What internal communicators are really thinking in 2025 | Haiilo Breakfast Club Edition

Internal communication is evolving. Fast. And if you’re leading the charge at your company, it can feel like you’re solving a puzzle with new pieces added every week: declining engagement, too many channels, not enough leadership buy-in… sound familiar?

In April, we brought the Haiilo Breakfast Club to Cologne — fresh coffee, cathedral views, and internal comms professionals from companies of all sizes gathered to exchange ideas, share challenges, and get inspired. We were joined by speakers from SOS-Kinderdorf, Gallagher, and Haiilo – and most importantly, a room full of engaged practitioners eager to learn from each other.

Here are three of the most important conversations we had, plus some takeaways to help you move from problem to progress.

🧠 Challenge #1: “Why don’t people interact with our intranet?”

This might be the most universal frustration in internal comms: You’re posting updates, celebrating wins, asking for input. And yet, nothing.

But here’s what the group uncovered: silence doesn’t always mean failure. Often, people are reading — they just don’t feel motivated or safe enough to engage. Time pressure, unclear expectations, and lack of trust all play a role. On top of that, people default to private chats for the “good stuff,” leaving communities underused and new joiners out of the loop.

So how can you turn passive readers into active participants?

What our participants suggested:

• Creating space for lightweight interaction: simple polls, playful posts, “Pet of the Week”–style content that invites low-pressure engagement.
• Making relevance the priority: targeting content by team or role, and asking employees what they actually want to see.
• Showing impact: explicitly connecting employee input to real decisions — e.g. “Based on your feedback, we’ve changed X.”
• Shifting tone: writing like a person, not a department, to build familiarity and trust.

💡Read: How to launch an intranet: a step-by-step guide

✅ Takeaway: Before you focus on the mechanics of the intranet, think about the culture around it. People need to feel it’s safe, useful, and theirs before they start showing up and speaking up.

🗂 Challenge #2: “How do we help people find the right information — without overloading them?”

Internal communications is often caught in the trap of “just one more update.” Our participants at Haiilo Breakfast Club reported that employees are drowning in messages, clicking less, and tuning out altogether.

💡Read: How fragmented tools are hurting your team

The issue isn’t necessarily lack of access — it’s lack of clarity. Most people don’t know where to look, what they’re subscribed to, or which pages are relevant. And when they do search, the results are outdated or irrelevant.

What our participants suggested:

• Creating a central newsroom or digital home to prioritize the most important updates and reduce overload.
• Replacing PDF attachments and email blasts with a “single source of truth” — directing everyone to one trusted intranet space.
• Improving search by tagging content and using AI tools to surface what matters most.
• Giving departments ownership over their own spaces — but supporting them with structure to maintain quality.
  

✅ Takeaway: Employees want to be informed — they just don’t want to dig for it. Think less about volume, more about visibility and ease. Organize your content like a digital product: intuitive, searchable, and tailored to the user.

🧑‍💼 Challenge #3: “How do we get leaders to show up — and speak up?”

When leadership is quiet, employees notice. And in too many companies, the intranet still feels like a place where internal comms and HR talk at people, while leaders stay in the background.

So what’s stopping them from getting involved? Fear of saying the wrong thing. Lack of time. Not seeing the value. Or simply not knowing where to start.

What our participants suggested:

• Making it easy: preparing drafts, offering coaching, or even ghostwriting short updates.
• Normalizing authenticity: encouraging less formal, more human communication — short videos, personal reflections, even emojis.
• Showing the upside: not just the importance of communication, but the risk of silence — missed engagement, unclear priorities, cultural disconnect.

✅ Takeaway: Leadership visibility isn’t about long speeches or polished posts, it’s about being present. A short comment, a quick update, a genuine message can go a long way in building trust and showing alignment.

💡Read: What is knowledge-sharing culture and how to build it

Final thoughts: you’re not alone in this

If you’ve been facing low interaction, information overload, or disconnected leadership — you’re in good company. But the good news is that internal comms professionals are already experimenting, adapting, and supporting each other through these challenges.

And here’s the biggest shift happening across the board: internal communication isn’t just about content anymore. It’s about community. The tools matter. But the trust behind them matters more.

So ask yourself:

• Are we creating real space for employees to engage — or just pushing updates?
• Are we curating information for clarity — or leaving people to figure it out?
• Are we helping leaders communicate — or assuming they know how?

Small changes add up. And with the right mindset (and a few good ideas from peers), you can make a big impact.

💡Read: What the data says about intranet impact

How can Haiilo help?

Haiilo gives internal communicators the tools to cut through the noise, boost engagement, and make comms feel relevant again.

• Share content people actually want to see — in the formats they’ll engage with
• Keep updates clear and focused in one place that’s easy to navigate
• Make it easy for leaders to show up with quick, authentic messages
• Help employees find what they need without digging
• Create an intranet that feels useful, familiar, and worth returning to