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Every industry is driven by visionaries, innovators and trailblazers whose influence and leadership set new standards of excellence.

Ragan is spotlighting two individuals who have shepherded the future of PR and communications. Each year, two industry leaders — one representing external communications, the other internal communications — will be chosen as recipients of the Vanguard Awards for their career-long contributions to industry advancement.

Join us in congratulation the inaugural recipients of the 2024 Vanguard Awards, Tara Darrow and John Cirone.

Tara Darrow
Vice President, Corporate Communications
T-Mobile

Tara Darrow, Vice President, Corporate Communications, T-Mobile

Remember the Oscar-winning movie, “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once?” That title is a good summary of the state of external communications today.

“I can remember a time when we would fax a release out and then take a nice deep breath because we knew we had several hours, if not 24 to 36, to get a response,” said Darrow. “Now everything we do is almost instantaneous. It’s the same with media. News comes at any time – all hours, all days! Social media has changed everything we knew to be true. Anyone can be a ‘journalist’, hot tips and rumors can land anywhere, and the expectation for engagement is higher than ever. It’s made this career more exciting – the thing I love most about what I do is not knowing exactly what each day will bring – but it’s created some challenges for sure as well.”

As the leader of T-Mobile’s top-tier media engagement and storytelling, issues management, crisis communications, executive thought leadership, social amplification campaigns and much more, Darrow exemplifies the constantly pivoting communicator, meeting the demands for immediate action with a data-driven approach and the courage to stop and ask “why.”

Darrow quarterbacked the creation and execution of all external public relations and media strategies promoting and defending the $26 billion T-Mobile and Sprint merger (a three-year process that closed virtually during COVID), as well as other high-stakes initiatives around business and financial news, corporate responsibility, diversity and inclusion, reputation management and crisis communications, including the response to T-Mobile’s massive data breach, expertly helping guide leadership through a challenging time.

She has been key to producing powerful content around the growth of a bigger and better T-Mobile that’s focused on doing good for customers, employees and shareholders. For her efforts, Darrow has received T-Mobil’s prestigious PEAK Achievement Award, given to employees who have made exceptional contributions to the company and their teams.

As she looks ahead, Darrow obviously has eyes on AI but also the massive changes in the overall media landscape as well.

“We need to pay attention to the massive shift in media consumption that’s happening as well, particularly amongst the youngest generations,” she added. “Where they get their news, how it’s delivered to them and what they want to see has changed a lot (hello TikTok!) but this is just the tip of the iceberg. I already see media outlets experimenting in new ways to connect with audiences. It’s an exciting time to try new things as a communicator too.”

John Cirone
Senior Director, Global Employee and Executive Communications
Microsoft

John Cirone, Senior Director, Global Employee and Executive Communications, Microsoft

In an era where change is the only constant and a perennially updated resume is celebrated, John Cirone is a bit of a unicorn. In 2024, John celebrated his 33rd year at Microsoft, a career that dates from the Bill Gates era through the tenure of Satya Nadella (Microsoft’s current CEO and just the third in its 50-year history).

When John began with Microsoft in 1991, the company reached its 8,000 employees most effectively with a weekly printed newsletter delivered every Friday afternoon and an annual corporate get-together held at the Seattle Mariners’ baseball stadium.

Today, Cirone and a community of hundreds of executive and employee communicators employ a multi-channel approach of employee listening and two-way conversations to create experiences and communications for Microsoft’s nearly 220,000 employees, managers and senior leaders.

Sparked by Nadella’s desire to “change the soul of Microsoft,” Cirone and team replaced traditional channels like email, all-hands, and static intranet sites with new channels that allow for more open dialogue and connection between leaders and employees like Microsoft’s Viva Engage platform, or events like Ask Me Anything. Channels like these allow Microsoft’s leadership team to address topics employees care about in a timely fashion, helping to facilitate dialogue and create better connection.

Part of Microsoft’s engagement strategy is to empower all corporate communicators, not just those employees with “communications” in their title. Cirone and his team helped create and manage Microsoft’s Global Employee Experience Community [GEEC], a group of more than 1,000 employees, including senior leaders and their chiefs of staff, business managers, communications directors, social media managers and others who can help ensure leaders are aligned on messaging, foster use of new platforms internally, and extend the impact of centrally led communications into organizations and geographies across the world.

As for so many of us, the next frontier for Cirone and his team is AI. “This is not a change that is years away, it’s happening now, and will happen even more quickly than many of us expect,” said Cirone.

“As someone who isn’t a natural early adopter of new technology, I have had to fight my natural instincts and jump in here — testing our AI tools like Copilot, encouraging my team to make the space to experiment, and to be open to new ways of doing things,” he added. “It’s exciting to see, and I think it’s fantastic for the discipline of employee communications — which after years of being an undervalued part of the marketing profession — is finally being seen as a strategic and valuable part of a company’s marketing mix — that all of us who work in this profession know it to be.”

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All good communicators know the key to ensuring their message gets received lies in understanding their audience. No two are exactly alike. Giving a toast at a wedding isn’t the same as reminiscing with old friends at the bar — which is different from presenting a new plan to the boss.

For internal communicators working in a corporate setting, discrete target audiences are built and maintained through list segmentation. The more well-defined the group — whether it consists of new recruits or a specific department within the company — the more likely its members are to receive information relevant to them. The end result: higher open rates and enhanced employee engagement.

