A digital communications assessment is a great way to measure the effectiveness of your core tools and channels. By uncovering the current experience, you’ll develop a deeper understanding of employees’ priorities, identify future content investment areas and develop ways to improve your internal communications.
In this post, we’ll walk you through our process for conducting a digital communications assessment.
Step 1: Anchor yourself in the purpose or jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) of each channel
Start by clarifying the purpose (what we call the “job-to-be-done” or JTBD for short) of each channel – for example, intranet, email communications, Microsoft Teams, or Viva Engage. Take the time to define the role for each one and identify if there are any specific JTBD that might relate to the overarching organizational goals, operational activities, or desired culture.
For example, a recent Habanero client identified the following jobs for their communications channels:
- Intranet news – The JTBD is to provide in-depth detail about a story along with an opportunity for two-way communication.
- Email newsletters – The JTBD is to trigger interest and notify employees when there is something new to read on the intranet.
- Viva Engage – The JTBD is to give employees a way to have deeper and more dynamic two-way conversations about a story.
This will help guide the rest of your research. Once you identify the JBTD for your channels, you can start digging into the analytics and current state experiences to validate if your current strategy is working.
Step 2: Review your analytics
The next step is to dive into the analytics of each platform. It’s helpful to start with your intranet news – look at reach, adoption trends and engagement. Unfortunately, it’s hard to develop a complete picture of what’s going on using SharePoint analytics. Page analytics can tell you page views and average time on page for the last 7-30-90 day period, but that’s not super helpful. For a better story about how your content is performing, look at analytics in Viva Engage and Viva Amplify. For instance, Viva Engage will give you a clear picture of reach and engagement for each post.
Once you have your analytics tooling figured out, the next step is to select a period of time and set of content and analyze the reach and social engagement for each post.
We look for insights based on areas such as:
- Number of articles created and read
- Percentage reach per post
- Average reach overall, and the top and worst performers
- Reach across different areas of the organization (i.e., any gaps between areas of the business)
Look for key insights, commonalities or topics that may be leading to desired or undesired results.
While analytics rarely give you the full picture (and often raise new questions), they provide important indicators that can inform how you design your communications survey and what you dig into in listening labs. For example, if content targeted to field workers isn’t reaching them as expected, that’s an area you might want to explore further to understand why. Assessing your analytics through the lens of the JTBD of each communication channel also ensures a more fruitful analysis. Please don’t skip this step!
From here, you can take what you have learned from your analytics, including any new questions they have raised, and set up your communications survey.
Step 3: Set up a communications survey
To build additional insight, we recommend conducting a communications survey with key questions you want to answer. Include a sample of people from your target audience group or cross-section of the organization and keep the survey open for a reasonable period of time.
Be sure to keep the questions you ask to a handful of the most valuable ones for you so that the survey doesn’t get too long. The exact questions you use should depend on the specific JTBD with your digital tools or channel, but here are a sample to get you started:
- How often to you read news on the intranet/Viva Engage/newsletter?
- What is the most common reason you visit the intranet?
- What source for information do you consider to be the most authoritative source when you need insight/answers on a particular topic?
- What is the last piece of content you read on the intranet?
- Does the intranet help you feel connected and informed about the organization? Why or why not?
- What is your favourite type of content or story on the intranet? Why?
- What content do you think needs to be improved? What is the impact of this area of weakness on you?
- What content would you like to see more of? How would that help you?
- If someone asked you what the purpose of the intranet vs our newsletter is, what would you say?
- What advice do you have to improve the intranet/newsletters/Viva Engage?
Step 4: Conduct listening labs
Once your survey is done, the next step is to conduct some listening labs to observe employees using each channel to gather direct insight based on how they use all the channels together. Listening labs differ from a more formal interview in that people are invited to “show and tell” how they use different channels and to share what is most important to them. They allow you to directly observe how people use different communication channels and understand their preferences in a way that is not possible with analytics or surveys.
Aim to talk to 8-10 people across different roles and departments, tenures, locations, demographics and work styles (remote, in-office, field or frontline) and select people who have some recent experience with the communication channels.
Remember, listening labs tend to highlight specific actions and insights that get missed in a survey format. They allow you to watch a task firsthand and to see a problem unfold. Instead of asking people to rely on what they have remembered accessing in the past and why (which is very difficult!), in a listening lab, you ask people to open up the intranet and share the when, where and why of the content they find valuable. Once people start looking at the intranet, they tend to remember a lot, and can share the context, rationale and value of the content with you in a way that is hard to within surveys. You can learn a lot about the user flow between applications, the nuances or emotional reactions for how the news was interpreted, and what the actual impact was on the employee.
Also, be sure to take what you have learned from your analytics and survey into the listening labs with you! For example:
- If you know what your most popular content is from analytics, the listening lab is where you dig into why it’s popular, and the impact it has on people.
- If people tell you in the survey the most common reasons they use the intranet, the intranet is where you dig into their awareness of being able to find it, and how well the content is doing its job.
- If you learn from your analytics that content intended for the field is not frequently accessed, the listening lab is where you can understand the reasons behind this.
- If the survey indicates a channel is not helping people feel informed and connected, the listening lab is where you understand what does help people feel informed and connected.
Step 5: Develop your findings
To develop clear actional findings:
- Revisit the JTBD of your communication channels (Step 1).
- Integrate what you learned from analytics, the survey and the listening labs (Step 2 to 4). Each of these methods work together to provide you with a clear picture of how your communication channels are performing for your people.
- Identify the gaps between the JTBD of your communication channels and the reality of what you heard via the analytics, survey and listening labs.
- Take what you learned about what employees want and need, the goals and needs of your organization, and identifying the content needed to fill the gap, alongside the shortcomings of the communication channels you learned about.
- Prioritize your action steps according to impact and the capacity of your team.
These findings will help you confidently determine the right direction for your team and create clear, actionable ideas for how to move forward. You’ll have insight into what’s working well and where there’s room for improvement. You’ll gain insight into how all the different digital communication channels are performing – both individually and in concert together – including what’s working well and where there’s room for improvement.
Because the next best steps will be unique to you and there is so much insight available within this research, we recommend you take some time to digest and analyze the results. Look for key insights, trends and overall themes that point to areas where what is most important to your people and your organization can be improved.
Assessments can then be integrated into your measurement strategy and included in your annual communications planning process. They provide an effective way to evaluate performance and facilitate meaningful improvement over time.
Looking for help?
We hope you’re feeling inspired and confident about how to align your communication channels with the needs of your people and your organization. We are also able to help. Feel free to reach out – we'd love to help you move forward with confidence!
Sample Internal Communications Survey Questions
Feel free to draw from these questions in your next Internal Communications Survey:
