Knowledge is power. A communications audit gives you knowledge.

Think your employee communication is effective? A do-it-yourself communications audit can give you a picture of how things are going — and where to start, if improvements are needed.

A good communications audit will help you see:

  • Your current employee communications goals and objectives
  • If employees are getting the information and messages you intended and taking the appropriate action
  • Which strategies and tactics have been most effective
  • What employees think of the content distributed
  • If your content supports your company’s strategies and business goals
  • What you can do to improve content
  • What employee communications opportunities you might be missing

Step 1: Determine the scope

To gain the most accurate picture of your employee communication, be sure to include content generated by all “corporate” business areas such as Human Resources, IT and Building Maintenance. You might also have committees or internal working groups, such as Health & Safety or Employee Events, that generate content that’s distributed to all employees.

Also determine if you’re going to look at all formats or focus on just one. (Paper, online, meetings.)

Step 2: Collect and evaluate your past communications

Gather all online and paper content from the past 6-12 months.

Use a spreadsheet to list each item and track your Yes or No responses to the follow questions:

  • Did we convey the right messages and information?
  • Did we target the right audiences?
  • Did we make it employee-centric
  • Were there a lot of questions about anything? Did we have re-communicate to clarify?
  • Did we incorporate visuals?
  • Did we reinforce broader messages (i.e. trust, managing resources)
  • Did we use a variety of channels?
  • Did we make it easy for employees to access the information, even at a later time?

Tip  In your spreadsheet, use “1” for Yes and “0” for No. This will make it easier to give each item a score.

Step 3: How you’re going to collect employees’ and stakeholders’ insights

There are many ways to collect information from the people who receive content (employees) and who creates or sponsors the creation of content (stakeholders):

  • Formal and informal one-on-one interviews
  • Surveys
  • Feedback mechanism attached to current content
  • Facilitated group discussion

[/button “url=https://www.liftinternal.com/write-survey-internal-audiences”] Learn more about writing employee surveys [/button]

Step 4: Identify whose feedback you’ll seek

It’s not always necessary or possible to solicit feedback from all employees. In such cases, be sure to engage a healthy cross-section of employees. Look across functions, levels and locations.

Tip  If your organization has a volunteer corps who have access to the employee content, be sure to include them in your feedback group.

Step 5: Define your current landscape

You’ll need to give your findings context. List your known resources, constraints and facts.  These might include:

  • Employee communication goals and/or objectives
  • Available channels
  • Employee communication structure (centralized or decentralized)
  • Dedicated resources
  • Main audience segments
  • Approval process (e.g. senior leadership or parent company signoff required)
  • Most common stakeholders (functional areas that request or generate content)

Step 6: Conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis

This standard approach to deciding what need to change and how to start making an action plan can become quite complex. For most DIY communications audits, a simple approach is fine.

Using a quadrant like the one shown below, make notes and then analyze how you can build on strengths, close gaps on weaknesses, seize opportunities and prepare for, mitigate or avoid threats.

example of SWOT quadrant

Tip  Mind Tools (they offer “essential skills for an excellent career”) has more information about conducting SWOT analyses.

Step 7: Plan for future communications

Using the SWOT analysis and landscape (see Step 5) to guide you, make recommendations to yourself. Be as objective as possible and don’t be afraid to make difficult decisions.

  • Start with “low hanging fruit”. That is, improvements that can be made quickly and easily and will generate meaningful results. This helps build positive momentum.
  • Next, plan for changes that will have the greatest impact on the areas of greatest concern to company: cost, productivity, efficiency, culture, etc.
  • Build the plan in segments of 6, 12 and 18 months
  • Incorporate plan and outcome reviews every 4 months

A closing thought

Do-it-yourself audits are great for improving results and outcomes along with building strategic thinking and communications management skills.  They help you make informed decisions and can open your eyes to opportunities you can’t see when your head is down in day-to-day demands.