Internal Communication Improvement

All businesses, regardless of how large, needs to not only measure its external communications, but as well as its internal communications. If organizations do not know what its employees think, say, and or do then the company is on a road to its demise. Within Katie Paine's book "Measure What Matters,” she goes explains the importance of measuring these factors. In Chapter 9, she states that there are seven key steps to measuring what ones employees think, say, and or do because of one’s internal communications. 

1. Understand the environment and where they really get information 

          I loved the way she phrased this step, "where they really get information." To many times I have seen companies believe its customers and or employees gets its information from one source but in reality that option does not make sense. Katie then brings up a major point of the step, that being "what channels or vehicles do employees trust?" This is key because this relates to where is it the employees are getting the information. The channel could be at the water cooler or in the break room, but the need to know these channels are important. 

2. Agree on clear, measurable goals

          This is one of those steps that are present in all measuring processes. This one relates more specifically to understanding what senior management wants to know as well as the HR department. 

3. Select a benchmark to compare to

          Again, this is a common step among most to all measuring processes. This step most likely would be a comparison of year-to-year results, but it is a benchmark nonetheless. 

4. Define the criteria of success

          This step is as simple as the name implies. What criteria are you using that will be your specific, measurable definitions for success. 

5. Select your measurement tools and collect data

          Within this step, one could end up using a variety of tools to collect the data. These tools generally come in three types of areas: message analysis tools, outcome measurement tools, and surveys (to determine what employees think). 

6. Analyze and take action

          Examine, examine, examine. This is the "so what does it all mean" step. 

7. Make changes to improve employee relationships and repeat

          As our professor likes to say, this is the "rinse and repeat" type step. Once one knows what the issue is, improve and or fix it, and repeat the process to see if the outcome is more desirable. 

Until Next Time,

Matt