Ask Devin

One of the most common mistakes I see is getting stuck in the cycle of “we’ve always done it this way” without regularly pausing to ask employees how communications are actually landing. When internal comms isn’t informed by feedback, it’s really easy to drift out of alignment with what employees need.

One of the first things I did in my role at Workshop (about 30–45 days in) was ship an internal comms survey… and that was before sending a single email. I asked employees about send frequency, content length, design, and overall helpfulness. Why? Because not understanding how comms is being received is the fastest way to see open and click rates plummet and trust along with them!

The goal isn’t just to communicate with employees, but to do so effectively. Whatever lands in someone’s inbox, Slack, or an All Hands meeting should help them do their job better or at the very least, contribute positively to their overall experience at work. When comms misses that mark, the impact shows up as disengagement, message fatigue, and employees tuning out important information.

That’s why I’m a big advocate for a regular survey cadence. You can even borrow mine:

Q1: Employee Experience & Culture Survey

Q2: Employee Engagement Survey (free template here!)

Q3: Internal Communications Survey (free template here!)

Q4: Employee Engagement Survey

You’ll notice we focus heavily on engagement and experience and that’s intentional. Keeping a pulse on how employees feel about their work experience helps make sure comms stays relevant, useful, and human. And ultimately, that directly impacts how well people absorb information, stay aligned, and show up for work everyday!