Why Internal Communication Isn’t Working and What Organisations Need To Do Differently

Employees are overwhelmed with information.

Emails pile up faster than they can be read. Teams messages disappear in busy chat channels. Intranets often become places employees visit only when they absolutely have to. And for frontline workers, critical updates may never reach them at all.

For Communication Managers, HR leaders, and People & Culture teams, this creates a growing challenge: how do you ensure important messages are not just sent, but actually seen, understood, and acted on?

In today’s hybrid workplace, communication failure is rarely caused by lack of effort. Most organisations are already producing more content than ever before. The real issue is visibility.

The Problem with Traditional Workplace Communication

The modern workforce is fragmented.

Some employees sit at desks all day, while others work remotely, travel between locations, or spend their shifts on factory floors, retail sites, warehouses, or customer-facing environments. Yet many organisations still rely heavily on channels designed for desk-based work.

The result?

• Important updates are missed
• Safety and compliance messaging loses impact
• Change management communications struggle to land
• Employees feel disconnected from business priorities and culture

When communication becomes inconsistent or invisible, engagement suffers. Teams become less aligned, information gaps emerge, and leaders often find themselves repeating the same messages across multiple channels.

The challenge isn’t necessarily the message itself, it’s how and where it’s delivered. Research and workplace trends increasingly show that people are far more likely to engage with communication that is visual, timely, and easy to absorb in the flow of work.

Rethinking Workplace Communication

This is where organisations are beginning to rethink their approach.

Rather than relying solely on inboxes and intranets, businesses are turning everyday workplace touchpoints into communication channels, from desktop screens and lock screens to meeting room displays and digital signage.

Through Ricoh New Zealand’s partnership with Vibe.fyi, organisations can transform underutilised screens into engaging communication tools designed to cut through digital noise and reach employees wherever they work.

Instead of expecting employees to go looking for information, messages are brought to them in moments they naturally engage with throughout the workday.

Making Messages Stick

One of the biggest barriers to workplace communication is retention.

A single email announcement may be read once and forgotten. But repeated, visual messaging delivered in small, digestible formats helps reinforce key information over time.

Whether it’s a health and safety reminder, a leadership update, cybersecurity awareness, learning content, or a company-wide initiative, communication becomes easier to remember when it is delivered in short, visually engaging moments across multiple channels. Ricoh and Vibe’s approach focuses on creating “glanceable” communications that fit naturally into the employee experience rather than competing for attention.