The Ultimate Comms Audit: Content + Data + Feelings

After wrapping a three-webinar series with PoliteMail Managing Partner Michael DesRochers, I wondered why it had taken us so long to collaborate on internal communications measurement.

Michael and his crew are experts at data, especially when it comes to analyzing email: the granddaddy of all internal communication channels and still the No. 1 tool of choice.

In Ragan Consulting Group communications assessments, we conduct surveys, focus groups and interviews, then apply what we learn with a deep dive into your comms channels and content. Do you have the right channels? Are they working as they should? Is your content engaging? Are you putting the right content in the right channels at the right time?

Now comes the latest tool from PoliteMail – Commlytics – powered by artificial intelligence to deliver deeper insights into how employees are feeling about their organization through “sentiment analysis” on Microsoft Teams channels and chats.

Teams rising
Our own research shows that the popularity of Teams is on the rise as an employee communications tool, ranking ahead of intranets and SharePoint sites and trailing only email and all-hands meetings, like town halls.

As a relatively new channel, many employees are still getting their sea legs on Teams. In one of our client surveys, 60% of employees said they use Teams “sometimes” or “almost all the time.” But that left 40% who said they “rarely” or “never” use it. 

Yet adoption of Teams channels is growing rapidly. In another survey, two out of three employees told us they prefer Teams because it keeps them connected with their colleagues. But more than half said Teams could be overwhelming, with too many channels and few if any standards for guidance and usage.  

Enter Commlytics. PoliteMail describes the tool as listening to the “voice of the employee” to see how communication is being received, to uncover employee concerns or problems, and to act on them for the benefit of the enterprise.

Beware of Big Brother
But there are caveats. Teams works best when employees feel they can openly air their opinions, needs and hopes, without any concerns about blowback from the bosses. The goal of sentiment analysis should be to create a culture of listening that helps communicators fine-tune their messaging and enhance the employee experience, not micromanage, or worse, spy on what everyone’s talking about.

About 25% of employees rank “being heard” above training in what they want most from their employers, according to research by employee collaboration program Howspace. But only 10% said they believe their voices truly are heard.

No one wants that creepy feeling that management is always watching and listening, especially on a Teams channel designed for open and free expression. It’s up to communicators to use Commlytics transparently, respecting employee privacy while reporting on trends, identifying training needs and gauging whether company initiatives are having any impact with the workforce. (Our focus groups tell us that many of these programs fall flat and often are misunderstood by employees.)

Feelings
One complaint about Teams channels is that there’s too much chatter and not enough search ability to sort it all out. Commlytics can tell you how many channels are active with participation, idle but still drawing a crowd and inactive, with little or no traffic. That allows communicators to review the channels and eliminate those that have run their course.

But the best part of Commlytics is that it gives communicators a sense of how people are feeling about different topics. The tool gives you an average sentiment score (positive, neutral and negative) across all your channels and allows you to dig deeper into individual topics.

An employee recognition channel, for example, might score positive reviews for acknowledging unheralded colleagues, while conversations about a recent acquisition or policy change might score lower, based on employee concerns about how the change will affect their jobs or the company culture.

This tool will make communicators better. Among other tasks, they can:

• Use what they’ve discovered through sentiment analysis to conduct focus groups to learn why employees feel a certain way and to test ideas about what would work better.
• Direct your storytelling around topics that are generating lots of employee interest.
• Identify Teams “influencers” who will be good sources for your storytelling.
• Change the way you’re explaining company news or initiatives based on confusion about those topics on Teams.
• Help employees navigate Teams channels by reporting on the latest conversations and trends, with links to active conversations.

RCG Co-Founder Jim Ylisela loves working on communications audits but gets easily lost trying to sort through all the content on Teams Channels. Email Jim at james.ylisela@raganconsulting.com to learn more about how to improve your comms assessments with PoliteMail’s Commlytics.  

Contact our client team to learn more about how we can help you with your communications. Follow RCG on LinkedIn and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.