An eye opening piece of internal comms research dropped recently: the IC Index 2026. It’s a survey of 5,000 workers by the folks at Institute of Internal Communication (IOIC), Ipsos, and Karian & Box. 

It's one of those reports that validates what a lot of IC leaders already feel in their bones, but now have the numbers to prove.

But also... it might be a wakeup call for a lot of comms leaders (and execs).

The world being what it is right now, the business world feels uncertain to say the least. Whether you want to point fingers at AI, the economy, or shifting regulations, the result is the same: the frequency and volume of organizational change is going up. Restructures and redundancies have both surged 12 percentage points in a year, where now over 50% of employees say they had a restructure this year, and over 1 in 3 witnessed redundancies.

More change, less clarity. It’s a trust problem waiting to happen, and this data shows that's already rearing its head.

For instance, only 49% of employees agree that the reasons behind change are clearly communicated to them. That number was 56% in 2023, which is a big drop in alignment.

So it makes sense that employee trust in CEOs and senior leadership teams also plunged, from 67% to 58% in a single year.

Amplifying leadership voices matters though: hearing directly from the CEO correlates with higher trust and clearer understanding of why changes are happening. 

When employees hear from the top, the message lands differently. It’s more than mere hierarchy: a human voice carries tone, intent, and conviction in ways a mass email never will.

Comms challenges are structural too.

Non-desk and digitally disconnected employees are more likely to hear about major changes through word of mouth than from leadership. 

One in five hear it from a colleague before they hear it from anyone with actual context. 

That's not a comms failure on any individual's part -- more of a channel gap. Deskless workers consistently feel less connected to their organization, have less trust in the CEO, feel less comfortable sharing their opinions, and are less likely to recommend their employer. 

The report doesn't mince words: communications are "failing the frontline."

And even for employees who are connected, attention is scarce: most have less than 10 minutes a day to engage with internal comms.

That's not a lot of runway for a strategy update or a change narrative.

So what actually works?

The research found that the orgs with the highest communication ratings were the ones where leaders were visible, open, showed empathy, and listened to and acted on feedback. That hasn't changed. 

These are the things that protect a company during volatile periods – they're what keep employees engaged and willing to advocate, even when the news is hard.

Interestingly, poor communication of good news actually damages advocacy more than poor communication of bad news. (I interpret this as people expect organizations to struggle with difficult messages).

But when you can't even share the wins clearly, it signals something deeper. The "nice-to-know" stuff isn't fluff – it's what builds the relational infrastructure that makes hard conversations possible later.

The report's authors put it well: internal communicators need to be unrelenting in their pursuit of clarity. 

Whether change is driven by growth ambitions, cost pressures, customer needs, or operational improvement, honest and jargon-free communication is not a "nice to have." It's the only reliable way to make change land. (Great time to remind your CEO that most change initiatives fail when the internal comms strategy doesn't get prioritized)

Comms are as much about format as message. If your workforce has five minutes and they're not at a desk, you need a channel that meets them where they are – not one that assumes they'll log in, scroll, and read. Manager meetings help, but they only go so far.

Increasingly, companies are turning to short, regular audio updates for exactly this reason: a quick internal podcast with key highlights from the CEO, consumed on a commute or between shifts, builds rapport at scale in a format deskless workers find genuinely accessible.

The report is worth a read if you're in IC, HR, or honestly just anywhere near a change program right now.

You can find their full report here. (fyi this is not an ad for IOIC, not affiliated with them, they just did really great work on this).