Measuring up: India's Tata Chemicals Ltd. scores with a comprehensive program to assess internal communication programs.

The ability to send clear, concise messages and to listen effectively often spells the difference between successful business relationships and lost productivity. Every large organization has a communication department and develops programs to communicate with employees. But how do you know if your internal communication tactics are meeting your objectives? Can they be quantified? What is the yardstick by which we can measure them?

Internal communication managers often fall prey to two major myths. The first is that intangibles cannot be measured. The second is that even if it's possible, measurement is expensive.

In a way, they are right. We measure what looks measurable. While the effectiveness of activities like product launches, contests and press conferences, or even tools like web sites, has been measured, not much work has been done on the internal communication front. While monitoring the efficiency of internal communication in terms of, say, the timely printing and distribution of newsletters, updates to the intranet and adhering to the communication calendar is easy, doing so does not determine whether these tactics are getting the job done.

Internal communication managers often wonder, Are our tools working? What communication gaps exist in the organization, and how do I plug them and improve communication at every level? The first step to answering these questions is to look at your various modes of communication through the eyes of your target audience: employees. How do they perceive all the wonderful tactics that you engage them with?

Tata Chemicals Ltd. (TCL), in India, developed an index that could indicate the health of internal communication processes. This index, now called the Communication Effectiveness Index (CEI), has become the yardstick for measuring the performance of the communication team. The outcomes have been tremendous and have given the team a direction to focus on to meet their internal communication objectives.

Effectiveness vs. efficiency

The communication team at TCL reaches out to employees and their family members through a variety of communication vehicles. The employees come from different cultures, work at different locations, and have diverse experiences and education levels. Internal research showed that employees in different strategic business units, or SBUs (TCL has three of these units: chemicals, fertilizers and food additives), and work levels, or levels of responsibility (ranging from frontline employees to senior leadership) preferred different modes of communication. For instance, a worker in the plant preferred bulletin boards to the intranet because the boards were closer to his work area than intranet access.

After this initial research, the communication team decided to go deeper and measure the effectiveness rather than just the efficiency of the various communication processes. The aim of this effort was to create a diagnostic tool that could address the following needs:

* Measure effectiveness of the various tools on a scale of 1 to 5.

* Arrive at a Communication Effective Index value for each SBU, location and level of responsibility, or cadre (such as frontline employees, managers or leadership).

* Identify the key issues on the communication front.

* Use qualitative research to collect employee feedback to address the issues.

After identifying the six major modes of internal communication in use at the company (intranet, e-mail, employee communication meetings, notices/ bulletin boards, internal events and printed materials) and listing the individual objectives and impact of each, the team created a questionnaire to be used during one-on-one interviews with some 400 employees, representing groups from top management to the front lines.

Trained behavioral experts conducted the interviews, collecting both viewpoints (qualitative) and scores (quantitative, on a scale of 1 to 5) for each mode. The interviewers were from a third party to ensure that there was no element of bias. The average of the scores of the individual impact parameter ratings gave the CEI for each mode. Then the CEI scores of the different modes were averaged to give the overall CEI of the internal communication process at TCL. (See chart on page 34 for more on this process.)

Taking action

The survey established an overall CEI rating for TCL, and the CEI ratings by cadre, SBU and location, providing comprehensive data about the status of the entire organizational communication process in a dear, accessible format.

The data arising out of the survey done for 2004-05, along with the qualitative input, was used to develop a comprehensive action plan. A second phase of the survey was completed in 2005-06. The current results are the basis for the action plan for the year 2006-07.

Communicating with employees has become a business imperative. Communication that reaches (or fails to reach) employees affects their productivity and loyalty, and has a definite effect on the bottom line. Better-informed employees report feeling more engaged and contribute far more to the organization's success. Employees need to understand that the organization cares for them, that their opinion matters, that their involvement is respected, and that the company takes action on the input they give. Communication professionals play a pivotal role in this.

Measuring the effectiveness of the various communication tools helps communicators focus on what works for the organization, as perceived by the employees. Certain tools are effective for some companies but may not work for others. While some feel that e-mail is the best way to communicate, for some Face-to-face communication works better. The fight mix within an organization ensures consistent communication to all audiences. TCEs CEI study gives insight on what is the best way to communicate with whom.

For example, in one TCL location, the lowest-rated parameter was communication meetings (score of 2.79 for 2004-05). While the qualitative feedback and other internal research showed that communication meetings are most effective, the CEI score for this location is pretty low. The lesson was clear. To improve this index, a communications calendar was formed and strictly adhered to, meeting minutes and action plans were communicated to employees, and meetings were held more frequently. The positive shift was evident and measurable during the next phase, when the score went up to 3.63.

At another location, the most noticeable shift was in internal events (increasing from 3.29 in 2004-05 to 4.02 in 2005-06). This was the result of an action plan that emerged from the study that called for an increase in the number of family-based internal events, moving toward a more participatory approach, recognition of the local event coordinators, and inclusion of employees throughout the event planning and delivery phase.

The survey found that employees at one location thought that notices posted on bulletin boards were the least effective means of communicating (score 3.4). Therefore, old bulletin boards were replaced with better ones. Comments from interviews suggested that old notices needed to be removed after the relevant period, an idea the team never thought of, and a process was set up to ensure the timely removal of old notices. This also reduced the clutter. The score went up to 3.97 the following year.

With the information overload that we see today, messages need to be targeted toward the different audiences to grab their attention. Internal studies have shown that employees in different cadres have different preferences based on availability of time, resources and choices. It's also evident that top management prefers printed materials (score 4.2) and e-mails (score 4.05), whereas for the management staff, internal events (score 4) appear more effective.

After the first phase of CEI, the employee engagement score on the communication front rose by 42 percent. The participation levels in organization-wide communication platforms went up by about 30 percent. Today, CEI has been taken as an important measure in the company Balanced Score Card (BSC) and is tracked at the company level.

This process is easy to implement and can be used by organizations to customize their communication practices for each internal group. The key to its success is to keep the process simple and share the results and the action points with the employees. Make them a part of the communication plan and help them to help themselves.

A study in contrasts

The communication team at Tata Chemicals Ltd. followed this plan when they implemented their CEI study. They found that different employees in different work groups and at different levels of responsibility had profound preferences about how they received communications from management.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

about the authors

B. Sudhakar is the head of corporate human relations and administration for Tata Chemicals Ltd., in Mumbai, India.

Sujit M. Patil is manager of corporate communications at Tata Chemicals Ltd. in Mumbai, India, and is responsible for internal and external communication, public relations and media relations.