About the paper
This report examines the state of internal communications and employee experience, with a particular focus on what Gallagher calls the “Readiness Gap” between perceived organisational risk and the communications capabilities needed to handle it.
It is a mixed-methods report based on a global survey, roundtables, and focus groups conducted from September to November 2025, drawing on input from more than 1,300 communications and HR professionals across 40 countries; the geographic profile is weighted heavily toward North America and the UK/Europe.
The report is broadly descriptive and analytical rather than experimental, and its methodology is reasonably clear, though some findings are based on sub-samples rather than the full respondent base.
Length: 48 pages
More information / download:
https://www.ajg.com/employeeexperience/state-of-the-sector/
Core Insights
1. What is the central argument of the report, and what does Gallagher mean by the “Readiness Gap”?
The report’s central argument is that internal communications and HR functions are operating in an environment of constant change, but many organisations are still not structurally or strategically prepared to respond well. Gallagher defines this mismatch as the “Readiness Gap”: the gap between the risks organisations face and the capabilities, governance, strategy, and operating structures communicators need in order to manage those risks effectively.
The report argues that readiness is not about predicting the future perfectly. Instead, it is about building enough clarity, resilience, and strategic maturity to deal with volatility as a normal operating condition. In this framing, the issue is not simply that communicators face risk; it is that too many functions lack visibility into their mandate, lack codified strategy, or respond to complexity with high-volume, low-targeted communication that actually worsens overload, burnout, and mistrust.
A major strength of the report is that it treats readiness as multi-dimensional. Its “Readiness Index” combines six dimensions: risk, agility, AI readiness, human-centric communication, strategy, and impact. The global averages show a striking pattern: risk is relatively high at 57%, while AI readiness is only 39% and impact maturity just 36%. That suggests that many teams are highly exposed to pressure but comparatively weak in the systems that would help them respond strategically.
In practical terms, the report’s argument is that strategic maturity is the main dividing line. Mature teams do not necessarily face fewer problems; in fact, they may face more complexity. What distinguishes them is that they have stronger strategic foundations, clearer governance, more active socialisation of strategy, and better operational discipline. In other words, the report is ultimately arguing that readiness is a function-level capability problem, not just an environmental problem.
2. What are the most important risks and structural weaknesses identified in the research?
The report identifies a cluster of recurring risks that define the current operating reality for internal communicators. The most severe and widespread are manager effectiveness, information overload, audience burnout, budget constraints, decision exclusion, lack of strategic direction, and low trust in leadership. Among these, burnout and overload are especially prominent: 81% of respondents see employee burnout as a moderate or significant risk, and 83% say information overload is a growing problem. Manager capability is even more acute, with 87% saying that managers lacking skills and capacity is a significant or moderate risk.
What makes these risks especially important is that they are not isolated. The report repeatedly shows that they reinforce one another. High communication volume is associated with greater overload, greater burnout, and higher perceived trust risk. For example, in high-volume environments, the risk of burnout rises sharply, and communicating heavily about change, culture, or strategy can increase trust-related problems if the communication is not matched by relevance, authenticity, or audience fit.
The report also highlights major structural weaknesses beneath those risks. Many teams simply do not have the strategic assets or governance mechanisms needed to respond well. A majority lack formal change communications approaches, manager toolkits, audience personas, channel frameworks, and formal listening approaches. Only 15% have an active and socialised EVP, while 37% have no formal EVP at all. Fewer than one in five are satisfied with their ability to personalise communication through current channels.
Another weakness is measurement immaturity. Most functions remain stuck measuring output rather than outcomes or business impact. The report says 70% are still largely tracking activity metrics such as opens, clicks, and views, while only a minority measure sentiment, understanding, behavioural outcomes, or business impact. This matters because teams that cannot measure what they influence struggle to prove value, gain visibility, and escape being perceived as administrative rather than strategic.
So the report’s diagnosis is not just that communicators are under pressure. It is that too many teams are under pressure while also being under-instrumented: lacking strategy, lacking tools, lacking measurement, and lacking the authority or structure to act early rather than react late.
3. How does the report explain the difference between high-performing and low-performing communications functions?
The report’s most important explanatory idea is that strategic maturity separates the stronger functions from the weaker ones. Gallagher groups respondents into four “Readiness” segments: Vulnerable, Untapped, Resilient, and Stable. The low-performing ends of the spectrum are Vulnerable and Untapped; the higher-performing ends are Resilient and Stable. What distinguishes them is not simply team size or sector, but the interaction of maturity, visibility, governance, and strategic activation.
Vulnerable teams operate in high-risk environments with low maturity. They are more reactive, less likely to track their mandate, more likely to be driven by leadership requests than employee insight, and more likely to experience burnout and low leadership trust. Untapped teams are slightly different: they report lower perceived risk, but they also score low on the capabilities that would actually reduce risk. The report suggests that they may be living with a false sense of security.