To help sharpen employee distribution lists even more, internal communicators should begin incorporating the digital employee experience, also known as DEX, into their strategy playbook.

What is DEX?

Simply put, DEX encompasses all the ways employees use technology to perform their duties at work. This includes everything from laptops and mobile phones to messaging apps and project management tools.

Although a somewhat new term, DEX is bound to become more crucial in the years ahead. A recent survey of 800 global executives from McKinsey, for instance, found 85% had either somewhat or greatly accelerated the adoption of digital technology at their organization to improve how employees communicate and collaborate with each other. Examples include videoconferencing and filesharing services.

Similar to how good customer experience (CX) can help drive sales and boost a brand’s reputation, a healthy DEX can increase productivity and heighten workplace satisfaction.

Gartner® research described the current state of DEX as follows: “Today’s work environment requires end-user service leaders to use a broad range of factors to determine which devices and applications employees need to do their jobs. Historically, IT organizations would create a broad set of worker categories based on their roles or departments. Now, employees expect a more personalized digital experience, and meeting these expectations is becoming integral to attract and retain talent.”

How to improve list segmentation with DEX

As noted above, internal communicators must constantly work to keep their email lists organized and up to date. Employees come and go. Companies move staff onto new teams or relocate them to new cities. This creates a denominator problem whereby the exaggerated list size reduces the open rate.

Another avenue to consider in creating more targeted lists is DEX. Rather than grouping employees by tenure or seniority, internal communicators should focus on their interaction with company technology and day-to-day requirements, regardless of demographics.

One practical way to get started is by defining different work style segments. Does the employee work behind a desk or on the factory floor? Are they mainly interacting with customers in a retail setting or other employees in an office? What does their working environment look like?

Indeed, according to research from Gartner®, “By categorizing based on work styles instead of roles, segments are simplified by grouping role types with common needs.”

The next step is to create different employee personas. How would you rate their technical skills and access to digital tools? What are their goals and roadblocks to achieving them? These details add more nuance and specificity to an employee’s work style, further honing the potential to email target audiences. In some situations, a company’s HR or IT department may already have this information, preventing the need for internal communicators to start from scratch. Persona creation can help different departments establish a partnership that ensures lists stay relevant and targeted for a better employee experience.

With all the data in hand, the final step involves creating a one-page profile for each employee, highlighting the key areas relevant for list segmentation. Reduce everything to its most essential components, keeping the emphasis on DEX characteristics.

Classifying employees along these lines, as opposed to more traditional approaches, can unlock more refined audiences that will make internal communication efforts more efficient and effective. This project is an ongoing process, not a one-time effort. The personas will evolve as each organization’s digital workplace matures, so it’s essential to consistently monitor and update them as needed. Using benchmarking and A/B testing can provide the necessary data to evaluate if your list targeting is successful.

Since so much of successful communication comes down to the sender having a clear understanding of the receiver, it’s critical for internal communicators to continue experimenting with how they define their various email groups. As digital technology continues to play a bigger role in today’s business landscape, it’s important to view employees through that lens.

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As the final results of the 2024 US Presidential Election came in, a seeming win for Trump of the most contentious American election yet means that roughly half of voters are disappointed. Whether your workforce skews blue, red or purple, all employees will share a sense of unease, anxiety and stress until the dust settles. Many will for the foreseeable future, too.

While some leaders choose to stay silent during this period, those who understand how to communicate in times of ambiguity reclaim an opportunity to strengthen trust with employees while reinforcing values and redirecting focus to their organization’s big picture.

Integral’s latest research found that the younger employees are, the more they want to express their political views in the workplace. It also found that senior leaders are more comfortable having political dialogue than other levels of managers—and more concerned about political tension, too.

Those insights suggest an opportunity for  communicators and leaders alike to set expectations for respectful political discourse, acknowledge, align and assure employees amid uncertainty, and unite the workforce  around a shared mission.

“This election is a historic moment for businesses and society alike,” Golin Global President of Corporate Affairs Megan Noel told Ragan.

“Communicators considering a post-election communication should be prepared for heightened emotions and various reactions to the outcome. Avoid speculating about the potential impact of the election results, especially prior to any official decisions being made.”

Noel recommends that all post-election communications reinforce five things:

1. The importance of civic engagement and respect for the democratic process. While that’s normally been positioned ahead of election day, keeping that message alive matters now more than ever.
2. Commitment to your purpose and values “that guide [your company’s] behaviors and actions, such as integrity, respect, care, and inclusivity.”
3. Support for employees, customers and communities regardless of political affiliation or stance. This should explicitly mention “the permission to not engage in political discussion, especially during the immediate days following the election.”
4. Company benefits that support mental and physical wellbeing, “including access to resources and tools as well as inclusion networks/ERGs gatherings.”
5. Safety and security measures in place at any office locations close to polling places, demonstration sites or campaign HQs. “This will be important should demonstrations or protests break out.”

Reinforcing these messages consistently also requires tweaking them as employee sentiment evolves. “Communicators should continuously monitor conversations and dialogues that may impact their companies and brands and use that information to correct, adjust or inform key audiences as needed,” Noel added.

