Tag: internal communication

  • 2026 Sharepoint Intranet Benchmarking Report by SWOOP Analytics

    2026 Sharepoint Intranet Benchmarking Report by SWOOP Analytics

    About the paper

    SWOOP Analytics’ 2026 SharePoint Intranet Benchmarking Report analyses how SharePoint intranets are actually used and what drives intranet health, engagement, clutter and AI readiness.

    It is original benchmarking research based on real usage data, not survey responses, covering 410,457 intranet visitors, 253,755 intranet pages and 41 organisations worldwide over 1 October–31 December 2025.

    Length: 98 pages

    More information / download:
    https://sharepoint2026.swoopanalytics.com/

    Core Insights

    1. What is the central argument of the report?

    The report’s central argument is that SharePoint intranets have moved beyond the adoption problem. Almost all employees now access the intranet, with 95% of employees using it during the three-month benchmark period. The issue is no longer whether people visit the intranet, but whether the content they find there is useful, current, readable and well governed.

    This creates a major shift in how intranet success should be understood. The report argues that success is not primarily about publishing more content, driving more visits or creating a larger intranet. Instead, the strongest intranets are those that help employees complete tasks, find trusted guidance and navigate content efficiently. In other words, the intranet is becoming less of a broadcast channel and more of a productivity and knowledge infrastructure.

    The report is especially clear that Content pages — policies, how-to guides, reference material and other evergreen pages — are the heart of the intranet. Employees spend 10.4 minutes per workday on Content pages, compared with only 0.9 minutes on News pages. News still matters, but it is consumed lightly, skimmed quickly and performs best when short and highly relevant.

    The broader conclusion is that intranet performance now depends on disciplined governance: clear ownership, content lifecycle management, accessibility, readability, pruning of outdated pages and a stronger distinction between news, reference content and knowledge assets.

    2. What does the data show about how employees actually use intranets?

    The report shows a pattern of near-universal but increasingly selective use. Employees are not abandoning the intranet. On the contrary, access has increased from 86% in 2024 to 93% in 2025 and 95% in 2026. But they are becoming more intentional in how they use it.

    The average employee visits the intranet 3.23 times per working day, slightly down from 3.36 in 2025, while pages viewed per visit have risen modestly to 2.22. Employees also access an average of 39.6 unique pages over the three-month period. This suggests fewer casual check-ins and more purposeful visits.

    The device data is striking. Desktop remains overwhelmingly dominant, accounting for 89% of intranet access, while phone access has fallen sharply to just 1.7%. The report interprets this as evidence that intranets are mainly experienced as desktop productivity environments, not mobile-first communication channels.

    Another important signal is the increase in home-page-only visits, from 3.6% in 2025 to 6% in 2026. The report sees this as strategically significant because it may indicate scanning without engagement, overexposure to generic content or weak prompts for next action. The homepage should therefore function as a hub for tasks and journeys, not as a billboard.

    3. Which content factors most strongly affect intranet engagement?

    The report finds that engagement is driven less by publishing volume and more by content hygiene, readability, accessibility and structure. This is one of its most important findings.

    SWOOP’s Health Score combines three dimensions: Quality, Experience and Engagement. Quality includes ageing content, spelling and grammar, broken links and missing editors. Experience includes readability, heading length, heading-to-paragraph ratio and accessibility. Engagement measures whether users spend an amount of time on a page that is reasonable in relation to its length.

    For both News and Content pages, readability and accessibility are especially important. Pages with poor structure, long sentences, accessibility issues or insufficient headings perform worse. The report also notes that accessibility is not merely a compliance matter; it has a measurable relationship with engagement.

    For News pages, structure and brevity are critical. The strongest-performing news articles are typically 200–400 words, with readership declining after around 400 words and completion rates falling further for longer articles. Very long news articles, especially those over 1,000 words, have the weakest completion rates.

    For Content pages, the picture is slightly different. Broken links matter more because these pages are often used as tools or reference material. Ageing content is more ambiguous: older Content pages may be heavily used because they are mature and valuable, but the report stresses that this only works if they are reviewed periodically. Old does not automatically mean stale, but unmanaged old content becomes a risk.

    4. What does the report say about clutter and AI readiness?

    The report argues that clutter is now one of the central intranet problems, and that it directly affects both human browsing and AI performance. The Clutter Index measures low-value pages, navigation complexity, home-page-only visits, unread News pages and content relevance across departments. In 2026, the Clutter Index rose slightly to 0.33.

    Unread and irrelevant News is identified as the largest contributor to clutter. The practical message is quite direct: organisations should publish less News, apply stricter criteria for what qualifies as News, convert evergreen News into reference pages and remove stale items from prominent news streams.

    The AI Readiness findings are especially relevant. The overall AI Readiness score improved only marginally, from 51.13 in 2025 to 52.38 in 2026. This happened despite a dramatic improvement in search effectiveness, from 34.16 to 66.3. The reason is that search effectiveness only accounts for 10% of the AI Readiness index, while content readiness and engagement readiness account for 90% combined — and both declined slightly.

    The report’s sharpest AI conclusion is that AI readiness is no longer primarily a search problem. The bigger constraint is the quality, currency and governance of the content that AI depends on. If an intranet contains outdated, duplicated, unmanaged or low-value pages, AI tools may retrieve and summarise poor content more efficiently, but not necessarily more accurately or usefully.

    The report therefore warns that AI will not magically fix intranet disorder. It may amplify it.

    5. What are the main implications for communication, intranet and knowledge-management teams?

    The first implication is that intranet teams should shift from publishing management to content stewardship. More content is not the answer. Better governed content is. The report repeatedly points to pruning, lifecycle management, ownership, templates, accessibility checks and review cycles as practical levers.

    The second implication is that Content pages deserve more strategic attention than News. News is visible and often politically important, but Content pages account for the overwhelming majority of time spent. Improving policies, guidance, FAQs, how-to pages and other reference material is likely to deliver more value than increasing the volume of internal news.

    The third implication is that leaders and managers are important intranet users. The report finds that Leadership & Executive and Management roles have the highest engagement intensity. This suggests that intranet content should be designed to support leader-led communication: clear summaries, explicit actions, reusable briefing points and easily cascadeable messages.

    The fourth implication is that organisations need to think of intranets as knowledge-management systems. The report introduces a Knowledge Management Ratio comparing pages with files, distinguishing between balanced, file-dominant, content-led and news-led intranet profiles. The most AI-ready organisations are not those with the most content, but those with the clearest pathways from work artefacts to maintained, authoritative “single source of truth” guidance.

    The final implication is that governance must become supportive rather than punitive. The Boehringer Ingelheim case study shows this well: around 2,000 editors, mandatory training before publishing rights, automated health-score nudges, community support and lifecycle pruning have enabled a very large intranet to remain healthy. The report presents this as evidence that federated governance can work if editors are equipped with standards, data and support rather than simply controlled from the centre.

  • IC Index 2026 by Institute of Internal Communication

    IC Index 2026 by Institute of Internal Communication

    About the paper

    The IC Index 2026 report examines the state of internal communication in UK large organisations, focusing on trust, change, leadership, AI, manager communication and employee attention.

    It is original survey research: Ipsos Karian and Box surveyed a representative quota sample of 5,000 UK workers aged 18–75, all working in organisations with 500+ employees, between 15 and 29 January 2026.

    The geographic scope is the UK; the report also includes practitioner reflections from internal communication experts.

    Length: 37 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.ioic.org.uk/insight-practice/ic-index.html

    Core Insights

    1. What is the central argument of the IC Index 2026 report?

    The report argues that internal communication has become more strategically important because employees are facing a tougher, more uncertain work environment, while trust, clarity and confidence are weakening. The subtitle — “The reality check” — is apt: the report presents declining communication ratings, falling trust in leaders, weak change communication, limited AI clarity and rising employee time pressure as warning signs for organisations.

    The authors frame internal communication not as a support function, but as a core mechanism for organisational resilience. They argue that internal communicators need to help leaders communicate with clarity, candour and compassion, build two-way communication systems, surface difficult conversations and connect organisational ambitions to employees’ lived reality.

    The report’s most important claim is that internal communication determines whether organisations can manage change, maintain trust and achieve their goals. The conclusion makes this explicit: organisations with dedicated IC teams have stronger strategic alignment, advocacy, information flow and representation, and the authors present this as evidence that internal communication is more critical when trust and change pressures intensify.

    2. What are the main problems the report identifies in the current employee experience?

    The report identifies six headline problems.

    First, employees are experiencing more organisational change but less clarity. More than half report restructuring in the past year, and over a third report redundancies; both are up 12 points compared with 2024. Yet only 49% agree that the reasons behind changes are clearly communicated, down seven points compared with 2023.

    Second, trust in leadership has fallen. The Trust Index is down seven points compared with 2025 and now sits at 58%. Trust in CEOs or most senior leaders and leadership teams has fallen by nine points each. Only half of employees say they trust their CEO or most senior leader, and only half trust the leadership team.

    Third, leaders appear to be overestimating how well they have communicated strategy and AI. Senior leaders are consistently much more positive than non-managers about strategy clarity, belief in strategy and AI communication. For example, 87% of senior leaders say the organisation has been clear on strategy and business priorities, compared with 57% of non-managers.

    Fourth, many employees feel poorly supported through change. Only 42% agree their organisation is good at helping employees adapt to change, while 31% actively disagree. The report links stronger change support to practical actions such as honesty about impacts, listening to employees, providing skills, and clarifying what people need to do differently.

    Fifth, frontline and digitally disconnected employees are less well served. Employees not frequently connected to a computer are more likely to hear about major changes through word of mouth and are less likely to trust leaders or feel psychologically safe.

    Sixth, employees have very little time for internal communication. Most employees spend ten minutes or less per day reading or viewing organisational news and updates, and just over one in five say they spend no or hardly any time at all.

    3. What does the report say drives employee confidence in the future?

    The report treats confidence as a multi-factor “equation”, not simply a product of optimistic messaging. Just under three in five employees — 57% — say they feel confident about the future of their organisation, while one in five actively disagree.

    The strongest driver of confidence is whether work processes allow employees to work efficiently. This is significant because it means confidence is grounded in employees’ day-to-day experience, not only in leadership narratives. Only half of employees agree that their organisation’s work processes allow them to work efficiently.

    The other major drivers are open and honest communication, clarity about strategy and business priorities, belief that AI is being used to solve the right problems, and feeling connected to people beyond one’s immediate team. The report’s implication is that internal communication can influence confidence, but cannot do so credibly if it ignores operational friction, weak processes or unclear AI adoption.

    This is one of the stronger analytical points in the report: employee confidence depends on whether the organisation feels coherent. Employees need to understand where the organisation is going, believe communication is honest, see that AI has a meaningful purpose, and experience work as efficient enough to make the future feel achievable.

    4. How does the report portray the role of leaders and managers?

    The report presents leaders and managers as central to whether communication lands — but also as part of the problem.

    Senior leaders are portrayed as increasingly disconnected from employee perceptions. They are much more likely than non-managers to believe that strategy and AI have been communicated clearly. On AI, for instance, 67% of senior leaders agree that leaders have explained clearly how AI will be used, compared with just 27% of non-managers.

    Managers are presented as the key sense-making layer. Most managers spend some time communicating with their teams each day, but more than half spend 30 minutes or less, and 14% spend less than 15 minutes. This matters because employees often depend on their direct managers to translate organisational messages into team-level meaning.

    The report also shows that manager support is uneven. More than three quarters of managers feel equipped to lead conversations about what is happening across the business, but this has declined compared with 2025 and 2024. Managers who receive training, preparation time or other structured support feel more equipped, while those receiving no support feel least equipped.

    The strongest practical insight is that managers adapting communication to their team context has a large impact. Employees whose managers do this well are far more likely to find communication relevant, rate communication as excellent and recommend their employer as a great place to work.

    5. What are the report’s most important implications for internal communication practice?

    The report’s main implication is that internal communication needs to move further upstream. It should not merely distribute decisions after they have been made; it should help leaders understand employee reality before, during and after change.

