An internal communicators guide to comms overload

Lots of organisations talk about comms overload, but what does that really mean? For some, it’s about too many emails landing at once. For others, it’s the frustration of irrelevant updates that don’t apply to them or their role.

At its core, communication overload happens when the volume, frequency, or complexity of messages goes beyond an employee’s ability to process them. Too many messages reduce productivity, increase stress, and mean important updates can get missed.

But it’s organisations that communicate too little that face the biggest risks: low satisfaction, weak engagement, and declining advocacy. That’s according to the newly released IC Index 2025 A closer Look, a companion to this year’s main IC index that deep dives into the practical side of IC.

Is overcommunication really the problem?

According to the report most employees (74%) say they receive the right amount of communication. Fourteen per cent said they receive too much and 12% said too little. Among those who believe they receive they right amount, 75% rate their organisation’s communication as excellent. This figure declines markedly with those who say they receive too much or too little information. Interestingly, too little communication is said to do more harm than too much.

How to get the balance just right

Like Goldilocks and her porridge, employees don’t want too much or too little communication. They want it just right. Our role as communicators is to find the right balance between what colleagues want to hear about and what the organisation wants to push out. We also need to remember that two-way dialogue, as valuable as it is, takes time and effort from employees.

There are some useful pointers about what to do in the report. Over a third (36%) say they don’t receive enough information about pay and benefits making it the top “too little” topic. Career development, job guidance and clarity on organisational challenges also rank high. These are the issues that directly affect people’s working lives, and when employees don’t hear enough, their engagement drops sharply.

As comms guru Bill Quirk once said, “you can’t take someone else’s medicine.” You need to find what is going to work for your organisation.

Five practical steps to help IC 

1. Use the insights you already have, to understand how your colleagues experience communication in your organisation. Does your plan reflect what people have been telling you?

2. Build continuous listening into your approach so employees can share what’s landing, what’s missing and what they want to hear more about

3. Define the purpose of each channel so that colleagues know where to look for information and don’t feel the need to attend everything in case they miss out.

4. Establish a predictable communications cadence so you avoid disrupting employees with sporadic or ad-hoc messages. Consider a weekly roundup so that people can see news all in one place.

5. Resist the temptation to copy everyone into every message. Instead, segment by role, location, or interest so employees only receive what’s relevant to them. This way, the information that does land feels timely, targeted, and useful.