An internal communication audit is vital for your business. How else will you assess how well you’ve been communicating with your team and identify growth opportunities?

In a previous blog, we broke down what an internal communication audit is and why you should do one.

So, what should you consider when you’re planning to audit your comms?

We’ve created a proven model to elevate your auditing process and prime your organisation for a year of successful communication, productivity, and growth.

Read on to find out what CLEAR COMMS is, and why you should use it for your next communication audit.

What is CLEAR COMMS?

CLEAR COMMS is a model we developed to facilitate successful internal communication audits.

CLEAR COMMS stands for:

Channels
Leaders
Engagement
Audiences
Relationships
Culture
Operational comms
Messages
Measurement
Skills

So, let’s break each of these concepts down and qualify why each one is essential to review your communications with impact.

Reviewing your CHANNELS

Explore all the ways that you communicate. Consider everything from your face-to-face, written, electronic and social media interactions to how you communicate through apps, broadcast media, and wherever else you communicate with - and listen to - your employees.

In doing so, measure how effectively each channel is cutting through and resonating with your people, how many individuals you reach through your chosen platforms, and if they genuinely touch all parts of the organisation - or if you’re predominantly talking to a head office online audience and forgetting your frontline offline colleagues.

Consider which audiences each channel reaches, and the frequency - is there a regular drumbeat to your channels that your audiences can rely on to find out what they need to know?

Define the purpose of each channel and the style and tone it should take.

Is this channel doing what you intended it to do? Is it adding value? What’s working well for you? What’s not so great?

Taking it further, are there other channels you haven’t explored that could reach different groups in meaningful ways?

Assessing your LEADERS

A strong and visible leadership team is the backbone of an engaged and productive team. So, assessing how your leaders demonstrate effective communication from the top down is an integral part of your auditing process.

They are often the conduit for getting your communications and messages through to employees, and if they’re not doing it effectively then they’re a blocker to your efforts.

Your leaders’ communication approach determines your internal reputation as an employer: how do your employees view their line managers? How do they rate their communication skills and general reliability? Do they have a good rapport with their teams? Are they advocates of your organisation’s purpose, brand, product or service? Are they engaging their teams?

Answering these questions will do one of two things. It will reassure you that your leaders conduct themselves in a way that reflects your values – offering an opportunity to give positive feedback that will enhance their efforts, and your relationship, further. Or it will identify actionable areas and set you on the path to improvement.

Evaluating ENGAGEMENT

How engaged are your employees?

It’s well-documented that employee engagement should be a top business priority, so is it genuinely a priority in your organisation, or are you falling short?

To find out, you need to get a read of your colleagues’ enthusiasm levels.

For example, are there unresolved people problems affecting morale? Is there a high absence rate or churn? Do you frequently come up against union-related issues or struggle to make change stick?

An honest evaluation of employee engagement in your organisation should explore all of the above and not just look at the recent score from your engagement survey.

Who are your AUDIENCES?

Your team members aren’t all part of one homogenous group. Viewing them as such will hinder your ability to connect and impact your chances of development and growth.

Think about your audience groups and the kind of individuals and personalities that make up the different segments, as well as how effectively your current communication efforts land with them.

When people take the time and courage to speak up, are you receptive to their feedback as an organisation? Do your leaders genuinely listen and act on employee insight, or could they be more responsive?

Rewarding RELATIONSHIPS

Take a closer look at the relationships you have with your stakeholders, audiences, suppliers, and network during your audit.

As internal comms practitioners, your role is to engage and connect your organisation.

To achieve this, you must have great relationships with all relevant groups.

Leader and stakeholder relationships

Your leaders and stakeholders need to trust your advice and think of your team as a reliable resource that adds value to them as leaders and the wider organisation as a whole.

Audience relationships

Relating to your audiences means understanding them and their needs, so you’re able to deliver effective communications that keep them feeling informed.

Doing your job successfully means getting out and about, talking to colleagues and building useful relationships.

When you begin to form this kind of relationship, you have a ready-made sounding board to test messages, understand how people think and feel, and what you should be asking and telling them.

