With all the hours internal communicators spend carefully crafting messages, the last thing you’d want to see is evidence showing that it’s not helping employees feel connected to the organization. But new data shows that relatively few employees are feeling connected at work — and that issue may fall at the feet of internal communicators to solve.
The Achievers Workforce Institute’s 2026 Engagement and Retention Report, a survey of over 2,500 employees and 1,500 HR pros, reported that only 20% of employees felt that company communicators helped them feel informed and connected. In addition, the report stated that just 21% of respondents said they were able to access the people they needed to be productive, and 23% said they had access to the resources they needed to succeed. The data also revealed that just 19% of employees felt connected to their manager.
Taken as a whole, the data describes the same lackluster employee experience from different angles. Employees don’t feel connected to their companies because of a lack of information, don’t know who to turn to or where to look for necessary resources, and can’t make sense of what the company is communicating without a connection to their manager. These gaps can weaken trust in a major way.
There’s a disconnect between what internal communicators are providing to their colleagues and what employees feel they need from those messages. Even if your messages are well-crafted and well-made, if they don’t provide information that allows employees to feel more a part of the organization or succeed in their roles, it’s tough to call them successful.
The fact that just one in five employees felt company communications were informative can be taken as a signal for internal comms that they must make access to information easier for employees and foster a company culture. Rather than viewing their work as message distribution, internal communicators can reframe their efforts as tool sharing for employees. For instance, adding a section to employee communications that adds context and who to get in touch with if there are questions are seemingly small steps that can make communication more impactful and connective.
Additionally, with employees struggling to locate the people and resources they need, anxieties can build and negatively impact company culture. For internal communicators, this requires a proactive stance that anticipates employee needs and actively listens.
Internal comms can help solve this problem by connecting dots and removing ambiguity about people and processes in their messaging. Messaging should reinforce employee priorities, explain how and why decisions are made and provide reassurance that employees are acting in alignment with the organization.That little bit of confidence can help improve trust in the organization among employees, and reinforcing trust that builds culture can prove as important as any informational comms update.
Considering the rest of the data, it’s no surprise that only 19% of employees feel connected to their manager — the person employees rely on to interpret and apply internal messages. For internal communicators, it affirms the reality that managers are the interpretive layer of employee comms. That interpretation helps employees figure out what matters in a piece of messaging, how they fit into it and how their priorities connect to those of the organization.
Internal comms can help bridge this gap by equipping managers with tools to frame messages in ways that make sense for their teams. This can take the form of FAQ docs and message prompts that help turn one-way internal comms updates into two-way dialogues. If internal comms can help managers explain the why behind their messages, engagement and connection stand to rise.
Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications.
