Who should lead an organisation's employee communications, HR, PR or...?

Here's one that popped up in a discussion in one of the professional groups I am part of:

"What value, in your experience, has HR added (or not added, as the case may be) to employee communication and engagement? [if it has sole authority]"

Seems like this discussion has been going back and forth for a while and I think it reflects the fact that this is a perennial and eternal debate that frankly distracts everyone from doing something useful. Having handled internal communications to populations of thousands (including retirees), I generally prefer the responsibility to go to an employee communications subset within corporate communications, and they can liaise with HR and all the various other parts of the company when it's time to say something to the troops. HR has to tee-up the facts, which (trust me) aren't always evident at first blush, and then collaborate with corp. comms to get the announcement or whatever done.

Aside from things like the usual benefit updates and changes, what happens when you have an acquisition announcement, a restructuring, executive changes, etc. ? Well, then you've got the CEO and whatever he wants to say; HR with the questions like "how does it affect me?"; then PR whose press release has to have consistent messages with everything else; Legal; then Investor Relations; and on and on. So who is going to traffic cop all of this and make sure that we don't have a demolition derby of messages, styles, themes, etc.?

I've seen a variety of permutations in reporting structure but in my experience it largely depends on how much the leadership wants to see consistency in the corporate image writ large. Not to disparage HR, but it is more often the case that few in HR can write terribly well and without corporate restraints they'll go off and hire this agency or that agency, then everyone retreats into turf skirmishes. Heavens to Betsy! Why not let the PR guys work their magic with those prickly medical deductible increases?

And now, more and more, the CEO has to be a trusted leader to all his employees, therefore he's got to talk with them on a regular basis and be accessible. Who's going to write that? HR? PR?

So, you get my point. Just give it to corporate communications and let them enjoy the misery of trying to herd whatever cats are supposed to line-up in perfect formation. They can lift material from HR and repackage it so that it is coherent and If that doesn't work, give it to someone else and see how that goes.

What value, in your experience, has HR added (or not added, as the case may be) to employee communication and engagement?

Seems like this discussion has been going back and forth for a while and I think it reflects the fact that this is a perennial and eternal debate that frankly distracts everyone from doing something useful. Having handled internal communications to populations of thousands (including retirees), I generally prefer the responsibility to go to an employee communications subset within corporate communications, and they can liaise with HR and all the various other parts of the company when it's time to say something to the troops. HR has to tee-up the facts, which (trust me) aren't always evident at first blush, and then collaborate with corp. comms to get the announcement or whatever done.

Aside from things like the usual benefit updates and changes, what happens when you have an acquisition announcement, a restructuring, executive changes, etc. ? Well, then you've got the CEO and whatever he wants to say; HR with the questions like "how does it affect me?"; then PR whose press release has to have consistent messages with everything else; Legal; then Investor Relations; and on and on. So who is going to traffic cop all of this and make sure that we don't have a demolition derby of messages, styles, themes, etc.? I've seen a variety of permutations in reporting structure but in my experience it largely depends on how much the leadership wants to see consistency in the corporate image writ large. Not to disparage HR, but it is more often the case that few in HR can write terribly well and without corporate restraints they'll go off and hire this agency or that agency, then everyone retreats into turf skirmishes. Heavens to Betsy! Why not let the PR guys work their magic with those prickly medical deductible increases?

And now, more and more, the CEO has to be a trusted leader to all his employees, therefore he's got to talk with them on a regular basis and be accessible. Who's going to write that? HR? PR?

So, you get my point. Just give it to corporate communications and let them enjoy the misery of trying to herd whatever cats are supposed to line-up in perfect formation. They can lift material from HR and repackage it so that it is coherent and If that doesn't work, give it to someone else and see how that goes.