Less Chatter, More Matter: The Communications Podcast

#75 What is internal comms auditing and why is it important?

• Season 1 • Episode 75

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The rapid shift to remote work in 2020 brought incredible challenges and changes to our internal communications. From the quick fixes like the introduction of varying comms channels (i.e. Slack, Teams, Skype, etc) through to the bandaid work from home solutions - our IT teams were under the pump. 

However, as much as we can applaud their quick and efficient roll outs during a tense time - it’s becoming clearer as time wears on that these quick fixes are not only showing their limitations, but causing major headaches for a lot of folks; especially those in comms. 

This is the exact reason why we’ve discussed the importance of internal comms audits in this episode of the Less Chatter, More Matter podcast. However, we’ve gone one step further and even stepped out the exact six step process to conducting your own audit.

Join us as we talk you through the simple six-step process to ensure your communication strategies are effective and up-to-date.


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It's February 2020. Most days for most of your working life, you've been coming into the office to work, meet with your colleagues and get things done. The commute might've been a pain, but it was all part of the job and you were used to it really. Your team might have already started experimenting with hybrid working, probably at least with hot desking. But for the most part, you spend more days in the office than not. And because of that, your internal comms channels are largely the same as they have been for years, mostly emails and meetings. But just a few weeks later, the entire world flips on its head as the COVID 19 pandemic emerges, and suddenly, everyone is sent to work from home. There is a rush from IT departments everywhere to put in place the infrastructure that not only allows everyone to work remotely without crashing your entire system, but also to communicate virtually. How many workplaces were able to stand up platforms like Zoom and Teams and Slack in a matter of hours? Projects that normally would have taken at least six months to do. The IT teams do an outstanding job of getting things done quickly during this time. But it's now four years later, and those Band Aid fixes, well, they're starting to come away at the edges at the same time as employee engagement is faltering. It could be time for an internal comms audit. And that's what today's episode is all about. Hello friend, and welcome back to another episode of Less Chatter, More Matter, the communications podcast. I'm your host, Mel Loy, and if this is your first time here, thank you so much for choosing to try out the podcast. I really appreciate it. And if you are a repeat listener, a big thank you to you too, for continuing to tune in every week. In today's episode, I'm going to talk you through a process I've been running with a few clients of late, an internal comms audit. But before we do that, here's three signs you might need to conduct one at your organisation. Number one, nobody knows where anything is. Did I see that message in a Teams chat, a Teams channel, on an email, on a text message? Does that sound familiar? Because all those virtual channels were hastily put into place back in 2020, there was no time for governance. So now we don't know what's used for communication, what's used for collaboration, and what's used for knowledge management. Basically there's stuff everywhere. The second sign is that your employee engagement continues to drop. Now, recent research by Gallup shows that although we have seen a rallying of employee engagement in recent times, it's still well below pre pandemic levels for most cohorts, except for baby boomers, interestingly. And while good employee engagement is the result of many factors, one of them of course is internal comms. And the third sign change has become harder to implement. You're hearing anecdotally that people don't seem to know what's going on around the business or even in their own teams. People may not know who to go to for help or where to find information. And because of that change is getting harder to make happen. They're the top three, a couple of other signs that you could be due for an audit. Your channel mix is largely the same as it was four years ago. With no changes or improvements. And another is the data. What's it telling you about how people are engaging or not with the channels and the content you have. So that's the triggers. The next question to ask is why should you even conduct an audit? Well, the first and the most important reason is because as a communicator, we want to make sure our messages are reaching the right people at the right time in the right way so that you can help the business achieve its goals. Now if you don't know if you're achieving that, then you don't know if you are adding value to the business. And secondly, technology and internal comms platforms are changing and evolving rapidly. And if you're not keeping up, then you're being left behind. So part of an audit is to make sure your channels are still fit for purpose and identifying if there's any other opportunities you should consider. But it's also about being a lifelong learner and understanding that continuous improvement is what keeps us at the top of our game as communicators. If you want to be really proud of the work you're doing, then you need to keep learning and evolving. Okay. So that's the background. That's the why. Let's get into the how. The process of the audit itself. There's six steps I'm going to talk you through today. And the first step is set the scope, understand what you want to learn from the audit. Is it simply just a case of understanding what channels are working and what aren't, or is it a broader scope than that? And you're looking into the type of content, how it's packaged and delivered the role of leadership communication in internal comms, et cetera. So get really clear first on what your scope is and what you want the output of the process to be; maybe it's potentially a complete overhaul of your internal comms and ways of working, or maybe it's simply just understanding which channels need some improvement. There's a huge spectrum there. This is important because it will shape the rest of the process, but it will also help you explain to stakeholders what you're doing and why you're doing it. So once you're clear on the scope of your