Announcing the State of the Nation: 2011 Internal Communications India Survey Results

What do internal communicators in India focus on?

How do they manage internal communications?

What are the most relevant internal communications channels that work in India?

Is there interest in social media in internal communications?

How does leadership perceive internal communications in the country?

Which trend will impact internal communicators in the future?

Learn all this and more in the State of the Nation: 2011 Internal Communications India Survey!

Executive Summary

About the Study

The State of the Nation: 2011 Internal Communications India Survey was carried out between September and October 2011. Communication practitioners in India were invited to participate in this first ever study aimed at gauging the value and impact of internal communications. Respondents who completed the survey were professionals based in India who work or have worked for organizations either in the capacity of a leader or an individual contributor in the internal communications function. Practitioners from industries such as pharmaceutical, IT, banking, energy, telecom, and health participated in the study with a majority of them from organizations with over 3000 employees.

The survey covered the following themes:

• Background and Role
• The Internal Communicator’s Profile
• Internal Communication Team Construct
• Planning and Skills
• Focus Areas
• Expectations of the Function
• Return of Investment
• Channels
• Measurement
• Leadership Support for Internal Communications
• Executive Communications
• Challenges Faced by the Function
• Social Media and Internal Communications
• The Future of Internal Communications

This survey provided insights from practitioners on the function’s objectives and outcomes, got feedback on the impact they make in their role and organization, learn more on how leaders and communicators perceived the function, delved on the impact of social media adoption in internal communications and discussed the future of the function.

Respondents who completed the survey will receive a free executive summary of the results and also be invited for further discussion on the subject in the future.

 

Key Findings

• The understanding of internal communications is limited in the country and there is scope for training and education.

• Only half of internal communications accepted that they were aware of skills and expertise to do internal communications. Employee engagement, crafting messages, designing and implementing communication were among the top ranked responsibilities for internal communicators.

• Only a third accepted that they had leaders buy-in for internal communications and less than half were confident of pitching a business case for internal communications.

• Less than a third of respondents had their internal communications objectives aligned with their company’s goals.

• Channels mostly used by internal communicators in India included e-mail, face-to-face, intranet, print publications, posters, TVs, surveys and video. Strangely, social media as a channel didn’t register among respondents as vital.

• Awareness of internal communication measurement tools was low among respondents and only 11% accepted they knew how to measure the output of their work. A majority of communicators said they measured their work quarterly (35%) and real-time (23%).

• Less than a third had conversations on internal communications with their leaders and only 25% got the opportunity to discuss newer forms of effective communications.  Respect for the function, micromanaging and overwhelming work were barriers cited for not committing time on these fronts.

 

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