One of the things internal communications has not had until very recently has been a set of external benchmarks. Though companies have been benchmarking their IC internally for at least five years, there’s been no external measure.

Towers Perrin, however, has recently put together a landmark study that benchmarks IC for the first time.

“American Express had come to us to help them determine how effective their IC was – to create benchmarks – and to figure out what they could do to improve,” said Sean Connelly, the consultant with Towers Perrin in New York who helped develop the report. “We decided to assemble a group of participants, all of whom could benefit from the results.”

In all, 17 major corporations, including Verizon, Agilent, T. Rowe Price, Boeing, American Express, International Paper, Bose and Towers Perrin itself, participated. “We decided to put aside our own thoughts and conceptions, and asked the IC pros, ‘What’s important to you?’ And the answers surprised us,” Connelly said. “They wanted to measure around leadership, and really dig into the relationships employees have with supervisors. They wanted to know how the tools were working, but were more interested in benchmarking the overall processes – to find out how internal communications was functioning, and what employees wanted out of it.”

What came up as the most important elements to employees, Connelly said, were the following:

• Honest, open communication of good and bad news by the company
• Senior leaders fostering an environment for two-way communication both up and down
• Clear, understandable communication from senior leaders
• Timely communication of major developments
• Being able to trust information from the company more than from external media
• Being able to trust information from the company more than from coworker rumors
• Leaders demonstrating a sincere interest in satisfaction of employees

The survey has been completed but is not publicly available at this time.

© 2004 Heyman Associates, Inc.