    For change communication, the report suggests that IC teams need to push for early, honest, jargon-free communication; clear rationale; regular updates; routes for questions; and visible listening. The evidence shows that employees are more positive when organisations explain the reasons for change, listen to views and clarify what people need to do differently.

    For leadership communication, the implication is that trust cannot be rebuilt through messaging alone. Leaders need visibility, openness, empathy and evidence that they understand employee challenges. The report connects falling trust especially to CEOs and senior leadership teams, making leadership communication a strategic risk area rather than a stylistic concern.

    For AI communication, the report implies that organisations are under-communicating the purpose and practical expectations of AI adoption. Only 35% believe their organisation is using AI to solve the right problems, and only 32% say their employer has clearly communicated how they are expected to use AI as part of their job.

    For channels and content, the report’s implication is that relevance is now existential. Employees have little time, and 56% say employer communications feel relevant. The report points towards personalisation, segmentation and opt-in/opt-out models, while also warning that these require good audience data and a serious channel strategy.

    Finally, the report argues that representation and good-news communication matter more than many organisations may assume. Only 42% see stories about people like them in internal communications, yet those who do are much more likely to be advocates and to trust the organisation. Similarly, good news is not merely “nice to know”: effective communication of good news has a stronger impact on advocacy and overall communication ratings than effective communication of bad news.

  • Employee Communications Report 2026 Global Edition by Gallagher

    Employee Communications Report 2026 Global Edition by Gallagher

    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.

  • Global State of Internal Communications 2026 Edition by ContactMonkey

    Global State of Internal Communications 2026 Edition by ContactMonkey

    About the paper

    This report examines the 2026 state of internal communications, arguing that the central problem is no longer engagement alone but a widening “culture gap” between organisational systems and employee experience.

    It is based on original survey research, but the report does not clearly specify the total number of respondents, fieldwork dates, or survey method; it does state that responses came from internal communicators across multiple regions worldwide, with participation led by North America and additional representation from Europe, Asia-Pacific, and other global regions.

    Length: 51 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.contactmonkey.com/ebook/global-state-of-internal-communications-report-2026

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s main argument about the current state of internal communications?

    The report’s core argument is that internal communications has become more strategically important, but not proportionately more effective. Its central thesis is that “the culture gap is the new engagement problem”: organisations may have formal strategies, established channels, and leadership recognition in place, yet employees still experience misalignment, uneven trust, poor feedback follow-through, and communication fatigue. In other words, engagement metrics may look stable on the surface, but they conceal deeper structural weaknesses. This framing appears in both the editor’s note and the conclusion, where the report argues that culture problems are often symptoms of system failures rather than simply messaging failures.

    The report therefore repositions internal communication from a delivery function to a strategic lever for culture, performance, and resilience. But it also stresses that many teams are still too under-resourced, too tactical, and too limited in their measurement capabilities to fulfil that role consistently. The broad message is not that internal communications lacks value, but that organisational expectations have outpaced the systems and resources needed to support it.

    2. What does the report reveal about the organisations and communicators represented in the data?

    The respondent base is globally distributed, though weighted heavily toward North America. The geography section shows 49% of respondents in the United States, 16% in Asia-Pacific, 10% in the UK and Ireland, and 9% in Europe excluding the UK and Ireland, with smaller shares from Canada, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and an unspecified category. The report explicitly notes that North America still dominates participation, while international representation has grown, especially in Europe and Asia-Pacific.

    The organisational profile is tilted towards mid-sized and larger employers. The biggest single company-size group is 1,001–3,000 employees at 21%, followed by organisations with more than 10,000 employees at 18%, though smaller organisations are also represented. Internal communications teams are typically very lean: 49% of respondents work in teams of 2–5 people, 19% in one-person teams, and 9% report no dedicated internal comms team at all. Nearly half of organisations rate their internal communications maturity as “established”, while only 18% describe it as advanced and strategically integrated with business goals. Together, these details matter because they show that the report reflects a profession dealing with large-scale complexity using relatively small teams and often only moderate maturity.

    3. Which issues and priorities dominate internal communications in 2026?

    AI has moved to the centre of the agenda. The top topic of interest for 2026 is artificial intelligence in the workplace, selected by 57% of respondents, followed by employee experience at 48% and change management at 43%. Measurement and analytics also rank highly at 40%, while automation in internal communications stands at 31%. The report interprets this as a sign that communicators are under pressure to scale, personalise, analyse, and prove value more effectively, not merely to experiment with new technology.

    At the same time, the surrounding business context is shaped by uncertainty. Sixty-nine per cent of respondents say their organisation has been affected by external market conditions in the past year, with political or government policy changes cited most often at 70%, followed by inflation at 40%. Inside organisations, this pressure shows up as falling morale, budget cuts, stalled decisions, layoffs, and hiring freezes. The report’s interpretation is that internal communicators are increasingly expected to provide clarity and stability amid volatility, even as their own budgets and tools may be constrained. So the 2026 agenda is defined by a combination of technological change, organisational disruption, and rising demands for strategic relevance.

    4. What does the report say about culture, engagement, trust, and behaviour change?

    One of the report’s most interesting findings is that engagement is not collapsing, but it is stagnating. Fifty-four per cent rate employee engagement as moderate and only 6% as very high; organisational alignment follows a similar pattern, with 50% rating it moderate and fewer than 4% very high. The report reads this as evidence that many employees are coping rather than feeling deeply connected or aligned. That matters because moderate scores can mask friction, confusion, and weak follow-through.

    The same pattern appears elsewhere. Recognition and feedback systems are widespread: 73% report a formal employee recognition system and 95% collect employee feedback. But only 15% say their organisation clearly communicates visible actions taken from that feedback, while 31% describe follow-up as inconsistent or delayed. Communication culture is more often described as transparent and open than empowered and participatory, and leadership communication is mostly trusted rather than fully trusted. Behaviour change is especially fragile: only 11% say DEI messages lead to visible behavioural change consistently, and only 25% say internal communication campaigns often or always change employee behaviour. The report’s broader argument is that organisations are getting better at listening and communicating, but much weaker at reinforcing action, trust, and sustained behavioural shifts.

    5. What are the report’s main strategic conclusions and implications for practice?

    The report concludes that internal communications is now widely recognised as valuable, but is still not consistently empowered as a strategic function. Eighty-two per cent agree that leadership recognises the value of internal communications, and 70% say their organisation has an internal communications strategy. Yet 54% say they do not have sufficient resources to deliver that strategy fully. Meanwhile, 78% say content and template creation takes up most of their time, showing how tactical execution still crowds out strategic work.

    This leads to the report’s most important implication: organisations should stop treating internal communications as a service layer and start treating it as infrastructure. The function is expected to drive culture, support leadership, improve alignment, reach frontline and hybrid workforces, and prove impact, but it cannot do this sustainably without better systems, clearer mandates, and stronger measurement. The report is especially strong on the idea that the “cost of inaction” is already being paid through lost time, manual rework, communication overload, and avoidable labour costs. Its practical conclusion is that closing the culture gap will require not just better messages, but better operating conditions for the people responsible for communication.

  • The Future of Internal Communication by Institute of Internal Communication

    The Future of Internal Communication by Institute of Internal Communication

    About the paper

    The white paper argues that internal communication is becoming a strategic function in the future of work, as organisations face continuous disruption, AI adoption, hybrid work, trust erosion and shifting employee expectations.

    It is best described as a secondary-analysis white paper, drawing on prior IoIC reports, published books, external research and trend analysis rather than a clearly defined primary study; the methodology is therefore broad but not tightly specified in the report.

    A single primary datapoint is mentioned late in the paper: in March 2025, IoIC surveyed more than 300 internal communicators, but the overall report does not present one unified sample frame or clearly bounded geographic fieldwork; its perspective is broadly international, with several references to global trends and the Global North.

    Length: 33 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.ioic.org.uk/resource/the-future-of-internal-communication-whitepaper.html

    Core Insights

    1. What is the central argument of the white paper about the future of internal communication?

    The core argument is that internal communication is no longer a support function mainly concerned with distributing information. The paper argues that it is becoming a strategic capability that helps organisations survive and adapt in a turbulent, fast-changing world. It presents internal communication as the function that enables people to feel informed, connected and purposeful, and therefore as a key driver of organisational performance, resilience and transformation.

    The report frames today’s environment as one of overlapping crises: geopolitical instability, AI disruption, cyber-risk, misinformation, climate pressures, labour market instability and declining trust. In that setting, “business as usual” is treated as over. The paper’s position is that organisations now need wholesale reinvention, and that reinvention cannot succeed without strong internal communication. Communication, in this view, is not just messaging; it is the mechanism through which organisations create alignment, build trust, support change and sustain human connection.

    A major shift in the paper is from communication as content production to communication as relationship infrastructure. The report suggests that, as AI takes over more routine and formulaic tasks, the distinct value of internal communicators will lie increasingly in fostering dialogue, connection, cohesion, listening and sensemaking across the organisation.

    2. Which forces and trends does the report say are reshaping work and creating this opportunity?

    The report says the workplace has changed “seismically” in recent years. It highlights hybrid and remote working, the rise of AI and other technologies, a new generation entering the workforce with different expectations, worsening mental health pressures, ageing populations, shrinking labour markets, activism, and broader geopolitical and economic turbulence. Together, these changes put heavy pressure on organisations to adapt and make workplace performance a much more urgent concern.

    On page 10, the paper groups the drivers into a set of meta-trends: Industry 5.0 and digital adoption, next-generation talent ecosystems, geopolitics, a reskilling emergency, the climate emergency, new organising frameworks, shifting attitudes to work and the need for more inclusive workplaces. The report stresses that these trends are complex, emergent and often hard to measure in neat ways. That matters because it means leaders cannot rely on stable, linear planning models.

    The white paper then narrows its strategic focus to four overarching themes: technology, sustainability, people and employment. It argues that each of these creates an opening for internal communication because each one requires extensive internal dialogue, adaptation and behavioural change. The successful integration of these trends into everyday organisational life, the paper says, depends on rebuilding human connection at work.

    The report also takes a sceptical view of simplistic techno-solutionism. It argues that many leaders are overly attracted to efficiency narratives, especially around generative AI, while underestimating the importance of critical thinking, trust, ethics and human judgement. That concern strengthens the paper’s case that internal communication has a larger future role, not a smaller one.

    3. How does the report build the business case for internal communication?

    The business case rests on one central proposition: large-scale organisational adaptation fails when communication is poor. The paper argues that modern organisations need ongoing change, not one-off transformation, and that continuous change requires continuous, thoughtful and empathic internal communication. In other words, communication is presented as mission-critical because it helps organisations actually implement strategy rather than merely announce it.

    The report then applies that case across four areas.

    In technology, it argues that AI adoption needs cultural change, leadership role-modelling, transparent narratives and knowledge-sharing.

    In sustainability, it says communication can use storytelling to build engagement, align people with strategic goals and strengthen commitment to sustainability and ED&I.

    In people, it links communication with engagement, colleague experience, active listening and more transparent leadership.

    In employment, it highlights the need to connect a more varied workforce, manage Gen Z expectations, and support continuous learning as skills demands change.

    The top-takeaways page distils this into a practical case: internal communication helps create cohesion across diverse employment types, build trust around AI, promote learning, connect colleagues with strategy, showcase sustainability, amplify ED&I, and equip leaders to be more transparent and authentic. These are not framed as optional enhancements but as factors that influence whether organisations can remain resilient and effective.

    What is notable here is that the paper does not reduce value to one narrow ROI measure. Instead, it builds a broader performance argument: communication improves trust, motivation, clarity, alignment, engagement, collaboration and adaptability. The report treats those as core organisational assets in a volatile environment.

    4. What new opportunities and roles does the paper envision for internal communicators?

    The report argues that AI will shift internal communication away from routine content creation and channel management and towards higher-value human work. It says the real opportunity is to use language and conversation to strengthen interpersonal relationships, build connection and create community. It even describes the future discipline as more “embodied”, meaning more focused on human relationships and organisational cohesion.

    The paper identifies a broad set of new opportunities: showcasing communication as foundational to collaboration, creating clarity and strategic alignment, curating human connection, cultivating community, harnessing colleague voice, breaking down silos, creating thinking spaces, coaching leaders and managers, enhancing colleague experience, embedding behaviour change, facilitating conversation and leveraging activism. These opportunities all revolve around making communication a live organisational capability rather than a broadcast function.

