How to review a communications function
Reviewing your communications function can enhance alignment, improve leadership messaging, and boost employee engagement for greater organisational success.
Poor communication costs organisations time, energy, and trust.
When communication systems drift, the effects aren't just operational — they’re strategic. Reviewing your communications function is essential to ensure it supports leadership, accelerates change, and drives alignment across the business.
Done well, a communications function review will:
- Identify structural strengths and system gaps
- Realign communication to business strategy
- Shift focus from output to measurable outcomes
- Improve information flow and decision-making speed
- Prevent reactive burnout by strengthening planning and prioritisation
Signs Your Communications Function Needs a Review
Not every communication challenge is obvious. Look for systemic warning signs:
Busy, But Not Impactful
- High volumes of output (emails, social posts, newsletters) without measurable strategic results
- Teams working hard, but messages not shifting behaviour, decisions, or culture
Lack of Leadership Integration
- Leadership messaging bypasses comms teams entirely
- Messaging lacks strategic clarity or lands inconsistently across audiences
- Communication is seen as tactical support, not strategic alignment
Perpetual Crisis Mode
- Teams trapped in reactive loops, unable to plan proactively
- Chronic overtime, stress, and turnover
- Little capacity for strategic narrative building or leadership support
These aren’t just team problems — they’re system problems.
Reviewing your communication function at a system level is the first step to restoring strategic traction.
How to Review a Communications Function: 5 Strategic Steps
A structured review gives you more than a list of observations — it gives you a roadmap for change.
1. Set Review Goals Linked to Organisational Strategy
Define outcomes that matter:
- Strengthening leadership credibility
- Accelerating change adoption
- Improving decision-making speed
- Enhancing cultural alignment
Your review should drive business results, not just communications outputs.
2. Check Team Positioning and Authority
Where and how does the communications function sit within the organisation?
Assess:
- Access to leadership and strategic conversations
- Influence over organisational narratives and priorities
- Integration into planning, decision-making, and change processes
- Resourcing and budget control
Position dictates impact. If comms is buried three layers down, it’s structurally set up to fail.
3. Map Skills and Capability Against Future Needs
Audit both current strengths and strategic gaps, including:
- Strategic advisory skills (not just delivery skills)
- Narrative and sensemaking capability
- Channel management and orchestration skills
- Change communication expertise
- Data-driven insight and measurement
Building a communications function for today's complexity requires more than good content creators — it needs organisational sensemakers.
4. Analyse Communication Flows and Friction Points
Map how communication actually moves:
- Where messages stall, distort, or disappear
- Where feedback loops break down
- How leadership messaging cascades (or fails to)
- How change messages are translated operationally
Don’t just measure channel performance — measure systemic flow and traction.
5. Build an Improvement and Reset Plan
Frame actions across three horizons:
- Immediate resets (0–3 months): e.g., leadership briefings, critical channel fixes
- Structural shifts (3–6 months): e.g., governance redesign, role realignment
- System evolution (6–12 months): e.g., strategic skills development, feedback architecture
Anchor every action to strategic outcomes, not just activity metrics.
When to Bring in External Expertise
Internal reviews often struggle with:
- Political sensitivities that limit transparency
- Ingrained biases that overlook systemic flaws
- Lack of time and bandwidth for real diagnosis
An external partner brings objectivity, speed, and the ability to surface — and tackle — the real system dynamics.
If communication challenges feel stuck, complex, or politically sensitive, an independent Sound & Signal Review may be the shift you need.
Sound & Signal Review: The Rewired Work Approach
Rewired Work’s Sound & Signal Review is built around our signature three-stage model:
| Stage | Focus Areas |
|---|---|
| Diagnose | Map current flows, gaps, and system behaviours |
| Align | Reset communication to leadership strategy and organisational direction |
| Act | Build action plans for structural change, skill uplift, and momentum |
Unlike traditional audits, this isn’t about counting channels or gathering satisfaction scores.
It’s about reshaping communication as a strategic system — driving clarity, traction, and progress.
Review to Reset, Not Just Reflect
Your communications function isn't a service desk — it’s a strategic enabler.
But without regular, systemic reviews, it drifts into noise and busyness.
The goal isn’t just to review activity. It’s to reset the system:
- Elevate communication’s role in strategic execution
- Restore leadership narrative power
- Create faster, clearer decision flows
- Build resilience and clarity into how your organisation moves
Ready to uncover how your communications function really operates? Start your Sound & Signal Review.