audit, the next step, step number two, is to get stuck into the data. Now this is where you will look at the analytics from all of your channels and see what the trends are. So for example, are there particular days of the week where Teams is used more than others or where more intranet news is consumed? What content on your intranet appears to perform the best and what doesn't work at all? If you have analytics on your internal comms emails, do you have data on what content gets the most click throughs, open rates, etc? Are you able to get data on emails sent by the entire C suite? And if you have other digital channels, like an internal podcast, for example, what did the download rates look like? And again, what content seems to perform best and what doesn't resonate? This is all about measuring outputs more than outcomes, but it will give you some baseline data that can be really informative in planning the future direction of your internal comms. Now, word of warning, though. This type of measurement doesn't give you the why, for example, you might see that some content in your CEO emails works better than others, but you won't be able to see why that is until later in the process. Another sort of data is employee engagement surveys that have been conducted recently. So again, they can give you insights into what's working and what's not depending on the questions that were asked in those surveys. So for example, sometimes there are questions like how well informed people feel, How well their leaders communicate with them, et cetera. And those can be valuable sources of data that you can build into this entire data set and give you that overall picture of the performance of internal comms. Now, step three takes the measurement further away from outputs and into outcomes and impacts. So this is where you as a team, or maybe you're a solo operator, you reflect on the work you've done in the previous 12 months and think about what seemed to work well in terms of. What made a difference? So what work did you do that resulted in positive business outputs? So for example, maybe it's helping to get big change over the line, helping employees understand the organizational strategy and the purpose, uh, contributing to engagement scores, for example. This is your time to reflect and think about, well, what could we learn from those experiences? And not just the positive ones. What didn't work is super valuable Intel as well, because it provides insights into things to avoid in the future or things that need to change. So for example, the way something was positioned in a message from the CEO may not have gone down well. Those little changes can make big positive impacts when we address them. Now, a note here that I know it can be challenging to draw a line between your work as an internal comms professional and the business results, but it's not impossible. You'll see it in the way people change their thoughts and behaviors after you've implemented a campaign or a change comm strategy, for example, or if there are particular improvements in engagement scores and comments from team members in those surveys that point to really good internal comms. The trick is to know what impacts you're trying to measure. And then find the right way to measure them. But that's a whole other episode. So we won't get stuck into that too much right now. Moving on. Step four is the internal comms survey. Now this should be a brief, well designed survey that helps you understand the perspectives of employees in your business and gives you useful insights to plan forward. Brief is the most important thing here. People get survey fatigue really quickly. And if you want a really good representative sample of your people, then you need to make it easy and fast for them to complete. So because it's brief, it means you have to ask questions that will give you the most bang for your buck. And again, that comes back to step one, what's the scope of your audit and what do you want to find out right up front? It's also really good to provide some definitions. So for example, What exactly do you mean by internal comms? What is a channel? Remember the curse of knowledge. Don't assume everyone knows what you mean by these terms that we think are common as communicators. And also be really clear right up front in your survey about how respondents answers will be used. So are they going to be anonymous? Confidential? Is a third party conducting the survey? And FYI, that's usually good to have a third party come in because it builds that sense of anonymity. But also if you've got a culture that lacks trust, then getting a third party in can be good. And also talk about how those results will be used. So people know the value that they're adding. Now, my top tip for these surveys, listen in, this one's a good one, is to start with your most powerful question. Because if people don't complete the entire survey, at least you got one good question up front. And that question I ask is this, if there is one thing you could change about internal comms at our company. What would it be? And why? So again, if there is one thing you could change about internal comms at our company, what would it be and why? And that one question can provide a whole lot of insight. Then you can get into the nitty gritty. So for example, asking about your current channels, how the person's direct leader communicates and so on. But one big thing to remember is that people don't know what they don't know. So for example, if you're asking questions about channels and you have a question like, Would you prefer an employee podcast? In that case, if people don't normally listen to podcasts, then they don't know what they like or what value they can add. So they're probably going to respond. No, I don't want to podcast to that question. A better way to gauge the way forward is to ask about communication preferences rather than channels. So that way you can design a channel mix that best suits the preferences of your audience. So for example, maybe they're a more visual auditory audience. It's maybe they like having time to chat or maybe they like time alone to process information and so on. This is really important if you don't know the communication preferences of your audiences already. Hopefully you do, but this can be hard to know in a new organization or one that's growing really quickly or even a really big organisation Okay, so you've done the survey, you've analysed the results, you've looked for trends, what's working, what's not, et cetera, et cetera. The