“Prove it.”
If you’re in internal communications, you’ve heard that sentence more times than you’ve heard “quick question” (which, as we know, is never actually quick).
The shift is real. Five years ago, a lot of comms tech lived in the “nice to have” bucket. In 2026, it’s a boardroom conversation — and boardrooms don’t buy “nice.” They buy outcomes: efficiency, reduced risk, better retention, higher adoption of expensive tech investments, and measurable operational wins.
In our recent webinar, Proving internal comms ROI in 2026: Lessons from the other side, Ricky Sickelmore shared what he learned after 24 years in transport (including launching Blink at Stagecoach and introducing it at Arriva) — and what consistently held up when leadership came knocking for ROI.
Here are the six takeaways internal comms teams can apply immediately.
1. Ditch vanity metrics for outcomes
Email opens. Page views. Likes.
They’re not useless… they’re just not convincing.
Ricky’s rule: stop leading with activity metrics and start leading with business value. Executives don’t want to hear that “people saw the message.” They want to know: did anything change, and did it matter?
So translate comms problems into operational and financial realities:
- Safety reporting increases (e.g., digital near-miss reporting vs. “find the form somewhere and hope someone bothers”)
- Compliance improvements (e.g., “mandatory read” confirmation)
- Turnover movement (not because comms magically fixes attrition — but because comms can remove friction, improve onboarding, and drive consistency)
A useful gut-check: If your metric can’t be repeated in a budget meeting without you adding a 3-minute explanation, it’s not your headline metric.
Executives aren’t interested in open rates. They’re interested in the financial reality.
- Ricky Sickelmore, Blink
2. Start with hard costs and operational efficiency
If you want CFO attention, lead with the stuff they can smell from three floors away: tangible savings.
Ricky shared a simple example that’s painfully common in frontline-heavy orgs: printing and distributing documents at scale. One organization saved over £200,000 by moving payslips from print-and-post to digital distribution.
But don’t just stop at “printing costs.” The strongest ROI cases widen the lens:
- Printers and maintenance
- Paper, postage, distribution
- Staff time to print, collate, deliver, reprint
- Support tickets created when things go wrong
And when you talk about “time savings,” make them real. Not “we saved time.” Instead:
- “We reclaimed 10 hours per week of manager time previously spent manually filling shifts.”
- “We reduced password reset requests because employees access systems through one authenticated front door.”
Pro tip from Ricky: Do a basic “time and motion” study. Follow one process end-to-end and document every human touchpoint. That one form might bounce across 8–10 people, with delays that never show up on a neat process map.
3. Build a cross-functional case, not a “comms case”
One of the biggest mistakes internal comms teams make is trying to win budget alone — with a comms-only story.
Ricky put it bluntly: ROI gets easier when internal comms stops being “the comms team’s project” and becomes an operations, safety, engineering, and HR win.
That means stakeholder interviews early — not once the deck is already written.
Ask department heads:
- What’s your biggest friction point right now?
- What manual work is wasting your team’s time?
- Where do you have compliance risk?
- What’s the cost of not fixing this?
Example Ricky gave: if a safety leader can’t reliably get 20 drivers in a room for a briefing, that’s not a comms problem — it’s an operational risk. A digital “mandatory read” gives you trackable compliance without the logistics circus.
Make it tangible: Form a small steering committee with reps from the functions that will benefit most. When you go for sign-off, you’re not walking in alone — you’re walking in with allies.
You’re not in it alone — get the right stakeholders in the room early.
Ricky Sickelmore
4. Prove time-to-value through onboarding
Want a metric that operations leaders actually care about? Onboarding efficiency.
Ricky called this one “underestimated” — and he’s right. Onboarding is where friction shows up immediately, and where improvements are easy to translate into time, money, and productivity.
If employees can receive policies, procedures, training content, and day-one essentials before they even start, you can often get people productive an entire day sooner.
That’s not “engagement.” That’s time to value.
And onboarding improvements have a bonus effect: they reduce downstream errors, reduce manager time spent repeating the same information, and improve early retention (again — comms isn’t the sole driver, but it’s a meaningful part of the system).