Putting it all together

During Ragan’s Internal Communications Conference at Microsoft HQ in Redmond, WA last month, Microsoft Director of Employee & Executive Communications and Employer Brand Amy Morris, and Senior Manager of Communications and Reputation Management Sarah Shahrabani, showed how Microsoft’s values plug into a communication framework to help the matrixed comms function manage political discourse across internal channels.

They also emphasized the importance of having messages of unity come from leaders as another mechanism for reinforcing trust, while Morris explained how her team prepares leaders with pre-vetted talking points that emphasize Microsoft’s values and equip the leaders to address timely, topical issues as they emerge.

Similarly, Noel’s recommendations serve as smart reputational guideposts for any leader, or communicator crafting messages on a leader’s behalf, to follow.

Applying her five post-election points to an employee message looks something like this:

Got any other tips for executive messages that acknowledge, align and assure employees during moments of unease? Let us know in the comments below.

Join us next week for post-election therapy as we look to 2025 and beyond at Ragan’s Future of Communications Conference.

Justin Joffe is the editorial director and editor-in-chief at Ragan Communications.  Follow him on LinkedIn.

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Earlier this week, Fortune reported that Meta terminated a group of employees in its Los Angeles office for violating its rules around perks. Specifically, the employees were accused of misappropriating food delivery credits for use in the office and instead using them for household items directly delivered to employee residences.

While these terminations are a window into how companies enforce policies, most coverage has focused on the timing of the firings, which the company positioned as part of a larger organization as a part of its “Year of Efficiency” push that began in 2023.

In a statement to Ragan, Meta public affairs lead for strategic response communication Daniel Roberts said that the layoffs were part of the strategic plan for the organization and not related to the terminations.

“A few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy,” said Roberts This includes moving some teams to different locations and moving some employees to different roles. In situations like this when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees.”

By proactivity and knowing where to point both media and employees alike, organizations can weather misapplied external perceptions and contextualize the narrative — first with your employees and then back to the world at large.

Here are a few ways internal communicators can work against media narratives to editorialize their characterization of internal operations.

• Point back to executive statements. In Meta’s case, CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg laid out the groundwork for the “Year of Efficiency” in a post last spring, outlining goals to make the company more efficient and financially viable. He doubled down on those ideals this February, stating, “I think that being a leaner company is helping us execute better and faster, and we will continue to carry these values forward as a permanent part of how we operate.”
  • When external narratives challenge what you know to be true as an internal communicator, refer back to what your executives say on given issues. This doesn’t only provide a robust counter-narrative to negative coverage but can help form a sense of unity and stability among employees and internal stakeholders who are clamoring for consistent direction from leadership.
• Refer to established timelines. Though it could be tempting on the surface to connect Meta’s layoffs with the perk-related firings, a quick look at the timeline with which the organization began their job cuts—and how they align with Zuckerberg’s messages—provides some clarity.
  • By establishing a timeline during times of change and sticking to it as other developments evolve along the way, you can discuss how these events either fit into or are not part of the already established plan. These timelines don’t just help steer a media narrative, but also reassure employees things are going as planned. Correlation doesn’t always equal causation, and while it’s human nature to draw connections between two events (in this case, two sets of job losses at a major company), that doesn’t always make it true.
• Positioning communicators as translators. One of the many duties of the internal communicator is that of a translator. Not of literal languages, but of context and situations.
  • Earlier this year, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory CCO and Ragan Communications Leadership Council member Amanda Schoch, told us that communicators should look to help clarify narratives for internal audiences. “We see ourselves as ’sensemakers’ – simplifying and rationalizing communications for our staff so they know what is most important and how they fit into the broader organization,” she said. Effective translation also requires regularly communicating with employees about the resources they have at hand. For instance, during a restructure like Meta’s organizations should actively share information about new reporting structures, leadership, and more. If these resources are buried or just not readily communicated, a lack of accurate information can lead to counter-narratives and fuel speculation that isn’t rooted in truth, just like the supposed tie between the firings and layoffs at Meta.

There’s often more to a story than meets the eye. Internal communicators can best serve the business when they clarify the truth and reframe the narrative to both preserve employee experience and brand reputation at the same time.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.

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Hundreds of communications professionals gathered at Ragan’s Internal Communications Conference in Redmond, Washington to gain actionable insights, learn new strategies and network with peers.

Speakers dove deep into the nitty-gritty of internal comms, covering everything from the role of AI to the critical importance of strong leadership. Speakers also discussed RTO challenges, brainstormed creative solutions, and explored how to weave compelling brand stories that resonate with both employees and customers. Diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging initiatives were another hot topic with top communicators sharing their successes and lessons learned.

Now, let’s catch you up on what you missed:

The role of AI in communications

• Microsoft’s CCO Frank Shaw said that AI can serve in many ways to help internal communicators, including as a sparring partner, a critic and a guide for content. Comms pros should seek out AI as a helper and augmenter.
• “Less is more — write as if every word costs a thousand dollars,” Jenny DeVaughn of ADP said. “If you tell your ChatGPT prompt this, you will find out how many words are unnecessary.”

Empowering mindsets

• “One thing you can do to help communicators to become more change competent is use the word ‘when’ not ‘if.’,” said keynote speaker Deborah Gilboa, a resilience and development expert known as “Dr. G.” “If sends a signal to the brain that something is a failure, when says it’s inevitable and positions you.”
• Ashlee Davidson of Lockheed Martin talked about the “Mamba Mentality,” a term coined by Kobe Bryant, which embodies the constant pursuit of becoming the best version of oneself and a growth mindset. “Instead of focusing on the result, focus on the process,” she said. “What are the tools, the technology, the processes you need to be focused on today, tomorrow next year to ensure that you can be the best athlete (communicator) as time moves on.”

Navigating internal and external communication

• Rotem Slupski of Sheba Medical Center reminded us that the phrase “internal communications” is a scam. Everything goes external, so be prepared and smart with what you say.
• Keynoter Dr. Kalahn Taylor-Clark, who works with Social Business Innovation at Merck Pharmaceuticals, spoke about the four-part framework that guides how and when communications are made at Merck. They ask:
  • How does this impact our stakeholders?
  • Have we earned the right to comment?
  • How does this relate to our purpose?
  • Can we drive meaningful change?

Wellbeing and values in crisis comms

• “Tell yourself it’s not all bad and find the joy… crisis communications can be draining,” Elizabeth Clements, vice president of university communications at DePaul University, said. “That’s what it feels like for you, but that’s not what it feels like to everyone in your organization. Remind your leadership that the joy is still happening, and remind your team, because they’re feeling exhausted as well.”
• Amira Barger of Edelman cited their Trust Barometer to explain that most people love DEI. It is a small, vocal group that does not -– but it is still hugely popular among the general population.
• “A decade of rapid growth calls for an upgrade: our systems must adapt to meet our employees’ evolving needs,” Lisa Worthington of T-Mobile said.
• Vanessa Charles of Takeda urged communicators to integrate communication and goals that center on the wellbeing of remote employees to create lasting and strong bonds, in addition to the myriad of work-related comms they receive.
• “Crisis communication isn’t just about dousing fires, it’s also about communicating your organization’s values,” Assaf Kedem of BNP Paribas said.

Isis Simpson-Mersha is a conference producer/ reporter for Ragan. Follow her on LinkedIn.

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Every employee’s role is tied to a larger part of their organization’s overall function. However, employees might not always think about how their job functions relate to the business’s machinations, thanks partly to their heavy workload and workflow.

The good news is that communicators can help overcome these challenges by connecting the goals and functions of the business for employees, leaders and managers.

By combining a deep knowledge of the business and the ability to translate those functions to different audiences, communicators can help get everyone on board with a business-fluent understanding of how their roles contribute to the company’s bottom line and overall strategy.

When your employees learn more about how their jobs fit into the overall business, you’ll set your organization up for clearer communication and sustained success.

Beyond the spreadsheet 

Employees don’t always think about their impact on the business when they begin their workday every morning. There are complexities, structures and processes that might fly under the radar for some workers. Communicators can help employees see how their work impacts business outcomes by connecting the dots between financial metrics, operational and departmental goals, and even daily tasks.

Melissa Kanter, head of communications and brand experience, Americas at ING, said that comms pros need to dig deeper beyond the numbers in a spreadsheet to help leaders relate what those mean for employees and managers.

“How do we take the jargon out of business talk and clearly define terms so everyone can understand them?” asked Kanter. “When you understand how the business works, you can serve as an outside voice and assist leadership in translating it for the different internal audiences with whom those leaders share information.”

Kanter also said leaders need to use visuals to help simplify the sometimes complicated or abstract business objectives and situations they’re trying to explain to the general employee base. She added that audience settings should influence the method of information sharing.

“It doesn’t always need to be graphs with lots of text, try simplifying things with images or trend arrows,” she said. “If people have further questions, leaders can arrange conversations in smaller settings to drill deeper into the details behind business performance.”

Here are a few steps that comms pros can take to become that valuable conduit between leadership and employees for business fluency:

• Immerse yourself in business operations: Shadow key departments and attend executive meetings.
• Build relationships with leaders in finance, operations and HR.
• Create a framework for translating complex business information into employee-friendly formats. Help fellow communicators interpret and pull out relevant narratives from financial documents, paying particular importance to the balance sheet, income statement and statement of cash flow. “They’re all pieces, and they are interconnected, but you use different ones for different things and different reasons,” said one CCO in the Ragan Communications Leadership Council’s Business Fluency report last year. “Look at them as pieces to a whole and not in isolation. Financial statements always exist within a context.”
• Coach executives on simplifying and communicating business concepts effectively and colloquially to managers and employees. Jackson’s Erin Mercer recently unpacked how her team leads upskilling through business fluency beginning with this process.
• Regularly assess and improve employee understanding of business goals—either in HR reviews or via learning and development (L&D) throughout the employee journey.

The importance of collaboration with HR for employee advancement 

In many organizations, HR and comms work together to provide employees with information about their benefits, compensation and more. That relationship should also include cross-functionality when it comes to creating messaging about the function of the business.

Christy Noland, vice president of executive and business communications at Elevance Health, shared that her organization recently collaborated with HR to create a comms framework for leadership that not only talked about the functions of the business but also the external factors at play that impact the company.