    It then proposes nine possible future-facing roles for the profession:

    • Chief Trust Officer
    • Leadership Communication Coach
    • Head of Business Strategy Communication
    • Digital Transformation and Change Communication Manager
    • Data Analyst
    • Head of Colleague, Candidate and Talent Ecosystem Experience
    • Head of Listening
    • Head of Culture and Community
    • Head of Sustainability Communication.

    These are presented as specialist additions that may emerge alongside existing internal communication work rather than replacing it outright.

    Taken together, these roles show the paper’s underlying belief that internal communication will expand into trust, strategy, change, culture, listening, experience and sustainability. The profession’s future, in the report’s view, depends on moving closer to the centre of organisational adaptation.

    5. What skills, assumptions and implications does the report highlight for the profession’s future?

    The paper says internal communicators will need significant upskilling. It highlights business acumen, digital/data/AI literacy, influencing, active listening, coaching, psychology and behavioural science, cultural intelligence, ethical communication, sensemaking, scenario planning and systems thinking. This is a much broader capability set than traditional communication production skills.

    A key assumption running through the report is that human-to-human communication will become more valuable, not less, as workplaces become more digitised. The paper assumes that AI may handle more structured content tasks, but cannot replace the distinctly human capabilities needed to build trust, foster psychological safety, interpret nuance, coach leaders, resolve ambiguity and maintain community. That assumption shapes the whole argument.

    Another important assumption is normative: the report clearly favours humane, inclusive, ethical and people-centred organisations over purely efficiency-driven ones. It is not a neutral trend map. It argues that organisations should prioritise trust, connection, belonging and sustainability, and that internal communication should advocate for those principles. That gives the report a clear perspective and purpose: it is not merely describing the future, but trying to shape it.

    The implication is quite stark. If organisations continue to treat communication as secondary, they risk poorer cohesion, weaker trust, less effective change, more disengagement and lower resilience. If, by contrast, they invest in internal communication as a strategic function, the paper suggests they will be better placed to navigate uncertainty, integrate AI responsibly, sustain collaboration and build stronger organisations over time. The closing message is effectively that now is not the time to deprioritise communication at work.

  • Internal Communications Trends Report 2026 by Workshop

    Internal Communications Trends Report 2026 by Workshop

    About the paper

    This report examines the state of internal communication heading into 2026, focusing on foundations, channels, manager communication, feedback, strategy, and AI adoption.

    It appears to be a mixed-source report built primarily on a survey of 312 responses, supplemented by open-ended comments and data from Workshop customers; the precise fieldwork method and country list are not clearly specified.

    The data is international in scope, with respondents drawn from a range of locations and industries, but the exact geographic coverage is not clearly specified.

    Length: 69 pages

    More information / download:
    https://useworkshop.com/internal-communications-trends-report/

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about where internal communication stands in 2026?

    The central argument is that internal communication is becoming more strategic, but the function is still under considerable operational strain. The report repeatedly frames the field as moving beyond simple message distribution towards a more intentional role centred on alignment, clarity, employee support, and business contribution. It says teams are getting “more strategic and more intentional”, but that expectations still outpace available resources, with workloads growing faster than team capacity.

    That core tension runs through the whole report. On the one hand, there are signs of maturity: stronger foundations, more deliberate channel use, wider adoption of measurement practices, and AI becoming part of everyday work. On the other hand, communicators still face major structural barriers such as limited time, insufficient staffing, weak budget support, being brought in too late, and difficulty proving impact.

    So the report’s main message is not that internal comms is in crisis, nor that it has fully “arrived”, but that it is in a transitional stage. It is increasingly recognised as a strategic function, yet many teams still operate with the tools, access, and organisational support of a more tactical service role.

    2. What evidence does the report provide that internal communication is strengthening as a function?

    The strongest evidence comes from the combination of improved foundations, perceived employee value, and clearer strategic ambition. The report says 51 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that their organisation has a solid foundation for internal communications, and 81 percent believed employees would say internal comms helps them do their jobs better. That is important because it suggests internal communication is not being seen merely as corporate messaging, but as practical operational support.

    There is also evidence of greater strategic clarity. A large majority, 73 percent, said their internal comms strategy needs to adapt for 2026, which implies that teams are actively thinking about strategy rather than simply maintaining existing activity. At the same time, the top goals remain consistent: employee engagement, alignment across the organisation, and support for business goals. That combination suggests a function that is evolving, but around a stable strategic core.

    The report also points to a more sophisticated understanding of channels and content. Email remains dominant and highly effective, but communicators are not just expanding channels for the sake of it. The report argues that teams are becoming more intentional about the role each channel plays, especially by combining push channels such as email with pull channels such as intranets. Similarly, content priorities are shifting from volume towards meaning, with greater emphasis on leadership communication, employee spotlights, values-based content, and change communication.

    Taken together, this suggests internal comms is strengthening not because everything is working perfectly, but because practitioners are becoming more deliberate about how communication supports understanding, connection, and organisational coherence.

    3. What are the report’s main findings about the practical challenges internal communicators still face?

    The report shows very clearly that resource pressure remains one of the defining realities of the profession. Only 44 percent say they have the resources they need to deliver on strategy, and only 18 percent strongly agree that they have a dedicated budget for internal comms in 2026. The accompanying commentary makes the same point in plain language: many teams, including “teams of one”, are trying to meet growing expectations without matching support.

    The operational barriers are also quite specific. The most common broad challenge is getting content from other departments, cited by 61 percent. Measurement comes next at 56 percent, followed by not having enough time in the day at 48 percent and not being “in the loop” early enough at 45 percent. This pattern matters because it shows the problem is not just one of budget. It is also about internal process, governance, stakeholder behaviour, and the positioning of comms within the organisation.

    The report’s qualitative comments deepen this picture. Respondents describe being treated as order takers rather than strategic partners, being forced to accommodate too many stakeholders, and being asked to distribute messages rather than shape them upstream. That implies one of the biggest constraints on internal comms is not simply capacity, but organisational role clarity. Teams may be expected to produce high-quality, strategic communication, while being denied the early access and authority needed to do so.

    In effect, the report suggests that internal communication’s biggest challenge is not a lack of commitment or skill. It is the mismatch between its strategic potential and the conditions under which many teams are still expected to operate.

    4. What does the report reveal about the channels, content, and management systems that seem to matter most in 2026?

    The report presents a fairly clear hierarchy. Email remains the anchor channel: 95 percent use it and 81 percent rate it as one of their most effective tools. Intranet use is also widespread at 74 percent, but it is described as the most challenging channel, even while being the top investment priority for 2026 at 52 percent. This is one of the report’s most interesting tensions: the intranet is frustrating in practice, but still seen as strategically important when it works as a reliable knowledge hub.

    The report’s broader argument is that communicators should stop expecting one channel to do everything. Instead, they should design an ecosystem in which push and pull channels support one another. That is a more mature view of internal communication architecture, and it reflects a concern with actual employee behaviour rather than simply channel ownership.

    On content, leadership updates are the most commonly delivered type today, and leadership communication is also the top content priority for 2026. Employee spotlights, values-based content, change communication, and performance storytelling also rank highly. The report interprets this as a move away from simply sending updates towards creating meaning, context, and connection. In other words, content is becoming less transactional and more interpretive.

    Manager communication stands out as especially important. It is again the number-one trend for 2026, chosen by 56 percent, yet only 4 percent say managers are very effective at cascading communication. That gap is central to the report’s diagnosis. Managers remain the crucial relay point between organisational messaging and employee understanding, but the capability is still weak. Hence the report’s repeated emphasis on leader digests, manager toolkits, cascade templates, and training. It sees better systems for managers not as a side issue, but as one of the main ways internal comms can increase impact.

    5. What does the report say about AI, and what broader implications does that have for the future of internal communication?

    The report treats AI as having moved decisively from novelty to normal workflow tool. It says 42 percent of respondents use AI every day and another 31 percent use it a few times a week. More than half describe themselves as actively experimenting, while 33 percent say AI is already integrated into some workflows. That is a strong sign that AI is no longer peripheral to the field.

    Current use is still concentrated in content production, where 72 percent use AI, followed by strategy or planning, summarising feedback or survey results, and repurposing content. But when respondents look ahead, the biggest priority is automation of repetitive tasks, cited by 68 percent. That matters because it shows communicators do not just want faster drafting. They want relief from low-value repeat work so they can spend more time on strategic judgement, nuance, and relationship work.

    At the same time, the report is careful not to frame AI in purely celebratory terms. The main concerns are accuracy or misinformation, loss of human tone, and privacy or security. These are not fringe objections: they are held by majorities or near-majorities of respondents. The report’s perspective is that these concerns are healthy constraints, not reasons to reject AI outright. Its implied model is human-centred augmentation: use AI for the early lift, then apply human review for trust, tone, and judgement.

    The wider implication is that internal communication may be heading towards a sharper division between work that can be accelerated and work that remains distinctly human. Drafting, summarising, formatting, repurposing, and workflow support will increasingly be automated or AI-assisted. But meaning-making, employee trust, leadership credibility, and organisational judgement will become even more central to the communicator’s value. In that sense, AI does not reduce the strategic importance of internal comms. The report suggests it may actually increase it.

  • Valuing Internal Communication by Internal Communication Research Hub Europe

    Valuing Internal Communication by Internal Communication Research Hub Europe

    About the paper

    The report examines how internal communication creates value for organisations, employees and society in a European context.

    It is a mixed-methods synthesis in the broad sense: the authors reviewed 60 academic journal articles and industry reports published in Europe since 2010, then used AI to generate themes which were subsequently sense-checked and refined through manual reading; it is explicitly not presented as a formal academic literature review.

    The evidence base is European in scope, but no single respondent sample is used because this is a secondary analysis of 60 prior publications rather than original fieldwork.

    Length: 38 pages

    More information / download:
    https://pracademy.co.uk/insights/new-report-valuing-internal-communication/

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the value of internal communication?

    The report’s main argument is that internal communication should not be seen as a narrow channel-and-content function, but as a strategic organisational capability that creates value across three domains: organisations, employees and society. The report explicitly says it is structured around these three domains, reflecting a broader understanding of internal communication that goes beyond organisational performance alone.

    A second core point is that the profession still struggles to have this value fully recognised. The report opens by noting that perceived value remains a challenge for practitioners, and frames the whole project as an attempt to clarify and strengthen the business and societal case for internal communication.

    A third important point is conceptual: the report argues that internal communication is evolving from a mainly transmissive model towards a more dialogic, relational and human-centred one. It summarises definitions of internal communication as moving beyond information dissemination towards interaction, relationships, employee voice, involvement and purpose. That shift matters because it changes what “value” means: not just distributing information efficiently, but enabling alignment, trust, engagement, culture, well-being and change.

    So the report’s central thesis is not merely that internal communication is useful. It is that internal communication is a foundational practice that shapes how organisations function internally, how employees experience work, and potentially how work spills over into wider social outcomes.

    2. How does the report say internal communication creates value for organisations?

    For organisations, the report consolidates the value of internal communication into the PACEC framework: Performance, Alignment, Culture, Engagement and Change. This is the report’s main organising model for organisational value.

    Performance refers to business-related outcomes such as productivity, service and product quality, innovation, lower absenteeism, lower costs, reputation and advocacy. The report is careful not to claim that internal communication is the sole cause of these outcomes, but it does argue that internal communication is associated with them and can measurably contribute to them. It also links internal communication with knowledge-sharing and employee advocacy, both of which strengthen organisational performance and brand perception.

    Alignment is presented as especially important. Internal communication is described as helping translate strategy, purpose, values and priorities so that employees understand what matters and what part they play. The report even says strategic alignment was cited as the top purpose for internal communication by practitioners in 2025. In practical terms, this means internal communication helps turn abstract corporate strategy into shared understanding and coordinated action.

    Culture is another major value domain. The report argues that internal communication does not just reflect culture; it actively shapes it. Through symbolic work, leadership language, tone, transparency and emotional framing, communicators can reinforce or change norms, values and assumptions. The report highlights both cognitive culture and emotional culture, suggesting that communication can help create more human, inclusive and emotionally supportive workplaces.

