The old internal communications playbook is fighting a losing battle against quiet quitting. Here’s how to spot it, and what you need to change about your internal comms strategy now.
The internal comms crisis & quiet quitting – how did we get here?
Quiet quitting is a problem in many organisations that most people can feel before they can name it.
When engagement slips, it doesn’t happen overnight, and that makes things even more difficult. A sudden drop gets attention, but a slow fade tends to go unnoticed until it becomes too expensive to ignore
Recent data shows 21% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. In the UK, enthusiasm is even harder to find, with 90% of workers saying they don’t feel particularly energised by their role. More telling still, six in ten are disengaging without formally leaving. (Gallup, 2025)
This gets to heart of the issue: it’s not that workers are storming out en masse. Rather, they’re staying, but dialling things down. And internal comms sits right in the middle of all of it.
When communication works, people feel informed, included, and part of something. When it doesn’t, work becomes transactional. Tick the box, log off, and do it again tomorrow.
In short: It doesn’t come down to whether your people are motivated, because generally they are, but it points to a communication problem may well have been building over time.
What do internal comms do and where is it going wrong?
If you ask any number of professionals “what do internal comms do?” you’ll get a different answer every time. This is in no small part due to the fact that internal comms looks different depending on the organisation.
Announcements, strategy updates, leadership messaging, culture, change comms, crisis response. Sometimes even event planning.
That’s part of the problem. Internal communications has become responsible for everything, yet often owns very little.
And while output is high with emails, intranet posts, town halls, impact is sometimes still low.
It goes even deeper than that:
- 80% of leaders think their comms are helpful and relevant. Only 53% of employees agree. (Axios HQ, 2025)
- 72% of employees don’t have a full understanding of company strategy (Trade Press Services / Haiilo, 2024)
- 44% of employees say managers don’t provide clear information about the company’s vision (Haiilo, 2024)
So while internal comms are happening constantly, they’re not always managing to resonate.
It becomes background noise; heard but rarely processed.
The summary: unsuccessful internal comms aren’t a mark of low effort, but rather low impact.
The Guide Every Internal Comms Professional Needs
The Internal Comms Bible 2026
What is quiet quitting, and what does it look like day to day?
Quiet quitting is one of those phrases that sounds dramatic but plays out in very ordinary ways. By definition, it doesn’t come in the form of a big gestures or resignation letter. It looks more like a gradual withdrawal.
Quiet quitting examples:
- Contributing less in meetings
- Avoiding optional collaboration
- Doing exactly what’s required, nothing more
- Ignoring non-essential internal communications
- Switching off mentally long before the end of the day
Not rebellion, nor burnout in the traditional sense (but it can be an indicator of this). It’s more like detachment.
The misconception is that quiet quitters don’t care. They’re not necessarily disengaged from work itself. But they may be disengaged from the organisation, its direction, its messaging, and its sense of purpose.
If internal comms aren’t connecting the “why” to the “what,” people default to the minimum viable effort. It’s a rational response when you feel disconnected from the organisations mission.
In summary: It’s a mistake to characterise quiet quitting as laziness. But it is what happens when communication stops feeling relevant, and people feel disconnected from what your company is doing.
How can you spot quiet quitting before it spreads?
The tricky thing about quiet quitting is that it doesn’t announce itself. You won’t see it in a single metric, but it shows up in patterns.
Some quiet quitting signals are harder to spot:
- Lower engagement in internal platforms
- Declining attendance in optional meetings or events
- Reduced feedback (or only surface-level responses)
- Managers reporting “fine, but flat” team dynamics
Other quiet quitting indicators are more measurable:
- Productivity dips that don’t align with workload
- Increased attrition risk, even among steady performers
- Communication open rates without meaningful follow-up action
There’s also a behavioural shift. Teams become quieter, but not in a focused way – in a disconnected way.
Managers play a critical role here. Manager engagement dropped from 30% to 27% in 2024, with young managers under 35 falling five points and female managers dropping seven (Gallup, 2025). This matters because managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement. When managers switch off, entire teams follow.
The takeaway: quiet quitting is easier to prevent than to reverse, but only if you notice the early signs.
Why aren’t internal communications landing anymore?
The contradiction is that most organisations are communicating more than ever. So why does it feel like less is getting through?
Three underlying issues tend to show up again and again.
1. Volume without clarity
More messages don’t equal better understanding. If anything, they dilute it. People scan, skim, and move on.
2. Strategy without translation
Leaders talk strategy, but employees need context. What does this mean for me, today, in my role?
3. Consistency without connection
Regular updates are useful, but only if they feel relevant. Otherwise, they become routine noise.
There’s also the issue of change fatigue. Nearly half of communicators cite it as their biggest challenge. Organisations are constantly shifting with new priorities, structures, and messaging.
It’s a misconception that employees resist change, but they do resist unclear change.
And when internal comms don’t bridge that gap, people fill in the blanks themselves (usually with scepticism).
In summary: the problem isn’t about communication frequency, but rather relevance, clarity, and connection.
How do you fix internal comms (without simply increasing it)?
The instinct is often to do more to align people with your message. More emails, meetings and updates. But the fix is about precision rather than volume.
A few small changes make a disproportionate difference:
Make communication audience-first
Different teams absorb information differently. One-size-fits-all messaging rarely works.
Equip managers properly
Managers are the most trusted source of information for most employees. If they’re not confident communicators, the whole system weakens.
Create feedback loops that actually close
Collecting feedback is easy. Acting on it, and demonstrating that you have, is where trust builds.
Use moments, not just messages
This is where events come in. A well-designed internal event can do what months of emails can’t: create shared understanding in real time.
There’s something about being in the same (physical or virtual) space that cuts through noise. It adds tone, context, and energy that written comms often lack.
Measure what matters
Not just open rates or attendance. Look at behaviour change: are people acting differently after communication? If not, you may need to look at what you need to refine further.
The summary: fixing internal comms is about making what you say land.
Where do events fit into internal communications?
Events are often treated as standalone moments. Big announcements, annual gatherings or town halls – but they do more than that.
Think of them as anchors in your communication strategy. Points where attention is highest and messages have the best chance of sticking.
Done well, events for internal communications can:
- Clarify strategy
- Reinforce culture
- Build trust through visibility
- Give employees space to ask questions in real time
They also humanise leadership, and that matters more than most organisations realise.
There’s a noticeable difference between reading a message and experiencing it.
And when events are aligned with internal comms, not separate from it, they amplify everything else.
A quick but often missed point: partnering with a full-service events agency does more than improve delivery, it also extends your message’s reach. They’ll often handle the press release too, crafting the narrative and distributing it to relevant outlets through established media contacts. That external visibility can reinforce internal messaging in a way that feels cohesive, not fragmented.
In short: events are more than communication channels, they’re accelerators for engagement.
Final thoughts on internal communications and quiet quitting
Internal comms isn’t broken, but parts of it are outdated. The way people consume information has changed. What used to work is no longer sufficient, because attention is harder to earn.
Yet many organisations are still relying on the same formats, the same structures and assumptions.
Fixing it doesn’t require a complete overhaul. But it does require honesty about what’s working, and what isn’t.
Quiet quitting isn’t because your employees are ‘bad’, but it may indicate your messaging isn’t quite working.
Get the latest report on internal communications in 2026.
Ready to take the stress out of event planning?
Live Group helps organisations design and deliver personalised event experiences that engage audiences and achieve results. Contact us to discuss your next event.
