Internal Communications Jobs in Reston, VA (NOW HIRING)

Job Title: HR Communications Specialist

Location: Washington DC

Salary/Payrate: $75K-$100K Dependant on experience

Work Environment: Hybrid 2 days on-site 

Term: Contract - long term with potential for conversion

Bachelor’s degree required: Preferred 

Referral Fee: AMS will pay $500 should the person you refer gets hired

Job Description:

POSITION SUMMARY:

• The HR Communications Contractor serves as a communications specialist supporting internal communications, partnering with business units to design, develop, and execute communication strategies that align with organizational priorities and enhance the employee experience. The HR Communications Contractor will work in close partnership with the Communications division’s organization-wide internal communications function.
• This role focuses on consultation, content development, coordination, and execution support, ensuring messaging is clear, consistent, timely, purposeful, and aligned with the needs of employees, managers, leaders, and stakeholders.
• This position is focused internally to help ensure messaging supports purpose, reinforces priorities, and engages employees. Final program, policy, and business decisions remain with designated PS&S leaders and business owners. Organization-wide internal communications strategy resides within the Communications division. 

ROLE GOAL AND ALIGNMENT WITH HR NEEDS:

• The primary goal of this contractor role is to improve HR communication planning, execution, and follow-through, in coordination with the Communications division’s internal communications function, so employees, managers, leaders, and HR stakeholders receive clear, timely, and useful information.

The role supports PS&S by:

• Creating structured communication plans, calendars, templates, and trackers for recurring initiatives, deadlines, and leadership updates.
• Developing consistent, audience-specific messaging for employees, managers, senior leaders, and HR stakeholders.
• Improving coordination across SharePoint, Teams, email, presentations, Pulse articles, and meeting materials.
• Supporting change communications for HR programs, annual processes, compliance activities, and manager enablement resources.
• Reducing communication gaps caused by dispersed information, unclear timing, inconsistent content, and competing inputs.
• Partnering with the Communications division’s organization-wide internal communications function to ensure HR-specific communications are aligned with the organization’s internal communications strategy. 
• The contractor will report to the Senior Advisor, HR Operations Management, and collaborate with HR leaders, subject matter experts, and internal stakeholders to plan, review, and deliver communications.

JOB DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Business partnership: Partner with HR units to understand business goals, initiatives, audiences, timing, stakeholder needs, and communication priorities.
• Communication strategy and planning: In partnership with the Communications division, develop and support execution of communication strategies and plans, including audiences, messages, channels, timing, approvals, owners, dependencies, and follow-up actions.
• Content development: Draft, edit, and review HR -specific internal communications, including employee emails, manager toolkits, intranet content, leader messaging, FAQs, articles, reminders, process updates, and presentation copy.
• Message effectiveness: Provide recommendations to improve clarity, tone, timing, consistency, accessibility, and effectiveness of messaging across audiences and initiatives.
• Alignment and consistency: Ensure communications are aligned with the Communications division’s organization-wide internal communications strategy, organizational priorities, PS&S standards, stakeholder expectations, and related initiatives.
• Cross-functional coordination: Coordinate communications across PS&S cross-functional teams, subject matter experts, business owners, leaders, and stakeholders to support timely review, approval, and delivery. Collaborate closely with the Communications division’s internal communications function. 
• Stakeholder advising: Advise HR stakeholders on communication best practices, audience engagement, plain-language messaging, channel selection, sequencing, and employee-centered delivery.
• Project and stakeholder coordination: Coordinate subject matter expert input, review cycles, approvals, delivery, status updates, and follow-up actions while maintaining quality, confidentiality, and discretion.
• Tracking and continuous improvement: Support message tracking, feedback loops, communication calendars, issue identification, and continuous improvement efforts to strengthen HR communication effectiveness.

CLARIFICATION OF ROLE BOUNDARIES:

• Business owners and HR leaders retain decision-making authority for programs, policies, business strategy, priorities, and final messaging approvals. The Communications division retains decision-making authority for organization-wide internal communications. 
• This role provides communications guidance, recommendations, content development, coordination, and execution support. It does not carry directional authority over PS&S programs, policies, business decisions, or stakeholder-owned initiatives, nor directional authority over organization-wide internal communications.
• Communication plans are developed in partnership with the Communications division, business owners, HR leaders, subject matter experts, and appropriate stakeholders, rather than driven independently by the contractor.

