Internal Communications Survey: Which Questions, and How Often?

When an important announcement goes out, the communications team usually knows how many people opened the email. What it does not know is how many understood the message, how many never even heard about it, or how many thought, "Why didn't they talk to us about this beforehand?" Open rates show reach; they do not show whether the communication actually worked.

An internal communications survey fills this gap with employees' own experience. In this post we explain what an internal communications survey measures, which questions to ask, how often to run it and how to read the results.

What does an internal communications survey measure?

An internal communications survey measures the effectiveness of internal communication across five core dimensions:

1. Reach: Can employees access the information they need? Do they hear about important announcements?
2. Clarity: Are messages clear and easy to understand? Can employees connect the organization's strategy and priorities to their own work?
3. Timing: Does information reach employees on time, or do they hear it first through the grapevine or from outside sources?
4. Channel fit: Do the channels in use suit the way employees work? Which channels are actually read?
5. Two-way communication: Can employees share their views and questions? Does anything happen as a result?

Alongside these five dimensions, it is also useful to measure information overload (too many messages) and trust in the source of communication (senior leadership, direct managers, corporate channels).

Internal communications survey questions

The items below can be answered on a 5-point agreement scale. Depending on your organization's needs, you can pick 2–4 items from each dimension to build a survey of 15–25 items.

Reach

• I can easily access the information I need to do my job.
• I hear about important developments in the organization.
• I am able to keep track of what is going on in the organization.

Clarity

• I understand the organization's strategy and priorities.
• I know how my work contributes to the organization's goals.
• Messages from the organization are clear and easy to understand.

Timing

• I learn about changes that affect me in good time.
• I usually hear news about the organization through official channels first.

Channel fit

• Internal communication channels suit the way I work.
• I can access company announcements within the normal flow of my working day.
• The number of messages I receive is manageable.

Two-way communication

• There are channels through which I can share my views and suggestions.
• I believe I would get an answer if I asked senior leadership a question.
• Employees' views are taken into account in the organization's decisions.

Trust in the source

• I trust the information shared by senior leadership.
• My manager shares developments in the organization with the team in good time.

For employees, information sharing by their direct manager is often the most important communication channel of all. We cover this topic, and how to write manager items, in our post on the anatomy of first-line manager questions.

Channel preference questions

In addition to the items, it is useful to ask directly about channel usage and preference:

• Through which channel do you receive most of your information about the organization? (Email, intranet, mobile app, messaging groups, my manager, team meetings, notice boards and screens, my colleagues)
• Through which channel would you prefer to receive information about the organization? (Same options)

Reading these two questions side by side shows the gap between the channel that is "used" and the channel that is "preferred." If most information comes from colleagues but employees would rather hear it from their manager, that signals a need to strengthen managers' communication role.

Open-ended questions

• If there were one thing we should change about internal communication, what would it be?
• Is there anything you wanted to find out recently but couldn't?

We explain how to write open-ended questions in our post on open-ended employee survey questions.

How often should an internal communications survey be run?

A comprehensive internal communications survey once a year is enough. Changing communication channels, habits and processes takes time; comprehensive surveys run more often wear employees out before the impact of any actions has a chance to show.

That said, measuring once a year should not mean monitoring communication only once a year. The recommended structure has three layers:

Avoid running the comprehensive internal communications survey in the same period as the engagement survey. Scheduling the two a few months apart reduces fatigue and lets the actions taken on one survey's results show up in the other. We cover how to plan surveys across the year in detail in our post on how often to run employee surveys.

Sample post-announcement pulse survey

After an organizational change, a new policy or a strategy announcement, a short survey might consist of the following questions:

1. I am informed about [the announcement].
2. I understand the reason for this change.
3. I know how this change will affect me.
4. There is a channel through which I can raise my questions about this.
5. Do you have any questions or concerns about this change? (open-ended)

You can find out how to design these surveys in our post on pulse survey questions. To measure whether a change has been adopted over time, see our post on whether change has really stuck.

How should the results be read?

The value of an internal communications survey emerges when you read the results by breakdown:

• Break down by working pattern. Reach scores for desk-based, field, shift and remote employees usually differ a great deal. The company-wide average may look good while field employees are not hearing about important announcements at all.
• Build a channel-by-group table. Show in one table which channel each employee group gets most of its information from and which one it prefers. This table is the most concrete data you have on which channels to invest in.
• Isolate the manager effect. If there is a clear gap between two units using the same channels, the difference most likely comes from how managers share information with their teams.
• Look for recurring themes in open-ended answers. The topics employees "wanted to find out but couldn't" directly set the communication agenda for the next period.
• Read them together with engagement results. Units with low clarity and two-way communication scores usually also have low engagement scores. To see which communication items have the greatest influence on engagement, you can use key driver analysis.

Common mistakes

• Measuring only channels. "Do you read the newsletter?" shows how much a channel is used, not how effective communication is. Always include the clarity and two-way communication dimensions.
• Sending the survey only by email. Employees who have no corporate email, or do not use it regularly, are the group where internal communication is weakest, and they are also the least represented in a survey sent by email. Use alternatives such as SMS, QR codes or kiosks. Our post on how to survey blue-collar employees can guide you here.
• Not communicating the results. Failing to share the results of an internal communications survey shows that you are falling short on the very thing you measured. Share the results and the planned actions with employees.
• Trying to change everything at once. Pick the one or two most important issues from the results, make visible changes on them and track the impact in the next measurement.

In short, an internal communications survey measures not whether messages arrive, but whether they are understood and whether employees feel heard. Run the comprehensive measurement once a year; in between, track the situation with a few items in the engagement survey and short pulse surveys after major announcements. And always read the results broken down by working pattern.

Frequently asked questions