee-facing content. Assign one communications owner to approve terminology and resolve exceptions. Subject-matter experts can contribute updates without changing the core publishing standard.
How often should the guide be reviewed?
Review the guide at least twice a year and whenever the organization changes its brand voice, major products, employee platforms, or accessibility requirements. Check the word-choice page for outdated program names and the publishing checklist for broken links. Record the review date and owner on the home page or governance section.
Does this template meet accessibility requirements?
The accessibility page provides WCAG 2.1 AA-oriented writing and formatting guidance for headings, links, images, tables, and documents. It supports accessible content but does not certify the intranet platform, files, or published pages. Test the final content in the publishing system with keyboard navigation, heading structure, link labels, and alternative text checks.
Can I customize the guide for different channels and audiences?
Yes. Replace the sample organization name, approved terms, channel examples, escalation contacts, and links with your own standards. Add role-based guidance for HR, executives, local offices, or frontline teams while keeping the core principles consistent. Use separate sections for channels with different limits, review workflows, or urgency levels.
What is the most common mistake when using a style guide?
A frequent pitfall is treating the guide as a vocabulary list while ignoring reader action. Every page or message should state the audience, lead with the decision or task, use descriptive headings, and identify the next step. Do not copy rules without checking whether links, dates, owners, and calls to action are current.
Can this guide connect to publishing or collaboration tools?
The template includes link locations for channel patterns, source pages, checklists, and related resources, so you can connect it to your intranet CMS, editorial calendar, document library, or request workflow. Add links to the tools your communicators already use. Test permissions so every intended employee audience can open the linked material.
How does this compare with an ad-hoc communications review?
An ad-hoc review depends on individual preferences and can produce inconsistent terms, formatting, and accessibility practices. This guide gives authors a shared decision path before review and gives editors a repeatable checklist. It does not replace editorial judgment for sensitive announcements, legal language, or crisis communications.
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