3 Reasons Why You Must Measure Communication Effectiveness

It’s crucial to measure communication effectiveness in your business. How else can you determine if it’s actually making a difference in your business? Sadly, according to this report, over 60% of internal communicators don’t measure internal communications at all. If you are part of this 60%, here are three reasons why you must start.

How to Measure Communication Effectiveness: Budget Adjustments

The most obvious reason you should learn how to measure communication effectiveness is to determine if the money being spent is being used wisely. You don’t want to be focusing most of the budget in an area of internal communication that isn’t working. Of course, that’s assuming much money has been budgeted for internal communications to begin with.

To convince executives – and board members – that money is well spent on internal communication, it is helpful to have solid numbers. Being able to prove the ROI and the impact of internal communications, according to FastCompany, may cause management to be more receptive to additional solutions and methods of communication in the future.

Measuring Communication Effectiveness: Opportunity Cost

When measuring communication effectiveness, in addition to the actual cost of internal communications, it is also important to consider the opportunity cost involved with ineffective internal communication. According to this article, a business with 100 employees spends an average of 17 hours a week clarifying communication. When the article was written in 2013 that amounted to over $500,000 annually!

Think about how that $500,000 could be better spent. Not to mention those 17 hours that could be spent on something actually productive. Poor internal communication could be costing your business much more than you realize, and you won’t know until you measure the effectiveness.

Measure Communication Effectiveness: Time Is Valuable

Similar to the budget concern, you wouldn’t want time being wasted on ineffectual communication when you measure communication effectiveness. For example, maybe executives have been asked to regularly contribute to a company-wide newsletter. They are spending valuable time on something they believe is helping the company. However, if no one is reading the newsletter, they are wasting their time.

Measuring internal communication can help determine where time would be better spent. If no one is reading the newsletter, then maybe another method of communication would work better. Regular webinars or video meetings might reach more people more effectively, but you’ll only know if you’re tracking internal communications effectiveness.

Whatever industry you’re in, measuring internal communication effectiveness is important. If your company isn’t measuring it yet, it’s never too early to start.

Submit the form below to find out how you can measure your internal communication with Beekeeper – the communication tool for teams that helps you reach and connect everyone in your organization.