Some companies are very good at measuring employee engagement and the effectiveness of their
internal comms outputs. Getting feedback on leadership, strategic direction, communication, channels and messaging is obviously necessary, to make sure that efforts hit the mark.
But I’ve noticed recently that some companies may be in danger of measuring rather too much; they measure ‘everything’ but don’t quite know what to do with the data they get back. Or they research and map data, so they have a highly comprehensive description of the status quo. But then what?
There is a tendency to want to measure what people like and what people think. And while this is interesting, I believe it’s less informative than what people actually do. Surveys will give some insights into behaviour (as reported by the respondents themselves) but other indicators of behaviour may offer far more insight.
For example, are customer requests increasing or being turned around more quickly? Are users spending longer and clicking through further on a website? Have staff sick days dropped off? And how many people at a town hall event with the CEO asked questions from the floor?
To get data like this, you need to know what impact you’re looking for from a communication, the specific actions you want your target audience to take. And sometimes there aren’t any.
In which case my advice would be: “don’t measure anything this time”.
I’m reminded of the maxim from Baltimore’s homicide detectives (the vestiges of an obsession with ‘The Wire’): evidence is everything. A murder scene may paint a certain picture which strongly points a certain way, but unless you have the evidence linking the suspect directly to the act, you’re nowhere. You may interview 100 people who tell you who they think did it, but it’s only physical evidence that will make the difference in court.
12 November 2009
What to do with data?
Some companies are very good at measuring employee engagement and the effectiveness of their
internal comms outputs. Getting feedback on leadership, strategic direction, communication, channels and messaging is obviously necessary, to make sure that efforts hit the mark.
But I’ve noticed recently that some companies may be in danger of measuring rather too much; they measure ‘everything’ but don’t quite know what to do with the data they get back. Or they research and map data, so they have a highly comprehensive description of the status quo. But then what?
There is a tendency to want to measure what people like and what people think. And while this is interesting, I believe it’s less informative than what people actually do. Surveys will give some insights into behaviour (as reported by the respondents themselves) but other indicators of behaviour may offer far more insight.
For example, are customer requests increasing or being turned around more quickly? Are users spending longer and clicking through further on a website? Have staff sick days dropped off? And how many people at a town hall event with the CEO asked questions from the floor?
To get data like this, you need to know what impact you’re looking for from a communication, the specific actions you want your target audience to take. And sometimes there aren’t any.
In which case my advice would be: “don’t measure anything this time”.
I’m reminded of the maxim from Baltimore’s homicide detectives (the vestiges of an obsession with ‘The Wire’): evidence is everything. A murder scene may paint a certain picture which strongly points a certain way, but unless you have the evidence linking the suspect directly to the act, you’re nowhere. You may interview 100 people who tell you who they think did it, but it’s only physical evidence that will make the difference in court.
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