Employees aren’t ignoring your messaging because of volume. This is the real problem.

Half of employees in a recent study reported that the amount of internal messaging they receive is just about right. But at the same time, almost as many employees are tuning out that messaging.

That issue is one of the main findings of Reworked and Korbyt’s new white paper, “The State of Workplace Communication.” The report interviewed over 1,100 employees and found that volume of messaging isn’t the main problem — it’s the clarity with which information is delivered.

According to the report, 44% of employees said they’re overwhelmed by workplace communication, and 46% said they were more likely to disengage if an internal comms message was too repetitive. 40% said they tuned out communication if the message was too generic to apply to their jobs.

The data shows an interesting conundrum for comms pros. Employees may not necessarily be measuring communication overload by the number of messages they get, but by how useful the messages they do get actually are.

For communicators, the findings may challenge the idea that repeating the same message across every channel automatically improves reach.

The report also suggested that employees are still willing to engage with internal comms when the information feels useful and relevant to their work, especially when it comes from a trusted source. In fact, 57% of employees said they pay attention to internal comms when the message is timely or urgent.

Employees want internal comms that apply to them

The data also showed that employees appear to value internal communication that is both practical and believable. It found that workers consistently pointed to credibility, clarity and relevance as the most important factors that determined whether or not a message resonated with them.

• 73% stated the source of the message is a major factor in determining whether or not they’ll trust a piece of internal comms
• 59% said clarity and specificity determine whether or not an employee will deem a message accurate
• 50% of employees said operational updates help them feel connected at work, with recognition messaging (42%) and mission-based messaging (40%) not far behind

The report’s findings suggest employees may feel more connected to their companies when communication explains what’s happening inside the business, rather than messaging that focuses on culture. Employees may still appreciate hearing about culture-building events like company gatherings or social activities. Still, the data suggests they place more weight on communication that’s tied to business priorities and job expectations.

AI is fine in internal messaging, so long as it reduces noise

The white paper found that while employees have AI on their minds, they’re not concerned about communicators using automation in and of itself, but more how that automation manifests in messaging. The data showed that employees were more open to AI in comms when it was used to break down information rather than to generate messages.

The report’s findings suggest that there’s a distinction employees are drawing between AI’s role in improving communication and the use of automation to simply create more messages to sift through. The majority of respondents showed support for AI when it reduces friction in communications, but were more skeptical about messaging that screams a robot put it together. This lines up with the white paper’s wider findings about messaging fatigue. The report ultimately suggests employees aren’t tuning out internal comms generally. They’re just tuning out the messaging they view as vague, repetitive or not connected to their day-to-day work.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications.