How to Make Internal Communications More Effective

Now that so many workers are working remotely, it’s more important than ever to get a handle on the effectiveness of your internal communications. Are your messages reaching your employees? Do both local and remote staff members feel aligned with your company vision?

According to a survey of internal communications professionals, two-thirds of employees don’t check reports or dashboards to track the impact of company messaging regularly. Not only that, but most leaders fail to see the importance of internal communications metrics in the first place. Tracking performance is a critical element of business strategy, but when it comes to internal communications effectiveness, most companies are falling short. Without measuring, it's difficult to know whether your internal communications are hitting the mark. Check out our free e-book Video for Training, Learning, and Development to jumpstart your communication practice with your employees.

Why Are Internal Communications Important?

If you want your organization to stay aligned around company goals and create positive change within your company, it's essential to use your channels effectively. Ideally, your messaging should encourage engagement, communication, and innovation across your entire workforce. Companies with effective communication strategies tend to have more engaged employees and less employee turnover, according to a Holmes Report.

But how do you know if your internal communication efforts measure up?

How to Measure Internal Communications

Follow these steps to gauge the success of your internal communication efforts.

1) Complete Audit of Channels

Which channels do you already use for communication? Internal communication channels generally fall into two categories: operational and internal. Operational channels are platforms that you use for everyday workflow, including email, Slack, Asana, Instant Messenger, etc. Internal channels are the ones you use to deliver company messaging, strategy, and critical information. These might include your internal employee mail and intranet, business newsletters, in-house apps, etc.

2) Determine Which Channels Make Sense

You need channels that deliver information in the right way at the right time. Ask yourself the following questions to determine whether a channel makes sense to use.

Does the channel reach your employees?

Check whether everyone on your team has access to your different channels. Remote employees need the same opportunities to interact as on-site staff, and you need to communicate with employees no matter where they're located. Large organizations sometimes have trouble reaching staff if they are scattered around the world in various locations.

Does the channel offer two-way communication?

Two-way communication is one of the most important best practices for internal communication. You want your employees to engage with your messaging, so they need to be able to reply on each and every channel.

3) Set Goals

Set benchmarks for each of the metrics you are planning to measure so you can gauge whether or not you are making progress toward your goals.

4) Measure Your Internal Communication Metrics

Most internal communication software focuses on delivering communication reports and dashboards. Check these regularly to stay on top of your different metrics. Common metrics for internal communication include reach, open/read rates, engagement, and employee sentiment. Surveys and polls can help you find out how effective your employee messaging has been.

5) Test, and Improve

Testing and analysis are the best ways to improve your internal communication. Companies have to be willing to look closely at how their channels stand up to remote communication and, especially in the wake of the pandemic, communication in a crisis.

4 Approaches to Measure Internal Communications Effectiveness

Certain KPIs can give you a sense of how employees are receiving and responding to your internal communications. Every organization will prioritize different internal communication measurements based on the size and phase of the business. But here are four helpful approaches that can help you meet your communications goals.

1) Employee Engagement

Are employees really reading and taking in material that they have been sent? Using a platform that tracks employee engagement with internal communication can help you identify areas of concern. Useful KPIs for this include email open rates, intranet logins, email CTR, email shares. If you are sharing video content, metrics on how many views each video gets will be helpful.

2) Employee Turnover

Employees who are content with their employers tend to stay at the same job longer. Tracking your turnover rate can help you better understand the effectiveness of your internal communication. If employees feel like they are part of a team and have access to insider knowledge, they feel more respect and trust for and from their employers. This is an easy KPI to track.

3) Communications Reach

This is an especially important metric with so many employees working remotely now. Measuring the percentage of employees who can even be reached with internal communications might be the most important metric, in fact.

4) Brand Ambassadors / Employee Advocacy

Having employees who are passionate advocates for your brand can make a big impact on outreach and on employee morale. Employees need to feel connected to and tied to the mission of your company in order to become advocates. Use KPIs on things like shared and liked posts, tweets and retweets, and more.

How Viostream Can Help

If you're ready to enhance internal communication and put an internal comms strategy in place at your company, Viostream is an online, cloud-based video streaming platform that allows you to record, publish, and share videos with your team. This ensures you disseminate a uniform message while also ensuring the words you deliver are exactly the way you want them.

Viostream’s live-streaming capabilities allow you to communicate immediately with anyone who can access the internet, even if you have a remote workforce. With live streams, everyone hears news within the company at once. By taking some time to think through how you are going to deliver your internal communications, you can be sure people receive them in a positive way.

Start your free trial today and explore your video possibilities.