How do you truly know how you stand out from the competition? One of the first—and often overlooked—steps to measuring success is identifying and assessing your KPIs for communications in your organization.
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Internal communication plays a critical role in a company’s success—it directly affects the bottom line of a business. But how do you know if you’re implementing the right strategy or using the right communication tools? It’s important to assess whether or not you’re implementing internal communications best practices for your business.
That’s where KPIs for internal communications come in. KPIs, or key performance indicators, are quantifiable values that can deliver internal communication metrics and tell you what’s working—and what’s not—for your business.
What Can Measuring KPIs for Communications Reveal?
To truly know if your internal communications strategy is making an impact on your business it’s necessary to identify the main indicators to help you gauge success. Tracking those indicators, or communication KPIs individually can reveal what parts of your strategy are working, and what is not.
They also:
- Give you hard data: Having a number to track over time is the best way to tell you if your business strategies are working and give you detailed communication metrics and insights. Analytics enable you to make informed, data-driven decisions that are best for your business based on actual numbers.
- Let you know if everyone is on the same page. Internal communication should align all workers to the same goal and to one another. Measuring communication KPIswill let you know where there are gaps in order to unite every worker and accomplish the mission of the company in the most effective, productive way.
- Reveal if you’re on the path to achieving your goals. The purpose behind tracking KPIs is to measure internal communications strategies against the goals you’re trying to achieve. It’s important to assess whether or not you’re implementing internal communications best practices that are aligned with and progressing your organization towards your overall objective.
The Best Method to Track Internal Communication Metrics
Now that we’ve established the importance of measuring and tracking KPIs for communications, let’s discuss the best way to evaluate its effectiveness—with an internal communications app. There are many ways to measure the victories and shortcomings of your strategy using this technology.
While it may seem tricky to identify the best internal communication KPIs, there are many ways to measure the victories or shortcomings of your strategy using a communication app.
Before you begin, remember to get your benchmarks. As you begin to list out your KPI internal communication plan, get a benchmark for each metric you’ll be tracking. This will give you your starting numbers to reference along the way in order to track your progress.
Pro tip: Find an internal communications app with an analytics dashboard that delivers real-time, accurate numbers to effectively measure your KPIs.
Here are 10 internal communication KPIs and a strategy for tracking them with an internal communications app.
10 Communication KPIs
1. Employee App Adoption Rates
You’ve rolled out your internal communication app in your quest to become a digital workplace. Great! The first communication KPI you should start to track is the adoption rate—how many employees have downloaded the app and are actively engaged online. Track your employee directory to see who’s online, or use your analytics dashboard.
It’s always good to have a plan for your digital communication rollout, but if your adoption rates are low you can make adjustments to your strategy as you go to boost those numbers. The more workers are engaged online the more successful your internal communications strategy will be.
2. Performance and Productivity
Workforce productivity can be measured by estimating the time and money saved when knowledge is made more accessible over a workforce app. Increased accessibility to information gives every employee the tools to meet, and even exceed performance goals.
For example, in retail, when employees are aligned with the broader business goals, they are consistent with their sales strategy and push the right products and promotions. This is effective team communication in action. In turn, having an internal communications platform in place to streamline these processes translates into a better ability to provide a positive customer experience.
3. Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is one of the most important indicators for almost any business strategy. An actively engaged employee is generally a happier one who works harder because they respect the organization, their manager, and their colleagues.
An internal communications app equipped with a powerful analytics dashboard delivers specific engagement statistics for the overall workforce, teams, and individual employees.
Internal communication platforms can help to assess engagement through social marketing KPIs such as likes, comments, and shares. Additionally, you can gauge the number and quality of interactions between employees with an internal communications app.
4. Employee Feedback
An internal communications app facilitates two-way communications and creates a channel for employees to give feedback to the organization. Use the employee survey feature to track employee feedback.
Feedback is one way to keep your finger on the pulse of engagement. Increase employee feedback numbers by:
- Allowing employees to answer anonymously
- Asking the right questions that engage employees
- Using a gamification approach
Finally, when you review survey responses always share those results with your entire staff and take action based on those results. You’ll drive higher online engagement when employees know you’re listening and that their input makes a difference.
5. Retention and Turnover
One of the best indicators of a healthy company that’s on track to reach its goals is employee retention. Turnover is disruptive, costly, and creates delays in reaching business objectives.
Tracking retention can let you know the effectiveness of your internal communications strategy.
Here’s how:
- Effective communication enables clear directions so employees can do their jobs effectively and are subsequently more engaged. Lack of information leads to a disconnect and a short employee lifecycle.
- Less than 30% of employees feel heard by their direct managers. Poor manager-employee communication is one of the top reasons employees leave their jobs for another.
- A good internal communications strategy is one that includes employee recognition. That makes employees feel valued which is a key to job longevity.
On average, replacing an employee costs 16-20% of their annual pay. If your turnover numbers are high, do an intensive review of how you’re communicating with employees. And remember: good communication begins during onboarding!
Pro tip: Measure KPIs during a specific event, like at the launch of a communication campaign, to see how your communication strategy is being received.
6. Online Interaction and Viewership
One of the easiest ways to see if workers are actually using your internal communications app is by simply checking the number of views and confirmation campaigns with read receipts. Post something new, whether it’s about a new brand the store is carrying or a new security system, and look at how many people actually read it.
Similar to number of views, open rates and the number of clicks on embedded links you receive can easily be determined. Internal communications platforms are useful tools to find out how many employees are receiving important company information and actively participating in the communication.
7. Customer Satisfaction and Sales
If your internal communications are working as they’re supposed to, that will be reflected in external numbers, like sales and profit. Simply put, giving employees information to do their jobs to the best of their ability will enable and encourage them to create a superior customer experience.
Start sharing more information with your teams, such as:
- Sales goals
- Company vision and purpose
- Employee recognition
- Stock availability
- Customer success stories
8. Collaboration and Innovation
Team collaboration is a key indicator that your internal communication strategy is flourishing. Set collaboration goals and track the journey using analytics accessible via your internal communications app.
Companies excel when they stay ahead of the trend. Cultivate a successful company culture of creativity, diversity, and transparency by encouraging employees to share ideas and solutions. Determine the volume of quality ideas that can improve your organization and track them over the internal communications app.
9. Scheduling Conflicts
Scheduling is a notorious headache in industries with large, dispersed workforces. with frequent adjustments.
If your internal communications app includes team schedules, they can easily be viewed by employees that work different shifts across an organization and locations. A reduction in scheduling conflicts is a sign that employees are utilizing the internal communications app, and that your internal communications strategy is working.
10. Employee Profiles
Not only can employee profiles showcase their skills and interests, they can also list schedule preferences, professional goals, etc. Measure the completeness of each profile and how often they are updated to monitor engagement.
Putting an effective internal communication strategy in place is essential to keeping a company profitable and operating smoothly. Just as important is identifying the key indicators of success, setting goals, and tracking those internal communication KPI numbers.
Use an internal communications app to measure employee engagement and performance early, often, and in consistent intervals. Track these 10 KPIs for communications and watch your company thrive!
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Most Frequently Asked Questions
What are KPIs for communication?
- Employee App Adoption Rates
- Performance and Productivity
- Employee Engagement
- Employee Feedback
- Retention and Turnover
- Online Interaction and Viewership
- Customer Satisfaction and Sales
- Collaboration and Innovation
- Scheduling Conflicts
- Employee Profiles
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