    Engagement is framed mainly as organisational engagement rather than only job engagement. The report links good internal communication, especially senior leader communication and listening, with stronger organisational commitment, citizenship behaviours, job satisfaction and broader well-being outcomes. It suggests that internal communication is particularly valuable when it supports clarity, openness, honesty and two-way exchange.

    Change is the fifth element. The report says internal communication is a critical success factor in change initiatives, including restructures, mergers, process change, culture change and technology implementations. It cites evidence that excellent communication is associated with much higher positivity towards change, especially when clarity, honesty and listening are present.

    Taken together, the organisational argument is that internal communication adds value not by “sending messages” alone, but by creating the conditions for coordinated action, trust, adaptation and sustained performance.

    3. How does the report say internal communication creates value for employees?

    For employees, the report argues that internal communication creates value through three main outcomes: belongingness, identification and well-being. This is the equivalent employee-side framework to PACEC.

    Belongingness is about feeling part of the organisation and included within it. The report connects this to employee–organisation relationship theory, which emphasises trust, mutual influence, satisfaction and commitment. Communication contributes here through two-way exchange, transparency, authenticity and the quality of communication channels. In other words, communication helps determine whether employees feel they are merely labour inputs or recognised members of a collective.

    Identification goes a step further. The report argues that when employees feel belonging and also understand and align with organisational purpose, values and goals, they are more likely to identify with the organisation. It also notes that feeling valued by leaders and managers is central here. This makes identification partly communicative: people identify more strongly when communication makes them feel respected, seen and meaningfully connected to organisational purpose.

    Well-being is the third employee value outcome. The report links internal communication to psychological, social and physical dimensions of well-being, while being especially strong on the psychological and social side. Inclusive, accessible communication, employee voice, appreciation, support, and a positive communication climate are all described as contributors to employee well-being. The report also notes that engaged employees tend to show stronger well-being overall.

    A useful nuance in the report is its distinction between local and corporate employee experience. Some communication happens primarily through line managers and supervisors, especially around day-to-day work, while other experience is shaped by senior leader and corporate communication, especially around purpose, values, change and broader employee experience. This implies that employee value is not generated by one team alone but through a layered communication system.

    So the employee case is that internal communication matters because it affects whether people feel included, respected, psychologically safe, purposeful and well supported at work. That is a substantive human outcome, not just a by-product of business performance.

    4. What wider value does internal communication have for society, and why does that matter?

    The report treats societal value as an emerging but under-researched dimension. It says plainly that this domain has not yet featured prominently in academic or industry research, which makes this part of the argument more exploratory than the organisational or employee sections.

    Its first societal claim is economic. If internal communication contributes to stronger organisational outcomes and impacts, then organisations become more successful and sustainable, which in turn supports employment, tax contributions and broader social cohesion. This is the most direct societal pathway identified in the report.

    Its second societal claim is more interesting: employees are also members of society, so their experience at work may spill over into life outside work. The report discusses life satisfaction as one possible bridge between workplace communication and wider societal outcomes. It cites a 2020 study that found a strong relationship between internal communication and life satisfaction, with especially strong associations for informal communication and general communication climate.

    This leads the report to emphasise informal communication. It identifies four functions of informal internal communication: information and coordination, belonging and connectedness, stress management and recreation, and private relationships. These are important because they show that societal value may arise not only from formal top-down communication, but from the everyday relational environment of work.

    The broader implication is that if organisations focus only on performance metrics, they may undervalue communication practices that support connection, friendship, recovery, belonging and life satisfaction. The report argues that this would be short-sighted, because these “softer” outcomes may also underpin performance rather than competing with it.

    5. What conditions must be in place for internal communication to create value, and what are the consequences when it fails?

    The report is very clear that value does not arise automatically from having an internal communication function. It depends on how communication is planned, measured and practised. Strategy and measurement are presented as foundational: internal communication needs clear objectives, robust planning and evaluation, and much more emphasis on outcomes and impacts rather than just outputs such as opens, views and attendance. The report explicitly notes that measurement remains a challenge for many practitioners.

    The report also stresses communication quality. Trust, openness, honesty, timeliness, transparency and clarity are described as crucial enablers. It warns against “gloss” or spin, because employees interpret over-polished communication as a sign that information is being hidden or that leaders are detached from reality.

    Listening is another essential condition. The report argues that it is not enough to provide occasional, tokenistic opportunities for employees to speak. Listening must be ongoing, multi-method and linked to response mechanisms. This is important because the report’s model of value is dialogic: communication creates value not just by informing employees, but by connecting, hearing and responding to them.

    These conditions are brought together in the “internal communication value ladder”, which suggests that value is created through a combination of information-sharing and listening-and-responding. When those are in place, organisations can build a dialogic communication climate, which supports outcomes such as engagement, commitment, alignment, trust, advocacy and well-being, and eventually wider impacts such as high performance, employer brand strength, successful change management and even healthier societies.

    When internal communication fails, the consequences are extensive. The report points to misalignment, project delays, missed goals, lost sales, disengagement, silence, weaker advocacy, failed change efforts, stress, absenteeism, burnout and possible damage to relationships and family life. It also notes that while it is difficult to isolate exact financial costs, poor communication has been associated with substantial productivity losses.

    So the final message is quite strong: internal communication is valuable, but only when it is treated as a strategic, relational and measurable practice. Otherwise, organisations end up with the costs of poor communication rather than the benefits of good communication.

  • IC Index 2025: Your guide to IC channels and topics by Institute of Internal Communication

    IC Index 2025: Your guide to IC channels and topics by Institute of Internal Communication

    About the paper

    The report is a focused internal communication channels-and-topics analysis from the IC Index 2025, examining what information UK employees in large organisations want, how much communication they receive, and which channels they rely on.

    It is based on original survey research: an online representative quota sample of 4,939 UK workers aged 18–64 in organisations with 500+ employees, fielded in late March to early April 2025; the geographic scope is the UK only.

    The methodology is clearly stated, though the report is limited to larger employers, so it does not represent smaller organisations or microbusinesses.

    Length: 9 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.ioic.org.uk/resource-report/ic-index-2025-guide-to-ic-channels-and-topics.html

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the current state of internal communication?

    The core argument is that internal communication in large UK organisations is broadly functioning reasonably well at a practical level, but clear gaps remain in relevance, targeting and topic coverage. The report says there have not been “massive shifts” since the IC Index began in 2023, yet some movements are important enough to affect communication strategy, especially when looked at through demographic and organisational differences such as generation, sector and employer size.

    In essence, the report presents a fairly balanced picture. On the one hand, most employees say they receive the right amount of communication, most prefer written information, and email still dominates as the everyday channel for updates. On the other hand, substantial minorities still feel under-informed on key issues, especially pay and benefits, career development, job guidance, organisational challenges and hybrid working.

    So the deeper message is not that internal communication is broken, but that it needs to become more audience-aware and more disciplined. The strongest practical implication is that communicators should stop treating employees as one uniform audience and instead think more carefully about what different groups need, when they need it, and through which formats and channels. That “know your audience” theme is visually reinforced in the audience-segmentation spread on page 8.

    2. How well are organisations getting the volume of communication right?

    The headline result is that 74% of employees say they receive “the right amount” of internal communication, while 14% say they get too much and 12% say they get too little. That is a strong result overall, suggesting that most large organisations are not wildly misjudging communication volume.

    But the more important finding is what happens when organisations miss the mark. Employees who say they get the right amount are much more positive about communication overall: 75% rate organisational communication as excellent, their engagement score is 75%, and 72% would recommend their employer as a great place to work. By contrast, among those who say they get too little communication, only 17% rate communication as excellent and 42% rate it as poor. Those getting too much communication are also less positive, but not to the same extent: 42% still rate communication as excellent and 20% as poor.

    That leads to one of the report’s clearest conclusions: too much communication is less damaging than too little. In other words, information overload is not ideal, but information starvation is worse. The report frames this as a meaningful challenge for leaders and managers, who need to filter noise while still ensuring people get the essentials.

    There is also an organisational-size effect. Smaller large organisations, with 500–999 employees, are most likely to get the balance right: 83% of employees in that group say the amount is right. Among organisations with 10,000+ employees, that drops to 67%. This suggests scale makes communication calibration harder, likely because more business units and functions are competing for attention.

    3. Which topics do employees most want more information about?

    The clearest unmet need is pay and benefits. More than a third of employees, 36%, say they receive too little information on that topic. The next biggest gap is career and personal development opportunities at 31%, followed by guidance to help people do their job at 27%, organisational challenges at 26%, and ways of working or hybrid working, also at 26%.

    That pattern matters because it shows employees are not just asking for more grand strategy messaging. They want information that directly affects their working lives, their future prospects and their ability to do their job well. Pay, progression and practical guidance all sit near the top of the list. The report explicitly notes that the top gaps are heavily focused on the individual employee experience.

    At the same time, organisational meaning still matters. The report flags that too little information on strategy and direction, career development, job guidance, purpose and mission, and values and culture is associated with a particularly negative effect on engagement. So employees need both instrumental information and sense-making information: what affects me personally, and what tells me where the organisation is going and why.

    There are also a few trend signals since 2023. Ways of working and hybrid working has moved up six places on the “too little” ranking, while strategy and direction has dropped five places, implying some improvement on strategy communication relative to other themes. Meanwhile, diversity and inclusion stands out as the topic with the highest “too much” score at 21%, followed by values and culture and people stories/news at 15% each. That does not necessarily mean those topics are unimportant; rather, it suggests some organisations may be over-indexing on them relative to employees’ felt needs.

    4. How do employees prefer to receive information about organisational priorities and plans?

    The dominant preference is written communication. Overall, 53% say they would prefer to read information about their employer’s priorities and plans, compared with 31% who would rather talk about it in team or group discussions, 10% who prefer visual formats such as film or infographics, and just 6% who prefer audio.

    This is important because it pushes back against the idea that internal communication should automatically become more multimedia-heavy. The report shows that written communication remains the default preference for a majority. It also suggests that the appetite for audio has weakened: the share preferring audio has fallen by 6 percentage points since 2023. By contrast, preference for talking about priorities and plans has risen by 11 points, which may indicate a growing desire for interaction and discussion around important organisational issues.

    The pattern is not uniform across all organisations. In employers with 500–999 staff, only 44% prefer to read information and 39% prefer to talk about it. In organisations with 1,000 or more employees, the pattern stabilises at roughly 55% preferring to read and 28% preferring discussion. So smaller large organisations appear more conversational in how employees want to engage with priorities and plans.

    One especially interesting finding is that digital connectedness makes very little difference here. Employees who spend most of their time at a computer and those in less digitally connected roles have near-identical preferences for reading communication, and only small differences on the other formats. That weakens the common assumption that frontline or offline workers necessarily want less written communication.

    5. Which channels do employees actually rely on, and how do audience differences shape channel use?

    In practice, email is still the dominant channel by a wide margin. Sixty-five per cent say they rely on email for general news and updates. After that come one-to-ones with line managers at 35%, company newsletters at 34%, and team meetings at 34%. Then there is a second tier: colleagues by word of mouth at 25%, Microsoft Teams at 21%, and the intranet at 17%.

    This matters because it shows a clear distinction between preference and reality. Employees may say they like written information, and the channel data confirms that written, scalable formats still dominate everyday organisational communication. Email remains the backbone. Manager communication and team-based discussion are important, but secondary.

    The report also adds a useful caution about advocacy. Some low-usage channels, including LinkedIn, Instagram, Slack and TikTok, are associated with very high levels of employer advocacy among the people who use them. But the report sensibly argues that this probably reflects the fact that advocates are more likely to engage with their employer through those channels, rather than those channels causing advocacy. In other words, correlation here should not be mistaken for channel effectiveness.

    Audience differences are one of the most valuable parts of the report. On page 8, several patterns stand out:

    Public sector employees are more likely than private sector employees to rely on the intranet, 20% versus 15%, while private sector employees are more likely to rely on virtual and in-person town halls. Smaller organisations make heavier use of team meetings, WhatsApp and LinkedIn. For example, among employees in organisations with 500–999 people, 40% rely on team meetings, 22% on SMS or WhatsApp, and 15% on LinkedIn, compared with just 31%, 6% and 4% respectively in the largest organisations.

