Independent research has uncovered that 42% of UK medium-sized businesses are not measuring the impact internal communications brings to their business.

Why this matters

To determine impact in any line of work, accurate measurement is essential. If internal communications efforts are not being accurately measured, how can the success be evaluated to understand what channels and tactics are working? This is a mission-critical part of any strategic approach to communications campaigns.

A sound communications strategy depends on strong analytics, and strong analytics begins with identifying the right things that measure impact, not outputs. Evaluation frameworks, such as AMEC’s Integrated Evaluation Framework provide a solid starting point to creating measurable communications campaigns.

Yet despite the availability of these frameworks, accurate measurement remains a stumbling block for many UK businesses.

Focus on feedback

Internal communications is not a one-way process. It is not just about identifying the right way to inform employees what is going on with the business.

It is about two-way engagement. Employees should be provided with an easy feedback mechanism and, critically, once the feedback is captured, businesses need to act on that feedback.

One in five UK business decision makers has admitted to never or rarely capturing employee feedback (19%). Fewer than half (46%) capture it annually and just over a third (35%) say they capture it on a quarterly basis.

How regularly does your organisation capture employee feedback?

Yet, 86% stated that they meet with their team to update them on company news at least once a month.

Business leaders are clearly engaging with their employees on a regular basis, so why is their feedback not being captured?

When looking at how businesses currently measure the success of internal communications, the results showed that the top three indicators are employee retention (52%), employee productivity (50%) and engagement with internal digital communications (41%).

How do you determine the success of your internal communication?

The power of internal comms

The research raises questions about whether UK business leaders understand how they can use the latest technologies to communicate and engage with employees - and whether existing internal communications strategies are being measured correctly.

Business leaders need to measure what really matters - but that involves gaining a true understanding of what internal communications is and this starts with understanding the depth of what is involved when creating a strategic internal communications campaign - an often underestimated task.

Methodology

The survey was conducted among 200 decision makers in HR, marketing or communications from UK-based organisations with more than 100 employees, as part of a State of Internal Communication in UK Businesses report.

Written by Anthony Monks director at B2B technology PR consultancy ITPR