About the paper
The report is a mixed-methods industry report on the state of internal communication and employee experience, focusing on communicator performance, purpose, measurement, relationships, channels, AI, change and wellbeing.
It combines 2,000+ survey responses with qualitative input from a steering committee of 8, a dashboard discussion group of 20, and six focus groups involving 37 attendees; fieldwork ran between August and December 2024, with the survey itself conducted from October to November 2024.
The data is global in scope, covering 55 countries, though the respondent base is weighted towards North America, the UK and Europe.
Length: 40 pages
More information / download:
https://www.ajg.com/employeeexperience/state-of-the-sector/
Core Insights
1. What is the report’s main argument about what makes internal communicators successful in 2025?
The central argument is that communicator success is shaped less by sheer effort or tactical busyness and more by two reinforcing capabilities: using data well and building productive relationships across the organisation. The report states this explicitly in both the introduction and conclusion, arguing that the communicators who perform best are those who can collect, synthesise and apply data tied to business impact, while also maintaining strong cross-functional and leadership relationships.
That argument is strengthened by the report’s “communicator profiles”: Survivors, Strivers and Thrivers. Thrivers stand out because they score better on KPI performance, confidence, relationship quality, purpose progress and data effectiveness. They are described as aligned, future-focused and consistently able to exceed targets, whereas Survivors tend to operate reactively in poor conditions with weak structures and limited room for growth.
The report therefore presents success not as a matter of output volume, but as a matter of operating model. Thrivers spend more time on architectural work such as strategy, planning and leadership support, while Survivors spend more time on administration and reactive tactical work. In effect, the report says that the strongest communicators are not simply producing more content; they are better positioned to shape decisions, interpret evidence and influence the business.
2. How do communicators currently define their purpose, and where is the biggest tension in that purpose?
The report finds that the top three purposes of internal communication in 2025 are strategic alignment, culture and belonging, and organisational agility. In other words, communicators see their role as helping employees understand the business direction, feel part of the organisation, and adapt to change. Employee listening ranks just outside the top three, but the report treats it as a critical enabling function running through all of them.
The biggest tension is what the report calls the “purpose vs. perception paradox”. Unlike finance or operations, communications does not have a universally fixed, easily understood mandate. That flexibility can be useful because the function can adapt to business needs, but it also creates risk: when communicators have to define their own purpose rather than receiving a clear top-down mandate, the function may be seen as less indispensable. The report suggests this ambiguity contributes to scope creep and weakens the perceived strategic standing of communication.
There is also a notable performance gap hidden inside the purpose data. Around two in three respondents are satisfied with progress on strategic alignment and culture and belonging, but satisfaction is far lower on areas such as employee listening and organisational agility. The report notes a roughly 50-point gap between Thrivers and Survivors on progress in the top-ranked purpose areas. So the issue is not only defining purpose, but converting stated purpose into actual progress.
3. What barriers are most undermining communicator performance, and what do they reveal about the organisational environment?
The top barriers for 2025 are lack of time and capacity, change fatigue, poor people-manager communication, lack of clear direction from the top, and poor leadership communication. These barriers point to a communications environment under strain, where the problem is not simply channel overload or lack of tools, but wider organisational conditions: too much change, too little clarity, and too much dependence on leaders and managers who are not consistently effective communicators.
The report goes further by showing that the most damaging blockers are all closely tied to leadership and organisational power.
The five barriers that most strongly depress communicator confidence are:
- lack of involvement in decision-making
- lack of clear direction from the top
- lack of analytics and measurement
- lack of involvement in change management
- and lack of support from senior leaders.
In other words, communicators struggle most when they are excluded from strategy, lack evidence, or are expected to execute without influence.
Change fatigue is especially important. It is a new entry in the barrier list yet immediately becomes one of the most significant. The report argues that employees are dealing not just with external uncertainty but with multiple internal change initiatives, often poorly coordinated. Communicators describe a situation where leaders push messages because they feel they are important, without enough attention to what employees actually need to know. That reveals an environment of change saturation rather than disciplined transformation.
4. What does the report show about measurement, data and cross-functional relationships as drivers of impact?
One of the report’s strongest themes is that communicator impact depends on both measurement capability and relationship quality. The average communicator is accountable for seven KPIs, most of them shared with other departments, especially HR and the C-suite. That means internal communication rarely “owns” success alone; it operates through joint accountability.
However, the report also finds a gap between accountability and actual measurement. For instance, while 92% of respondents have some accountability for employee engagement, only 71% regularly monitor it. Likewise, 56% are accountable for employee retention, but only 40% track it as a business metric. This suggests that communicators are often held responsible for outcomes they do not consistently measure, access, or interpret well enough.
At the same time, the report shows that using data well is closely associated with better outcomes. Communicators who exceed targets are more likely to use data to understand communication effectiveness, inform tactics, evaluate tactics, demonstrate value and shape content decisions. Thrivers are especially strong here, and the report links their success not only to data usage itself but to their ability to connect that data to leadership priorities.
Relationships are the second half of the equation. Collaborative relationships with HR and the C-suite correlate positively with data use, KPI performance and satisfaction with progress toward purpose. The report is particularly emphatic about the C-suite: communicators with collaborative leadership relationships are more satisfied with progress, more likely to meet or exceed targets, and even show markedly better wellbeing. So data and relationships are not separate findings; they work together as the mechanism through which communicators gain influence and prove value.
5. What practical implications does the report draw for communicators and organisations heading into 2025?
The report’s practical conclusion is that communicators need to shift attention from reactive busyness towards strategic capability-building. It recommends clarifying and leadership-aligning the purpose of communication, learning the basics of change management, improving meeting discipline, strengthening visibility with leaders, and building stronger data literacy, especially the non-technical side such as critical thinking, communication and business acumen.
For organisations, the implication is that communication cannot be treated as a tactical support service if better employee outcomes are expected. The report shows that communicators are often under pressure from constant change, blurred remits and limited resources, while also being asked to support AI adoption, leadership communication and employee listening. If businesses want better results, they need to invest in the function not only with tools and budgets, but with clearer direction, stronger inclusion in decision-making and better cross-functional coordination.
The AI findings sharpen this point. While maturity has improved somewhat, 38% say there is no AI governance or guidance in place, and many communicators have not decided how transparent they should be about AI use. The report treats this as a strategic risk, not just a tooling issue, because communicators are expected to help shape employee attitudes to AI while lacking organisational clarity themselves.
Taken together, the report’s practical message is quite clear: in 2025, successful communication functions will be those that can translate evidence into business language, build strong stakeholder coalitions, and impose more clarity on environments marked by overload, ambiguity and continual change.