“One of the top questions we got from associates centered on what the big picture was,” Noland said. “In conjunction with HR, we provided our leaders with resources that helped our leaders explain where employees fit into the larger goals of the company and how they can make the most impact for the organization. For us, that meant diving in much deeper than a lunch and learn. The toolkit we used to tell this story had 99% positive feedback from the leadership team.”

A closer relationship between comms and HR  also provides employees with organization-wide support to perform strongly within their roles.

Kevin Berchou, head of internal communications at M&T Bank, emphasized that knowledge sharing on the part of the two departments is key to high-performance, satisfied employee populations.

“A deeper understanding of the business for employees will help all employees become the best versions of themselves at work,” Berchou said.

Positioning managers as business fluency guides

An employee’s direct manager is always their closest touchpoint to the rest of their organization. That’s why it’s so important for managers to know how to explain the functions of the company to their reports in a way that frames their importance on a team-wide level.

Noland shared that her company equips managers with the business knowledge they need to share with their reports by hosting a monthly forum in which different leaders in the company can talk about new business priorities, tools for success and initiatives that are worth sharing to associates and the wider employee base including business updates.

“We’re trying to create a much more connected ecosystem in which managers have the business information they need to share at their fingertips,” she said.

Managers can also serve as a guide for employee learning and development that’s attained within the needs and function of the business.

“As managers, we have a responsibility to help people understand what the business does and where they fit into it,” Kanter said. “If you don’t encourage individuals that don’t fully understand to ask the right questions or provide them with the right resources as a manager, you’re missing an opportunity to provide much-needed business fluency and clarity.”

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.

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Are you equipped with the right tools for today’s hybrid work environment? What communication channels are driving the most impact in your organization? And most importantly, how are you measuring success when it comes to employee engagement?

These critical questions and more will be explored in the Internal Communication Trends for Success in 2025 from Ragan and PoliteMail. But we need your insights.

The survey takes just five minutes, and as a participant, you’ll receive the full report when it’s published.

Don’t miss out — please complete the survey by Sept. 13. Share your expertise and help us drive meaningful change in our field.

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Internal communicators hoping to remain competitive in today’s data-driven world must replace guesswork with statistics. Alongside gut instinct, they need concrete information to both establish and maintain a robust internal communications strategy.

This is why possessing a solid grasp of data analytics has become so crucial for the profession. In addition to improved messaging, which boosts employee engagement, knowing how to interpret facts and figures can enhance credibility, identify weaknesses and contribute to more informed decision-making. Indeed, 8 in 10 business leaders now say data is critical to making decisions at their organization, according to a Salesforce survey of nearly 10,000 executives around the globe.

Internal alignment with corporate strategy is crucial to ensure that employees’ decisions are ultimately guided by the right purpose and shaped by the company’s current vision. When employees lose sight of the company’s deeper purpose and long-term goals, they can easily fall into a mundane routine without a greater vision to drive them forward to new developments and innovative procedures. As an IC professional, you’re well-positioned to communicate the ROI of internal comms to leadership. Ask leaders which business outcomes are most valuable to them and map your communications results to those. Your work has a measurable impact on engagement, culture and turnover.

Before internal communicators can even think about using data analytics to their advantage, however, they must have a system in place to collect data in a consistent manner. Without it, there’s nothing to examine or compare. As the saying goes, you can’t manage what you can’t measure.

Services such as PoliteMail — a platform more than 20% of S&P 100 companies rely on for assessing their internal communications — keep tabs on multiple metrics, from email open rates to how much time employees spend reading a message.

Other means of gathering information include tracking pageviews with services such as Google Analytics or surveying employees to keep a pulse on workforce morale. In some cases, observing what people are saying about your company across social media platforms with listening tools can also be beneficial.

Once a method for capturing statistics is in place, internal communicators can get to work. They can test subject lines to see which wording is most effective. More importantly, they can examine the content of messages and figure out ways to attract more eyeballs. This can mean testing out various aesthetics, call-to-action placements and images. They can monitor new initiatives to see if, and when, tweaks are necessary.

Benchmarking is another benefit of data analytics. The ability to compare your organization’s performance — whether between departments, against competitors or with firms in other sectors — is a great way to identify strengths and weaknesses of your business.

Your company’s email click-through rate, for example, might be increasing from quarter to quarter, but it’s difficult to know if it’s above or below industry standards without a reliable reference point. Understanding where you stand can help determine which aspects of your overall strategy may require a fresh approach. PoliteMail’s free annual benchmark report provides data analysis from 10 industry sectors across seven distribution group sizes is a great data set to begin with.

As more business leaders learn to harness the power of data, there’s less patience for staff members who can’t quantify the value they bring to the company. This is another way data analytics can serve internal communicators; rather than hoping your manager just takes your word for it, hard figures can do the talking for you.

Metrics showing, for instance, that more employees are reading corporate messages and doing what’s being asked of them are impossible to deny or explain away as someone’s biased opinion. Statistics detailing how your efforts are an asset to the company can enhance credibility, defend against budget cuts and advance your position within the organization.

Not everyone, of course, is comfortable with the thought of crunching numbers to unlock insights. Spreadsheets containing column after column of statistics can be intimidating, especially if you’ve spent your career in a creative field that doesn’t tend to involve math.

This is why 73% of companies plan to either continue or increase their investment in data training and development for their employees, according to figures from Salesforce. This is also why artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT and Gemini, which can scan raw datasets for patterns or anomalies in seconds, are so attractive to white-collar workers everywhere.

