Whether it’s supporting transformation, navigating change, or helping employees stay connected in a noisy world, comms teams are at the heart of it all.
And yet… many still struggle to be seen.
You know the feeling. You’ve launched a great campaign, redesigned the intranet homepage, even built toolkits for managers. But when it comes to visibility, influence, or budget, it’s… frustrating.
That’s the reality many communicators shared at our recent Haiilo Breakfast Club in Frankfurt, where we gathered people across many different industries to talk through the big challenges they’re facing today.
One theme kept coming up: how do we make our work matter to the business, and not just to other communicators?
💡Read: What’s keeping internal communicators up at night? Answers from Haiilo Breakfast Club.
Malte Witt, our VP of Sales, shared a few sharp insights during the session. His main message: “If internal comms wants a seat at the table, we need to show how it drives the business forward, not just engagement.” And he’s right. So let’s break it down.
Why great work still goes unnoticed
Comms teams do a lot with a little. But even the most polished intranet or campaign won’t move the needle if it isn’t connected to something bigger.
The problem is 60% of companies say they don’t have a long-term internal communication strategy, and many comms efforts are seen as reactive rather than strategic.
And yet, the opportunity is huge. Companies with effective change and communication programs are 3.5 times more likely to outperform their peers.
The issue often isn’t that the work isn’t good, it’s just not positioned to show business value.
So how do you flip the script?
Start by setting clear, strategic goals that align with your company’s bigger-picture objectives. From there, build your projects in a way that makes them visible, not just to employees, but to decision-makers, too.
Making your projects feel relevant, not just important
Changing how people perceive your work begins with repositioning.
Instead of talking about tools, talk about what they unlock. For example:
- “Employees spend 2.5 hours per day searching for information”: that’s a time drain your intranet can solve.
- “One in three employees say poor internal communication impacts their productivity”: that’s a business risk, not a comms issue
When you link comms to time saved, mistakes avoided, or higher adoption, internal comms stop being a “nice-to-have” and become a genuine problem-solver.
Speaking the language of decision-makers
Your CFO doesn’t want click rates. Your CEO isn’t scanning newsletter open stats. They care about outcomes: revenue, risk, cost, performance, retention.
That means translating your comms impact into metrics that align with business value. Think fewer soft stats, more hard-hitting insights:
- Reduced onboarding time = productivity gain
- Higher intranet usage = lower support requests
- Clearer internal messaging = faster adoption of strategic initiatives
Want to make them care about comms? Tie your work to outcomes they’re already tracking.
For example:
- A clear onboarding comms plan can reduce ramp-up time by 40% (Source: UrbanBound)
- Employees who feel well-informed are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to do their best work (Source: Gallup)
- Companies with high employee engagement see 23% higher profitability and 18% higher productivity (Source: Gallup)
Why “awareness” and “engagement” aren’t enough
Vanity metrics have their place, but they don’t prove ROI.
Awareness is only valuable if it leads to action. That means asking:
- Did employees do something differently?
- Was a process adopted more quickly?
- Were questions or support requests reduced?
“We need to identify problems – whether they’re business-related, personal, or technical – and set up our projects in a way that directly responds to them,” says Malte.
Think beyond views and likes. Link communication to measurable behavior change, and your reports start telling a much more powerful story.
A practical, repeatable framework to prove intranet ROI
Here’s a framework we use at Haiilo to help our customers show the business value of internal platforms:
- Start with a business challenge.
Examples: high support ticket volume, inconsistent adoption of tools, low strategy awareness. - Connect the challenge to your comms efforts.
What’s your campaign, intranet feature, or message doing to help? - Map the journey from clicks to outcomes.
Use a chain like this:
“Increased use of self-service HR content → 25% drop in repetitive HR tickets → 150 hours saved per month”
- Focus on value-based KPIs.
Go beyond basic usage stats. Use metrics like:
- Reduction in internal queries
- Faster adoption of tools or policies
- Improved survey scores tied to communication clarity
- Time saved per task
- Visualise impact clearly.
Don’t hide insights in slides or spreadsheets. Use simple visuals that connect action → result → business value. - Share real feedback.
Numbers matter, but stories stick. A manager saying “This update saved me 10 calls a week” is gold.
📅 Want to attend the next Haiilo Breakfast Club? Reserve your spot today
How can Haiilo help?
Haiilo gives internal communicators the tools to cut through the noise, boost engagement, and make comms feel relevant again.
- Share content people actually want to see — in the formats they’ll engage with
- Keep updates clear and focused in one place that’s easy to navigate
- Make it easy for leaders to show up with quick, authentic messages
- Help employees find what they need without digging
- Create an intranet that feels useful, familiar, and worth returning to
