Measurement of external communication strategies has traditionally been limited to understanding how much space was occupied by editorial content and the costs associated with advertising in that same space. Then we moved on to the inclusion of reputational factors and evaluating other key drivers that contributed to the overall external media perceptions of an organisation. Today we find ourselves looking at advanced qualitative units of measure to correlate editorial exposure to brand recognition, financial impact, internal audience impact and other drivers.
Similarly, measuring internal communication is based on three variables - process, content and impact.
Process really refers to the channels and mechanisms that are used to distribute the content. Here, we aim to understand if the intranet is reaching its intended audience. Do people read the newsletter? Are team briefings delivering critical information? In other words, we want to know if the channels are effective in reaching our audiences.
At the second level, we aim to measure content and evaluate the degree to which employees know about a certain piece of information, such as the organisational vision, new products, service updates, etc. This is very useful in terms of assessing the degree to which people are accessing and reading the content that is being distributed through the channels in place.
Neither of these, however, is very helpful in terms of understanding whether the content that has been sent out has had any impact. By this we aim to determine the effect the communication has had on the business. Is employee engagement enhanced? Is customer satisfaction improved? Do people understand the messages and brand promise?
It is only through measurement at this level that one can determine whether the process and content have been effective. Process and content, while easy to measure and show good results, cannot demonstrate success unless impact is proven. However, if impact is demonstrated, a fair assumption can be made that the former two worked.
Impact can be measured through asking strategic questions about the effect the business wanted the messages to have among staff. A nice way of achieving this is using a Semantic Differential Scale to understand employee's state of mind. Key to this is the establishment of a baseline against which to benchmark success - something that should be done through the use of formative research before embarking on key campaigns. Whatever tool is used, what a communicator should be after is not an opinion survey but an engagement survey.
An engagement survey differs fundamentally from an opinion survey in that it measures the ultimate aim of internal communication - action orientation. It goes further than opinions to understand the extent to which employees are not merely satisfied by communication, but are actually committed to the organisation, its brand and the behaviours required of them to deliver real change. Simply put, they become the driving forces of the business. It's less about how they feel internal communication is doing, and more about what they choose to do with it.
An effective engagement survey would cover the following five areas:
Globally, research shows that only 37% of senior communicators have a measurement strategy in place. From Talk2Us research late last year, the figure here in South Africa is even lower. This is surprising, given the desire and need to get buy-in at c-suite - something that can only happen when communicators can prove their tangible and intangible outcomes. For measurement to be meaningful and insightful, we need to move away from measuring things right towards measuring the right things.