5. Position your platform as the digital front door
One of Ricky’s biggest reflections: early on, it’s easy to think you’re buying “a comms tool.”
But the strongest ROI cases position the platform as the gateway to your digital estate — the place employees actually start their day.
This matters because most organizations are already paying for expensive systems (HRIS, scheduling, payroll, benefits, learning, etc.). The problem isn’t always the tool — it’s access and adoption.
If your internal comms platform:
- Uses SSO
- Reduces password resets
- Gives employees one place to find and access tools
- Increases self-service
…then your comms investment is also protecting and amplifying other investments.
Ricky shared a real pattern: Once access is simplified through a single front door, usage of other systems can jump dramatically — and suddenly your internal comms platform isn’t “another tool.” It’s the tool that makes the rest usable.
6. Establish a baseline — and sell the cost of inaction
You can’t prove improvement if you don’t know where you started. And you can’t create urgency if you can’t show what “doing nothing” costs.
Ricky’s advice: Baseline early — and don’t just baseline comms metrics.
Baseline business realities that leadership recognizes:
- Turnover / attrition
- Survey participation rates
- Safety reporting volumes
- Time spent on manual processes
- Printing, distribution, and support costs
- Operational delays caused by information gaps
Then translate that into the cost of inaction: the money currently leaking from the business because processes are manual, access is fragmented, and frontline teams can’t reliably get what they need.
When you can credibly say, “Here’s what it costs us to do nothing,” the investment stops feeling optional.
Common mistakes to avoid when proving internal comms ROI
A few “don’t step on this rake” moments that came up in the conversation:
- Don’t lead with outputs. “We sent 12 newsletters” isn’t ROI.
- Don’t build the case in isolation. Cross-functional pain points = stronger case.
- Don’t ignore hard money. The “soft” story matters, but hard savings gets you in the door.
- Don’t skip the frontline reality check. Spend time with frontline teams. Watch the work. Learn the friction.
- Don’t assume leaders know what to ask for. Often the first job is clarifying the real question behind “prove ROI.”
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Be the change maker
Internal comms ROI in 2026 isn’t about becoming a finance team overnight. It’s about learning to translate.
Translate comms into outcomes.
Translate friction into cost.
Translate “this would be helpful” into “this will reduce risk, save time, and speed up productivity.”
Or, in Ricky’s words: Be the change maker.
FAQs: Internal communications and ROI
#1. How do you prove ROI for internal communications?
Proving internal communications ROI starts by moving beyond vanity metrics like email open rates or page views. Instead, focus on measurable business outcomes — such as reduced turnover, time saved through streamlined processes, improved safety reporting, higher compliance rates, or increased adoption of critical systems like HR or scheduling tools. The strongest ROI cases tie communication directly to efficiency, cost reduction, and risk mitigation.
#2. What metrics matter most when measuring internal comms ROI?
The most effective internal comms ROI metrics are the ones leadership already cares about. These often include operational efficiency (time saved by managers), cost savings (printing, postage, IT support tickets), onboarding speed, system adoption rates, safety compliance, and employee retention trends. Engagement metrics still have a role — but as supporting evidence, not the headline.
#3. Why are email open rates not enough to demonstrate internal comms value?
Email open rates show activity, not impact. They don’t tell leaders whether communication changed behavior, reduced risk, or improved performance. In frontline-heavy organizations especially, email metrics can be misleading because many employees don’t regularly access inboxes. ROI-focused internal comms measurement looks at outcomes — what changed in the business as a result of the communication.
#4. How can internal communications reduce costs for an organization?
Internal communications can reduce costs by digitizing manual processes, eliminating printing and distribution expenses, reducing reliance on help desk support, and reclaiming manager time spent on repetitive tasks. When communications platforms also act as a single access point to other systems, they can significantly increase self-service and reduce operational friction across the business.
#5. What is the “cost of inaction” in internal communications?
The cost of inaction refers to the hidden financial and operational waste caused by outdated or fragmented communication processes. This can include high turnover, low system adoption, manual workarounds, compliance gaps, and time lost searching for information. Establishing a baseline for these issues helps internal comms teams show not just the ROI of investing — but the ongoing cost of doing nothing.
Blink. And make ROI real in your organization.
