A report last October from UK-based B2B tech PR consultancy ITPR found that UK businesses urgently needed to change their dated and restricted perceptions of the value and importance that the internal communication function brings to a business. And newly released research from the firm reveals that almost half of UK mid-sized businesses (42 percent) are still failing to accurately measure the impact it brings to their business.
One in five UK business decision-makers admits to either never, or rarely capturing employee feedback. Fewer than half (46 percent) capture it annually and just over a third (35 percent) say they capture it on a quarterly basis. Yet, 86 percent stated that they meet with their team to update them on company news at least once a month.
“Given the results, what exactly is happening?,” posited ITPR director Anthony Monks, who has worked in internal communication roles for almost a decade, in a news release. “Business leaders are clearly engaging with their employees on a regular basis, so why is employee feedback not being captured?”
“It is mission-critical that internal communication efforts can be measured. Sound strategy depends on strong analytics, and strong analytics depends upon identifying the right things to measure,” said Monks.
When looking at how businesses currently measure the success of internal communications, the results showed that the top three indicators are employee retention (52 percent), employee productivity (50 percent) and engagement with internal digital communications (41 percent).
Interestingly, when asked how UK business leaders would like to determine success, less than half agreed that they would use employee retention (44%) and employee productivity (44 percent) to measure success.
Engagement with internal digital communications slipped to seventh in order of priority, behind involvement in company events, employees using the correct technology/ following processes and anecdotal feedback.
Only 26 percent stated they would choose engagement with internal digital communications as an indicator of a successful Internal communication strategy.
“The research raises questions about whether UK business leaders understand how they can use the latest technologies to communicate and engage with employees—and whether their internal communication strategy is being measured correctly,” Monks concluded. “Failing to measure the impact of internal communications correctly runs the risk of giving internal communication a bad name. We need to start measuring what really matters!”
Download the full report here.
These results are part of a State of Internal Communication in UK Businesses report. The research surveyed 200 decision-makers in HR, marketing and communications from UK-based organisations with more than 100+ employees.
