What do you say when your chief financial officer wants to slash your internal comms budget? AB’s MD and Internal Comms Podcast host Katie Macaulay brings your attention the following…
1. Engagement is a performance multiplier
Gallup’s 25-year global study of 183,000-plus business units shows high engagement leads to 11 better business outcomes, including a 10% jump in customer loyalty, a 23% rise in profitability and a 63% fall in safety incidents.
‘The Relationship Between Engagement at Work and Organizational Outcomes’, Gallup.
2. Double your return on sales
Your ops director might like to know that organisations in the top 25% for employee experience report nearly three times the return on assets compared to those in the bottom 25%.
3. Cut attrition, not comms
Ask your HR director how much employee attrition is costing. An effective Employee Value Proposition can reduce annual turnover by up to 69%.
Strengthen Your Employee Value Proposition, Gartner
4. Good comms is project insurance
Make friends with your transformation director. Mention that when communication is highly effective, 80% of projects meet their goals compared to just 52% when it’s poor. Those projects are more likely to be delivered on time (71% vs 37%) and within budget (76% vs 48%).
PMI (Project Management Institute) Whitepaper, ‘The Message is Clear’
5. Boost attendance and output
Make sure your C-suite knows that highly engaged business units experience 78% less absenteeism and 14% higher productivity.
‘Employee Engagement vs. Employee Satisfaction and Organizational Culture’, Gallup
6. Still not convinced? Quote Bill Gates…
“Like a human being, a company has to have an internal communication mechanism – a ‘nervous system’ to coordinate its actions.”
‘Business at the Speed of Thought’, Bill Gates
7. …or Warren Buffett
“The one easy way to become worth 50% more than you are now – at least – is to hone your communication skills… You can have all the brainpower in the world, but you must be able to transmit it. And the transmission is communication.”
CNBC: Warren Buffett
8. Poor communication drives people away
Is your organisation worried about talent retention? 61% of employees considering leaving say internal communication is one of the reasons why.
‘Employee Communication Impact Report 2024’, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and Staffbase.
9. Two hours lost. Every day.
How much time do you waste searching for information? 85% of workers spend up to two hours a day searching for the information they need to do their jobs.
‘The acceleration equation: What’s slowing teams down (and how to fix it)’, Lucid
10. Wasted advocacy = wasted opportunity
60% of employees are ready to advocate for their organisation – but only 17% feel informed enough to do it. That’s a powerful marketing force going untapped.
‘Employees Rising: Seizing the Opportunity in Employee Activism’, Webber Shandwick
11. A new social platform will (more than) pay for itself
To get the investment you need, mention that social technology can raise the productivity of knowledge workers by 20–25%.
‘The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies’, McKinsey Global Institute.
At AB, we believe employee communication isn’t a cost – it’s an investment. It’s the connective tissue that makes strategy stick, change succeed and people perform.
Curious about the hidden cost of poor internal comms inside your organisation?
Get in touch with our Senior Account Director, Dorrie Linford, to hear more about our simple Calculating the Cost survey – an easy way to assess the communication risks, gaps and opportunities inside your organisation.
