Internal Communicators’ Perspective – The world of Internal Comms according to Gallagher’s 2025 Report

Gallagher recently released their 2025 State of the Sector: Employee Communications report. Now in its seventeenth year, the report is compiled from the responses of over 2,000 Internal Comms professionals around the world. This year, 31% of respondents were from the UK, second only to the United States’ 35%, thus giving us some juicy insights into not only the global picture, but also the picture here in the UK.

It's a great report and well worth the look! But if you haven’t got time to scour through 40 densely detailed pages, grab yourself a biscuit and feast your eyes on our summary.

Here’s what we found most interesting…

1. The Three Types of Communicators: Which One Are You?

This year’s report introduces three distinct internal comms personas:

Survivors – They’re drowning in admin, struggling with structure, and battling change fatigue. They’re holding on, but just barely. Quite often individual contributors, they make up about 11% of those who responded.

Strivers – Over half of responders are strivers. They’ve got the drive and are building momentum, but the never-ending change cycle is wearing them down.

Thrivers – About a third of the pool are thrivers, who tend to be leaders in smaller organisations than the previous two categories. They have strong leadership buy-in, a strategic seat at the table, and are smashing their targets. We all want to be them.

 

2. Change Fatigue is Real (And It’s Exhausting)

Internal comms folks are managing constant transformation — from new business strategies to AI adoption, and mergers to restructures. But employees are tired and weary of it all. Change fatigue ranked as the second biggest barrier to success this year, second only to lack of time and resources. And it featured as a main barrier regardless of survivor, striver or thriver status!

Lesson? Leaders need to communicate change strategically, because throwing yet another (checks notes…) “exciting transformation” email at employees isn’t going to cut it. Engagement and productivity will suffer if change communication is not carefully considered and executed.

We’re going to look at this thorny topic in more detail in our next blog.

 

3. AI: The Office Guest We’re Still Figuring Out

AI is creeping into internal comms, but the report finds that most organisations still lack clear guidance on how to use it. And employees’ willingness to embrace (or even go anywhere near) AI tech varies. Here are a few interesting stats from the report to illustrate that mixed picture:

• Only 36% of respondents said they have a dedicated individual or group with responsibility for AI within the business

• 41% said they have guidance on which AI tools they can use

• 30% have training or resources on the limitations and risks associated

• 35% of comms professionals are still deciding on now transparent they are to be about AI use

• Whilst 24% are happy to let AI perform admin tasks, 19% are not happy for any AI involvement in this at all.

• 80% are happy for AI to support with content creation, but only half that number are happy for AI to assist within meetings.

4. The Leadership Communication Struggle Continues

Poor communication from managers and leaders remains a top frustration. While 87% of internal comms pros offer leaders guidance on how to communicate, only 70% say their advice is actually followed.

In fact, “poor people manager communication” was third in the list of most impactful barriers (right after “change fatigue”) and “poor leadership communication” was number five! 1 in 3 respondents claimed that leadership comms coaching was a top priority for this year!

5. Employee Listening: The Underrated Superpower

More teams are realising that two-way communication beats broadcast messaging. Engagement surveys, post-even forms and email are the most used methods for listening, but focus groups and independent audits came out on top for usefulness! In fact, interestingly, only 41% of respondents said they utilize focus groups, but 79% of those who do find them useful.

The real kicker? Only 40% of respondents had personally reviewed a listening strategy. And 1 in 3 said they didn’t have one at all. If you don’t have one yet, it’s time to start!

6. Budget Battle: Still Fighting for a Seat at the (Funding) Table

Good news: More comms teams have dedicated budgets than before. Just over half of respondents said they have a dedicated comms budget. Bad news? 1 in 4 still have to beg other teams for funding. And for those on an ad hoc budget, proving the value of internal comms remains a constant struggle.

If any of that has given you food-for-thought and you think your internal comms strategy needs a bit of a brush-up, or your wider comms offering needs a thorough health-check, why not drop us a line? We’d love to chat (over another biscuit, obvs!).

Pages from Gallagher's report. All images and insights are owned by Gallagher.

But finally, we thought it might be helpful to end with a few potential “quick win” opportunities identified within the Gallagher report. These are the comms channels with low current usage, but high effectiveness when used. Could one or two of these be seized upon by your organisation?

Leader-to-employee channels:

• Leader’s blog: 17% usage but 74% effectiveness

Company-to-employee channels

• Messaging apps (SMS, WhatsApp): 12% usage but 75% effectiveness

• Digital magazine: 12% usage but 74% effectiveness

Employee-to-employee channels

• Social platforms: 16% usage but 68% effectiveness

• Online peer-to-peer recognition platform: 38% usage but 72% effectiveness

Employee self-service channels

• Extranet: 4% usage but 68% effectiveness

• Comms apps: 17% usage but 70% effectiveness