If there was one dominant question on everyone’s mind at last month’s Ragan Internal Communications and Culture Conference, it was: How do I measure the impact of my communications on the “hard to reach” employees.”  And they weren’t just talking about people working from home.

The subject of concern is all the workers who aren’t sitting at their desks, reverberating with anticipation of your next email. In real life, they’re running from client to client, patient to patient or crisis to crisis and don’t have time to check their email – assuming they even have your app on their phones.

That “unreachable” cohort is a pretty significant chunk of the workforce. People who work in jobs where they don’t have easy access to email, Slack/Teams or an Intranet represent some 20% of all workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Which leaves open the concern that 1 in 5 of your employees hasn’t a clue what your policies or strategies are because they never got that memo.

Today’s sophisticated data tracking systems like Polite Mail can tell you a tremendous amount about the  effectiveness of your email efforts, but that assumes that they can  access and/or pay attention to an email. 

So, the question is, how do you measure the effectiveness of your communications on all those “unreachables.” Especially  when using your mobile phone for work is now a common practice, Compounding the problem, when employees do have the time to look at their mobile devices, they’re looking at group chats, text messages, What’s App, or the infamous Signal. 

The good news is that along with all the other technological changes, measurement and evaluation has a few new options of its own. For example, you can now integrate What’s App into your Outlook system so if you are already measuring results in Outlook, you can extend that to What’s App. And analyzing the content of comments on Slack, Teams or Intranet has gotten easier, thanks to Chat GPT and other content analysis tools.

However, as with all things’ measurement, the process has to start from inside your audience’s head.

6 Steps to measuring your impact on those hard-to-reach employees:

Step 1: Find out what they see, what they read, what they trust.

Don’t assume anything. One of my clients spent a fortune creating a mobile app that no one under 40 wanted to use, and never even downloaded it onto their phones!

If you have regular employee surveys planned, (if you don’t, now would be a good time to start one) ask a few questions about their information preferences:

1. Where do you get job-related information?
2. Where do you PREFER to get job-related information?
3. What sources do you trust most for job-related information?

Those are three different questions and from my experience, yield some pretty interesting answers and very actionable data.

Also in your survey, ask a few questions to determine their existing level of knowledge about your corporate goals and priorities. That will provide a benchmark from which to build.

Step 2: Determine what data is available for whatever platform (s) they pay attention to.

Obviously email, your own apps or intranet can all provide data. The question is, how much of is it useful and actionable? You may need to talk to IT or whoever manages the back end to see if they can set you up with some bespoke reports that you can use to create your own dashboard.

If the most trusted and preferred means of communications is meetings – online or in person, establish a system to regularly ask questions of the attendees. Do NOT ask the built-in ones that most platforms offer – like “how did you like the meeting” – that tell you diddlysquat.

What you need to know is.

• Was it worth their time?
• Was the information clear and understandable?
• Did they learn something valuable?
• Did they see the speaker as honest and trustworthy and empathetic?

If they answer no to any of those questions, you didn’t effectively communicate your messages.

Step 3: Get consensus on what metrics to track and what is important.

Not all the data you can track is important or relevant, and some data points are harder to confirm than others, so now is the time to sit down with leadership and figure out what really matters. What matters to them will dictate what data you need to report on.

Step 4: Tests and games are great measurement tools.

One way many organizations use to reach those hard-to-reach types is digital signage – especially when they’re trying to reach employees that are running from patient to patient. But how do you know those messages are getting into employees’ brains?

 If your communication is tied to an action (e.g., “Sign up for training”, “Attend a safety drill”), measure how many people actually did it. Start with a controlled test. Promote one event WITH digital signage and another WITHOUT digital signage and see which one gets more attendees. You can do this with all kinds of different tactics, try sending the same message via email vs WhatsApp or Teams or Text -and see which brings more engagement or attendance.

If the goal is to educate mobile employees on a new priority, product or plan you’ll want to test their knowledge – regardless of where or how they got that knowledge. This is where gamification comes in.

Send out via all forms of internal communications a weekly or monthly quiz about whatever the priority topic happens to be. Encourage teams and/or individuals to compete for glory – and the occasional prize. Think of the New York Times Weekly News Quiz but designed around your company priorities.

Step 5: Analyze feedback and comments.

Assuming mobile and other hard-to-reach employees have a way of giving some feedback, either via the Intranet, Slack, Teams, or whatever other internal platforms you use, count the number and type of questions employees ask after you’ve communicated about it.

Analyze the topics people are asking questions about and definitely track any topics that generate a spike in comments, shares, questions or whatever emojis the system provides.

If your employees already use a scheduling or tracking app, consider embedding announcements inside those platforms — they’re already in those apps daily. Then track engagement or responses within those apps. Particularly the number of questions and responses.

Step 6: Create a regular reporting tool, dashboard, or score card.

If you are asking employees to answer questions, regardless of where they are working, they will want to know that if they take the time to respond, you are going to do something useful and valuable with the data. So, you need to share the data and results widely. If the data starts off looking dreadful – share it anyway. That conveys transparency and people will trust you more. If the data is sort of meh – admit it and ask for suggestions on what to improve. If it’s great, get everyone in on the celebration.

The important thing to remember if the goal is to inform employees what matters the most is their level of knowledge, now only if you reached them.