How to demonstrate the value of measuring internal communications to leadership

You know strong communication drives alignment, clarity, engagement and performance. Does your leadership team understand why measurement is necessary, or why it’s worth funding?

If they don’t, you’re not alone. Demonstrating measurement efforts is an ongoing challenge for many internal communicators.

Dating back to PoliteMail’s 2019 Internal Communications Survey, 25% of communicators said their most significant obstacle to measuring internal comms was the simple fact that leadership didn’t value it or didn’t believe it should be a priority. Ironically, 54% of those communicators also said measurement makes it easier to persuade the C-suite to make better communication decisions.

This year’s survey showed 52% of internal communicators using engagement data to inform leadership decisions and organizational strategy, showing some improvement over the years of leadership recognizing the value of internal communications.

Quantifying the impact of internal comms is how you gain influence, resources and strategic visibility. But to measure, you need leaders to believe it’s worth it.

This article gives internal communicators the talking points, research and framing to confidently make a strategic, data-backed case for measuring internal comms.

Use these 12 strategies, and the research throughout, to justify why measurement is not optional but essential.

The research leaders need to hear

These data points can resonate with executives by connecting comms to company performance, productivity and risk reduction.

Companies with strong internal communication outperform their peers. A study of 651 organizations across industries found that companies with highly effective internal communication are 3.5 times more likely to outperform their competitors. Additionally, researchers have shown that “companies with highly effective internal communication practices produce superior financial results and enjoy greater organizational stability.”

Communication failures are expensive. An Economist survey found that communication barriers at work can cause project delays or failures (44%), low morale (31%), missed goals (25%) and lost sales (18%), with some losses totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Communication drives trust and retention. Research shows that sharing critical information breeds trust. “…[employees] are greatly affected by the presence or absence of communications from management.”

Engagement creates measurable business results. Gallup’s 2025 research finds that engaged employees — an outcome directly influenced by the clarity and frequency of internal communication—are more present and productive, more attuned to customer needs, and more observant of processes, standards, and systems. This high employee engagement results in a 23% increase in profitability.

By familiarizing yourself with research that proves the value of internal communications, you can start to shift the conversation from “Should we measure internal communications?” to “We can’t afford not to.”

12 ways to make the case for measuring internal communications

Need to justify the need for measurement? Here are 12 tips for convincing leaders to invest in measuring internal comms efforts with money, time, tools or resources.

1. Position measurement as a strategic business lever, not a “metrics report.”You’re not just tracking email numbers for a dashboard; you’re collecting data to determine if your comms is helping or hindering performance.

Framing measurement this way makes it clear that you’re evaluating the impact of your messaging and platforms, reducing friction, identifying bottlenecks that affect productivity and assessing which efforts engage employees, reduce turnover, minimize errors or affect the bottom line (just to name a few).

When leaders see that communication data directly influences operational outcomes, not just email performance, they see measurement as an investment in running the business better.

2. Connect communication to outcomes. Executives care less about whether employees opened an email and more about what they did after opening it. Tie internal comms metrics to organizational goals, objectives and outcomes such as reduced errors, improved compliance or higher completion rates to showcase internal comms as a business driver.
3. Show how information flows in your organization. Measurement can help illustrate how employees consume, act on and share information. For example, let’s say an organization starts measuring manager communications using attention rate, not just opens.

Here’s what that measurement initiative might look like:

• Internal comms measures:

• Email attention rate for managerswho receive an internal comms message: PoliteMail can track the percentage of viewers who read an email message more than 3 seconds, subtracting recipients who simply open a message but ignore the contents
• Number of follow-up questions from employees to HR

• The organization finds that:

• Teams with managers who had higher attention rates asked fewer questions to HR.

• The organizational impact is:

• Faster adoption of new policies and fewer HR clarifications

• Why executives care

• Reduces operational drag and speeds up execution across departments

When leaders see how communication behaviors change, measurement becomes strategic.

4. Prove that internal audiences are unique and need tailored communication. Use segmentation, surveys and employee feedback to show leadership that your internal audiences have different needs, motivations, and constraints. Employees want personalized messages written by humans.
5. Demonstrate how you’re using measurement to improve. When you measure internal comms, you can quantify how you’ve improved. Equipped with the right data, you can share achievements like:

• “Based on last quarter’s metrics, we changed email send times and increased readership by 18%.”

• “When we simplified our benefits overview last year, we reduced related HR support tickets by 10%.”

6. Use measurement to prove you’re responsible with resources. Leaders respect efficiency. Show them:

• Channels or platforms you’ve replaced or eliminated because your data showed they weren’t compelling enough.

• Newsletters or other messages you’ve consolidated.

• Workflows you’ve shortened or automated.

When they see that measurement helps you eliminate waste, they’ll be more willing to invest.

7. Highlight examples where measurement solved problems. You can resolve issues, but only after you identify them. How do you identify them? Measurement. Show executives where you’ve pinpointed problems and fixed them based on employee behavior or feedback.

For example, let’s say you rolled out a new benefits platform. Even after multiple reminders, CTR showed that only 8% of employees clicked through to the new platform. Rather than blaming the tool, you used your internal comms measurement data to identify a comprehension gap. In response, your team created a 60-second walkthrough video. Clicks jumped to 37% in two days. Internal comms measurement pinpointed the source of confusion, enabling a targeted, cost-effective solution.

8. Tie communication data to the metrics leaders already track. Executives engage when internal comms supports performance, productivity, turnover reduction, risk mitigation, training compliance, customer experience and other organizational priorities.

When you present a comms data point, tie it to an organizational outcome. For example, “When the readability of our emails increases, completion rates increase and support tickets decrease.”

PoliteMail uses Microsoft Word tools to calculate readability scores using the Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level tests. These tests base their scores on the average number of syllables per word and the average number of words per sentence.

9. Quantify the cost of not measuring internal comms. Executives respond well to risk prevention. When you justify measuring internal comms, reference numbers like:

• Time wasted answering repeated questions.

• Inefficiencies caused by misunderstandings.

• Low adoption rates due to limited awareness.

You can frame measurement as a way to avoid costs rather than as a means of creating them.

10. Frame employee sentiment as a key predictor that leaders cannot find elsewhere. Employee sentiment data helps flag potential burnout, disengagement, confusion and morale issues early — before someone leaves an organization. This early alert gives internal comms unique strategic value: “By measuring internal comms and employee engagement with our messages, we can flag early signals HR doesn’t see yet.”
11. Use benchmarks to give your numbers context. A 50% open rate on its own means nothing. A 50% open rate compared to industry averages grabs attention. By sharing benchmark data, like from PoliteMail’s 2025 Internal Email Communications Benchmarks Report, you can help leadership see where you’re excelling, where you’re lagging, what metrics you should be tracking and where investment could help.

Context — and a little healthy competition — can be persuasive.

12. Present measurement visually, succinctly and strategically. Executives make decisions in seconds. If you can present internal comms data with visual heatmaps, dashboards and trendlines, you can quickly demonstrate the value of your work. It can also be impactful to include “Here’s what we recommend” summaries.

The bottom line for internal communicators

If leaders aren’t convinced measurement matters, it’s not because they don’t care about communication — it’s because they haven’t yet seen the connection between internal comms and the metrics they care about most: productivity, retention and risk.

Your job is to help them see that:

• Measurement isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s essential to the effectiveness of your work.

• Measurement can save money and reduce risk by flagging inefficiencies and pinpointing opportunities for adjustment.

• And most importantly, you can’t improve what you don’t measure.

With the proper framing, data and storytelling, you can help leadership view internal communications not as an additional cost but as an essential part of your operations and a key to your effectiveness.