The Problem with Measurement

The Problem with Measurement

Effective measurement continues to be an issue – it continues to be a topic of conversation among employer marketing and communication professionals.

That’s measuring the effect of your employer brand activation – internally and externally - and efforts to engage or communicate with employees.

There’s quite often a frustration that measurement starts as a priority – but somehow, and the reasons behind it appear to be elusive - ?becomes less of a priority.

It can even slide off the agenda entirely, and that would appear to be because business as usual takes over. This task is done, and the next is queueing up. So, evaluating how well this one has been achieved is dropped in favour of getting on to the new project.

When you say it slowly, and out loud, it’s an obvious fallacy, an illusion of speed. But in the centre of things, it’d different. It makes just as much sense to crack on, make progress, not lose momentum.

Often, the issue seems to be that the measurement gets scaled back. Those same pressures mean that full commitment and ambition dwindle. Measurement is watered down, and that often means that the easiest metrics are the ones that are pursued.

Of course, those metrics may not be the ones that hold the most value. They may just be clicks and views, not changes of perception and behaviours.

I believe there are two main issues at play here. Firstly, there is a big gap between actions and the real outcomes. Secondly, the confidence to bridge that gap.

The Action-Reaction Gap

So, first of all – the distance between comms and eventual effect.

A lot of this kind of work is done by busy professionals.

They know how to craft a message and they know how to get it to the intended audience.

They’re usually pretty good at understanding if people have received and got the message. They might even have some good ways to measure if people believe the message and intend to act upon it.

I think where they are less good is making the measures that take us beyond that. Namely do the audience ?act on the message and, crucially, what effect does that have?

Part of the reason is that – for many, if not most, organisations – the ultimate effect is in money. Monay made or money saved.

That can be hard to prove, that might be a long way down the line – the gap between action and reaction may seem too big.

I also think it’s possibly counter-cultural to HR or Internal Comms, or those tasked with engagement. I think they are seen as, possibly set up to be, and retain a mentality of being, a cost-centre function rather than one that creates value.

I think that is fundamentally unfair –none of the value of the organisation can be realised without them - but I also think that it’s the reality of business.

It becomes a vicious cycle. These kinds of supporting / non-operational functions are tasked with doing the most they can on the least budget, and so there isn’t a chance to develop the assessment of value creation as part of the job.

So, if putting an absolute monetary value on the effects you have created might be hard, so what could you potentially look at instead?

It can be things like:

·???????? more leads – have changes lead to more conversations with customers, more proposals?

·???????? better quality – is there less re-work, are there fewer complaints?

·???????? more connectivity – are you seeing conversations across teams, are projects happening with less friction?

·???????? speedier process – are projects moving quicker, are things being “shipped” in a shorter timeframe?

Some of that data will already exist, but you may need to get access that you haven’t had before. Some of this data won’t exist directly but there may be indicator or proxy data that you can use.

And on some occasions, you will need to work out a way to collect your own data.

I’m producing a guide to doing just that, which will be available soon. Contact me if you’d like a copy when it’s released.

The Confidence Gap

If you’re in HR, internal comms or engagement – it can feel like a bit of a stretch to say, after we did this, then those benefits you are now seeing are a direct result.

I don’t believe it is natural to take the full credit for these kinds of organisational outcomes. And I don’t believe those in more operational roles would have that same reluctance.

The problem is there is often a delay in time, or it can potentially seem tenuous that a set of actions over HERE, has had that outcome over THERE. The question is: How can I prove that the buttons I pushed moved those dials? That’s an intimidating challenge.

The reality is that often you won’t be able to prove it. Not absolutely, not 100%.

But what you may be able to do is prove that there wasn’t anything else that might account for the movement of the needles.

You can investigate what else has happened in the time of interest. Does anything else account for that change?

In the simplest possible example, you may have run an internal campaign in your fast-food outlet to upsell fries. If you now sell more fries, take that credit. If there was also a TV campaign, and they dropped the price by 50% - then maybe you have less of the credit.

Or, you may be that you are able to make a case some way along the chain, but not all of the way. In any kind of communications, you are interested in this value chain:

Did people interact with your comms?

Did they understand what was being said?

Did they agree with what was being said?

Did they believe what was being said?

Did that result in people doing things differently?

Did that result in people sustainably doing things differently?

The further up that chain that you can show you have agreement or change, the more credit for the eventual outcomes that you can take.

It’s not always about complete connection between Event A and Event B, it can just as much be about showing a correlation, ideally a correlation without any other mitigating factors.

Again, there will be more detail and practical guidance about this in the guide I’m producing very soon, so drop me a line if you’d like it.

The Benefits of Bridging the Gaps

What I hope to have shown here is that measurement is in the grasp of anyone.

It needs planning and some lateral thought; it will involve stretching your skillset.

Together, they can give professionals – for whom this isn’t often part of the job – the confidence to say: “Unless you can prove otherwise, our work delivered this.”

And having done that once, then there’s another potential conversation to have: “And if next time you involve us earlier or more fully – we can contribute more, and have even better measures of success.”