How To Do an Internal Comms Audit (+Free Template)

In a perfect world, what would your perfect internal comms strategy look like? And now that you’re picturing it, do you know what steps you need to take to get it there?
Whatever you want your communication plan to ultimately look like, conducting an internal communications audit is a key first step. These audits help you take stock of your current communication practices to identify strengths and weaknesses.

To help you optimize your internal communications strategy, here’s a complete guide to conducting an internal comms audit – plus, a free template to get you started.

What is an internal communication audit?

An internal communication audit is a systematic evaluation of a company’s communication channels, processes, and strategies. It’s designed to improve the internal communications strategy by highlighting shortcomings and creating a roadmap for addressing them.

Companies often launch communication audits when they notice signs of communication issues. Major organizational changes can also necessitate a new approach to corporate communication. However, many companies choose to conduct scheduled and routine audits as well.

There are numerous stakeholders typically involved in an internal communication audit, along with a variety of initiatives and research methods. Surveys, focus groups, interviews, and benchmarking are all common tools that companies use to evaluate the current state of employee communication during a communication audit.

When should internal communication audits happen?

Several events can trigger the need for an internal communication audit. Major organizational changes, such as new leadership or a change in business direction, often necessitate a communication audit. This will help ensure that the company’s communications align with its new direction and communication goals.

Any signs of communication issues can also signify the need for an internal communication audit. Things like poor employee satisfaction (ESAT) scores and high employee turnover often indicate communication problems that the organization needs to address.

Even without any major issues or organizational changes, it’s still a good idea to conduct routine communication audits, preferably once per year.

How long do they take?

The timeline for the audit process will depend on a few different factors, including things like the scope and complexity of the audit and how much data you plan to collect. How deeply you plan to analyze that data and the resources you have available to commit to the audit will also affect the timeline.

Generally speaking, teams should expect to spend anywhere from several weeks to a few months to see a communication audit through to completion.

Who are the stakeholders?

So, who’s responsible for overseeing and executing a communication audit? While the answer can change from one company to another, here are the stakeholders that an internal comms audit typically involves:

• Senior managers: Executives and senior managers oversee the audit and provide strategic direction and support throughout the audit process.
• Human resources department: HR professionals can offer a lot of valuable insights into employee feedback, engagement, and organizational culture to evaluate the effectiveness of internal communications.
• Communication specialists: Internal communication professionals play a key role in assessing current communication practices and identifying areas for improvement.
• Departmental representatives: Representatives from different departments or teams can provide helpful insights regarding the communication challenges and needs specific to their areas.
• Employees: Employees at all levels should be involved in the audit process as much as possible and provide feedback on their communication experiences, preferences, and suggestions for improvement.

What results do businesses aim to achieve?

The overarching goal of a communication audit is to improve the effectiveness of a company’s internal comms. However, branching out from this, there are several secondary objectives that businesses can aim to achieve from a communication audit.

Things like employee engagement, organizational performance, employee turnover, and company culture are all deeply tied to effective communication. By enhancing communication across the company through an internal communication audit, organizations can work to improve all of these key areas.

1. Ask a lot of questions

In a way, the effectiveness of communication is a difficult thing to measure. There are metrics that can shed light on how well your company communicates, such as employee satisfaction scores and engagement with communication channels. 

But none of these directly tell you how effective your company’s communication is – at least, not in the same way that sales metrics tell you how effective your sales team is. To evaluate internal communications, you have to get out there and ask questions.

This means speaking with departmental leaders and managers to discuss the unique communication challenges they face. You can also meet with HR professionals to get their insights on how communication practices are impacting employees. 

Ideally, you should go even further than this and involve the entire organization in the audit by seeking feedback from employees at all levels. Surveys and polls can efficiently collect feedback from employees on things like common communication issues, the company’s communication tools, and ideas for improvement.

By asking questions and practicing employee listening, you can form a clear understanding of internal communications in a way that analyzing metrics alone can’t achieve.

2. Identify your stakeholders

The most effective communication audits involve the entire company, but you still need to choose the stakeholders that will be responsible for actually conducting the audit.

We’ve already gone over some of the key stakeholders commonly involved in an internal communication audit, but it’s worth expanding on the important roles that they play.

Senior leadership should work with communication specialists to form a strategic plan of action for the audit. HR professionals can also be involved in this stage of the process, as they often have unique insights into how internal communication is impacting the workforce.

