Think beyond time when measuring internal comms

Employees say they spend less than 10 minutes per day engaging with internal communications.

Approaching this as someone who is tasked with devising IC strategies for clients across a broad spectrum of sectors, it’s a particularly thorny challenge.

I’m often asked to find ways of making content shorter or more bite-sized, to provide it in different formats, or to spread it across more (or occasionally fewer) channels.

However, it’s important to challenge any assumptions that influence an idea.

And for me, it’s vital we bear in mind that internal communications is a distinct activity that’s competing for people’s time.

Looking at internal communications is an option on a time-tracker being weighed against ‘having my lunch’ and ‘doing my job’.

We tend to measure communications by tracking when people are consciously choosing to engage with it – browsing an intranet, reading an email newsletter or watching a leader briefing video.

But that might mean we’re not accounting for the times when internal communications can be most impactful – when it’s woven into the experiences that matter to people.

That’s an approach that’s underpinned some of our recent work at 44. We’ve focused on how we can achieve the outcomes we want by integrating the communications into moments or opportunities that already feel essential to people’s work.

Here are three examples…

Values led 

We devised and created a recognition programme as a way of embedding new behaviours and values. There was appetite for a new recognition mechanism, and submitting a nomination helped people to celebrate success within the framework of the new values.

Boxing clever 

We created a unique themed ‘meeting in a box’ experience for frontline workers to take them step by step through the rollout of a new HR system. A bespoke, collective experience achieved in 10 minutes what it would have taken a multi-page FAQ document to explain.

Game on 

Earlier this year, we wrote and facilitated an immersive, gamified 20-minute experience that made a culture change feel tangible and fun. That concept turned a CEO briefing from a slide deck into a lived experience.

What links them all is that they felt connected to key moments, not separate to people’s work. The ‘know, feel, do’ we helped people get to was contained within something that was integral to their employee experience and not separate to it.

None of these activities happened in a vacuum. They were supported by traditional communications. But in our measurement it was these three moments that landed with the most impact.

When we’re asking colleagues how much time they are spending engaging with internal communications, would those three examples come into the reckoning?

The finding in the IC Index that employees spend less than 10 minutes a day engaging with internal communications might tell us something about the effectiveness of our channels, but perhaps not about how effective an internal communications strategy is.

When we do internal communications really well, it should feel like part of the employee experience. And perhaps the focus should be less on what time people spend reading, clicking or watching and fully on helping communications be something that people experience. Something that stays with them and that is acted on.