It is important to know just how well your internal communications strategy is working. Once you collect the insights, you can celebrate successes and improve lower performing metrics. However, the only way to truly find out this information is to ask your employees.
Employers should not bring this topic up in an all-hands meeting where employees might be too nervous to bring up their complaints. Instead, find an anonymous way to learn their unbiased opinions. The best way to do this is through an employee survey. This is what you should do to increase and improve your surveys.
Exclude Any Identifying Information
You want to make sure that your employee surveys exclude any information that could be used to identify any individuals responding to it. This is important because having anonymity makes employees much more likely to respond to the survey with truthful answers.
In fact, as soon as you make an employee survey anonymous, you gain increased response rates, reaching upwards of 90 percent. Increased responses brings about better data. You can also be confident that the information you are getting is not tainted by bias. This will help you better improve your internal communications campaign.
Rank Preferred Methods for Internal Communication
The information you are sharing through your internal communication is undeniably important. However, the modes of communication that you are using to send it is arguably even more important. This is because choosing the wrong method of communication could result in a large number of employees never seeing your content.
For example, you might send a lot of the information through the employee app. However, half of your employees don’t have the app on their phone. You are now excluding a lot of employees from important information. Therefore, you need to know what your employees are checking most often so that you can send the info where they are already looking.
A comprehensive content creation tool like backstitch Studio can allow your communications team to build beautiful content that will engage employees in a meaningful way. You are able to take a single piece of employee communications and share it across multiple channels and communications platforms. Create once, and publish everywhere, to maximize the distribution of your communications plan.
Ask What Kind of Information Is Lacking
It’s important to know what you’re doing correctly. It’s just as vital to know what areas need a lot of improvement. That’s why your employee surveys should include a question that asks employees if there is anything that they feel they aren't receiving enough of.
Some employees may appreciate more sections regarding monthly company performance reports, employee praising, or other types of information. Consider using the feedback to add more detailed content. Or, split your internal comms into more frequent, smaller pieces.
In order to help improve your internal communications campaign, you will need to start sending out employee surveys that utilize these tips at least once or twice a year. If you’re looking for other ways to help improve your internal communications campaign, make sure to contact our team of professionals at backstitch today.