Hey there, I'm Devin!
Most of the time you can catch me deep in the world of internal comms at Workshop (yes, the Happy Mondays folks!), and while I love AI, there are just some comms questions that need a human who really gets it… that’s me!
Hey Devin, I’m in marketing and my manager and I coordinate a lot of the company news — but I’m not in a seat of authority. This year I need to clarify what KPIs and metrics to track around our comms. I feel like internal comms KPIs should be agreed upon by at least a small team of folks invested in our IC strategy (HR, employee engagement, operations, etc.) rather than marketing deciding in a vacuum. Tips?
I mean, you’ve already got a strong start, so I’ll just build on the thought!
The coalition you’re describing (HR, employee engagement, ops) makes complete sense, and I’d start there too. But before you walk into any of those conversations, I’d push you to reframe the question. Instead of “what KPIs and metrics should we track,” try asking: what do I want to prove? What do you want to point to at the end of the year and say, because we’re doing internal comms really well, this is why it’s making a difference?
This is really going to change the direction you’re working in — most people start with the metrics and then try to explain why they matter. But if you start with the outcome you’re trying to demonstrate, the right metrics start to surface on their own. And when you bring those to HR or ops or whoever else is at the table, you’re not speaking a different language. You’re connecting to goals they already care about. That’s a much better conversation to be in… trust me!
Which leads to the other piece I’d layer in. If your company has OKRs or any kind of annual goal framework, that’s your starting point. Look at what the business is already trying to accomplish and ask yourself where comms shows up in that. Because it does, even if nobody’s made that connection explicitly yet. That’s really your job in these conversations: to draw the line between what you’re doing and what the company is already trying to achieve. Once people see that, the KPI conversation gets a whole lot easier.
No need to make this long, a few metrics that tell a clear, connected story will always land better than a full dashboard that someone outside of comms has to squint at – haha!
