Unpacking purpose and priorities for internal comms pros in 2025
A closer look at the trends employee comms pros need to know.
The best internal comms pros knowing the motivations and needs of their audience, their organization’s employees. A deep knowledge of their colleagues can help craft effective content and form the basis of a robust work culture.
Gallagher’s 2025 Employee Communications Report dissected the ins and outs of internal comms workflows and identified the topics, challenges and overall purpose of their work. To learn more, Ragan spoke with Chris Lee, vice president of communications, marketing and employee experience at Gallagher, to explore what internal communicators are up against this year and how to rise to the occasion.
The ultimate purpose and priorities of internal comms
When internal comms is at its strongest, its purpose should be apparent to anyone who comes across the content and messaging. The data revealed that the top purpose for communicators was strategic alignment with the organization’s messaging and tone, followed by culture and belonging, and organizational agility, respectively.
Lee told Ragan that while communicators should keep strategic alignment at the front of their minds, they need to think about it within the context of what employee groups they’re creating messaging for and the tone they’re aiming to achieve.
“These are really important parts of a communicator’s responsibility in an organization,” Lee said. “Strategic alignment is not just about telling people what the vision is. It’s about helping them feel connected to it.”
The report also found that when it came to priorities for internal comms pros, 67% of communications reported their most important duty was engaging the employee base on purpose and values.
Lee added that the most successful internal comms pros weave references to their organization’s purpose and values throughout their messaging to drive home what the company is all about frequently.
“This is a golden age for internal communications teams to really play a role in creating the conditions for a work experience that resonates with the human behind the employee,” Lee said.
Confronting barriers to success
Even the best comms pros aren’t without their struggles. The data found that nearly half (49%) of respondents reported a lack of time or resources as the top barrier to achieving their goals. Other major barriers included change fatigue (44%, and a major concern in an uncertain economy) and poor manager communications (41%).
Lee said that none of these issues happen in a vacuum and are often tied to one another, making barriers to success even higher for communicators.
“Look at change fatigue, for instance,” he said. “Change itself isn’t an issue of poor leadership, but the data shows a tie between lacking leadership skills and poor reaction to change from employees.”
Lee added that another barrier is a lack of connection between communicators and leadership. Additionally, the report found that a lack of visibility into which leaders are communicating with one another forms another issue for communicators. This can create a situation in which internal messaging and tone get muddled, creating confusion and cultural damage.
“The worst employee communications experiences are the ones where different players in leadership are telling a different version of things,” Lee said. He said that in addition to the well-known idea that communicators should hold influence within how decisions are rolled out, they’re also a safeguard against volatility.
“If comms is looked at as a tactical last step, you’re going to have a much harder time dealing with volatility,” Lee said. “If you’re only brought in at the end to send out the message, you’ve already missed the most important part of the conversation.”
Lee said that communicators can help humanize their leaders through messaging that features more of their personalities. This is especially important when leaders are forced to make potentially tough choices that need to be discussed. With more relatable personalities in the C-suite, the top brass stands a better chance of currying favor with the employee audience.
“Internal communications has a big role to play in helping leaders come across as thoughtful, approachable and real,” he said. “In this case, the book cover is just as important as the contents of the book — and leadership is often judged by that cover.”
Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications. In his spare time he enjoys Philly sports and hosting trivia.
