Gallagher Survey: How to Thrive in Internal Comms in 2025

For 17 years, Gallagher has chronicled the evolution of the internal communication function using survey feedback from industry professionals.

Poppulo is proud to once again partner with Gallagher on the 2024/25 edition of their State of the Sector report. Reflecting the day-to-day realities of more than 2,000 communicators from 55 countries, this year’s research uncovers trends in AI, the purpose of IC, stakeholder relationships, channel effectiveness, and more. The overarching theme? Constant change.

For the first time, the report segments data across three profiles: comms Survivors, Strivers, and Thrivers:

• Survivors represent the 11% of respondents operating in difficult conditions and struggling to stay afloat
• Strivers were the majority at 55%, who are building a strong foundation for growth but fall short of consistently meeting KPIs
• Thrivers are the cool and confident top 34% of performers who excel at navigating the corporate landscape

So, what can we learn from the Thrivers that could make work more fulfilling and impactful for more communicators?

Here are my key takeaways on how to become (or remain) a comms Thriver:

1. Use data to showcase comms impact and gain trust by focusing on business impact metrics.

Gallagher found that Thrivers are more invested in measurement and consistently use data to show their value to the business. This behavior correlated strongly with Thrivers’ relationship with leaders and confidence in their function’s impact. 

Interestingly, some Survivors also reported high data usage, but there was no correlation with their ability to show the value of communications.

One common reason for this gap is a failure to connect comms performance metrics to business impact measures. Similarly, Gallagher found that though many respondents said they were accountable for success indicators, they were not tracking performance against these measures.

Connecting comms results to business metrics (e.g., employee retention and engagement scores) will also help you build more strategic relationships, another area where Thrivers excel.

2. Ensure that comms objectives align with broader business goals.

This feels like an obvious statement for any function, yet, concerningly, just 25% of Survivors agreed that their daily activity aligns with business objectives. If we don’t believe that the work we’re doing has a meaningful impact on the business, why should our roles exist at all?

Gallagher found that Survivors spend more time in the weeds focused on tactics. Thrivers strike a balance between tactics and strategy, putting more energy into overarching documents like a comms strategy, annual master plan, or audience personas.

To rise above the daily grind, consider what activities you can stop doing to make room for more strategic work. Depending on your level, this may involve a conversation with your manager or your leadership team. Be sure to educate others on the expected business impact of strategic comms initiatives.

The report recommends taking the time as a comms team to define your purpose and align with leadership. One way to bring this to life is by creating a short set of slides defining your team’s charter, major goals and focus areas, and near-and long-term priorities.

Having an artifact that you can socialize and refer back to will ensure stakeholders are aware of your priorities and the value your function brings to the business. With a clear purpose and stakeholder alignment, you’ll also find it easier to protect your time to focus on high-value activities.

3. Spend more time on architectural tasks like planning, strategy, and relationships.

Survivors reported spending 2x as much time on admin tasks compared to Thrivers. In contrast, Thrivers spent 2x more of their time on employee listening and contributing to business decision-making.

However, time is one challenge that spans all cohorts, with “lack of time and capacity in my team” appearing once again as the top challenge for IC teams. The areas we’ve reviewed so far of making better use of data and aligning priorities to business objectives can both help address this core challenge indirectly.

Technology is also a key productivity enhancer—take one Poppulo customer, WPP, for example, which saves 15 hours/communicator/month using our employee communications platform.

With the continued rise of AI, we will start to see the persistent comms resourcing challenge finally start to diminish. I’ll even go so far as to predict that it will lose its number-one spot within the next two years.

As Gallagher mentions in the report, Agentic AI, “wherein AI will take on the ability to reason and take action,” is changing the game of what’s possible with AI, introducing the ability to handle more complex tasks with greater accuracy than previous models.

Imagine asking your AI assistant to provide a list of all change-related communications from the past year with insights on which messages, channels, and modalities drove the greatest impact. These agents will help you accomplish in minutes tasks that were previously out of reach due to time constraints, helping you produce more impactful work.

Communicators also see the potential of AI, with 24% open to outsourcing their admin work to AI. Other use cases where communicators are open to AI assistance include content creation, copywriting, editing, creating resources for managers/leaders, and comms strategy and planning. By outsourcing tasks to AI, Survivors and Thrivers alike can carve out more time for strategic work.

The Rise of Change Communication

Survivors, Strivers, and Thrivers alike had to contend with constant change over the past year. Gallagher found that “organizational change, integration, or M&A activity” was one of the top three high-volume topics reported by communicators for 2024.

Unsurprisingly, then, change fatigue was identified as the second highest barrier to internal comms success in 2025. As one communicator put it, “It’s gone beyond fatigue. It’s change exhaustion; disconnection; denial.”

If you’re struggling to navigate the blurring lines between change management and internal communication, we recommend visiting Poppulo’s Change Communicator's Toolbox. The Toolbox is a collection of our top resources for navigating change as an internal communicator, with on-demand expert webinars, templates, research, and more.

Channel Observations

What’s the state of channel health in 2025? Mixed. Around 50% of communicators report feeling dissatisfied with their channel’s ability to reach all employees, regardless of location or work style. 

Top used digital channels include:

• Email announcements (92%)
• Enterprise chat tools (75%)
• Intranet (72%)
• Virtual townhalls (68%)
• E-newsletters (65%)

Top-ranked channels by effectiveness:

• All-employee town halls (87% effective when in person, 86% when virtual)
• Manager-specific conferences (85% effective when in person, 84% when virtual)
• Email announcements (appear to come from leader) (80% effective)
• Leader video to employees (79% effective)
• Email announcements (78% effective)

The reality today is there’s no one-size-fits-all channel for reaching and engaging your entire workforce. To accommodate different working styles, generations, locations, and preferences, we recommend a multichannel strategy anchored in as few creation and publishing tools as possible to maximize communicator efficiency.

Poppulo’s multichannel employee communications platform helps the world’s leading brands—including more than 40 of the Fortune 100—transform communications into a strategic business driver.

With advanced analytics and the ability to centrally create and publish content to email, newsletters, Microsoft SharePoint, Teams, and digital signage, we’re experts in helping organizations engage all employees and drive business outcomes through effective communication.

Interested in learning more about how the latest advancements in AI and multichannel communications software can help your team thrive? Contact us to speak with an expert.