Poppulo research: The future of employee communications

Between April and July 2018, Poppulo conducted a unique piece of research into how employee communications are conducted by IC teams and resonate with employees across a diverse range of industries in the US and Europe.

With internal communications playing a key role in the employee experience, we set out, in conjunction with the world's leading ethnographic research company, Human Factors International, to investigate what communications mean from an employee perspective.The industries included: pharmaceuticals, infrastructure engineering, mail and transport services, healthcare and manufacturing.

Research methods included a combination of work environment observation and in-depth interviews with employees, line managers, and Internal Communicators - to obtain a full picture of communications flow through each organization.

During the research, four distinct generalized personas emerged, with commonly shared characteristics irrespective of industry or sector. The results also show a gulf between the priorities and activities of IC teams, on the one hand, and the needs and wants of employees on the other.