Like all professionals, internal communicators deal with several difficulties unique to their job. This can be anything from a lack of reliable data on email open rates to low levels of engagement among the workforce. Those with a strategy to overcome these obstacles have a clear advantage over those who don’t.
Keep reading for a list of key internal communication challenges and ways to solve them.
1. Lack of analytics
If internal communicators aren’t sure how many employees are reading their emails or downloading crucial documents, they’re in the dark about how well their messages are performing. This scenario can lead to confusion, missed deadlines, staff turnover, poor productivity, and an organization more vulnerable to problems when they arise, as it’s unclear who receives the latest information. Don’t let what should be dialogue between colleagues turn into a cacophony of competing monologues.
In today’s data-driven business environment, internal communicators who aren’t using statistics to help inform their decisions are bound to fall behind. Gut instinct alone, no matter how strong, is no longer enough. Hard facts can boost credibility and reveal opportunities for growth. Concrete figures can also build a solid case for a bigger budget.
Leadership is hungry for clear and concise information that drives real results, such as improved productivity and higher employee retention rates. Those who can turn raw data into insights that push the business forward are likely to get a seat at the table.
Internal communicators without a system in place to collect data, therefore, should get started today. Hootsuite, for example, can track sentiment across numerous social platforms. SurveyMonkey can generate polls to get a sense of employee concerns and ideas to fix them.
Services such as PoliteMail, used by more than 20% of S&P 100 companies, monitor multiple metrics, from how many people are actually reading your emails to the effectiveness of the message’s content. The tool can arm internal communicators with the data they need to prove their efforts are an asset to the business, which opens the door for influencing what gets discussed in the boardroom
2. Information overload
Office workers already spend up to 8.8 hours per week dealing with emails, according to figures from Microsoft. Adding a pile of additional messages to their schedule can push some employees one step closer to burnout. This, again, is why it’s necessary for internal communicators to use data to find a healthy balance of keeping colleagues informed without draining their mental bandwidth. At the same time, too much data can be just as harmful as not enough. A flood of numbers from various dashboards and spreadsheets, sometimes showing contradictory information, can quickly become overwhelming. This situation doesn’t benefit anyone.
When faced with this problem, internal communicators should go back to the basics. What are you trying to measure and why? Narrow in on the content and channels most important for communicating with employees, depending on your situation.
Once you have a reliable way to gather the data, make sure to benchmark it against other businesses in your industry to see how well you and your team are performing. Your figures might look big in isolation yet come across as small when standing next to statistics from external firms.
In this regard, PoliteMail’s 2024 Internal Email Communications Benchmark Report, which examines more than 4 billion emails sent to over 15 million employees around the globe, is a valuable resource. The annual study arranges the results by S&P industry sector and distribution size — from fewer than 1,000 employees to 50,000 or more — so that internal communicators of all sorts can compare their data with numbers relevant to their company.
One finding from the report, for example, shows employees receive an average of 14 corporate emails per month. So, if you’re sending out double that amount or more, it’s probably wise to scale back.
PoliteMail also offers a selection of precise metrics to reveal which channels are most effective at delivering the right message to the right audience at the exact time recipients are most likely to engage.
3. Incorrect distribution lists
Crafting a clever email with compelling images and a perfectly placed call to action doesn’t do anyone any good if the message doesn’t get delivered to its intended audience. Internal communicators know the pain and frustration of incorrect distribution lists all too well.
Sometimes errors occur because of glitches during a software update, or someone in IT entered an email address with a typo. Sometimes employees quit or change their names. Sometimes companies acquire startups or merge with other firms, resulting in a batch of new email addresses for several staff members.
Whatever the reason, internal communicators should prioritize keeping their distribution lists as accurate and up to date as possible. Consider how you sort employees by role, region, department, and seniority level. Be in constant communication with your HR team for changes in information that may affect your approach to list management.
PoliteMail’s software tool SyncroNym can help alleviate this headache by automating list maintenance and synchronization between systems. Professional communicators can also use it to create new lists on demand without waiting around for IT’s assistance.
Another way PoliteMail fights back against incorrect distribution lists: the platform allows communicators to turn off auto-replies, which can quickly clutter an otherwise tidy inbox. If you want to keep a record of your auto-replies, PoliteMail’s Direct Replies To feature allows you to funnel them to an appointed inbox. Once there, you can review each email address for inaccuracies and update your distribution lists accordingly.
4. Engaging deskless/remote workers
Prior to the pandemic, the idea of an office worker doing his or her job from home or the beach or a coffee shop in another country — in other words, anywhere but the office — was an anomaly. Sure, it happened, but it wasn’t widespread. The pandemic, of course, changed all of this, making remote work a necessity for many.
The issue for internal communicators today is how to make sure these employees remain as connected to the business as their in-office peers. How do they receive the latest updates from the CEO, who might prefer to share announcements during an in-person meeting? How do they participate in company functions if they live in another state?
Since this is, relatively speaking, new territory for many companies, the best approach is to test and learn. Explore which modes of communication—whether that’s email, a messaging app, a corporate portal, or a video conferencing platform—provides the best results. In a practical sense, the answer is likely some combination involving all the above, plus more options suited to your specific industry.
Once again, however, experimentation is only useful if you’re keeping track of what’s working and what’s not. Measure the results with Google Analytics for pageviews and SurveyMonkey for employee feedback.
Likewise, PoliteMail’s data analytics can reveal an email’s effectiveness and engagement levels. Senders can even review employee interaction by time of day and geographical location.
Another way PoliteMail can help: The tool allows internal communicators to schedule emails to arrive during an employee’s regular working hours, regardless of time zone. That means no annoying messages in the early morning or late at night, which boosts readership rates.
5. Low employee engagement
It’s something no internal communicator wants to deal with, but they all encounter at some point: members of the workforce who would rather be doing pretty much anything besides working.
Employees can lack enthusiasm for a variety of reasons. Some, for example, might feel their ideas go unheard. Others may be confused about their purpose within the company’s overall strategy. Another subset of employees might simply not care because they don’t trust their employer to do the right thing.
Whatever the cause, internal communicators can combat low employee engagement in a couple of ways.
One is through GenAI. If you’re feeling uninspired and unsure where to start writing a new email or blog post, tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini can help kickstart your imagination. Use it to bring more creativity to your writing or explain complex topics in a language everyone can understand. The aim is to produce content that attracts the attention of apathetic colleagues.
The second is to harness the power of data to see which messages and mediums are working to build a better relationship between employer and employee. Monitor what lines of communication spark interest and which go ignored. Lean on statistics as your guide forward.
Internal communicators who use PoliteMail know the tool is more than capable of delivering both solutions. The software’s integration with Outlook allows users access to Microsoft’s AI-powered tool Copilot, which can test subject lines and produce first drafts without opening a new tab. PoliteMail also offers robust analytics around everything having to do with reach, readership, and engagement rates.
Internal communicators face many hurdles, but these hurdles are by no means insurmountable. Armed with creativity, data, and an openness to embracing new ways of tackling today’s challenges, problems can get solved.
