Understanding The Sitch: Internal Comms Audit

While there are definitely common experiences and communications best practices that work everywhere, I’ve found that each organization has a unique culture, communications needs, regional differences, and so on. You’ve got to get the data to build a meaningful comms strategy and experience.

We can collect meaningful, ongoing feedback and data in various ways through surveys, focus groups, interviews, and reviewing engagement metrics. I also like to dive deep and run a full audit of our communications tactics, tools, vehicles, and audiences at least every few years to supplement the always-on feedback loops and understand the full communications picture.

While an oldie from my earliest days in corporate communications, this Internal Comms Audit report is a goodie that I’ve replicated numerous times since. My team and I surveyed and interviewed 300 employees and leaders and analyzed all our available data to fully understand what employees needed and wanted from the communications team. We used these insights to design a comprehensive and impactful communications program that served the global organization through many acquisitions and transformations until I moved on in 2018.

I learned a lot about the value of this kind of exercise, and many of the insights we gleaned have stuck with me over the years. The kinds of data and tools used in this project have evolved a little since then, but the goals, framework, and value have remained consistent.