In each of your response posts, identify two quantifiable business metrics that could be used to measure the ROI associated with the key considerations in your peer's post. How do those metrics measure what is intended? How might they inform decision making or next steps? Support your reasoning with examples, if possible.

$$ What are some key considerations that could drive organizations to put metrics in place to measure the effectiveness of internal communication initiatives?

Frequently, employees have key insights into the creation, delivery, or sale of products. Often, they possess critical information that is not available to the engineers, analysts, and $$experts$$ that create the products or services. In situations where employees feel psychologically safe, they will readily provide this critical information in a way that improves products and processes. However, if senior leaders have not created an environment where information is shared, employee will withhold this knowledge $($Edmondson$,2020)$ or even worse, share it with those that can do reputational harm.

Most companies express some interest in how their employees feel about their job. The most successful companies invest resources into projects such as an employee opinion survey. In this survey employees can provide feedback on what matters to them. If the company translates this data into visible solutions, they can improve standing with employees. When employees feel heard and valued, they tend to engage better with their work and stay in their role longer. Both are ways to increase productivity and reduce costs.

$$ How might the metrics be similar or different with an external communications initiative?

The idea behind a selected metric is to better understand how well processes within the company are doing. They measure how well the group is doing with respect to reaching their short and long$-$term goals. $($Klipfolio$.$com, $2023)$ When diving into internal metrics, we must understand that the scale is small, and the sample size is one where people are naturally biased towards the company being successful. External communications typically deal with a larger population in which there is competition for their positive assessment. With that said, the metrics that measure internal communications have a different purpose. Internal communication metrics are more about diagnosing internal conflicts and solving for sub$-$optimal internal processes. Therefore, the audience and purpose for internal communications is going to be very different from an external communication. In addition, employees are typically tied to confidentiality agreements, where they face negative consequences for violating agreed upon rules. External communications also carry more risk. When communications are sent externally there is the public dissemination factor that is always assumed. Organizations cannot send sensitive communications to external destinations that maybe be hacked or be prone to dissemination. Information privacy and data security are of paramount importance in a connected and compromised world.

$$ Why is the particular business environment organizations operate in an important consideration when implementing metrics?

The industry a business operates in usually dictates the metrics that are being measured. Think of the differences between the following industries: Social Media, Finance, Technology, Pharmaceuticals, Sales, Weapons Manufacturing and Government contracts. Each of these industries have different products, employee$$s skill sets, and regulations. To be successful, they each must measure something specific to what they do$.$ A social media company is not going to measure the number of fatalities linked to their product like a pharmaceutical company or a weapons manufacturer would. One could make arguments that they should, but reality is this is not nearly as important as account reach and followers for them. $($Klipfolio$.$com, $2023)$ The industry defines what success looks like. In order to measure success you must properly assess you performance compared to other in your field.