By contrast, Resilient teams operate under pressure but maintain control. Stable teams combine lower risk with strong maturity and governance. These higher-performing groups are much more likely to have active, socialised strategies, better measurement practices, stronger visibility into what they are accountable for, and a more consultancy-like operating model. Stable teams, for instance, are described as most likely to operate as a strategic consultancy, while Resilient teams prove that high performance is possible even in high-pressure settings if discipline and strategic structure are in place.
One of the report’s strongest findings is the emphasis on socialisation of strategy, not just the existence of strategy. Only 27% say their strategic documents are well understood by stakeholders, yet those with active, socialised strategies are much more likely to report stronger engagement, better influence, better measurement, and lower perceived risk. The report even suggests that teams with a living strategy can double their odds of success and substantially reduce missed KPIs.
This means the report is not really celebrating strategy as a document. It is celebrating strategy as an active operating system. High-performing teams write things down, align stakeholders, use their frameworks to guide decisions, and connect communications work to outcomes. Low-performing teams often have fragments of strategy, but not enough codification or shared understanding to turn intent into consistent action.
4. What does the research reveal about change, AI, and the future capability demands on communications teams?
The report presents change communication as the new baseline capability for the profession. It explicitly argues that change is no longer a specialist area; it is now central to the job. Change management communication ranks as the most critical skill for the coming 12 months, yet 61% of teams do not have a formal change communications approach. This is one of the clearest examples of the report’s broader argument: the capability needed most urgently is often the one least systematically developed.
The report also shows that workforce readiness is constrained by team size, structure, and budgets. Across organisations of all sizes, 69% have fewer than six people in a comms role, and one in three have no dedicated communications budget. The research suggests a particular strain as organisations move past 500 employees, when complexity rises faster than capability. Gallagher describes a mid-market “capacity crash”, where communicators per 1,000 employees drop sharply and perceived risk rises.
On AI, the report takes a relatively sober line. It does not present AI as a transformative equaliser by default. Instead, it argues that AI amplifies pre-existing maturity. Most respondents are using AI for drafting and summarising, but far fewer are using it for higher-value applications such as measuring outcomes, automating workflows, generating insight, or supporting strategic decisions. Three-quarters of functions remain in early-stage experimentation or ad hoc use, and only 36% of respondents feel they have the skills and literacy needed to use AI effectively.
The strongest AI finding is about governance. Teams with high governance, clear policies, training, and support are far more likely to move from experimentation into enabled or strategic use. The report says those with stronger governance are 10 times more likely to reach enabled maturity, and that higher-maturity teams use AI to amplify thinking and measurement, whereas lower-maturity teams mainly use it to draft faster. That is a significant claim because it reframes AI readiness as a management and governance issue, not just a tooling issue.
So in future-capability terms, the report points to a new skills mix: change capability, leadership coaching, stakeholder management, AI literacy, and data literacy. It is effectively arguing that the future communicator is not just a channel manager or content producer, but a strategic advisor with stronger analytical, coaching, and transformation skills.
5. What are the report’s main implications for communication leaders, and what should they take away from it?
The report’s biggest implication is that communication leaders should stop thinking of function maturity as a nice enhancement and start treating it as a risk-management necessity. In Gallagher’s framing, readiness is directly linked to organisational performance, employee trust, and the ability to absorb change. That means communication leaders need to invest less in simply pushing more content and more in building the strategic and operational conditions that make communication effective.
A second implication is that audience-first communication is no longer optional. The report repeatedly shows that segmentation, human tone, relevant formats, and better listening reduce risk and improve effectiveness. Teams that communicate in more human-centric ways are better able to cut through noise, protect trust, and reduce burnout and overload. Yet most organisations still fall short on segmentation, personalisation, and audience profiling. The implication is clear: relevance is becoming a core performance discipline, not a stylistic bonus.
A third implication concerns proof of value. The report strongly suggests that communicators will struggle to gain strategic standing if they remain trapped in activity metrics. If the function wants to close the gap between aspiring to be a strategic consultancy and actually being seen as one, it has to improve measurement maturity and link communication efforts to business outcomes, risk reduction, behaviour change, and employee sentiment. Otherwise, the “admin” label persists.
Finally, the report implies that leaders should focus on four priorities for 2026: clarity and direction, workforce readiness, operational enablement, and human-centric communication. These are not presented as separate workstreams but as mutually reinforcing. Clarity without enablement will stall. AI without governance will remain shallow. Listening without strategy will stay anecdotal. Human-centric intent without time, permission, or systems will remain uneven.
Taken together, the report is less a celebration of best practice than a warning against drift. Its core message is that many communication functions are trying to operate in a strategic age with reactive-era structures. The teams that do better are not necessarily louder or larger; they are more codified, more socialised, more disciplined, and more human in how they communicate.