Providing evidence to leadership that your internal communications programs are producing a net return can be challenging. It’s important to accurately measure your efforts, map ground-level results up to broader company strategies and present meaningful metrics.
Some executive leaders understand the value of effective communications, while others see it as unnecessary fluff that can’t be tied to revenue. Intuitively, we know effective communication is not only necessary but critical. The words we use and the way we deliver them determine how or if the message is received. Any executive leader who performs public speaking or interfaces with the press knows this, yet they do not always make the same connection when it comes to internal employee communications.
Corporate communications teams should be valued partners with leadership when it comes to implementing strategic corporate objectives, not as production agency order-takers. There is a craft to communications -- whether you call it spin, controlling the narrative, wordsmithing or creative, it is a professional skill worth having on the team when planning strategy execution. And not unlike the sales or production departments, the communications department must prove its worth by measuring and reporting on the value of its work. But unlike those other departments, communications numbers are more difficult to obtain.
1. Establish a strategic framework.
Whether it’s a specific change management objective, a new product or service introduction, or an ongoing program such as culture and engagement, communications results can be measured within a standardized framework.
Those programs are at the topmost level, which may be further broken down by region and business line. The next level might be by department. Generally, your communications framework will follow your management hierarchies, down to the employee level where your communications campaigns will land.
2. Define your measures and metrics.
Most communications consultants rely on before-and-after survey responses to measure results, while software tools like PoliteMail or Google Analytics rely on objective interactions measured with instrumentation at the page, campaign and time frame levels. You will want both. At each level of your framework, define a small set of definitive metrics. Ideally, you want executive buy-in upfront; generally, they will want to understand the math and the methodology, so creative communications should find data or financial analysts to work with at this stage.
By way of example, top-level culture and engagement might be measured by using the popular Gallup Q12 survey or other engagement surveys, as well as your Glassdoor ratings review.
For change management, you might measure before-and-after results of participation level, behavior or thinking via a simple survey or quiz, or measure the volume of key phrases being pushed out by communications compared to those same phrases used in internal online conversations over time.
3. Set your objectives.
Whether you are comparing against an industry benchmark, other teams within your organization or your own most recent performance, you need a comparison point and an objective. Often, communications teams are starting from ground zero, so establishing some measures is the first objective. From there, you can work to make incremental improvements while researching industry benchmarks and best practices to give yourself some practical, realistic goals.
4. Analyze your numbers.
Communications teams tend to excel at tasks such as creativity, writing and design. Math and analysis, however, is most often not a strong suit. You may want to consider bringing a data analyst in on a quarterly basis to help look at your numbers in detail and help you identify the most significant insights. Another good place to look for help is your finance team, as these people know numbers and have the tools to process them.
5. Report results.
Chances are, your communications results are going to be presented to leaders and executives who are well-versed in financial reporting. Take a look at how numbers and charts are presented on Bloomberg, Morningstar or Barron’s, and take a peek at your company’s own internal quarterly financial reports, as this sets the bar for your own communications metrics reporting and presentation style.
Creating a standardized analytics dashboard in Excel using cut and paste from your various data sources can get the job done. Using new business intelligence tools such as Power BI or Tableau will save time in the long term and allow for some automation and better comparisons, but have a much steeper setup and learning curve.
One final note is to show your math and metrics calculations. Executives know statistics can lie, and have experience picking apart numbers. Expect good leaders to demand a clear explanation of your data sources and the math behind any metrics or results you present. If you did a good job in step No. 2 above, you will have the confidence to stand behind your numbers.
You can measure communications results, and if you do it well and present your numbers effectively, your leadership will better understand the value your communications team brings to the table. By placing numeric values on your communications efforts, you are speaking in your executives’ language, and that will only help your conversations.
This article was retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com
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