    Generational differences are especially sharp. Gen Z employees are much more likely than Baby Boomers to rely on SMS or WhatsApp, 19% versus 5%, and more likely to use LinkedIn and Instagram. Baby Boomers, by contrast, are more likely to use the intranet, 20% versus 10% for Gen Z. Millennials also show relatively high use of digital screens, LinkedIn and Instagram.

    Finally, part-time employees are more likely than full-time employees to rely on word of mouth, 30% versus 24%, and employees in global organisations are more likely to use company newsletters than those in UK-only organisations, 38% versus 30%. Together, these patterns reinforce the report’s strongest strategic point: channel strategy should be audience-led rather than based on one standard corporate mix.

    Overall, this is a useful, applied piece of original research. Its main value is not in dramatic headline shifts, but in showing where the practical frictions are: under-communication is more harmful than over-communication, employees still want written clarity, pay and career information remain underserved, and channel reliance varies enough by audience that a single-channel logic is unlikely to work well.

  • IC Index 2025 by Institute of Internal Communication

    IC Index 2025 by Institute of Internal Communication

    About the paper

    The paper is an original quantitative research report on what drives strong internal communication experiences, with a particular focus on care, connection, leadership behaviour, listening, change communication and AI communication.

    It is based on an online survey of a representative quota sample of 4,939 UK workers aged 18–64, fielded between 21 March and 4 April 2025, and covers the UK only; the report also incorporates commentary from IoIC Fellows, so it combines survey research with expert interpretation.

    Length: 33 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.ioic.org.uk/resource-report/ic-index-2025.html

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about what creates the best internal communication experiences?

    The report’s core argument is that the best internal communication experiences are driven less by channels and message volume, and more by human connection between employees and leaders. The strongest communication experience is not primarily explained by intranets, emails or strategy decks, but by whether leaders are visible, approachable, authentic, empathetic and willing to listen.

    That argument is visible most clearly in the section on what makes a “10/10” communication experience. Only 13% of employees give their organisation top marks for communication, which makes excellence rare rather than routine. Those employees are much more likely to say leaders understand the challenges employees face, that feedback is used to inform action, and that they hear regularly from senior leaders. They are also more likely to describe CEO communication as open, inspiring, clear, authentic and approachable.

    The report is therefore making a practical point to internal communicators: excellent internal communication is achieved when communication feels real. Leaders need to do more than explain strategy; they need to create a sense that they know employees, care about their experience and are prepared to engage in genuine two-way communication. That is the report’s central thesis.

    2. What evidence does the report provide that empathy, care and leader behaviour matter more than many organisations may assume?

    The report repeatedly shows that employee perceptions of empathy and care are closely tied to trust, value and advocacy. Just 51% of employees agree that leaders understand the challenges employees face, which means almost half of the workforce does not positively experience leadership empathy. That matters because employees who rate communication at 10/10 are overwhelmingly more likely to feel understood by leaders.

    The same pattern appears in relation to tone. Trust in the CEO or most senior leader is highest when communication is described as inspiring, authentic, caring, approachable and empathetic. It is far lower when leaders are seen as arrogant, unapproachable, boring, closed or indifferent. The report is effectively arguing that tone is not cosmetic; it is a trust-building variable.

    Care also matters strongly in moments of organisational strain. Only 56% say difficult people-affecting changes such as restructures or redundancies are communicated with care. Yet where employees do feel that such change is handled carefully, the uplift is dramatic: they are far more likely to feel valued and to recommend their employer as a great place to work. This suggests that care is not a soft add-on but a determinant of important organisational outcomes.

    The report also highlights a perception gap. Managers, especially senior leaders, are highly confident in their own communication skills, time and information, but employees are much less convinced on related measures such as openness, listening and follow-through. That implies many leaders may believe they are communicating effectively while employees experience something more distant or one-way.

    3. How does the report explain the importance of listening and acting on feedback?

    One of the report’s strongest conclusions is that listening only matters when employees can see evidence that their input changes something. The report distinguishes between organisations that merely invite feedback and those that “close the loop” by showing how feedback informs decisions and actions. This is one of the clearest findings in the whole study.

    Overall, 60% of employees say their organisation welcomes open and honest feedback, while only 53% say it is good at showing how colleague feedback is used. That gap is significant. It suggests many organisations are better at asking than responding. The report treats this as a live weakness, not a solved problem.

    The consequences are substantial. Among employees who say their organisation both welcomes feedback and shows how it is used, 90% would recommend their employer as a great place to work. By contrast, advocacy is far lower where organisations are seen as all talk and no action, selectively responsive, or completely disinterested. This is one of the most concrete business-case findings in the report: listening plus visible action strongly correlates with advocacy.

    The report also adds nuance about how leaders should listen. Large online Q&A sessions are the most common listening mechanism, but smaller and more personal formats such as small-group sessions, one-to-ones, reverse mentoring and discussions on internal social media are associated with stronger advocacy and stronger perceptions that feedback is welcomed. The implication is that scale does not automatically equal quality; smaller, more direct interactions often work better.

    4. What does the report reveal about organisational differences, especially the role of size, hierarchy and employee position?

    A striking pattern across the report is that smaller organisations consistently perform better than larger ones on a wide range of communication measures. Employees in organisations with 500–999 people are more positive than those in the largest organisations on leadership empathy, change communication, listening, feedback follow-through and AI clarity. The report treats organisation size as one of the most important contextual variables shaping communication quality.

    Large organisations appear to struggle particularly with emotional closeness and responsiveness. For example, perceptions that leaders understand employee challenges fall markedly as organisational size increases, and confidence that feedback informs decisions also drops sharply in the biggest organisations. Similarly, communication about difficult change is seen as less caring in larger organisations. This supports the report’s broader argument that scale makes human connection harder, though not impossible.

    Hierarchy matters too. Managers are much more likely than non-managers to believe leaders understand employee challenges, and senior leaders are the most positive group of all. The report reads this as a sign of disconnect between leadership perception and employee experience. That same pattern shows up in work identity: managers, particularly senior leaders, are much more likely than non-managers to say their job is an important part of their identity. This matters because leaders may overestimate how central the organisation is in employees’ lives, and therefore misjudge what communication employees find meaningful.

    The report also shows that clarity on strategy is strongest when it comes from the CEO or most senior leader. Employees who most commonly hear about business priorities from the CEO are the most likely to say strategy is clear. So while organisations often rely on multiple channels and local managers, the study suggests that senior leader communication remains uniquely important for strategic clarity.

    5. What does the report conclude about AI communication, and what are the wider implications for internal communicators?

    The report frames AI as a growing communication challenge defined by both opportunity and unease. Employees can see benefits in generative AI, especially for automating routine tasks, increasing productivity and saving time. But their worries are stronger and more emotionally charged: the biggest concern is loss of human jobs, followed by data privacy and security, lack of transparency, misinformation and unethical use.

    Against that backdrop, organisational clarity is weak. Only 41% say their employer has clearly communicated how generative AI is used responsibly in the organisation, and only 36% say expectations are clear on how they themselves are expected to use AI as part of their job. Again, smaller organisations perform much better than larger ones.

    The most important conclusion is that clarity changes comfort. Employees who say their organisation has clearly communicated responsible AI use are almost twice as likely to feel comfortable with AI being used to create written messages, images or video from their employer; in both cases, comfort rises to 70%. In other words, the discomfort is not only about the technology itself but also about organisational silence and ambiguity.

    The wider implication is that internal communicators should not treat AI as a purely technical issue owned elsewhere. The report strongly suggests that IC teams need to press for clear principles, practical guidance, manager support and honest explanation about where AI is used, why it is used and what safeguards exist. In the report’s logic, this is an extension of the same broader principle seen throughout the study: uncertainty damages trust, while clarity plus human-centred communication improves acceptance.

  • Future of IC Profession Survey by Institute of Internal Communication

    Future of IC Profession Survey by Institute of Internal Communication

    About the paper

    The report examines how internal communication professionals view the current state and future direction of their profession, with a focus on strategic responsibilities, skills gaps, career progression, and the rise of “shadow communication” roles.

    It is original survey research based on an online questionnaire fielded in March 2025, with 303 respondents; the data is mainly UK-based, though it also includes participants from other parts of Europe, North America and a small number from other regions.

    The methodology is clearly stated, though the report does not specify sampling method beyond the online survey format.

    Length: 29 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.ioic.org.uk/resource/new-ioic-report-reveals-evolving-role-of-internal-communication-professionals.html

    Core Insights

    1. How does the report argue that the internal communication profession is changing?

    The report’s core argument is that internal communication is moving beyond a mainly tactical delivery function and becoming a more strategic organisational role. It presents IC as increasingly tied to change, leadership, transformation, trust, resilience and organisational performance, rather than simply channels, content and campaigns. The introduction says IC is “increasingly seen as a strategic enabler of organisational success,” while the conclusion describes it as “fast becoming a critical driver of organisational performance.”

    At the same time, the report frames this change as double-edged. On the one hand, the profession is finally gaining the strategic access and recognition many practitioners have long wanted. On the other hand, that expansion of remit is happening faster than support, resourcing and development are catching up. The executive summary is explicit that many practitioners are now asked to contribute at a strategic level, but feel “ill-equipped, under-resourced and under-appreciated.”

    The report also places this shift in a wider context: AI and automation, digital transformation, remote and hybrid work, wellbeing pressures, economic uncertainty and social fragmentation are all reshaping the operating environment. In that setting, IC is no longer presented as a support service on the sidelines. It is shown as central to helping organisations maintain alignment, trust and human connection under pressure. That is the report’s main interpretive lens: IC matters more than before because organisations are harder to hold together than before.

    2. What evidence does the report provide that internal communication is becoming more strategic?

    The strongest evidence comes from the reported changes in responsibilities over the last year. The report says 56% of respondents saw an increase in change communication duties, 51% in digital transformation responsibilities, and 34% were asked to advise senior leadership more frequently. It also notes that one-third were being asked to do more influencing and advising, and that leaders increasingly see IC as a strategically important function.

    The charts on pages 9 and 10 reinforce that point visually and numerically. They show that the biggest growth areas are not classic production tasks but organisational change, digital transformation, data and analysis, leadership communication, listening, and senior-leader advising. Even where some traditional tasks remain important, the growth is disproportionately in areas associated with strategic judgement, insight and influence rather than message execution alone.

    Another useful signal is the report’s discussion of what is not changing much. Core activities such as communication planning, editing/writing/storytelling and communication strategy still dominate current roles, but practitioners now report managing an average of 15 different aspects of internal communication. That suggests the strategic layer is being added on top of an already broad tactical workload, rather than replacing it. In other words, the profession is not shedding delivery work; it is accumulating strategic work on top of it.

    This matters because the report is not simply saying IC professionals want to be strategic. It is saying organisations are already treating them more strategically. That is a major claim, and the evidence for it is fairly consistent across the report.

    3. What are the main pressures, capability gaps and morale problems affecting IC professionals?

    The report paints a picture of a profession under strain. The pressure starts with workload breadth: respondents report handling an average of 15 areas of responsibility, and the report repeatedly suggests that many are stretched too thinly to create the space for higher-value strategic work. The problem is therefore not only volume, but also role sprawl.

    The capability gap is another major theme. Only 30% of respondents in the introduction say they feel fully equipped with the necessary skills for their current roles, while later the skills section says only one in three believe they currently possess all the skills needed. The areas most often identified for development are strategic thinking, influencing, digital literacy, data literacy and change communication, with AI and digital proficiency especially prominent. The report clearly sees the future IC role as more insight-driven and technology-enabled than many professionals currently feel ready for.

    The morale findings make the picture more serious. Fewer than half say they feel happy, fulfilled or appreciated, while the report states that 80% express negative feelings about their work overall. On page 11, 51% say they feel stretched, 41% frustrated, and 37% stressed. The report interprets this not as ordinary job dissatisfaction but as a potential motivation crisis within the profession.

