Why knowing the impact of your internal communications is critical to your success.

There isn’t a shortage of tools to help you determine how ‘effective’ your internal communication channels are. But what do we mean by effective? How many clicks, opens or responses? Unsolicited feedback? “Thank you” from line managers and leaders? And of course the well established channel audit.

These are all contribute to ensure that you know how to get your message out and when.

What they don’t tell you is the overall impact of what you are saying and how you are saying it. They don’t always tell you if you are having an emotional response or if the call to arms you are hoping for is going to happen. They don’t tell you if your communications is genuinely creating a sense of trust and pride. Just because the CEO’s latest announcement received the greatest number of clicks doesn’t mean that employees can’t wait to read the latest missive.

So, what is the answer?

At em(IC) we don’t believe that there is necessarily one single solution to discovering the true impact of your internal communications. What is clear to us however is that the internal communications functions that take a holistic approach to discovering impact are probably the closest to finding the truth.

It’s about using every relevant tool in your toolbox. These tools include all the aforementioned as well as the traditional approach of getting out and about, talking to employees, managers and leaders (and customers?) about what they know and how it makes them feel.

We also think that in addition it’s worth investing in a high quality internal communications survey that provides a genuine benchmark of the impact you are having relevant to your industry peers.

That’s why em(IC) have developed Metr(IC). A powerful survey that enables you to determine how well you and your managers are communicating. It’s fifteen questions long and provides a single clear report on the impact that your communication and your managers communication achieves.