next step is focus groups. So this is your opportunity to interrogate the results of your data gathering and the results of the survey. Push those together and really delve into the why behind those results. Now with your focus groups, I do recommend splitting them into different audience segments. So for example, a focus group with team members, one with team leaders, one with middle managers and so on. You want to avoid people being in a room virtually or in person. Where they don't feel comfortable to speak because a leader is present. So amongst their peers, they're more likely to be more open and honest about their experiences. And having an external facilitator for these groups can also be really helpful because again, it takes away that fear of reprisal. That person is just there to gather the feedback and report back. They should be agnostic to the situation. Now with all the focus groups, a maximum of an hour should be enough. You need to keep their attention, but it can also help to share some information prior to the group. So people have time to gather their thoughts and ideas. So it's really valuable experience. So maybe providing a brief overview of what the purpose of the group is, what topics you'll cover, et cetera, can just help them get their brains working ahead of time. Now, the final step is to pull it all together and develop a set of recommendations. So firstly, do a recap of what you found, what's working well and what's not. That sets the scene and reminds everyone that not everything is broken, but there are opportunities to be better. Then the recommendations come. Now again, not everything will need to be improved, so some of your recommendations may center around what to keep doing or do more of. Then you'll have recommendations for improvement or future action. Now with those, I like to prioritize them because you won't be able to do everything right away. So make it clear, not only what are your recommendations. but why you're recommending that course of action and also what your suggested prioritization is and why. Maybe it's because some things are just easy wins. They're quick fixes that will make a difference right away. Others will take longer or might require some new tech or even a business case. So they'll necessarily be lower on the list because they take more time and effort. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're less important. A big part of presenting these recommendations is getting a commitment to action as well. So top tip, when you are presenting these back to your executive, ask them in that meeting, which recommendations they agree with and which they want to see actioned. Do not leave them to mull over because they will move on pretty quickly. And also when presenting back, Keep it simple. I usually prepare a report with all the findings and appendices with the data, but I also like to do a one page infographic that highlights the key findings and recommendations. That's the thing I present to executives, not the big pack, although it's there if they want it. Another thing to consider is how you will communicate the results of the audit back to the organisation so this is key to getting future buy in because people want to know the time and effort they spent contributing to the audit made a difference. This comms is your way of thanking them for that effort and showing them that it mattered and that they're talking about improvements or changes because of what they've contributed. Now, if you can do that, it means that next time you run an audit, people will be more likely to participate because they know they will make a difference. Okay, it is time for your episode recap. Today, we talked through the steps of an internal comms audit and why it's important to do one. And it's all about continuous improvement. So you can add value to the organisation and help it achieve its business goals. The six steps to the audit are number one, set the scope, get clear on what you want to audit and why, and that will set you up for how you conduct the next few steps. Number two, gather the data. So gather all the data from all the sources you can, like digital channel analytics, employee engagement surveys, etc. And that will help you paint a picture of what's not working, what is working, and all of those sorts of good output points, but it won't delve into the why yet. So again, this step is about output and a touch of outcomes. Step number three, reflect on your work to date. So as a team, go back over all the work that you've done in the previous 12 months and reflect on what work really contributed to the business goals. This is where we start to measure outcomes and impact. This reflection can help you come up with ideas around what to improve and what to keep doing or keep building upon. Number four, the survey. Design a short survey that will give you the most insights possible. And again, this comes back to the scope of your audit. But think about what questions you will ask that could help you get the best insights into the things you want to measure. Number five is focus groups. So this is where you interrogate the results of your data gathering exercise and the survey, and really delve into the why behind those results. It's often where other insights come out as well that weren't covered in previous steps. The big thing here is to make this a safe environment for people to speak freely. And step number six is your recommendations. Play them back to the executive, come up with a list of recommendations to continue, start or stop, prioritize that list and make sure you get agreement in the moment. Also think about how you will communicate these results back to your organisation. Folks, we've facilitated audits like this for many clients over the years, and I can tell you this process works. The key is to ask really good questions and to think strategically about the path forward. Do not jump straight to tactics and then repeat the process every 12 months. So you can keep a track of what's worked and what hasn't, and you'll be able to demonstrate improvements. Okay, friends, that's all we have time for in today's episode. As always, it's been a pleasure having you on board. And if you need a hand with your IC audit, please reach out. Don't forget to check out the links in the show notes. And if you haven't already, sign up to my fortnightly update. Every two weeks, you'll get an email packed full of tips, resources, and news from around the world and upcoming events. In the meantime, keep doing amazing things and bye for now.