    The surrounding pressures help explain why. AI and automation are identified by 84% as the biggest emerging trend affecting the profession; wellbeing and burnout risk follow at 64%, and remote/hybrid work at 63%. Meanwhile, the main role challenges reported include rapid and continuous change, budget and resource constraints, the perceived value of internal communication, measurement/data, leadership buy-in, and communication noise. Together, these findings suggest that IC professionals are being asked to lead through uncertainty while also trying to justify their value, learn new tools, and absorb emotional labour.

    A particularly revealing tension in the report is that technological change is described as both promising and destabilising. Some respondents see AI as a way to reduce time spent on planning, analysis and writing so they can focus more on strategic and human work. But others worry it will increase expectations that they do more, faster, with fewer resources. So the technology story here is not techno-optimism; it is capacity anxiety.

    4. Why does career progression emerge as such a significant issue in the report?

    Career progression matters so much in the report because it acts as the point where ambition, recognition, skills and retention all collide. The introduction says 40% are uncertain about their career trajectory and around one in six intend to transition out of IC. Later sections expand this by showing that the biggest barrier to progression is the availability of suitable roles, cited by 64%, followed by confidence/imposter syndrome at 49% and work/life balance at 35%.

    The report also suggests that the issue is structural, not merely personal. Only around 39% feel there are clear opportunities for career prospects and progression within the IC profession, and only around four in ten feel they receive adequate training to keep pace with technological changes. It goes further by saying that IC careers are not well understood or adequately supported within many organisations. That means the profession is not just lacking openings; it is lacking clearly legible development pathways.

    This becomes even more important because the profession is clearly evolving. If the job is becoming more strategic, then career systems also need to evolve to reflect new specialisms and senior pathways. The report notes that many respondents want networking opportunities, career coaching, development courses and mentorship. It also highlights interest in deep specialism, not just upward promotion. That implies a profession that is maturing and differentiating, but whose career infrastructure has not fully matured with it.

    The report’s mention of the IoIC Profession Map is therefore significant. Awareness is high at 71%, but active usage is only around one-third, with just over half planning to use it. This suggests that the profession does have a development framework, but it is not yet embedded strongly enough in day-to-day career planning. So the report is implicitly arguing that clearer professional architecture is needed if the field wants to retain talent and convert strategic demand into sustainable careers.

    5. What does the rise of “shadow communication” imply for the future role and value of internal communication?

    The rise of shadow communication is one of the most strategically interesting findings in the whole report. It refers to communication activity increasingly being carried out by people outside the formal IC function. Almost two-thirds, 63%, report an increase in such activity, and the report identifies HR and operations as particularly active, followed by IT, leadership and team managers.

    The report’s view is nuanced. It acknowledges that decentralised communication can improve agility and relevance because people closer to the audience may communicate faster and more directly. But it is much more concerned with the downside: fragmentation, inconsistent messaging, misuse of channels, duplication of effort, confusion about credible information, and a weakening of internal communication’s strategic voice. In effect, shadow communication is presented as both a symptom of IC’s growing relevance and a threat to its coherence.

    This has a deeper implication for the profession’s future role. If communication work is spreading across the organisation, the IC function cannot define its value only as “the team that sends messages”. Its future value lies more in governance, coaching, partnership-building, standards, sense-making and strategic enablement. The report says internal communicators are in a prime position to coach others, enable them strategically, and preserve organisational voice and tone. That is a more distributed model of authority: less ownership of every output, more stewardship of the overall communication system.

    That is why the recommendations place so much emphasis on advocacy, clearer guidelines, stronger cross-functional relationships and support for colleagues outside IC. The report is effectively arguing that if shadow communication is now a fact of organisational life, then IC professionals must protect their relevance not by trying to monopolise communication, but by becoming the people who make organisation-wide communication more aligned, credible and effective. That is a subtle but important repositioning of the function.

  • Employee Communications Report 2025 Global Edition by Gallagher

    Employee Communications Report 2025 Global Edition by Gallagher

    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.

  • IC Index 2024 – The Trust Issue by Institute of Internal Communication

    IC Index 2024 – The Trust Issue by Institute of Internal Communication

    About the paper

    The report examines how internal communication shapes trust in UK workplaces, with a particular focus on leadership trust, strategy belief, change communication, AI, hybrid work and organisational stances on societal issues.

    It is a mixed-methods report: the core evidence is a representative quota survey of 4,000 UK workers aged 18–64 in organisations with 500+ employees across the UK, fielded 6–20 March 2024, supplemented by a practitioner survey of 220 IoIC members and six senior-leader interviews; the report is UK-wide and the methodology is clearly stated.

    Length: 29 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.ioic.org.uk/resource/ic-index-2024-report-trust-issue.html

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the relationship between internal communication and trust?

    The central argument is that good internal communication is not a peripheral support function but a core condition for organisational trust. The report makes this case repeatedly: where employees rate internal communication as excellent, trust in leadership is far higher, engagement is stronger, and people are more likely to stay with their employer for longer. The report frames trust not as an abstract cultural nice-to-have, but as something communication actively builds, protects and, when mishandled, damages.

    The report’s headline message is that “good IC is integral to trust” and that this matters especially in a context of uncertainty, continuous change and rising expectations around authenticity and empathy. It argues that communication is the basis of trust in workplace relationships and then tests that claim empirically through the Trust Index and associated measures. The data show a 74-point difference in trust in senior leaders between employees who rate communication as excellent and those who rate it as poor, which is an enormous gap and one of the strongest pieces of evidence in the report.

    The report also suggests that communication matters most where personal contact is weaker. Trust in direct managers is higher than trust in senior leaders or the CEO, and the authors infer that communication becomes even more important as the distance between employees and leaders increases. In other words, for senior leadership, communication is not just a channel for trust; it is often the main mechanism through which trust is experienced at all.

    So the report’s big idea is clear: internal communication is a strategic trust infrastructure. It influences whether employees think leaders are competent, honest, empathetic and acting in the right interests.

    2. Which specific factors most strongly build trust in leaders and organisations?

    The strongest trust-building factor across leadership levels is open and honest communication. On the report’s trust model, belief that employer communications are open and honest is the top driver of trust in both the CEO and the wider leadership team, and it also remains one of the top drivers for trust in direct managers. Alongside this, empathy matters greatly: employees need to feel that leaders understand the challenges they face.

    For senior leaders and CEOs specifically, trust also depends heavily on strategic credibility. Employees must believe that the organisation’s strategy is the right one for success. The report goes further by identifying what most strengthens that belief: not just knowing what the strategy is, and not just hearing about progress, but understanding how one can personally contribute to achieving it. When employees know their own contribution, belief in the strategy jumps by 35 points compared with people who only know the strategy and its progress. That is one of the report’s most important causal clues.

    For direct managers, slightly different drivers come to the fore. The most important is behavioural consistency: managers must act in line with the organisation’s values and behaviours. Frequency of communication also matters here; employees need to hear from their direct manager at least every few days to weekly. So trust in managers is built less by abstract strategy and more by visible, consistent, everyday conduct.

    The report also shows that feeling valued and believing the organisation operates in employees’ best interests are powerful trust builders. In fact, employees who believe the organisation acts in employees’ best interests have the highest Trust Index scores. This means trust is not only about message quality. It is also about whether communication aligns with lived organisational reality. A polished message cannot compensate for a widespread belief that the organisation mainly serves profits, leadership interests or shareholder priorities.

    3. What does the report reveal about the main trust weaknesses inside organisations today?

    The report’s most striking weakness is that trust becomes more fragile the higher up the hierarchy you go. Overall trust is fairly positive, with a combined Trust Index of 63%, but this masks a steep gradient: 75% trust their direct manager, 58% trust the leadership team, and only 55% trust the CEO or most senior leader. Many employees are not openly negative so much as uncertain, especially about senior leaders. That suggests distance, inconsistency and lack of direct connection are key problems.

    A second major weakness is perceived organisational self-interest. Only 43% believe their organisation operates in employees’ best interests, while larger proportions think organisations prioritise shareholders, profits and customers. This matters because belief that the organisation acts in employees’ interests is tightly linked to trust. The report also shows that this belief declines as organisation size increases, suggesting scale makes it harder to sustain a credible sense of mutuality between employer and employee.

    A third weakness is the existence of distinct trust segments, including a sizeable cynical bloc. The report identifies four broad trust types: Total Trusters, Proof Seekers, Senior Sceptics and All-round Cynics. The last group makes up 22% of employees and is characterised by very low trust in managers, leaders and the organisation as a whole. This is important because it shows that mistrust is not evenly distributed. Some employees need more evidence, some mainly distrust senior leadership, and some are alienated across the board. That means communicators cannot assume a single audience psychology.

    The report also points to a persistent communication inequality between digitally connected and non-connected workers. Employees who spend most of their time away from computers report lower satisfaction with communication and lower trust, especially in the CEO. This suggests that organisations still struggle to create equitable communication environments across frontline, operational and desk-based roles.

    4. How does communication affect employees’ experience of change, AI and hybrid working?

    The report treats these as live stress-tests of trust, and in each case communication emerges as decisive.

    On change, the findings are particularly strong. Four in ten employees say their organisation has restructured in the last year, and many have experienced redundancies, negative headlines, business transformation or leadership change. Yet the report argues that low trust is not an inevitable consequence of change itself. Rather, it is a consequence of change in organisations where communication is poor. Among employees who have been through a restructure, those who rate communication as excellent are dramatically more likely to believe communications are open and honest and to trust senior leaders and the CEO. The gaps between excellent and poor communication are above 50 points on these measures.

    Employees are also very clear on what better change communication looks like. They want clarity on the reasons behind change, honesty about the impact, and more listening. They also want earlier communication and more detail on the plan. The report’s underlying point is that people do not necessarily reject change itself; they reject opacity, spin and one-way communication.

    On AI, the report finds a trust deficit, especially for communications that are supposed to feel human. Around one third would not trust at all a CEO message developed with AI, and similarly high scepticism exists for manager messages and AI-created visual content featuring people. Trust is somewhat higher for impersonal content such as newsletters, intranet articles or policy documents. The report’s interpretation is that AI is less acceptable when it appears to simulate human presence or voice. It also notes that employees with higher overall trust in their organisation are more comfortable with AI use, implying that AI adoption depends on prior trust, not just technical capability.

    On hybrid work and return-to-office mandates, the findings are especially damaging. More than two in three employees do not believe the reason their employer gave for requiring office attendance. Employers most often cited collaboration, but many employees believe the real motive was oversight of working hours. The report presents this as a credibility gap: it is not simply that employees dislike the policy, but that they distrust the communicated rationale. That makes return-to-office communication a textbook example of how message–motive misalignment corrodes trust.

    5. What are the practical implications for internal communicators and organisational leaders?

    The report’s practical implication is that internal communication should be treated as a strategic lever for trust, retention and organisational performance, not as a downstream distribution function. The evidence gives communicators a stronger business case: excellent communication correlates with higher engagement, lower turnover intentions, stronger trust and greater belief in strategy. That means communication teams can argue for investment not only on cultural grounds, but on operational and performance grounds too.

    For communicators, one implication is to focus less on message volume and more on message credibility. The report repeatedly rewards openness, honesty, empathy, clarity and visible listening. It suggests that communication works best when it helps employees understand not only what is happening, but why, what it means for them, and how their voice is being heard. This is especially important during change, where candour matters more than polish.

    A second implication is that managers matter enormously as communication intermediaries. Employees value managers who listen, set clear objectives and offer personal support, yet only a minority of managers have been trained in key communication capabilities, especially change communication and support during personal issues. The report therefore points towards a practical priority: equip managers better, because they are central to trust formation, especially for less digitally connected workers.

    A third implication is that leaders must communicate strategy in a participatory rather than merely explanatory way. Employees need to know how they personally contribute. This moves communication beyond broadcasting strategy slides and into helping people connect their work to organisational direction. That is where belief in strategy becomes materially stronger.

    A fourth implication is that communicators and leaders need tighter alignment with HR and external communication. The report says this explicitly in relation to change and societal issues. Questions about layoffs, hybrid work, climate stance or public values cannot be handled well in silos. Employees interpret silence, inconsistency and vague positioning as signals in themselves.

