Ask Devin

Thank you so much and great question! Funny enough, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, especially as my own company is growing and teams are becoming way more specialized. When that happens, internal comms has to do more than just “get messages out”; it has to help people stay connected to the bigger picture.

With that in mind, I try to focus less on distribution metrics alone (open and click-through rates, for example) and more on how communication is actually changing across the organization.

For AI proficiency, I think about just that… proficiency. How confident are employees in using AI in their day to day? It’s pretty easy to get in a bubble with “power users” and forget that not everyone may be as savvy — or even eager to jump on the AI train. Here, I’d want to build in goals around comfort using AI to draft, summarize, or sense-check messages so teams can communicate more clearly and efficiently, without losing the human voice, of course! Metrics can be as simple as whether people feel AI is saving them time, reducing back-and-forth, or helping them get unstuck faster. Pulse surveys are a great way to regularly capture that sentiment.

For reducing noise, I focus on whether employees know what to do, when to do it, and why it matters. So, are we sending fewer messages that require follow-ups — and if we are following up, is that part of a campaign where we’ve already predicted what might need extra reassurance? Are employees clearer on what’s urgent versus what’s just nice-to-know, and have we clearly defined which channels are for what? Things like fewer repeat questions, fewer “wait, what does this mean?” threads, or less duplication across teams can be better signals of messages landing than open rates alone. I’m often reminding myself that success can look like sending less, not more.

And finally, for streamlining narrative across functions (one of my favorite things to work on!), the question I always ask is: are teams telling the same story? Are leaders and departments anchored to shared priorities (these can even be company-wide OKRs), or are they communicating in parallel? If employees who are pretty distant from the leadership team can still articulate the “why” behind decisions, that’s a strong signal that comms is working well. And remember, you can always lean on managers here, too!

Okay, this answer is getting long,  but I have to mention that my philosophy with internal comms is that the function might be owned by one team, but it’s brought to life by everyone else. Some of the most meaningful OKRs are the ones that measure how well employees outside of comms are communicating in their own roles. I love seeing other people in the company spin up their own newsletters or communicate about an initiative without feeling like I’m a gatekeeper for distributing information.

Anyways! If you ever want to workshop specific OKRs or metrics for your org, feel free to drop another question or email me — I could talk about this stuff all day!