But getting started doesn’t have to be a daunting endeavor. For internal communicators looking to better understand how data analytics can assist them in their jobs, PoliteMail’s Employee Communication Academy now offers a course dedicated to the topic. The thorough yet accessible program provides instruction on everything from sourcing data to selecting the right KPIs (key performance indicators) to building a persuasive presentation for senior leadership. Registration is free.

No longer a secret tool for digital startups on the cutting edge, data analytics has become a cornerstone of modern business. The process reveals, in no uncertain terms, what’s working and what’s not, allowing companies to adjust and innovate accordingly. By embracing the basics today, internal communicators will be better equipped to deploy winning strategies that will drive their company forward tomorrow.

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Benchmarking plays a crucial role in business, whether it involves internal assessments or comparisons with industry standards. By evaluating metrics such as sales and employee retention rates, companies can determine their strengths and weaknesses in relation to both their own past performance and that of their competitors. This analysis helps identify areas for improvement and growth opportunities within the organization.

This is why benchmarking is so important in business — both internally and externally. Whether it’s marketing and sales or some other department, one firm’s metrics may appear robust in comparison to themselves yet feeble when placed next to similar figures from competitive organizations. Companies need to know where they stand both in comparison to their past performance and their industry peers to properly identify strengths, reveal weaknesses and uncover opportunities for growth.

The ROI of sales and marketing analytics is fairly straightforward, starting by simply calculating revenue — costs. Marketing and sales teams can likely tell you how many leads they produce per month. They tend to have tools that measure performance, such as 4.5% of new opportunities coming from content posted to a particular social media channel, for example.

Can the same be said for internal communications?

Like marketing and sales, content must be created for, and delivered to, employee audience groups to educate, engage and motivate action, yet the measurements of this activity often lag, likely due to the lack of an easy-to-calculate revenue ROI. Worse, companies might attempt to force-fit existing external tools for these internal use cases, turning what was authentic internal email into externally flagged messaging on a level similar to spam — which is unfortunate at best and detrimental at worst.

A company that communicates with employees efficiently and effectively, and doesn’t overload them with irrelevant messaging, is far more likely to have higher employee productivity and lower turnover than one that doesn’t. It’s also better prepared to handle change management activities, embrace industry innovations, and deal with difficult industry challenges when they arise because the channels are open, and employees are engaged and listening. All of this, of course, helps drive financial performance.

Accurately sourced benchmark data provides valuable reference points for your company’s key performance indicators (KPIs). Collecting your own data, and comparing it to industry benchmarks, will help you identify not only the best practices and KPIs that matter for your organization but will reveal the channels, cadence and narratives that are moving you toward your organizational objectives.

Internal communicators looking for a benchmark resource should look no further than PoliteMail’s 2024 Internal Email Communications Benchmark Report, which examines more than 4 billion emails sent to over 15 million employees around the globe. The annual study arranges the findings by S&P industry sector and distribution size — from fewer than 1,000 people to 50,000 or more — so that professional communicators can compare and contrast their results with benchmark data relevant to their particular company.

At present, statistics show employees receive, on average, 14 corporate email broadcasts a month containing 30:46 minutes of content with 163 links. Email utilization spiked during the pandemic and has remained high as a majority of employees continue to work from home. As companies evaluate their communication analytics and make improvements, messages get shorter, more frequent, and have less linked content per message — which reduces information overload and leads to higher engagement rates.

The average corporate email open rate now sits at 68%. The top fifth of all firms that demonstrate email best practices, meanwhile, have an average open rate of 83%.

One of the key best practices is having clean, accurate distribution groups. Too often, corporate distribution lists contain a large number of former employee email addresses, yet neglect to include the newest employees. This creates a denominator problem whereby the exaggerated list size reduces the open rate.

Focusing on the right combination of metrics is also crucial. Communicators and the people they broadcast for tend to get fixated on the email open rate despite the fact that recipients often immediately delete or skip past email messages they open. Open rates can be deceptive for other reasons, as today, many email security tools automatically open messages and links to scan them, generating superfluous data. Updated versions of Outlook open emails multiple times to increase download performance.

For these reasons, PoliteMail’s internal email analytics go beyond counting opens and clicks, with a focus on attention, readership and engagement.

Unlike marketing and sales software, PoliteMail’s internal email measurement tool is integrated with Microsoft 365 and Outlook, which allows communicators to continue sending emails using their familiar day-to-day email platforms while measuring a variety of key metrics. Armed with this analytics data, building evidence-based communications plans and reporting key performance indicators is now possible. PoliteMail’s 2024 Benchmark Report serves as a valuable reference point for communicators to determine if their strategies are working or not.

As the saying goes, you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Creating a winning internal communications strategy requires a foundation of objective, accurate and reliable data. Otherwise, it’s all guesswork.

Download PoliteMail’s 2024 Internal Email Benchmark Report today!

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Effective internal communication is the backbone of any successful organization. It encourages engagement and helps ensure all employees align with company goals and are aware of key information. However, to optimize your internal comms, it’s important to objectively evaluate your communications efforts and adjust accordingly.