    Finally, the report implies a more sober lesson: trust cannot be built by communication alone if the organisation’s conduct contradicts the message. Since trust is strongly tied to whether employees think the organisation acts in their interests, lives its values and genuinely listens, communication succeeds best when it reflects reality rather than attempts to mask it. In that sense, the report is not just a defence of internal communication. It is also a challenge to leadership behaviour.

  • State of the Sector 2023-24 by Gallagher

    State of the Sector 2023-24 by Gallagher

    About the paper

    The report analyses the state of internal communication and employee experience in 2023/24, with a strong focus on strategic influence, measurement, technology, channels, manager communication and communicator wellbeing.

    It is based on Gallagher’s original global survey of more than 2,300 respondents conducted between October and November 2023 across 56 countries, supplemented by multivariate statistical analysis and calculated scoring models; the report’s scope is global, with half of respondents in North America and 41% in the UK and Europe.

    Length: 41 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.ajg.com/employeeexperience/state-of-the-sector/

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the changing role of internal communicators?

    The report’s core argument is that internal communicators are being pushed to become more strategic, more business-aware and more central to employee experience, but many organizations are still not investing in them, involving them early enough, or giving them the conditions to succeed. The report frames 2023/24 as a period in which communicators are expected to connect communication with business outcomes, culture, change, leadership visibility and employee understanding, while still dealing with familiar operational barriers such as low capacity, weak technology and limited budget.

    That tension runs throughout the report. On one hand, the purpose of internal communication is increasingly tied to strategic alignment as well as culture and belonging. On the other hand, communicators still report structural obstacles that stop them from acting strategically, including lack of time or capacity, disengaged employees, insufficient budget and channels that are not fit for purpose.

    So the report is not simply saying that internal communication has become more important. It is saying that the function is in the middle of a role redefinition: expected to drive business outcomes and employee experience, but still too often treated as a delivery function rather than a strategic one.

    2. What evidence does the report present that a more strategic communication function performs better?

    The strongest finding is that when communicators operate strategically rather than in merely advisory or supporting roles, employee understanding improves. The report explicitly states that topics handled strategically were more likely to be understood by employees at a good or excellent level. It quantifies this with an average employee-understanding rating of 10.8 for strategic communicators, compared with 10.4 for advisory and 9.7 for supporting roles, with statistical significance reported at P = .012.

    The report also links strategic working to better use of measurement. Strategic communicators are described as more likely to use measurement data as evidence of value or ROI, and 47% of strategic communicators are using measurement to influence leadership. The text argues that strategic communicators align communication with broader business goals, plan ahead, set objectives, reflect on progress and combine quantitative data with qualitative insight.

    There is also an important human dimension. The report finds that strategic communicators report higher wellbeing than advisory or supporting peers, suggesting that strategic influence is associated not just with better outcomes for organizations, but also with a stronger sense of purpose, fulfilment and control for practitioners themselves.

    Taken together, the report’s evidence suggests that strategy is not a status label. It is a practical advantage: better understanding among employees, stronger leadership influence, more effective measurement and better wellbeing for communicators.

    3. What does the report reveal about the profession’s main operational problems in 2024?

    The report shows a profession under pressure from overload, constrained resources and weak organizational systems. The top reported barriers to success for 2024 are lack of time and capacity in the team at 35%, disengaged employees at 32%, lack of budget at 25% and internal technology or channels not fit for purpose at 24%. Volume of communication also rose in importance as a barrier, moving up to sixth place.

    This is reinforced by the findings on change communication. Although nine in ten communicators expect organizational change in 2024, only 25% are part of the team making decisions around change. Just over half, 51%, are consulted only after decisions have already been made and are then asked to build the communication strategy afterwards. The report presents this as a major strategic weakness: communicators are often expected to drive engagement with transformation without being involved early enough to shape it.

    The report also shows that topic volume and employee attention are becoming harder to manage. Strategy, vision and purpose remained the most-communicated topic, but change activity and business performance entered the top ranks as well, indicating a more business-heavy agenda. Yet employee understanding of change activity was only 36%, which points to a gap between what organizations are communicating and what employees actually grasp.

    Another operational problem is that many communicators are still not set up with sufficiently coherent channel strategies. One in three respondents are dissatisfied with their channel mix, and one in three added a channel during the year, even though communication volume is already seen as a challenge. The report argues that channel frameworks, master plans, communication strategies and employee preference data all improve channel effectiveness and satisfaction.

    So the report portrays the profession’s main practical problem as a mismatch between expectations and enabling conditions: organizations expect communication to deliver clarity, engagement and change, but often under-resource the function and involve it too late.

    4. How does the report assess measurement, listening and the use of technology, including AI?

    The report presents measurement as an improving but still constrained area. Communicators are collecting more data than in the previous year across reach, understanding, behaviour change and communication satisfaction. The share who said they “always” measure reach rose to 77%, understanding to 69%, behaviour change to 63% and communication satisfaction to 60%. The report sees this as encouraging because robust measurement appears to go hand in hand with a strategic approach.

    Measurement is also being used more actively. Respondents increasingly use measurement to provide evidence of ROI, refine channels, tailor content, adjust messaging and request investment. At the same time, 84% say they want to measure more often or more comprehensively, but the main constraints are lack of time and resources, lack of metrics, and lack of tools for collation and analysis.

    On listening, the report suggests that communicators are not abandoning qualitative insight in favour of metrics. Engagement surveys remain the most-used listening channel at 75%, but live Q&A, post-event feedback, listening sessions and focus groups are all highlighted as effective. Independent audits were the least-used method, but rated among the most effective. The report therefore advocates a balanced listening model combining formal measurement with richer qualitative channels.

    On AI, the report presents a profession that is curious but still unevenly prepared. Sixty per cent of respondents say they are using AI in some way, from experimentation to developing their own solutions. One in three are experimenting with AI, and one in five are using it to create communications. At the same time, only 29% say their organizations have guidance on when, where or how to use AI, and only around one in five say their organization provides AI training or resources. Half say there is nobody in charge of AI, while 13% do not even know whether their company is using generative AI.

    Attitudinally, the report shows guarded optimism. Forty-one per cent are “enthused” and 9% “championing”, but there remains a sizeable group marked by resignation, denial or fear. The report’s interpretation is that experimentation reduces fear and helps communicators see AI as a tool for efficiency rather than replacement, especially for high-effort, low-reward tasks.

    5. What conclusions does the report draw about people managers, communicator wellbeing and the future of the profession?

    The report concludes that people managers still matter, especially in hybrid and deskless environments, but that organizations cannot simply rely on them without support and accountability. Eighty-four per cent of respondents say they rely on managers for communication to some degree, yet three in five say manager communication is below expectations. Reliance on managers rises as the proportion of deskless employees rises, but manager performance ratings worsen in those contexts.

    The report’s answer is not to remove managers from the communication chain, but to support them better. Managers perform better when they are evaluated on communication and when internal communication teams provide them with resources. Managers evaluated on communication are twice as likely to meet or exceed expectations, and on-demand learning, written resources, managers-only forums, training and coaching are the most common support tools.

    On wellbeing, the report is notably sober. It says the post-pandemic glow around internal communication has faded. While 32% still describe the work as a passion and vocation, 44% say they love communications but could see themselves happy elsewhere. Over the past year, 38% say their wellbeing deteriorated, compared with 22% who say it improved. The report links this to weak business investment, heavy expectations and declining recognition.

    The resourcing data supports that concern. For 2024, 47% expect their budget to remain the same and 17% expect it to be cut, while average team sizes are described as stagnating or shrinking, especially in enterprise organizations. The report warns that businesses risk losing talented communicators if they continue to undervalue the function.

    Its final conclusion is therefore double-edged. Internal communication has a stronger business case than ever, and the report offers a clear action list around strategy, measurement, change, channels, manager support, AI and listening. But unless organizations back those expectations with real involvement, structure and investment, the profession’s capacity and morale will continue to erode.

  • IC Index 2023 by Institute of Internal Communication

    IC Index 2023 by Institute of Internal Communication

    About the paper

    The paper is a piece of original survey research about what employees in the UK want and need from internal communication, produced by Ipsos Karian and Box for the Institute of Internal Communication.

    The methodology is clearly stated: a stratified survey of 3,000 UK workers, fielded from 6–20 March 2023, covering employees in organisations with more than 500 staff across the UK; the report also says the question set was developed with an expert working group of IC practitioners.

    Length: 35 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.ioic.org.uk/resource/ic-index-report-2023.html

    Core Insights

    1. What is the central argument of the report about the value of internal communication?

    The report’s main argument is that internal communication is not a soft or secondary function but a business-critical one that materially improves the employee experience and broader organisational health. The report explicitly says that employees in organisations with a dedicated internal communication team are more likely to rate communication as excellent, more engaged, less likely to plan to leave, and more likely to trust CEO communications. In other words, the presence of an IC function is associated not just with better messaging, but with stronger trust, engagement and retention indicators.

    That argument is strengthened by one of the report’s clearest contrasts: 69% of workers in organisations with an IC function rate communications as excellent, compared with 37% where there is no such team. Engagement is reported as 59% versus 43%, intention to leave within two years as 29% versus 42%, and trust in CEO communications as 60% versus 46%. These are not minor differences. The report uses them to make the case that IC teams “make a positive difference” and should be seen as a fundamental organisational requirement rather than a nice-to-have.

    A second layer of the argument is that internal communication creates value when it helps employees feel informed, connected, respected and heard. The report links good communication to advocacy, belonging and belief in strategy. So the underlying claim is not merely that IC improves information flow, but that it shapes how people experience work itself.

    2. What does the report show employees most want to hear about, and where are organisations under-communicating?

    The strongest demand is for communication about pay and benefits, with 44% saying they receive too little information on this topic. But the report is especially insistent that strategy and career development matter because under-communication here has a particularly negative effect on engagement. Strategy and direction show a net demand score of 21, while career and personal development opportunities score 23. The report explicitly flags strategy and development as topics that need a lot more attention in communication planning.

    This matters because the report finds that clarity on strategic issues is still weak for a sizeable minority. Only 57% say their employer has been clear on strategy and business priorities, while 63% say they believe the strategy is the right one for success. That gap is one of the report’s most interesting findings: belief slightly exceeds understanding. The authors treat that as a warning sign, suggesting some employees may support the strategy in general terms without truly understanding it in practical terms.

    The report turns this into a segmentation model. It says 45% of UK workers are “ambassadors”, meaning they both understand and believe in the strategy, while 25% are “passengers”, meaning they neither understand nor believe in it. Another 17% are “loose cannons”, who believe but do not understand, and 12% are “bystanders”, who understand but do not believe. This is one of the report’s most useful conceptual contributions, because it shows that strategic communication is not simply about broadcasting more information; it is about moving people from confusion or detachment into informed belief.

    3. What patterns does the report identify around channels, attention and communication preferences?

    A major finding is that employee attention is scarce. Nearly seven in ten workers spend 15 minutes or less per day reading or viewing employer updates, and a quarter spend hardly any time at all. The report therefore argues that internal communication operates in a very constrained attention environment. Employees “snack rather than binge”, often consuming updates during or between meetings rather than in long, focused periods.

    In terms of format, the report finds that written communication still dominates. More than half of respondents say they would prefer to read information about employer priorities and plans, compared with 20% who prefer to talk about it and only 12% each who prefer audio or visual formats. Email remains both the most relied-on and the most preferred channel overall. 59% rely on emails for general news and updates, and 57% say they prefer them. Team meetings, 1-to-1s with line managers, and newsletters also remain important.

    At the same time, the report complicates any simple “email still wins” conclusion. It identifies two communication “tribes”: 82% are “traditionalists”, relying mainly on channels such as email, line-manager 1-to-1s and team meetings; 18% are “non-conformists”, who are more likely to rely on channels such as Instagram, LinkedIn and enterprise social media. These non-conformists are more common among younger workers, senior leaders and employees in somewhat smaller organisations. So the report’s broader message is that the default should still be clarity and utility through familiar channels, but channel strategy needs to evolve around audience differences rather than novelty for its own sake.

