Institute of Internal Communication

Samantha Wright of Em(ic) started the debate off: “It’s a question that might upset the sensitivities of many internal communication and employee engagement professionals. Surely the default answer has to be a very definitive ‘no’.

“Or should it? How much time, effort and money are we wasting trying to find this holy grail when the reality is that it is almost impossible to measure the fiscal benefit of internal communications?” she wrote.

Communications and engagement

Ryan Sales, creative director at Landscape, said: “ROI may be difficult, but all communications and engagement need to be measured in some respect. How will you know what works if not?”

Brook Calverley of Engage Group thought that it was perfectly possible to measure the fiscal benefit of internal comms. He said that “any half-decent linkage analysis of the relevant sections of your employee / engagement survey and your financial data will start to unearth correlations and drivers”.

Brook continued: “Indeed, many organisations are able to define very precisely the relationship between IC (and corollaries of engagement, brand experience etc.) and their commercial performance.

“Secondly, benchmarking while an interesting place to start the conversation, rapidly runs out of usefulness when you need to identify priorities for action and then plan that action.”

Holy Grail

Paul Brasington, a former IoIC chairman, said: “Demonstrating ROI isn't some 'holy grail', just realism when you need to make a case to a board wondering about where to spend limited funds.

“But, I'm wary of these corollaries between IC action and improved performance. I think they are real enough, but showing the causal links is not easy, and saying 'look, we did this, and then that happened' will seem naive to many a finance director.

“I've also seen too many 'engagement surveys' that ask utterly vacuous questions like 'do you understand our vision and values' then 'do you share those values?' Such questions measure literally nothing.”

Paul felt that, when it comes to convincing ROI, you have to be more focused.

You need some way of measuring any change in behaviour, and some way of quantifying its financial impact. Then you stand a chance of being able to demonstrate a direct ROI (by showing what you've done and the difference it made), and you need to be ready to do this case after case.

Not cheap

IoIC member Jo Ann Sweeney added: “Measuring ROI may not be as difficult as we think, but it is not cheap. Angela Sinickas of www.sinicom.com is an expert and works around the world successfully helping multinationals prove communications is delivering value.

“Secrets to successful measurement are have a clear purpose/objective to begin with that your leadership supports, benchmarking where you are before you begin and measuring the difference at the end.

“Internal communications is all about changing attitudes and then behaviours - being able to quantify attitudes is the hard bit.

“For me what is helpful is asking myself why my clients are investing in their internal comms activities. For them it is a bottom line cost that they choose to pay because they believe there are tangible benefits for the company. If they don't see those benefits they will cut back on IC budgets.”

Spurious value

David Chambers, a freelance consultant, thought: ”I do think the ROI argument is an exercise of spurious value. The call for such measures, with a fiscal focus, is often from other constituents inside the company.

“Such quantitative measures are seen as being 'hard' measures and as such a company-wide language. I recall HR in the move from 'personnel' to becoming a strategic function, arguing for a seat at the Board table going through the same rite of passage some 15 years ago.

“So, should IC measure? Damn right it should, but the metrics are less about the bottom line and more about those things that drive the bottom line, and many that ultimately appear in the financial accounts balance sheet under the heading of 'good will'.

"Measures around employee understanding of and commitment to items such as the company goals, strategy, consumer brand, values, understanding of the deal, or employee value proposition; and measures of the strength of the employment brand, levels of employee engagement, confidence measures of managers and first line team leaders to clearly articulate the brand and expected behaviours in the context of the company strategic goals.

“These in my view are all useful metrics that transcend mere ROI. Augmented with analysis of turnover, attraction, absenteeism and other 'hard metrics' they provide useful data sets and informative analysis," he said.

Definite correlation

David continued: “ROI as a fiscal measure for IC? There is a definite correlation between the financial performance of a company and it's IC practices. There is no doubt about this, however my argument is that as a single company it is very difficult, if not impossible to prove that correlation. It is also excessively time consuming. It is better to use credible benchmarks against which you can compare your practices as against those that a sufficiency of participants does prove a statistical correlation.

“The Towers Watson free summary report on Communications ROI from 2010 is worth a review, as too is it's predecessor of 2008. The report can be found at http://www.towerswatson.com/assets/pdf/670/NA-2009-14890.pdf.

“Successful companies do measure their communications impact. This is a clear behaviour that differentiates them from less successful organisations .... but do they only prostrate themselves on the whipping board of ROI? No.”

• To read the whole thread on ROI and internal communications visit the IoIC LinkedIn Group.