4 mistakes that will doom your communication audit

Are your employees engaged with your messaging? Is your content working? Do you have any blind spots in your communications?

If you don’t know, you’re probably considering a communications audit (or you should be). Here are four common missteps to be aware of before getting started:

1. Doing it for the wrong reasons. Justifying your job? Getting your boss off your back? Finding a new way to defend old tactics? Those are a few common misguided reasons for launching a communications audit.

So what are the right reasons? Here are several, according to Jim Ylisela, co-founder of Ragan Consulting Group:

2. Starting without a plan. Jumping in without a strategy is a recipe for disaster. That doesn’t mean, however, that your planning must be exhaustive.

At minimum, start by asking—and answering—these questions:

3. Not managing expectations. Nothing kills an audit like unrealistic expectations. Execs, for example, often expect up to 100% engagement in employee surveys.

“The truth is the average response rate is usually between 20% and 25%,” says Ylisela. “Anything better than that is unusual.”