Why, When and How?

Internal Communication Measurement - Why, When and How?

Participation and satisfaction surveys are typically carried out annually and may carry additionalquestions to supply some insights to the effectiveness of communications.

Prior to your special communications campaign. So as to best understand the impact ofcommunications, it's important to quantify (comprehension, attitudes, knowledge etc) before acampaign.

After campaign or a significant communication. It is necessary to assess the effectiveness andimpact of critical communications programs and initiatives. This permits inner communications to betailored by you to make sure they are powerful and delivering quantifiable business value.

At periods to course attitudes. Regular measurement helps communicators to tailor messages tomake sure they're suitable to their audiences also to estimate the ever shifting approaches andfeelings inside an organization.

Beat checks and to collect feedback on issues that are specific also temperature checks during andafter special events provide an insight to the dilemmas and challenges.

At periods against KPI's to track and benchmark. Measuring consistently against benchmarks andmonitoring trends over time offer an early warning of problems which could go undetected until theyhave escalated farther.

What to Measure?

Discovering which aspects of communicating to measure will be contingent on communication goalsand the organization's specific business. Several examples of helpful communications measurementsinclude:

Baseline communicating measurements before communicating can measure; existing knowledge,attitudes and behaviours of workers, as well as ascertaining the existing advice available, howsimple it's to find, the present communications stations accessible and to identify other variablesaffecting attitudes and behaviors.

Functional communication measurements

Following campaign or a communication, practical facets of communication needs to be measured.Comparisons to the baselines measurements are useful. Additional measures can comprise; thenumber and kinds of messages sent, time of messages, message cut-through / reach, stationattractiveness and effectiveness, audience satisfaction with content (sorts, volume etc).

Things to Quantify - Measuring Impact

Measuring of the impact communicating is a critical measure and measures can comprise:

Audience perception measurementsincluding factors like; types and % ofmessages received, communicationsremembered. Were messages viewed asconsistent, related and credible? Were themessages comprehended? How well doemployees feel they're being supported? Doemployees understand just what needs tohappen as an effect of the communication(s)?

Change in Behavior

The goal of most internal communicating willbe to modify behaviors and the attitudes of workers. Therefore, it is valuable to recognize andmeasure variables for example; What changed? What's now different?

Impact on business goals / Results

Communication measurement should enable Internal Communicators to quantify the effect ofcommunications on business objects. For example:

The number of employees who signed up for share scheme (following its promotion)

The shift in attitudes involving customer service along with the proposed impact of increasedcustomer retention

The quantity of ideas that were usable submitted via an employee suggestion initiative (and thefiscal value of these ideas)

Isolating the impact of communication

Communication does not really happen in a vacuum also it can sometimes be hard to isolate theimpact of communication versus other factors (incentive schemes, new product launches, factorsexternal to the business and so forth). Possible solutions comprise:

Communications control groups (isolating a group, including a single distant location, and nevercommunicating them about a specific initiative or goal, then looking at their activities and groupshas been communicated with by you differ)

Assessing the change in behaviour with regard to a company aim that was communicated nicely,versus a business aim with little or no communication

Estimate the % effect of communications versus other influencing factors.

Computing the monetary value of communication

Computations of the financial value of communication Business Coaching will, at best, be estimates.Nevertheless, it remains an essential part of communicating measurement as it can illustrate theenormous worth of internal communication that is effective and starts a dialogue with senior

supervisors at the same time.

Think about the effect of an effective crisis communication response that is inner. A comparisonmight be manufactured against a situation (internally or inside the same organization) which wasnot managed and quantifiable worth attributed to factors such as:

Volume of customers retained

Retention of great staff who might have left

Tools to aid the Measurement of Internal Communication contain:

Desktop Computer quizzes and surveys. Aside from in depth on-line or paper based surveys, quizzesand pop-up desktop surveys can offer added measurement and benchmarking capacity throughoutthe year.

Incentives. Staff can be encouraged by a prize incentive to participate in a quiz or survey.

Qualitative Communication Measurement

Qualitative techniques can include:

Free form responses in surveys.

Focus groups

Discussion forums. Inner social media can be a helpful add-on or replacement although face to faceinterviews and focus groups are often the best choice for qualitative communicating measurement.Set up worker discussion forums to investigate specific issues. Screen comments produced indiscussion forums to gather qualitative measures of how employees are thinking feeling andbehaving

Avoiding Survey Bias

Averting non- self select prejudice or answer. When surveys rely on employees to opt in or 'selfselect', you may largely hear from folks or the squeaky wheels with the agenda prompting them toparticipate. A desktop computer survey tool provides escalation, random sampling and returnoptions to help ensure that representative inner communications measurement data is collectedfrom throughout the organization.

Control groups. Set up a control groups for communications efforts. Identify survey answers fromcontrol groups and hence to compare and assess the impact of inner communications campaigns.

Multiple select questions. For many kinds of questions, e.g. "Where did you hear about XXX from?"or "What factors affected your choice" providing single response choices can skew results. In theseinstances, provide multi-select answer alternatives.

Comparisons. Assess the impact of communications on individuals who saw a particularcommunications against those who did not.

The impact of time on recall. Recall speeds will fall over time, consequently if communication

campaigns must be compared with one another, communications measurement needs to be carriedout at the exact same time interval after each and every effort. Ensure that communicationsmeasurement is carried out at a time that is regular after every effort.

Supplying context to get survey or a quiz. Context must be given to get survey or a quiz. Forexample, a product knowledge quiz without circumstance can cause employees to worry about thegoal of the quiz and possibly work more difficult to ensure they provide the responses that are right.Nevertheless the same quiz with an explanation "the reason for this quiz if to see how nicely thecommunications team are doing, so please be as truthful as potential" is more prone to provide anexact measure of communication effectiveness.

Encouraging Survey Participation

Promoting the survey to support engagement. Relevant and the more statistically precise the resultswill undoubtedly be the higher survey participation rates really are. Use innovative internalcommunications channels such as; desktop alerts, scrolling background feeds, screensavermessaging and user created staff magazines encourage participation and to raise the profile ofsurveys.

Communicating survey findings and activities being taken. Employees are more likely to participatewhen they believe that the output signals from staff surveys will probably be used. Thus, ensure thatsurvey results along with the ensuing actions being taken are well conveyed to staff. Newsfeeds,screensaver messages and posts in the staff magazines are fantastic ways get messages acrosswithout their becoming buried in e-mail inboxes.