KEY DELIVERABLES:

Communication calendar and cadence plan that improve visibility, timing, sequencing, and proactive planning.

• Communication plans for priority initiatives and recurring HR activities, including audiences, messages, channels, owners, deadlines, dependencies, and approval steps.
• Employee, manager, leader, and stakeholder messages that are accurate, audience-specific, plain-language, and ready for review or distribution.
• Updated internal communication and resource content that makes PS&S guidance, deadlines, meeting materials, templates, and process information easier to find and use.
• Reusable templates, FAQs, talking points, reminders, one-page guides, timelines, process summaries, and slide content.
• PS&S Communication tracker that increases accountability by showing status, owners, deadlines, approvals, dependencies, risks, and follow-up actions.
• Gap analysis with recommendations to improve structure, consistency, timing, accessibility, content governance, and knowledge management.
• Transition documentation with key files, templates, process notes, open items, recurring communication needs, and recommended next steps.

QUALIFICATIONS AND SKILLS:

• The ideal candidate combines HR communications judgment, strong writing and editing skills, project coordination discipline, and experience managing internal communication channels.
• Required Work Experience: 5+ years of experience in HR communications, internal communications, organizational communications, or a related field. Experience in project coordination, stakeholder engagement, and managing internal communication channels required.
• Required Degree / Educational Background: Bachelor’s degree in Communications, Human Resources, Organizational Development, Business Administration, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Experience in HR, employee communications, internal communications, organizational communications, change communications, knowledge management, or project coordination.
• Strong writing, editing, message development, and plain-language communication skills.
• Ability to develop communication plans for multiple audiences, channels, initiatives, timelines, and deadlines.
• Experience organizing or publishing internal content in collaboration platforms, intranet spaces, shared resource sites, or similar internal communication tools.
• Strong project coordination skills, including deadline management, approval tracking, stakeholder coordination, dependency tracking, and follow-through.
• Ability to synthesize input from multiple stakeholders and translate it into clear, consistent, audience-ready communications.
• Ability to work with confidential or sensitive HR-related information with discretion, sound judgment, and professionalism.
• Strong attention to detail, accuracy, tone, formatting, version control, and consistency.
• Proficiency with Microsoft 365 tools, including Word, PowerPoint, collaboration platforms, presentation materials, and spreadsheet or tracking tools.

PREFERRED EXPERIENCE:

• Experience supporting HR communications in a mission-driven, professional services, healthcare, research, nonprofit, government, or similarly complex environment.
• Experience with performance management, annual staffing, employee engagement, compliance, learning programs, onboarding, offboarding, manager toolkits, employee relations resources, or workforce planning.
• Experience developing communication governance processes, templates, intake/request workflows, editorial calendars, review processes, or knowledge management structures.
• Experience preparing executive-level presentations, leadership updates, meeting materials, talking points, or employee-facing communications.
• Experience supporting cross-functional projects that require coordination across HR, operations, technology, legal, finance, communications, or other internal stakeholders.
• Experience using project management or tracking tools to monitor deliverables, deadlines, approvals, dependencies, risks, and completion status.
• Experience creating practical resources such as checklists, process maps, FAQs, toolkits, guides, and readiness materials.

SUCCESS MEASURES:

Success in this role will be demonstrated by:

• Improved clarity, consistency, timeliness, and usefulness of PS&S communications.
• Increased visibility into communication timing, priorities, owners, dependencies, approvals, and deadlines.
• Clearer review steps, approval timelines, escalation points, and delivery expectations.
• More current, accessible, and useful PS&S internal resource content for employees, managers, leaders, and PS&S stakeholders.
• Stronger alignment between PS&S communications, department priorities, project timelines, and audience needs.
• Reduced duplicate, outdated, hard-to-access, or unclear content.
• Positive stakeholder feedback on accuracy, usefulness, readiness for distribution, and ease of finding information.
• Documented practices that help PS&S sustain communication improvements after the contractor engagement ends.