How many internal channels does your company have?  Which are the most effective?

Take stock of all the channels available to you as an internal communicator. You can then do a quick assessment of the benefits and limitations of each. Having this information at the ready helps you make decisions about tactics.  It can also help you when talking with stakeholders who would like to understand the rationale behind your decisions.

Internal channel listing

List all the channels available to you. We’ve listed the most common ones to give you a jump-start.

  • Email
  • Intranet
  • Town halls
  • Walls
  • Instant messaging
  • Telephone
  • Display cabinets
  • Video screens
  • Managers
  • Application dashboards

Measuring effectiveness

Before you can decide the best ways to measure the effectiveness of the channels within your company, you need to know how precise and comprehensive you need to be.

Why? Because measurement can take a lot of time and energy depending on how the data will be used.  For example, if you want to make more informed decisions about the tactics you use, then measurement can happen fairly easily. However, if you’re in a large (more than 1000 employees) organization or senior leadership wants data for broad strategic decisions, then you will need a more complex approach that may include an audit.

In this article, we explore the measurement that you or your team can do fairly easily.

Combination approach

To help you know which internal channels work best so you can make full use of them, try combining two types of measurement: quick response and long-term.  Both of these are easy to implement. The hard part is commitment to the process.

Quick response measurement

  • Incorporate 2 questions into all “immediate use” content. (Examples: email, articles, videos, town hall/all employee meetings, intranet pages and newsletters. Content such as user guides, employee handbooks, orientation packages are not considered “immediate use”) .  You’ll want to do this for a specific period of time, usually one month. If you have a low volume of “immediate use” content, you might want to do this for 2 months and no longer than 3 months.

“Do you like getting information through this method?” (Yes/No/Not sure)

“Is information easy to absorb using this method?” (Yes/No/Not sure)

Tip  Try including these questions on posters and display cabinets. However, just like with paper-based content, it’s difficult to get responses because people can respond immediately.

  • Keep track in a spreadsheet. List the content you have delivered in the first column. Label the next columns “Yes”, “No’, “Not Sure”.  Enter the appropriate numbers as you gather responses. Also be sure to have a column with approximate number of recipients. In most cases, this will be the total number of employees. However, it may be less, if only one segment receives particular content.  You can then easily calculate percentages.

Long-term measurement

  • Create a simple survey that employees can complete in 5 minutes or less. You’ll want to keep it short to increase the likelihood of people completing it. Plus, you’ll want employees to complete the survey every 6 months for at least 24 months. This will allow you to see trends and see if any adjustments you made after your benchmark (first) survey made a difference.

Sample questions:

“Channels are the mechanisms we use to share information with employees.  Which do you think are best? (Select 3)”  Choices: Email, Intranet, Town Halls, Video Screen in Lunchroom, etc

“How often do you read emails that come from Our Great Company?” Choices: Always, Most of the time, Sometimes, Seldom, Never

“How often do you check the Intranet for company news? Choices: Always, Most of the time, Sometimes, Seldom, Never

“How often do you check the Intranet for information about the company, policies or procedures? Choices: Always, Most of the time, Sometimes, Seldom, Never

  • Ask randomly selected employees for additional feedback on the different channels.  Ask for 10-15 minutes of their time. Have 2-3 standard questions but allow for conversation. That’s often how the most valuable feedback emerges. Make notes but reassure the employee that their name won’t appear next to their comments. If you speak with 4-5 randomly selected employees a month, you’ll get a sense of the “word on the street”.

Sample questions:

“Which B2E channels do you pay attention to?” (Offer a list)

“Do you see any problems with any of the channels?”

“Do you have any suggestions for improvements to any of the channels?”

What does it all mean?

The answer to that depends on your organization. These types of measurement are organization-specific and the results are relative to each other. That is, there are too many variables to make comparisons to other companies worthwhile. You’re looking for the picture in your organization and if you’ll be able to build on successes and strengthen any weak areas.

Also keep in mind that these are only measurements of the channels, not the effectiveness of the content itself. That’s a whole other kettle of fish.