Helping organizations measure what employees actually think, believe, and do — not just what they open and click
Internal communications today is no longer about sending emails and managing the intranet. What matters is whether employees received your messages, believed them, and acted on them. When done well, internal communications has an enormous impact on organizational performance. Done badly, it erodes employee trust and morale — and no one knows, because the metrics are measuring the wrong things.
Katie Delahaye Paine has spent four decades helping organizations replace vanity metrics with measurement systems that connect communications directly to business outcomes.
<The Problem with Most Internal Comms Metrics
Most internal communications teams are measuring activity — opens, clicks, views, likes — rather than impact. The difference matters enormously when leadership asks “so what?”
What Most Teams Measure
- Email open rates
- Intranet page views
- Newsletter clicks
- Event attendance numbers
- Social likes and shares
- Annual employee engagement survey
- Content volume produced
What Actually Matters
- Do employees know the organizational priorities?
- Do they believe and trust leadership?
- Has behavior changed as a result?
- Are they aligned with business goals?
- What is the impact on retention and recruitment?
- How does comms contribute to business performance?
- What does it cost when communication breaks down?
Measurement is the vaccine for the stupid stuff. If you have data to prove that what you are being ordered to push out won’t work, you’ll get fewer requests for it. Which is why you need a clear definition of “good” and “bad” content — and a system to measure the difference.
The Framework: KUBA
The foundation of effective internal communications measurement is the KUBA model — a four-stage framework that connects what you communicate to how employees ultimately behave. Employees must progress through each stage before you can expect behavior change.
Every business problem can be traced to a communication breakdown. Fix the communications and you improve business performance. The KUBA framework ensures your measurement program tracks the journey all the way to behavior change — not just awareness.
Seven Steps to a Perfect Internal Communications Measurement Program
Whether you are starting from scratch or upgrading broken metrics, effective internal communications measurement follows the same seven steps — regardless of the size of your organization or the channels you use.
How Katie Can Help Your Organization
Paine Publishing works with internal communications teams across sectors to design, implement, and improve measurement programs that actually answer the questions leadership is asking.
- Internal Communications Audit A thorough, independent evaluation of your current communications environment — what employees are seeing, what they trust, and what your existing metrics are and aren’t telling you.
- Measurement Program Design Building a complete measurement framework from scratch — from defining your champagne moment to selecting the right tools and establishing baselines across all internal channels.
- Kick-Butt Index (KBI) Development Creating a customized content quality scoring system that enables you to rank every email, intranet post, video, and meeting on a consistent scale tied to your organizational goals.
- Leader Say-Do Survey Design and Analysis Designing and fielding surveys that measure the critical gap between what leaders say they prioritize and what employees actually see them doing — the “credibility gap” that undermines organizational performance.
- Employee Pulse Survey Programs Replacing outdated annual surveys with quarterly or monthly pulse checks that track attitude, knowledge, belief, and alignment over time — fast enough to actually inform decisions.
- Metrics Upgrade — Quick Fixes for Broken Programs For organizations that already have measurement in place: auditing existing metrics against the “So What?” test and replacing activity measures with impact measures tied to business outcomes.
- Integrated Dashboard Design Building executive-ready dashboards that combine activity metrics, outtake data, outcome measures, and organizational impact into a single coherent story for leadership.
- Training and Workshops Hands-on training for internal communications teams on measurement best practices, the IPR Internal Communications Standards, and the seven-step measurement process.
Sectors Served
Internal communications measurement challenges vary significantly by sector — the right metrics for a manufacturing company differ from those for a healthcare system or a government agency. Katie brings deep familiarity with the specific challenges each sector faces.
“Every business problem in existence can be traced to a communication breakdown. Fix the comms and you improve business performance. Any communication solution you apply to a problem will create a gain in some measure of business value.”
Mary Miller, CEO, Miller Comms Inc. — Preface, The Complete Guide to Measuring the Effectiveness of Internal CommunicationsThe Complete Guide to Measuring Internal Communications — 2026 Edition
The definitive guide to internal communications measurement. Covers the seven-step measurement process, the Kick-Butt Index, the Leader Say-Do Survey, the KUBA framework, quick fixes for broken metrics, and the IPR Internal Communications Standards — everything you need to build or upgrade your measurement program.
About Katie Delahaye Paine
Katie Delahaye Paine is the founder and CEO of Paine Publishing and one of the world’s foremost authorities on communications measurement. Known as “The Measurement Queen,” she has been a pioneer in the field for more than three decades, founding three measurement companies and advising organizations from Microsoft and Southwest Airlines to NATO, the IMF, and the National Wildlife Federation.
She is the recipient of the IPR Jack Felton Medal for Lifetime Achievement, a founding member of the IPR Measurement Commission, and a co-creator of the Barcelona Principles. Her newsletter, The Measurement Advisor, is the industry’s leading source of measurement best practices.
Start a Conversation
Whether you need a full measurement program, a metrics audit, or a workshop for your team, Katie is happy to discuss your organization’s specific challenges.