An internal communications audit is a way to evaluate your organization’s internal communications processes and strategies. The purpose is to assess the intentions, types, volumes and effectiveness of internal communications and answer questions like:

• How effective is this channel for this purpose?
• Do employees feel like they receive sufficient communications?
• Do employees engage with our messages?

Research published in the Journal of Business Market Management proved that internal communication — from an organization and supervisors — significantly optimizes employee engagement. Additionally, a study published in 2020 found a positive and significant relationship between downward communication and employee performance.

Findings like these underscore the significant benefits of internal communications on organizational success. They also highlight the value of objectively measuring and optimizing efforts to achieve the most significant impact.

Why Conduct an Internal Communications Audit?

Here are a few of the main reasons:

1. Identify comms gaps. By evaluating the impact of your comms, you can pinpoint areas where your communications are lacking or ineffective.
2. Boost reader engagement. An internal comms audit can help reveal the types of messages and channels employees engage with most (and least), which may vary based on the nature of the communications. Knowing this helps you adopt more effective strategies and minimize the rest.
3. Ensure alignment. By auditing your internal comms, you can ensure your messaging aligns with organizational goals and values while evaluating your employees’ ability to consume the messaging. This alignment can help you foster more consistent and cohesive communications.

Step-by-Step Guide to Conducting an Internal Communications Audit

1. Define objectives. What do you expect to learn from your audit? Lay out your goals. Determine what aspects of your internal communications programs you wish to assess and improve. For example, your main objective may be to evaluate your leadership-to-management and leadership-to-employee messaging. You may want to review the use of various channels (e.g., email, intranet, Teams) about the types of messaging you send. Or you might be interested in learning if employees feel they get enough or too much communication and how that might vary by topic.
2. Ask good questions and gather the data. With your objectives in mind, prepare question sets and requests for other data you may want. You’ll want to collect (or request) quantitative and qualitative data through surveys, interviews, focus groups or existing data sets. It’s good to set a benchmark as a starting place for comparing data. Data may come from your communications team (e.g., types of messages, volumes published), IT (total messages sent from specific addresses or to particular groups/DLs) or HR. Suppose you’re evaluating channel use and effectiveness. In that case, you may want to survey employees about their preferred communication channels by message category, ideal frequency, and any areas where they feel communication is overwhelming or lacking. You can also dig into your inbox, Sharepoint pages, and Teams channels to pull out relevant examples from each broad category of messaging you want to evaluate.
3. Analyze findings. After you gather your data, analyze the numbers — or queue up a data analyst ahead of time — and identify results and trends. First, look for results that show outstanding areas of strength or weakness. Collate your survey responses and conduct a thematic analysis to identify commonalities across the various reactions and multiple questionnaires.
4. Develop actionable insights. Next, brainstorm actionable insights and recommendations for improving internal communications based on data analysis. For example, let’s say you review the data and find that most employees feel disconnected or unaware of the company’s business strategy. To combat this deficit, you may suggest a new leadership communications program and a monthly virtual all-hands meeting to loop employees into critical organizational priorities and share the company’s progress in the previous month.
5. Publish an implementation plan. To ensure success, take your list of actionable insights to the next step by organizing a detailed plan for implementing the recommended changes. Be sure to include timelines and responsible parties. Don’t forget to loop surveyed employees back into the insights you have discovered and what you are planning to do. As you adjust comms later in the cycle, remind people that the changes are in response to your audit findings.
6. Monitor and evaluate. One extensive audit can prove very helpful in driving change, but a continuous improvement process is ideal. You’ll need systems to measure and monitor the effectiveness of the implemented changes continuously. You might utilize occasional pulse surveys to assess employee satisfaction with the revised communication programs and adjust as needed.

A detailed audit can be your friend when your team feels change is necessary but is still determining where to start. The process helps you identify areas of strength and improvement, gather critical data, develop insights, and implement an action plan. By executing an effective audit, you can focus on what employees say they want and improve communications effectiveness, leading to improved outcomes, like increased employee engagement and work performance.

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No one benefits from an unhappy workforce. Yet detached and unmotivated employees seem to be everywhere.

Last year, for example, two-thirds of U.S. workers reported feeling either not engaged or actively disengaged on the job, according to Gallup. These dissatisfied employees cost companies an estimated $1.9 trillion in lost productivity. Ouch.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Both managers and employees can do their part to boost morale in the workplace — and it begins with a sound communications strategy.

For those in leadership positions, the key is to establish an ongoing dialogue with subordinates. Employees want to know what’s happening and why. Who did the business just hire? How did the department perform last quarter? Keeping people in the loop on a routine basis makes them feel more connected to the company. More transparency leads to fewer misunderstandings and a more self-assured work environment. It’s the internal communicator’s job to set benchmarks and measurements to understand which channels employees prefer to receive communications, how often and what format works best.

Employees also want to express their opinions and be heard. The more their superiors listen and act on the input, the more workers will invest their time and energy into the company.

Managers should set up regular calls or schedule recurring meetings on internal communications platforms such as Slack, as they can no longer rely on news spreading around the office in an informal manner. While remote work has declined since the height of the pandemic, numbers from the Census Bureau show that around 26% of U.S. households still have someone working from home at least one day per week. A more formal approach to disseminating information cuts down on unfounded gossip, too.