Managers from different departments can provide important insights into the specific communication challenges their teams face. They can also help coordinate the collection of input and feedback from internal influencers and other team members.

Identifying all of these key stakeholders and making sure that they understand their roles and responsibilities is an important part of a successful communication audit.

3. Define your KPIs

Seeking input from stakeholders is a great way to formulate your communication audit strategy. But to actually measure the results of your efforts to improve internal communication, you’ll need to define some quantifiable KPIs as well. 

These KPIs should tie directly to your goals for the communication audit. For example, if one of your goals is to improve the employee experience, you can track KPIs like employee retention and employee net promoter score (eNPS). If your goal is to boost collaboration and productivity, you can track KPIs like the average time to resolve issues and customer satisfaction scores. This will show you how the changes you make impact employee performance. 

These KPIs should be defined before the audit actually begins and should be used to guide what the audit looks like. That way, you can align your communications audit with measurable business goals. 

4. Conduct the internal communications audit

Once you’ve identified your stakeholders and defined the KPIs you will use to measure the effectiveness of internal communication, it’s time to actually perform the audit. 

The internal communications audit process largely consists of collecting and analyzing data from stakeholders. So you’ll need to use several different methods to do this effectively, including:

Surveys and interviews

Surveys are the most efficient way to collect stakeholder feedback. With a platform like Workvivo, you can easily send pulse surveys out to your entire workforce. 
Once you receive the results, you can also use the platform’s advanced data analytics features to generate insights. This allows you to easily involve the entire company in the audit process and collect feedback from all levels.

Workshops

Focus groups and workshops are another great way to further explore input from key stakeholders. These meetings allow you to examine communication challenges and strategies collaboratively. They also help you collect feedback from multiple stakeholders in one sitting, improving the efficiency of your communication audit.

1:1s with leadership

For stakeholders like departmental leaders, HR professionals, and communication specialists, you can collect more in-depth feedback by scheduling 1:1 interviews. These interviews can provide more detailed and comprehensive insights into the current state of your company’s communications from those who understand it best.
 

5. Analyze the findings

Once you’ve collected data and feedback from the audit’s stakeholders, you’ll then need to compile and analyze your findings to identify trends, patterns, and areas for improvement.

This can involve things like reviewing survey responses and interview transcripts to pinpoint recurring themes and issues. You’ll also analyze the quantitative data to measure the effectiveness of communication channels and initiatives.

Once you’ve compiled and analyzed all of this data, summarize the audit’s key insights and recommendations in a comprehensive report. You can then share this report with the various internal teams that will be responsible for helping implement recommended changes.

Ideally, you should also communicate the report's key findings to the entire company. Presentations and workshops are a great way to communicate findings in an engaging and easy-to-digest way, but you can always simply publish a breakdown of the report as well. 

However you choose to go about it, sharing the uncovered insights and proposed changes with the entire company is important for clarity and buy-in company-wide.

6. Implement the changes

The final phase in an internal communication audit is implementing changes based on the insights the audit uncovers. This process requires careful planning and communication, and there are a few key factors to keep in mind throughout.

It’s important to start by clearly communicating the rationale behind proposed changes. As stated in the previous section, this step is vital for achieving buy-in and ensuring everyone is prepared to play their part. 

Along with communicating planned changes, you should also solicit feedback from stakeholders to see if they have any thoughts on implementing the changes.
As you make changes to your communication strategies and processes, be sure to provide plenty of training and support to help employees adapt. This is especially important if you adopt new communication tools and channels.

Finally, set up a system for monitoring the impact of changes over time, and make adjustments as needed to ensure that your communication strategy remains aligned with company goals.
 

Execute a successful internal communications audit with Workvivo

Enhancing internal communication can lead to a wide range of business-boosting advantages. And performing an internal communication audit is an excellent way to create a strategic plan for improving communications.

If you’re ready to get started with your internal communication audit, Workvivo can help. You can use Workvivo’s powerful employee engagement platform to collect stakeholder feedback via pulse surveys and analyze your internal communication data. 

When your audit is done, you can even use Workvivo to effectively communicate findings and proposed changes to the entire organization. Best of all, Workvivo’s internal communication tools and features will continue to enhance your company’s communication efforts long after your audit is over.

Sign up for a free demo of Workvivo and download the internal comms audit template today!

Your internal comms audit checklist

Ready to revolutionize your internal comms? Keep our audit checklist and audit template (download below!) handy as you embark on this new journey.