Do you know how effective your internal communications are? Conducting an audit periodically is key to understanding your people’s behaviours and their needs.
Why audit?
Auditing is a useful listening exercise that will inform you about what is and isn’t working in your internal reward and share plan communications. Analysing your content can help you ensure everything is aligned to your overall communication strategy and audience needs, and will highlight any areas that need improvement.
You’ll gain insight into how your employees feel, what they want and need more or less of, and how they use your platforms. With this information, you can evaluate your next steps.
In the same way a SWOT analysis looks at the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to a business or project, you can apply this approach to an audit.
What’s included in an audit?
For communications professionals, there are several ways you can conduct an audit and measure performance. It takes time and resource but is a valuable process. It’s worth having both quantitative (stats and surveys) and qualitative (focus groups, in-person interviews and case studies) data to analyse. It’s important to have something to compare them to, so it’s vital to assess past and present performance. This will help you to draw accurate and well-rounded conclusions and recommendations. You may then share your findings with the wider business and relevant stakeholders.
You may consider looking at:
- Email open and click-through rates
- Cross-department communication
- Intranet/microsite page views or document downloads
- Video engagement and viewing times
- Internal social platform engagement, such as Yammer, Workplace or Slack
- Campaign engagement
- Employee awareness and understanding
- Company event registrations
Adapt to change
Have you considered what time-sensitive updates your employees will need? Are you utilising the right platforms to get your message across? For example, with the recent Capital Gains Tax (CGT) changes you may need to educate your employees on how this could affect them. And with Save as You Earn (SAYE) bonuses set to return on 18 August, now may be the perfect time to refresh your share plan communications. Whether you choose to finetune a single document or overhaul your entire approach, there’s value in keeping your communications updated and consistent. It’s worthwhile conducting an audit once a year, but this will vary dependent on your goals, external factors and business needs.
Everyone benefits
Employees want to feel valued and listened to, especially when they have valuable feedback to share. Not only will you have a clear picture of your next steps and more efficiency of resources, but you’ll also increase employee engagement levels and satisfaction while fostering a culture of innovation.
How we can help you
Your communications – both offline and online – should engage, educate and empower your colleagues to make informed decisions. They should inspire action and contribute to a smooth user journey. That’s what Eximia do best. Our combination of share plan and reward experts and creatives gives us a unique perspective and advantage. We’ll help you audit your current communications with a strategic approach, saving you time, internal resource and budget.
Ready to maximise your internal communications? Contact us for an informal chat.