Internal communicators can partner with team managers by collaborating on crafting effective messaging that resonates with employees, providing resources and training on communication strategies, and offering consistent feedback and support. By aligning their efforts and actively involving team managers in the communication process, internal communicators can ensure that messaging is relevant, timely and tailored to the specific needs of employees, ultimately leading to increased engagement and stronger relationships within the organization. This partnership allows team managers to be champions of communication within their teams and encourages a culture of transparency, trust and open dialogue throughout the organization.

Providing feedback — both positive and constructive — is also crucial. Employees want to know that their individual efforts serve a greater purpose by contributing to the company’s overall success. As additional findings from Gallup put it, people “want to be known for what makes them unique.” Managers, therefore, can help drive employee engagement by celebrating good work in a public setting. Reward a job well done, whether that’s in a group email or an all-hands Zoom meeting.

On the other hand, while criticism can be hard to hear, it signals to employees that what they do, and how they do it, matters. Someone cares enough to point out flaws. That said, best to have these conversations in private.

At the same time, employees shouldn’t feel like passive viewers of their own careers. Communication is a two-way street. Managers should encourage workers to submit their ideas and share their day-to-day frustrations before they snowball into bigger issues that push them into adopting a “quiet quitting” mindset. The more available and approachable managers can make themselves — within a healthy work-life balance, of course — the better.

Ultimately, employees want the respect that comes from reliable communication. They want the trust that accompanies a lasting relationship. Although 82% of employees believe it’s important for their organization to see them as a person rather than just an employee, only 45% say their organization sees them this way, according to research from Gartner. This is a big opportunity for companies looking to increase engagement and extend employee retention rates.

By working together, managers and employees can create a work culture that fosters a robust sense of camaraderie and collaboration. Whether it’s a client or customer, boss or worker, everyone will be better off because of it.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is hyped to become a transformative force across all industries. According to Next Move Strategy Consulting, the global AI market was valued at $95.6 billion in 2021 and is predicted to grow with a 32.9% compound annual growth rate to reach $1.85 trillion by 2030.

As the use of AI expands, it has the potential to revolutionize HR and corporate communications by linking data with content, but we must use it responsibly. According to Top Trends in Privacy Driving Your Business Through 2024, a report by Gartner®, “By 2025, regulations will necessitate focus on AI ethics, transparency and privacy, which will stimulate — instead of stifling — trust, growth and better functioning of AI around the world.” Let’s explore what this might look like.

First, recognize AI for what it is: Artificial

While AI output is fascinating at this stage, remember that it’s only as good as its inputs. AI rehashes and rewrites existing content, just a bit more cleverly than traditional plagiarism. While people currently use AI to write news stories, concerns about job displacement are not unfounded. However, it’s essential to recognize that AI’s contribution to corporate communications is much more nuanced than merely replacing human writers. Yes, AI can quickly generate text, yet the output is limited to the quality and integrity of the sources it has processed. Rather than replacing human writers, AI is more likely to become a time-saving assistant, allowing communicators to gain insights from data and focus more on strategy and creativity.

How will AI assist employee communications?

1. Use communications analytics data to inform content strategy. One of the significant challenges in corporate communications is understanding message uptake. Communications analytics data like PoliteMail’s Benchmark Report reveals that employees are willing to spend about a minute with an average email, with the highest engagement observed in messages of just thirty seconds or less to read. It won’t be long before AI makes this type of data analysis available as real-time recommendations, with variable tuning based on the message content and intended audience. Internal comms and HR teams may leverage AI tools as an editor to quickly condense lengthy content into more concise, reader-friendly message summaries. For example, internal comms could ask an AI tool to take a Teams meeting transcript and produce a bullet list summary for broadcast distribution.

2. Optimize communications for higher engagement. AI excels at pattern matching and machine learning. So, when teams apply these tools to content analysis and communications metrics, they can enhance both assets’ value. Effective communicators possess strong intuition and language skills, and adding data-driven insights to evaluate the impact of their work will expand their reach and improve desired outcomes. For example, PoliteMail provides an AI-driven subject line suggester trained on attention rate data. Based on past performance, the tool suggests subjects likely to garner more attention. The communicator provides the content and ideas — what are we communicating and why — and AI helps optimize the how and the word choice.

3. Maintain a consistent brand voice. Beyond visual brand guidelines that define a company’s logo, font, and colors, corporate communications teams seek to maintain a consistent brand voice (the company’s style, attitude and tone). With its ability to learn patterns, AI can help a diverse team of writers execute a more consistent brand voice by mimicking a specific fashion, point of view and character. By training AI to edit content to align with an organization’s defined brand voice, communicators can ensure a cohesive identity. An organization could train an AI on its brand voice by inputting its current collateral library that fits the brand voice. Some have seen tools like ChatGPT accomplish this when prompted to rewrite a speech in the style of Teddy Roosevelt or write a story in the style of Mark Twain.

Say Hi to AI

While AI is a powerful up-and-coming tool, companies should view it as a collaborative partner rather than a replacement for human intelligence. Leveraged responsibly, AI can help streamline content production and provide valuable data-driven insights that help comms teams produce more engaging content. Used strategically, AI can elevate corporate comms by strengthening content strategy, optimizing communications for reach, readership and engagement, and defining and maintaining a robust and consistent brand voice.

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