The State of Internal Comms: Better Than You Think and Nowhere to Go But Up

If you spend time on LinkedIn, a reasonable person could conclude working in internal comms is miserable. Some posts would have you think internal comms pros are frustrated, lonely, unsupported and ineffective. Often, these posts attract many likes, shares and pile-on comments, along with genuine expressions of empathy and solidarity. 

As they say, “The struggle is real.” To be sure, everyone in every workplace has challenges, and people are doing great work in places where there could be more support for internal communications. And there are truly some bad situations that no one should minimize.

But, according to Gallagher’s latest State of the Sector report, the vast majority of internal communications professionals – almost 90% – are working in situations where the positives outweigh the negatives, and internal comms pros are making steady and measurable impact.

So, is the glass half empty or half full? To find out, I spoke with Gallagher’s Sharn Kleiss and Vinny Foreman, who led the research and analysis for this year’s State of the Sector report. 

Quantitative and qualitative

Now in its 17th year, the State of the Sector report is the go-to source for global benchmarks, trends and insights in internal communications. Gallagher spotlights a major theme for each edition of the report, and for the 2025 edition, the theme is “Constant Change.”

This year’s report reflects the views of 2,000+ executives, primarily from North America (47% of respondents) and the UK/Europe (42%). As in prior years, the survey’s respondents are evenly spread across sizes of organizations, industries, and seniority levels.

“Compared to last year, we had fewer responses,” Kleiss says, “But in terms of the general makeup of the response, it's about similar to what we've seen previously.”

Nevertheless, Gallagher made some changes to how they gathered information and conducted analysis. While the global survey of communicators is still a main driver of data, for the first time, the company factored in the views of an eight-member steering committee of communicators, plus discussions and focus groups with 50 others, adding a qualitative aspect to this year’s report that stands out from the first page to the last.

Survivors, strivers, and thrivers

A big change in this year’s report is Gallagher’s introduction of three communicator personas. 

According to Kleiss and Foreman, data analysis revealed response patterns when viewed through respondent-reported dimensions such as KPI performance, channel satisfaction, and relationship quality. These patterns formed the basis for these personas:  

• Survivors: Representing 11% of respondents, these internal comms pros work in an environment that is “particularly challenging, with limited structures, channels, and leadership direction.” Gallagher found this persona is likelier to be an individual contributor working in an organization with over 10,000 employees.

• Strivers: This group, representing 55% of survey respondents, says it’s made progress toward the organization’s purpose, though challenges remain in meeting KPIs and addressing change fatigue and other environmental factors. Gallagher says this cohort more likely works in medium or large organizations (5-10k employees), perhaps with an employee experience function, and is often part of a growing internal comms team.

• Thrivers: Representing 34% of respondents, this group is “confident and aligned with the organization’s vision, excelling at navigating the corporate landscape.” Notably, Thrivers are most likely to be a leaders with direct reports in an organization with less than 1,500 employees. 

Kleiss and Foreman hope the personas provide additional “nuance” when reviewing points throughout the report, prompting better-informed discussions and decision-making. 

That said, both noted that the profiles aren't prescriptive.

“When we talk about [the personas], we want to be very careful not to pigeonhole people or say one is better than the other,” Kleiss says. For example, she notes that being a "Thriver" doesn't necessarily mean better – they might be "lone wolves" who excel individually but don't build lasting organizational capability.

“I'm very cautious of averages,” says Foreman, pointing out that “everything's on a spectrum."

“I’m always trying to create value or reveal patterns, understanding ranges and influence of many attributes,” he says.

The report says that performance against KPIs was the biggest factor influencing the success of internal comms among respondents:

However, the working environment also plays a significant role in shaping the overall performance for communications. According to the report, “even leaders in the Survivor group don’t have the collaborative sway of individuals in the Thriver group. On a positive note, Survivors prioritize stakeholder management skills over others, showing an awareness of the opportunity for improvement.”

Kleiss says that individuals who completed the State of the Sector survey in full to gain access to the results dashboard will receive an email identifying what persona their responses lined up with, as well as a personalized breakdown of scores across key dimensions. 

The purpose of internal comms in 2025

Like in prior years, the State of the Sector asked communicators to identify the purpose of internal communications, and this year’s survey revealed some shifts.

Survey respondents this year ranked “Strategic Alignment,” or creating clarity around company purpose and vision, as the main purpose for internal communications within an organization. Last year, respondents said “Culture & Belonging” was the top purpose for internal comms, which moved to the number two priority this year. Coming in third in the 2025 survey was “Organizational Agility,” i.e., helping the organization adopt new behaviors.

Looking at the rankings through Gallagher’s personas reveals some interesting nuances. For example, Survivor respondents did not rank strategic alignment among the top three purposes of internal comms, favoring culture & belonging, organizational agility, and employee listening as priorities. Strivers would also have ranked Culture & Belonging as the number one priority.

According to Kleiss and Foreman, the data reveals regional differences as well. For example, Western European communicators still prioritized cultural belonging over strategic alignment, highlighting important regional differences in how communications teams operate.

The report also examines respondents’ perceptions of progress against those priorities and the top blockers in achieving them, including many filtered through the lens of the three personas. 

A treasure trove

This year’s State of the Sector report includes more than 35 pages of data and analysis that internal comms leaders can use to drive quality conversations with their team, colleagues and leaders. A few other highlights from Gallagher’s research:

• The report shows that communicators have, on average, seven KPIs, and six of those are shared with other departments. “That puts comms in a really risky position because if you take comms out of the picture, those six KPIs are covered by someone else," Kleiss says, noting that it raises important questions about how communications teams demonstrate their unique value. On the other hand, with goals like “Behavior Change,” where comms alone can’t make people act differently, recognizing shared responsibility is likely a good thing.

• For the first time, this year's report breaks out differences between US and UK respondents, the two largest groups of survey respondents by location (and the two largest geographies for Strictly Internal subscribers). For example, overall numbers are slightly up this year when it comes to communicator wellbeing. Still, UK respondents were likelier to say their wellbeing had deteriorated in the past year. Elsewhere, US respondents say they communicate more about benefits, rewards, and compensation topics and less about DEI topics than their UK counterparts. 

• The report also sheds light on AI usage among internal comms professionals, with 80% saying they are comfortable with AI assisting with content creation and copywriting and 10% saying they were happy for AI to take over the work entirely. However, for administrative tasks, 24% said they’d like AI to handle such tasks, but surprisingly, 19% were not comfortable with any AI intervention at all. 38% said there is no guidance on AI and no group responsible for AI within their organization. 

• It also covers the transformation and change communications, 18% of respondents said their organization didn’t have a change communications strategy, despite 95% communicating about change activity in 2024.1 in 4 respondents knew a change comms plan existed but hadn’t personally reviewed it.

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In my conversation with Kleiss and Foreman, both emphasized the importance of going beyond surface-level data and averages to find meaningful patterns that can spark real discussions that improve internal comms in the organization. Gallagher’s 2025 State of the Sector report offers a perfect springboard for internal comms teams to benchmark their performance, rethink priorities, and change their trajectory.