Most organizations recognize change management as their most pressing HR communications challenge, but a clear majority still lack a formal strategy to address it, a global report by Gallagher has found.
Some 57% of communications and HR professionals surveyed said change management would be the most critical skill in their organizations over the next 12 months, making it the top-ranked competency for the second consecutive year.
Yet 61% of companies reported having no structured approach to change communication, leaving internal teams to manage it on the fly.
The 2026 Employee Communications Report drew insights from more than 1,300 professionals across 40 countries. It also found that 83% of respondents identified information overload as a growing problem, a challenge the report linked directly to a lack of strategic planning.
Gallagher's data showed that organizations under pressure are responding by sending more messages to employees. But the approach is backfiring: in high-volume communication environments, employees were 30% more likely to lose trust in leadership and 24% more at risk of burnout.
Read more: "Change fatigue" a notable risk
The pattern follows warnings raised in Gallagher's 2025 report, which surveyed more than 2,000 leaders across 55 countries. That year, low capacity, change fatigue, and poor people manager communication ranked as the top three barriers to HR and communications success, with change fatigue appearing in the top five for the first time.
William F. Ziebell (pictured above), global CEO of Gallagher's Benefits & HR Consulting Division, said at the time that its "immediate arrival in second place" likely reflected a deeper failure of leadership direction. One year on, the data suggests little has shifted.
The report pointed to a widening gap between what is expected of internal communications teams and what they are resourced to deliver. Some 69% of firms have fewer than six people in a communications role, regardless of company size, while 87% identified manager skill and capacity gaps as a major risk.
One in five companies have less than $20,000 allocated for internal communications; one in three have no dedicated budget at all.
Employee Value Proposition remains a stated priority for many organizations, but only 15% have an active, socialized EVP. More than a third do not have one at all.
Desk-based organizations are three times more likely to have a well-understood EVP than primarily frontline workforces, with in-person town halls identified as the most effective channel for reaching frontline employees.
On artificial intelligence, 63% of HR and communications professionals said they are still experimenting, and 75% described their AI maturity as ad hoc or discussion-only. Just 5% reported optimized integration, with Gallagher noting that the absence of defined governance frameworks remains a significant gap.
Ziebell said effective change management communication depends on giving teams the resources to deliver the right message at the right time.
"If every message carries a sense of urgency, employees begin to tune out rather than listen closer," he said.
