Black Belt Dojo

Proof of the pudding

I flicked through the PR Week award winners special magazine this morning to see who won the Internal Communications award. 

It went to Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council for their 'Winning Healthy Hearts and Minds' campaign.

What struck me about the case study was the attention paid to research and measurement and, as a result, the proof the team had of the value they had added to the business.

The campaign was built on sound business objectives: to tackle the issue of stress at work (a third of staff said stress was affecting their performance), to increase the awareness of council-run health initiatives, encourage healthier living outside work and cut the number of days lost through sick leave, which was affecting the council's running costs.

The team ran a survey before the campaign and a second afterwards, which showed, amongst other things, that staff awareness of council health and well-being initiatives had risen by 16%.  Most strikingly, analysis showed there were 44% fewer days lost through sickness absence - a saving to the council of £1.6m. The total cost of the campaign was £4000, equivalent to 69p per employee.

To the question 'how do I help senior managers to 'get' internal comms, it doesn't come much more obvious than this. This team set clear business objectives, their plan was totally focused on achieving those objectives, and thanks to some solid measurement, they can demonstrate just how much value they added.

It reminded me of the responses to a question someone asked at our workshop at the Melcrum summit. The question was 'how do I publicise/market our internal communications strategy' ... which was unpacked by someone in the room as 'how do we show we add value?' The consensus from the room was 'through delivering it'. Putting together presentations about what the team can offer, including industry stats blah blah blah doesn't cut it - was the opinion of workshop participants. You earn your reputation through doing things that add value to the business, and being able to prove it through measurement.

This case study is a perfect example of that philosophy in action. I bet nobody will be quibbling about the IC team's budget at Stockport Metropolitican Borough Council next year.

Sue

Who really is measuring?

Some time ago I saw some Melcrum research that suggested that although everyone in IC said you should measure and evaluate, very few people were actually doing very much about it.  In fact when I ask people on the Black Belt Programme, most people admit to feeling guilty that they don't do enough.

I think that there are basically three levels of measurement:

• Process - did we do what we set out to do?  Were ten newsletters published?  Did we hold the town hall meetings?  And if not, what can we learn from our failures?
• Understanding - did people get the message from the communications and can they play it back to us as we hoped?  Are we having a sensible conversation about this issue?
• Impact - did anything change as a result of the communications?

Clearly measurement gets more difficult as the usefulness of the information gathered increases.  Before you can measure Impact properly you have to isolate out the other factors apart from communication that might drive behaviours in a workplace - no mean feat.

But wherever I hear about the paucity of measurement I shake my head and sigh.  My theory is that other functions are so much better than us (with the exception of PR of course!) and I assume that if the day ever comes when IC people routinely spend big bucks then effective measurement will be the norm.

This little snippet from IT analysts Forrester has rather shaken my faith!

And this week I received an excellent e-newsletter from measurement writer Angela Sinikas in which she tells a story about being challenged on the ethics of measuring at all.  Apparently someone wrote once about one of her articles:

"I'm sure the slavish focus on the organization's bottom-line concerns makes for effective consultancy, but it disrespects the humans who invest so much of their lives therein."

Angela uses this story to make the point that failing to listen is even more unethical than being worried about business performance - but it does make me wonder whether there is a silent majority out there that is in denial about the need to measure at all.

Liam

Interesting measurement thought...

Just clearing down my email after a week on the road and came across a regular email from research company Forrester.

My eye was caught by a item on measuring the effectiveness of investment in IT which may resonate with IC people.

The gist was that once upon a time IT investment was driven by what the IT department saw was needed.  But now user departments have a sophisticated view of what they need from technology and so, increasingly what gets spent more closely reflects business needs.  Forrester's point was that this shift changes your whole approach to metrics.

Something here for IC people to muse upon.

Lots of us argue that without good metrics we'll struggle to convince business colleagues of the value of what we do.  The thought is that as we convince these business colleagues we'll be continually forced to up our measurement game in a virtuous circle.

Liam