How leaders can set practical internal communications goals

Employees desire transparency from leadership, while leaders seek to boost employee engagement and commitment. The divide between leaders and employees will grow significantly if the two expectations are not aligned and clearly communicated.

• Why it matters: Ineffective communication is costly. The average high-earning full-time employee loses 46 work days per year dealing with ineffective communication. This can quickly become a major stressor affecting employee productivity. 

Leaders must come up with an effective strategy for employee communication — and there are no solid strategies without clear goals. Clear internal communication goals will help employees and management reach common ground, ensure employees understand the organization’s direction, and accelerate everyone actively supporting it.

Importance of setting internal communication goals

Setting internal communication goals allows you to prioritize information that’s important to your team. Providing valuable updates to employees has been shown to directly enhance team alignment, ensuring everyone is in sync with the broader organizational goals. 

• Proper internal communication goals also boost transparency — showing employees you're committed to keeping them in the loop.
• That sense of openness is seen from senior leaders, in turn, is likely to create a stronger culture of two-way loyalty and trust from their workforce. 

Research shows employee alignment and employee retention rates work hand-in-hand.

The other key factor: Goals create accountability. When it’s time to assess your internal comms activities, you know what to look out for. This also means that you can ask the right questions when seeking employee feedback and improve internal communication plans over time.

How to set internal communication goals in six steps

Step 1: Do an internal communication audit

An internal communication audit will show areas of strength and weakness in your current communication strategy, which can influence the internal communication goals you set.

Start your internal communication audit on the foundation of clear objectives. They could be to:

• Identify key internal communication channels - email, instant messaging tools, intranet software, etc.
• Gauge employee alignment with company objectives.
• Assess employee engagement with leadership messages.
• Evaluate employee satisfaction with the frequency of communication, etc.

Then set objectives based on what’s more important to your company. 

Next, define your target audience — and you will likely have more than one. Who will each want and value receiving information from? Consider your staff and stakeholders in segments, like:

• Regions
• Departments
• Staff vs. stakeholders
• Executives vs. employees
• Managers vs. individual contributors

Use an internal communication tool like Axios HQ to divide your audience into segments and keep a pulse on how different groups of your employees or stakeholders respond to your internal communications. Use the tool to track KPIs like open and click-through rates, for example.

You can also craft survey questions that directly address your audit objectives, like:

• How do you typically get information about the company?
• How would you prefer to get information about the company?
• What company communication pathway do you find to be the most ineffective?
• How can our company improve the quality of the communications?

And try a 5-point rating scale (e.g. 0-5) to quantify survey responses. Tailor this to the results you seek. Say you’re assessing the relevance of your internal comms messages, your scale could look like this:

• Irrelevant to this audience (0)
• Inspirational, non-essential (1)
• Important, but not timely (2)
• Essential upon arrival (3)

Conduct your research by sending surveys to your established audience. For more comprehensive insights, work with both qualitative and quantitative data. Analyze your data to identify standout or emerging patterns. Look for key events or recurring issues that deviate from established procedures. 

Put your findings together with a high-level assessment of what’s working and what’s not. Based on the previous example — of assessing message relevance, your summary could look like this:

For qualitative data, capture perspectives in a template like the one below:

Remember, audits shouldn’t be one-off. It’s much more effective if you run more frequent audits and consistently improve your internal communications strategy. 

Step 2: Compile data on industry benchmarks

Look at industry benchmarks to understand what successful internal communication looks like. Get data specifically for your industry. Consider using free online competitive benchmarks to see how your employee engagement and other metrics stack up alongside industrial internal communication trends. 

Look out for details like:

• Employee engagement. Open rates on email newsletters, feedback response rates, click-throughs, etc.
• Channel effectiveness. Which internal communications channels are performing well in your industry? What do other organizations use most? What do employees think about them? You can find this data from industry reports like our 2024 State of Internal Communications report.
• Information flow. How aligned do employees feel? What challenges do other business leaders experience with distributing information? 

Axios HQ provides smart analytics, including competitor benchmarks that you can use to assess your internal communication results. Understanding industry trends is key to establishing achievable goals for internal communication. You’ll know what you’re doing right and what you can improve. 

Step 3: Identify your company goals

Internal communication exists to serve your overall business goals, so ensuring the two are in alignment is vital. Look at company objectives across key areas like: 

• Profit / Growth. Are you looking to expand into new markets?
• Culture. Do you wish to foster a culture of creativity? Do you want a more collaborative workforce?
• Employee engagement. Do you want to improve employee engagement and retention?

