Plan members are busy people. In our hyper-connected world, many employees struggle with information overload.
With that in mind, it’s a good idea to ask yourself how clearly and concisely you’re communicating with them. How relevant is your organization’s intranet site in the face of benefits and/or pension plan changes? Who’s reading and benefiting from the employee newsletter? Is anyone hearing the message? And what’s actually being said?
To cut through the noise and maximize effectiveness, you need to make sure your communication is relevant, targeted, and audience-driven. So, how do you ensure your communication efforts fit the bill? One practical way is to conduct a communication audit.
Wait! Don’t run for the hills just yet. Not all audits are administrative headaches. Done right, a communication audit is a painless process that can deliver a meaningful return on your investment.
What’s a communication audit?
A communication audit is a systematic assessment of your organization’s communication practices.
An effective audit can serve a dual purpose. As a preventative measure, it can identify what’s working and what’s not, as well as redundancies and communication gaps. At the same time, it paves the way for smarter communication practices going forward—practices that can help to influence employee behaviour, drive organizational objectives and, ultimately, set you apart from the competition.
Conducting an audit
Audits come in a variety of shapes and sizes, each designed to address a specific objective. At one end of the spectrum, a narrowly focused audit might measure the effectiveness of a particular communication tool or document. This type of audit can pinpoint specific problem areas such as confusing wording, missing information or irrelevant content.
Take, for example, your pension statement. While the statement is required to meet disclosure requirements, it’s also a valuable communication opportunity. You could ask your members (or a representative group of them) to fill out a scoring sheet to help you measure its effectiveness. Is the information in the right order? Is the language difficult? What are the key messages they’re getting from its statements?
At the same time, your management team can complete a different scoring sheet that allows them to rank factors such as branding, tone, style, messaging and alignment with business objectives. Creating these feedback channels can reveal critical communication gaps between you, the management team and your plan members.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, a “full-circle” audit might consist of a broad inventory of all communication efforts—both formal and informal. For example, is the informal messaging consistent with formal messaging, and are employee perceptions consistent with organizational values? Your observations will provide a valuable means for determining if there’s a credibility gap.
When conducting a full-circle audit, there three key areas of focus:
- Leadership – You’ll want to: assess how well leadership has defined and articulated its vision, objectives and key messages; identify disconnects between formal and informal messaging at the leadership level; and determine barriers, sensitivities or other communication issues.
- Membership – You’ll want to: identify preferred communication channels and tactics; formally assess media effectiveness; measure understanding; and gauge member perceptions, attitudes and beliefs.
- Communication practices – You’ll want to: review communication policies and strategies; catalogue the type, frequency and timeliness of communication materials; asses content, quality and consistency; and check alignment with leadership goals.
Doing a communication audit will help you determine what tools you have, whether existing materials need updating and how new channels/mediums—such as social media—might add value to your communication strategy.
Keep in mind, one of the best ways NOT to communicate effectively is to over communicate.
The benefits
Whatever the nature of your audit, remember it’s not just about looking for the mistakes. It’s also about collecting observations that will help you to define a more effective strategy. A successful audit starts with a defined scope, clearly articulated objectives and appropriate information-gathering techniques.
In the end, your audit will identify exactly what you need to stop doing, start doing or do more of. Better yet, it will help you to build member engagement and create buy-in for strategic initiatives.