The start of a new year always sees a raft of new “trends” or predictions being talked about, whatever industry you’re in, and internal communications is no different.
From the next generation of AI to which wellbeing services organisations should be providing, there’s certainly a lot to unpack.
But how do we, as internal communicators, know what to focus on and where to start?
In a recent webinar for Workvivo I gave my take on the things I believe are worth paying attention to this year and how to make sure they work for your organisation. This blog – ‘Top priorities for internal communication in 2025’, gives a summary of those thoughts and a useful action plan to help you avoid the overwhelm and get started.
Out with the old, in with the new?
It can be very easy to get distracted by shiny new trends at the start of a new year but what’s really important is to always relate these back to your priorities.
The definition of a trend is “a general direction that’s going to develop or change” and that general direction is pretty similar every year in the internal communications world. So, what I want to do here is not just look at the brand new things but the areas which have always been around, where we need to remain consistent. We must not be so blinded by new technology and new buzzwords that we forget these foundations.
Leadership and workplace trends for 2025
It’s important not to look at internal communications trends in isolation, as everything we do in communications is also going to be linked with more general leadership trends and workplace trends – and, to a lesser extent, HR too.
I thought it would be helpful to start by looking at the broader leadership and workplace trends, before focusing on those that apply more specifically to internal communications.
In all the articles I reviewed there were four things that came up consistently:
- AI – A shift from generative AI to Agentic AI which is more advanced and more able to solve problems learning from the environment.
- Employee wellbeing and burnout – A renewed focus on how this should translate into employee experience, engagement and advocacy.
- Leadership development – A strong understanding around the need for leaders to be more empathetic, have better communication skills and embrace the ‘soft skills’ of leading others.
- Culture and hybrid work – Creating a space to focus on what this really looks like for your workplace. More intention and time being given to what is needed to make the culture and hybrid work well with the right tools in place.
Internal communications ‘priorities’ for 2025
Inevitably, there is much overlap between the trends above and those within internal communications. Over 30 different suggestions arose from our review of articles – many of which we were talking about five or ten years ago – and it would be impossible to tackle them all, so I’m proposing we rename them ‘priorities’.
The key is obviously to take the most important ones and apply them to you and your team, but here are the ones I would give the greatest focus to:
1) AI – In 2025 we need to be intentionally developing our skills in this area. If you’re already using it, continue to evolve this. If not, it’s time to make space and play. I’ve found it really useful for idea generation, grabbing text from images and data analysis among other things.
Importantly, don’t panic about it – try to remember that at this stage most people are talking about it more than they’re actually using it.
2) Creativity – This is a subject that’s been around for a few years now. It’s about being able to cut through the noise and get people to pay attention.
Have conversations about the ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’. How could you be communicating things differently?
Create the space to learn, play and do things differently. This applies to many of the things covered in this blog. Don’t just keep doing everything the way you’ve always done it.
3) Emails – Need to be better. There are so many other ways to communicate now but email is still extremely relevant and here to stay. Finding a way to make them stand out from the other channels is key. Every email needs to be relevant and necessary. Review your newsletters, email etiquette and model behaviours for email in general.
4) Improve leadership communications – Make the time to review your strategy for improving leaders’ communication skills. If you don’t have one, create one. Be clear on whether you’re able to help in this department, or whether you need to bring in outside help.
Longer term trends – what they show us
I thought it would be helpful when coming up with our action plans for 2025 to look not only at the important issues this year but to set them in the context of the longer term priorities, challenges and consistent barriers that come up.
To do this I reviewed the State of the Sector research, which has been produced annually by Gallagher’s Employee Experience and Communication team for the last nine years. These are the continual themes:
- The who not the how: Nine years ago, there was a lot of talk about the channels. Over time, this has shifted to be more about who’s doing the communicating.
The importance of the line manager, the leader and the leadership team has increased as the use of digital tools increases. As the tools become ‘easier’, the person delivering the message, and their skills, has become more important. - Constant truths: Top priorities for teams since 2016 have remained consistent:
Communicating strategy/values/proposition, line manager communications, developing and refreshing the IC strategy.
- Lack of budget: This has grown as an issue over the years, making it important to always ask ‘why’ when deciding on a course of action: what is the budget for? What are the risks if the budget isn’t there? What are the alternatives? Creating business cases linked to organisational metrics needs to become the norm. We have to put the time and effort into being able to argue the case for resources.
- Disengaged staff: This has been appearing as a challenge since 2016. How do we overcome it? What is in the control or influence of the internal communications function? Where is the link between communication activity and engagement when it comes to the value of what internal comms is there to do? This is an issue stemming from a lack of trust in the leadership team, and they need to fix this. We can help but must remember that it’s not our problem to solve.
- The challenge with trust: A recurring theme. If leaders aren’t trustworthy then engagement will be low. This hasn’t shifted for nine years which means that the challenge for the communicator isn’t going to be found in content and channels. Again, it’s not something that communications can, or should, fix on their own.
Your 2025 internal communication action plan
Below is a quick summary of the specific things I would consider as a starting point for my 2025 action plan. Hopefully it will provide some useful inspiration for yours. Remember, the question to come back to is always ‘what is the purpose of internal comms in this organisation?’
- Embrace AI: How can it help you with your role? How can you upskill? How do you plan to learn about it? Create time to learn and play.
- Culture and comms combined: Make sure the content and channel strategy you have supports the culture of the organisation. Be clear on what this is with leaders. What are the values, behaviours etc? How does your content and channels align with that?
- Become an advisor: You need to be able to advise and support those around you, helping them with their communication skills. This, ultimately, has implications for things like budget and team growth. Look at whether you need a coach or mentor to help develop these skills.
- Make space to plan: Carving out the time to review your strategy, plans, channels and content is essential. You need to understand the priorities and what needs to happen when. It all comes back to making sure everything is aligned with organisational needs and the purpose of what your function is there to do.
If your organisation would like some help getting started with its internal communications strategy for 2025, or you need support in upskilling leaders to be better communicators, drop our team a message at info@redefiningcomms.com