It’s only by taking the temperature of your organisation that you understand what’s really going on – and the only way to do this is by keeping an ear to the ground and sustaining good relationships.

Supplier relationships

Strong supplier relationships grant much-needed support to your under-resourced team: after all, you can’t do everything yourself. So, who can you form bonds with that will add value to your team and organisation? The stronger those bonds are, the more value you’ll experience.

Network relationships

Keeping updated with your network means paying attention to what’s happening in your industry and how you can use that to grow. So, maintaining good industry connections is a wise move for you, your team, and your organisation.

Company CULTURE

Hopefully, your business has a strong culture that sets the standard for success. So, are your existing communications promoting and strengthening that culture?

Are your leaders embodying your values, or is there a disconnect between what you believe your organisation stands for and how it actually operates on an everyday basis?

Effective internal communications should mirror your company values, ethos, and culture. Therefore, one of the core goals of your internal comms audit should be to establish whether that’s the case.

OPERATIONAL communications

Chances are you invest time and money into getting strategic communications right, so your teams understand the bigger picture of where your business is heading and why.

However, on a day-to-day basis, are your operational comms hitting the right notes and oiling the cogs of how your business works?

Consider how colleagues communicate within teams, is there a regular drumbeat of operational communication to help everyone to do their best work every day? Does the tone match that of strategic communications and your brand, and how do your teams feel about the operational comms they encounter in their daily working life – is it helping them or hindering them? And do they feel their immediate managers communicate effectively with them?

Getting your MESSAGE across

Your internal comms audit should look carefully at your messaging and how it’s reaching your employees.

Firstly, what’s your strategic narrative as a business? How do the messages you project tell your organisation’s story?

Do your audiences know how the business is implementing its strategy and where they fit into this? And are they kept up to speed on its progress?

This needs to be in place so that everyone understands their role in helping the organisation to succeed and feel engaged and part of the journey.

MEASUREMENTS of success

Measurement helps you to prove the value of your efforts.

Have you defined your critical success factors and KPIs and do you have a dashboard to keep checking you’re on track as a function?

How do you know your messages are landing and your audience is taking what they need from your communications? Do they feel well-informed, are they aware of and understand the organisation’s goals? Do they have the right information to operate effectively?

What are your goals from a people perspective, are you trying to change attitudes and behaviours? Are you trying to reduce employee turnover, build better employer relations, improve employee engagement or reduce absence? If so, how are you measuring this?

Ask yourself what problems your organisation is trying to fix and how internal comms can play its part and decide how you will do this and measure this.

Setting up effective measurement will mean you have tangible results to share with your team and your stakeholders (aka budget holders) to explain how and why you plan to make subsequent improvements.

SKILLS to thrive

Finally, your audit will explore the skills within your internal communications department and broader leadership team.

Do your comms representatives and leaders have the right skills to communicate with each audience appropriately?

Do you need any specialist skills to create your communications?

Is there a skills gap you could address through training, mentoring, or recruiting extra resource or agency support with the skills you need?

Asking and answering these questions transparently will make your business communications more successful across the board.

Where to access support with your internal communication audit

Using CLEAR COMMS to guide you through the process of auditing your business’s communications will reveal areas to work on and help plan how you’ll take the necessary steps to organise yourselves and improve.

Often, taking a step back and asking an independent third party to work with you to review each of the above concepts can help to provide an open and honest account of your progress.

Not only does this offer an impartial point of view, but you may also find your leaders and audiences are more willing to provide honest feedback resulting in truly useful responses.

Do you want to see CLEAR COMMS in action? Read our case study highlighting how an audit brought insight to a national organisation.

If your audit is slipping down the to-do list and you need support to action it successfully, Enthuse is here to help. We’ll step in and provide the support you need, from practical advice to complete project management alongside our expertise, best practice advice, and impartiality.

Contact us by calling 07812 343310 or email hello@enthuse-comms.co.uk

Why CLEAR COMMS spells out Internal Communication Audit success