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Australian Government,  Communication Strategy,  Communications professional,  internal communications,  Professional development

You CAN measure internal communications

If you have ever worked in internal communications, you know measuring and reporting on your outcomes can be challenging. You know you should, but it’s haaaaarrrrd.

The Gallagher State of the Service report found that 84% of internal communicators want to be able to measure more but face significant barriers, including a lack of:

  1. time and resources
  2. metrics
  3. analysis tools
  4. benchmarking data
  5. clear communication or business objectives

Sound familiar?

We’ve heard the same from our clients and friends in internal comms. Whether internal communications is highly regarded or undervalued in your organisation, it will often be a smaller team than external. This adds to the feeling that there is no time for measurement or evaluation.

Internal communications teams cannot access the same technology or tools to gather data. Internal restrictions mean emails are only sent via Outlook, Google Analytics can’t be used on the intranet, and events don’t require registrations. It makes demonstrating the value of this vital profession difficult.

I am here to tell you by not measuring your impact, you are, in fact, perpetuating this cycle of less people, money and infrastructure. It is also the less efficient way to use your small resources to deliver internal communications.

If you aren’t measuring, internal communicators are running purely on instinct rather than making data-driven decisions. You have just turned communications into an art rather than a science. It basically means you are reinforcing the idea that we are just here to edit and make things pretty.

It is possible to measure internal communications. It may not be open rates and click-throughs or engagement and shares, but you can still gather relevant and meaningful data.

Be pragmatic and realistic

Using the Gov UK Communications Service PROOF framework, you can find ways to demonstrate the return on investment in internal communications. What I like about this framework is it is about doing what you can, not having perfect measurements.

Pragmatic – best available within budget, not best ever. One of the biggest mistakes we make is thinking we need to engage market researchers to run an all staff survey, but actually, that isn’t always feasible.

  • Question to ask: How much time and effort can we put into measurement? Who in our team has the skills or enjoys it?
  • Things to try: Put together a focus group of the target audiences from the last campaign and test their awareness of the messages. Send out a quiz to measure understanding. There are small ways you can measure your objectives.

Realistic – prove what you can, acknowledge what you can’t. You will never be able to measure everything or even the thing you want, but do what you can and be open about what you can’t.

  • Question to ask: What data do we already have? What can it tell us?
  • Things to try: Are you promoting an event? A survey? A change program? End of performance cycle conversations? Whatever it may be, some business data can help inform if your channel mix and messages worked. Did 20% of staff complete the all staff survey after it was in the newsletter? Great! That’s part of your evaluation.

Open – record and share as much as possible. Communicators are the worst people at sharing their insights. You can’t just measure it. You need to measure it, write it down and then tell the business area, the executive and the CEO. People won’t know the value you contribute unless you tell them.

  • Question to ask: What forums can we share our results in? How often and in what format can we easily report to internal stakeholders?
  • Things to try: Start by having a team report that shows what outputs you created. This is one small step to get everyone used to regularly capturing and reporting on data.

Objective – be honest and constructive about results so we can learn for the future. Measuring isn’t about demonstrating what worked. It is about seeing what didn’t work and learning from it.

  • Questions to ask: What evidence do we already have about what works and what doesn’t?
  • Things to try: How many times have you been told to “just put it in the newsletter” even though you know it won’t work for this type of communication? Imagine how much more effective you could be if you have your article view rates about similar topics and a story about why it hasn’t worked in the past.

Fully integrated – it’s an integral part of planning and delivery, not an add-on at the end. Measurement isn’t about waiting until the end to see how things went. It is about using data to determine objectives and inform your decisions on tactics.

  • Question to ask: How can we change our behaviour to build data into our planning process? What data does the business area have that can inform our planning?
  • Things to try: Run a small focus group and ask them about their level of awareness of the new policy – this will give you a baseline for your objectives. Run another one at the end to measure impact. Sure, it’s a small sample, but it’s realistic!

In addition to counting what was delivered or the outputs (5 newsletters, 17 news articles, two events), don’t forget demonstrating value is about showing the outcomes of your efforts. The outcomes are the business needs, the call to action, and the behaviour change. It is answering the question ‘Did people do what we wanted them to do?’

The way you measure success doesn’t have to be perfect, but it will go a long way if you can demonstrate it aligns with organisational outcomes.

If measurement is new to your team, it is about starting small. Finding what you can measure – not just within internal communication channels but asking your clients what data they have to measure the impact. Don’t go for perfect or best practice. Just start.

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