Consider how you can support those company objectives through clear internal communication goals. Say your primary company objective is to launch a new product in the next quarter. In that case, the internal comms goal might focus on:

• Educating employees about the new product’s features and benefits.
• Encouraging collaborations between departments.
• Fostering employee buy-in for the new product.
  
  

Step 4: Set data-backed internal comms goals

Translate data from your internal comms audit and industry benchmarks into actionable goals that will help you achieve the big picture for your company.  Aim to improve on challenges and capitalize on your strengths. 

Here are a few internal communication goals examples to guide you:

• Increase employee newsletter open rates by 15% within 3 months.
• Improve employee understanding of company values by 20% as measured by a post-communication survey.
• Reduce time spent searching for company information by 10% through a revamped internal knowledge base.

Assign communications metrics like open rates, delivery rates, and click-through rates to track each goal you set. And remember — don't set goals in a silo. Involve your team to ensure buy-in from the onset.

Step 5: Track your goals

Track your performance to see how well you’re progressing toward your internal communication goals. The specific metrics to monitor will depend on each goal you have.

• Metrics like open and click rates would be valuable if the objective was to boost employee engagement with internal communications. 
• Metrics like employee productivity and retention are the radiant impact beyond them, and you might look at project speed, quality of decision-making, and team happiness.

Dive deep into specific teams and departments to see how each measures up. Look for trends and identify areas where your communication strategy is — or isn’t — working, and develop a full-on action plan for improvement anywhere you need to. 

Step 6: Create an insightful internal comms report

An internal comms report provides a thorough assessment of the impact of your communication efforts over time. Sharing this report with company executives is critical to demonstrate the return on investment. 

Your report should highlight:

• The initiatives taken to improve communication over a specified period of time.
• The goals you set out to achieve initially.
• Metrics you observed to determine your progress.
• Wins, roadblocks encountered, and areas for improvement.
• Common themes, complaints, or suggestions from employee feedback.

Make your report comprehensive enough for your target audience — executives, department leads, employers, etc. — to get the full picture. Also, provide the next steps by communicating your action plan and reinforcing the importance of a joint commitment to achieving your internal communication goals.

Setting SMART internal communication goals

Establishing clear goals is crucial for your team to develop a well-structured strategy for success, which is where the SMART framework becomes an invaluable tool.

Keep these guidelines in mind:

• S — Specific: The goals of internal communication must be clear and precise. Instead of a vague goal like “improve communication,” a specific goal might be “increase employee engagement by x% with weekly internal newsletters.”

• M — Measurable: set goals that have quantifiable internal communication metrics. That’s how you determine whether you’re close to achieving your aim. So, say “Increase company newsletter open rates by 10%” instead of “Increase newsletter open rates.”

• A — Achievable: Your goals should be realistic, based on your current resources and constraints. They shouldn’t be impossible to achieve; otherwise, they’ll demotivate your team. 

• R — Relevant: Ensure your internal communication goals align with broader organizational objectives and contribute to your overall business success. Also, keep the goals relevant to what your organization needs. Don’t focus on improving the adoption of new platforms if what you really need is to improve your messaging on existing channels.

• T — Time-bound: Set a clear timeframe for achieving the goal. For instance, “increase email open rate by 30% in the next 4 months.”

Why is this important? The SMART framework eliminates ambiguity and ensures everyone understands what needs to be accomplished. Internal communications teams can also prioritize efforts and resources effectively since they have precise timelines and measures of performance.

Clear, measurable goals make it easier to track progress and keep the team accountable. Senior leaders can easily analyze data and refine methods for greater success over time. 

Examples of SMART goals for internal communications

Based on some common internal communication challenges, let’s look at some internal communication SMART goals examples:

• Increasing employee engagement: Increase employee participation in company-wide virtual town halls from the current average of 60% to 80% within the next six months by sending personalized reminders.
• Boosting employee NPS/satisfaction score: Improve employee satisfaction scores related to company communication by 20% in the next year.

The bottom line

Effective internal communication is vital for organizational success. It bridges the gap between employee desires for transparency and leadership needs for engagement. Organizations like yours can align their workforce, reduce costly inefficiencies, and ultimately get closer to achieving key objectives by setting clear, purposeful communication goals. 

Go deeper: Explore 9 bottom-line benefits of investing in internal communications.

Internal communication goals FAQs

1. What is the goal of internal communications?

The primary goal of internal communication is to foster an informed, engaged, and aligned workforce. This is done by sharing clear, relevant, and timely information about organizational objectives, achievements, and initiatives.

2. What are the SMART goals for internal communications?

SMART goals for internal communications are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This means internal communication goals should clearly define what you intend to achieve and have established metrics and timelines for tracking success.