    4. What does the report suggest about leadership and manager communication?

    One of the clearest conclusions is that leadership visibility matters, but different leaders should communicate in different ways. Employees generally prefer to hear from CEOs by email, whereas they have stronger demand for face-to-face interaction with departmental leaders or senior managers. The report describes this as “horses for courses”: employees distinguish between CEOs and nearer leaders, and their channel preferences reflect that difference in proximity.

    The report also shows that frequency matters. Engagement is highest when CEOs communicate every few days and falls steadily as communication becomes less frequent, dropping from 69% engagement at the highest frequency to 30% when CEOs communicate rarely, if at all. The authors are careful not to imply that CEOs should simply send more emails; rather, they argue for a consistent rhythm of meaningful leadership visibility across channels.

    Direct managers emerge as the most trusted messengers. 65% trust communications from their direct manager, compared with 54% for CEO communications. That trust gap widens in larger organisations. Employees also say they want more from managers, especially updates on team priorities and goals, information on how the organisation is performing, and explanations of how team work supports wider priorities. But there is a constraint: one in three line managers do not feel equipped to lead conversations with their teams about what is happening across the organisation. Managers want more and clearer information on what to communicate, and around a quarter say they want more training. The report therefore makes a double argument: managers matter enormously, but they cannot be expected to carry the communication load without structured support.

    5. What does the report conclude about listening, feedback and the overall implications for internal communication strategy?

    The report is quite critical here. It says that around half of UK workers do not feel listened to by their employer. While 53% say their organisation welcomes open and honest feedback, only 45% say their organisation is good at showing how feedback is used to inform decisions and actions. These scores are even lower in the largest organisations. The implication is that many organisations may have listening mechanisms in place, but employees do not experience those mechanisms as meaningful.

    Importantly, the report shows that listening is strongly associated with better outcomes. Where employees say their organisation both welcomes feedback and acts on it, advocacy and engagement rise sharply. The report also argues that annual staff surveys on their own are not enough. The best balance of effort and results comes from combining an annual survey with at least two other listening channels, especially pulse surveys and two-way manager conversations. That is a notable finding because it shifts the emphasis from periodic measurement to ongoing dialogue.

    The broader implication is that effective internal communication strategy should rest on four pillars. First, clearer communication about strategy, priorities and performance. Second, stronger leadership visibility, with the right leaders using the right channels. Third, better-enabled line managers, since they are both trusted and central to sense-making. Fourth, a more credible listening system that closes the loop visibly. Taken together, the report’s perspective is practical rather than theoretical: internal communication works best when it helps people understand where the organisation is going, trust the people leading it, connect that direction to their own team reality, and see that their voice has consequences.

  • State of the Sector 2022-23 by Gallagher

    State of the Sector 2022-23 by Gallagher

    About the paper

    The report analyses the state of internal communication and employee experience in 2022/23 using original survey research conducted from October to November 2022.

    It draws on responses from more than 2,000 organisations across 53 countries, making it a global survey-based benchmark study; the report clearly states the respondent mix and geography, though some methodological details beyond the survey design are not specified in detail.

    Length: 59 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.ajg.com/employeeexperience/state-of-the-sector/

    Core Insights

    1. How does the report define the changing purpose of internal communication in 2022/23?

    The report’s core argument is that internal communication is no longer defined primarily as a vehicle for top-down strategic alignment. That still matters, but it now competes with a broader, more human-centred purpose: shaping culture and belonging. On page 10, 74% say the purpose of internal communication is to support culture and belonging, while 67% point to strategic alignment. That is a significant shift in emphasis, especially for smaller organisations, where culture and belonging outrank strategy more clearly.

    This matters because it shows the profession moving from a transmission model to a relational model. Internal communication is presented less as a tool for informing employees and more as a mechanism for helping people feel valued, included and connected to the organisation. The report explicitly links this shift to diversity, equity and inclusion, values and behaviours, and physical and emotional wellbeing. Those themes sit at the centre of the report’s framing of what communication is now for.

    The topic data reinforces that interpretation. On page 11, the most communicated topic is still strategy, vision and purpose at 45%, but DEI follows at 29%, and both values, behaviours and culture and wellbeing and mental health stand at 27%. So the report is not saying strategy has disappeared. It is saying strategy now sits alongside a stronger expectation that communication should help create meaning, belonging and organisational cohesion.

    The executive summary also frames this as a recalibration. The report argues that after years of disruption, organisations are moving beyond short-term channel adaptation and asking bigger questions about the “why” and “what” of internal communication, not only the “how”. That is one of the report’s clearest underlying messages.

    2. What does the study reveal about the relationship between internal communication, culture, belonging and employee experience?

    The report presents culture and employee experience as the two strongest growth areas in the remit of internal communication. It argues that communicators are increasingly expected to influence how work feels, not just how information flows. That includes belonging, inclusion, trust, wellbeing, EVP understanding and the quality of everyday employee interactions.

    On culture and belonging, the report finds that DEI is widely communicated but not always strategically embedded. On page 17, only a little over 4 in 10 respondents say they have a clearly defined DEI strategy, even though DEI is the second most communicated topic. Tactics such as awareness days, employee resource groups and training are common, especially in larger organisations, but the report suggests many organisations are still using disconnected activities rather than integrated, behaviour-shaping communication.

    The report is especially sceptical about authenticity. On page 18, only 45% say they have a say in what gets communicated and how, 35% feel able to inject more personality into communications, and just 26% say their organisation is open to creativity and humour. This is one of the report’s strongest interpretive threads: employees increasingly want candour, humanity and personality, but many organisations still default to sanitised corporate language. The report’s own commentary on page 21 is blunt: people want authenticity, yet internal communication still tends to be led by “corporate speak”.

    On employee experience, the report suggests that organisations have recognised the issue more than they have solved it. On pages 22–25, it shows that 57% have taken steps to revisit their EVP, but only 26% have formalised it in writing. Just 53% rate employee understanding of pay, rewards and benefits as excellent or good, and only 34% say the same for career development opportunities. At leadership level, 72% believe employee experience is on the executive radar, yet only around a third report a clear formal mandate from the top. In other words, employee experience is widely acknowledged but still insufficiently structured.

    The report also shows that some parts of employee experience are much more developed than others. Purpose and strategy, rewards, learning and development, and wellbeing are comparatively more likely to have clear strategies, while digital experience, environmental and social impact, and workplace experience lag behind. That suggests a patchy and uneven employee experience agenda rather than a coherent one.

    3. Which practical weaknesses are most limiting organisations’ internal communication efforts?

    The report identifies a cluster of operational weaknesses that keep appearing across the data: lack of time and capacity, disengagement, budget constraints, weak measurement, poor people manager enablement, and underdeveloped change communication.

    The most immediate constraint is resourcing. On page 14, lack of time and capacity is the top challenge for 2023 at 34%, ahead of disengaged employees at 30% and lack of budget at 24%. That is important because it changes the story from one of ambition to one of delivery pressure. The report repeatedly suggests that internal communication teams are being asked to cover more ground, especially across culture, wellbeing, experience and change, without enough additional support.

    People managers are another weak point. On page 19, 34% still view people managers mainly as a cascade channel. While 56% say managers are expected to reinforce and adapt corporate messages for their teams, preparedness is middling rather than strong: 58% say managers are well equipped to support wellbeing, 56% to connect employees to purpose, and 53% to create an inclusive workplace. The report’s implication is that managers are central to culture and experience, but most organisations are not enabling them robustly enough.

    Change communication is a particularly notable weak spot. On pages 33 and 34, almost 90% of organisations report planned change programmes for 2023, yet performance on key change communication practices is poor. Only two ingredients stand out as reasonably well handled: visual identity and long-term vision. Clear change narratives, communication calendars, audience understanding, behaviour insight and advocate networks all score weakly. The executive summary states that 58% fail to articulate a clear change narrative or design a consistent calendar of activities. That is a serious gap given how much change organisations are navigating.

    Measurement is another area where the profession looks stuck between aspiration and maturity. On pages 47 and 48, reach and employee understanding are measured more often than business outcomes or overall satisfaction, and the top reason for measuring is to show ROI to leaders rather than to improve communication for employees. The main barriers are lack of time and resource, lack of clear objectives, and technology limitations. The report clearly sees this as a problem: measurement exists, but it is not yet consistently outcome-focused or improvement-led.

    4. What does the report say about channels, technology and the digital employee experience?

    The report argues that channels and technology remain a major frustration, but not simply because there are too many tools. Its position is more nuanced: many organisations still lack a coherent channel strategy, sufficient investment and the data sophistication needed to make channels work well together.

    Overall channel satisfaction is mediocre rather than strong. On page 37, 63% are satisfied or very satisfied with their current channel mix, which still leaves more than a third dissatisfied. At the same time, 46% say their organisation is not investing enough in communication technology. The report treats this as evidence of a widening gap between what digital tools could enable and what employees actually experience.

    The value ratings on page 38 show where the main problems lie. Channels perform best at basic reach, with 73% saying they help reach people wherever they are based. But only 60% say they connect people on a human level, 59% say they create a consistent experience, 55% say they help gather employee feedback, 52% say they drive collaboration, and just 45% say they let employees share their own content. So the digital environment is relatively better at distributing information than at fostering participation, dialogue or belonging.

    The report also points to structural immaturity behind that dissatisfaction. Only 31% have a channel framework, only 33% have channel-specific editorial calendars, and segmentation and personalisation remain limited. On pages 39 and 40, segmentation tends to focus on basic criteria such as management responsibility, job role and location, while more sophisticated targeting based on interests, attitudes or response to change remains weak. Personalisation is even less mature. This supports one of the report’s broader conclusions: the profession talks about digital sophistication, but the operational foundations are often still basic.

    Interestingly, the report does not say all channel types are failing equally. It shows strong use and effectiveness for broadcast staples such as email and town halls, and high effectiveness ratings for collaboration channels such as team meetings and enterprise chat tools. Intranets remain common but attract criticism for analytics, integration and social functionality, while employee apps are seen as effective but not yet dominant. AI, meanwhile, appears more as an emerging aspiration than an established practice, with only 9% reporting current use.

    So the report’s position is not anti-technology. It is that technology alone has not solved the communication problem. Without clearer governance, sharper purpose, better content and stronger audience insight, more tools will not automatically create a better employee experience.

    5. What are the report’s main strategic implications for communication leaders in 2023 and beyond?

    The report’s strategic message is that internal communication leaders need to think bigger than channels and bolder than messaging. They are being asked to shape culture, strengthen belonging, improve employee experience, support change, and demonstrate value in measurable terms. That requires a more strategic, integrated and evidence-led function.

    First, communication leaders need to clarify the function’s purpose. The conclusion on page 55 begins with the need to have a defined purpose and strategy, aligned to what the business needs and what value communication provides. That recommendation follows directly from the report’s evidence that many teams still operate with campaign plans and tactics, but without an overarching long-term strategy.

    Second, they need to build a stronger narrative capability. The report shows that only 30% have a written strategic narrative, and fewer than half believe employees understand how they contribute to strategy. That makes narrative not a stylistic extra, but a strategic necessity. Communicators are being urged to articulate purpose, change and meaning more clearly and consistently.

    Third, the report strongly implies that authenticity is becoming a competitive communication capability. Employees want open, human and credible communication, yet many organisations still resist humour, creativity and personality. The report’s commentary repeatedly frames authenticity as necessary to trust, relevance and memory. For leaders, that means not just polishing leadership messages, but helping leaders communicate more like real people.

    Fourth, communication leaders need to shift from output metrics to impact thinking. The report explicitly says the focus should move from outputs to outcomes. If culture, belonging and employee experience are the new frontier, then success cannot be assessed only through open rates or attendance. It has to include understanding, behaviour, sentiment and business-relevant effects.

    Finally, the report suggests that internal communication is at a turning point. Its remit has expanded, its influence appears higher than in the past, but its operating model has not fully caught up. Teams are under pressure, technology is underperforming, and measurement remains imperfect. The opportunity is clear: communicators who can connect purpose, experience, change and evidence will be better placed to become trusted advisers rather than content distributors. That is the report’s underlying vision of what world-class internal communication now looks like.