Why Your Internal Communication Isn’t Working and What to Do About It

Most internal communication doesn’t fail because teams can’t write.

It fails because the messages feel scattered, inconsistent or just… exhausting.

If you’re leading a remote or hybrid team, you’ve probably felt it:

• Updates buried in chat threads

• Onboarding that feels like a scavenger hunt

• A company “voice” that shifts depending on who’s writing

• Policies are published but no one knows where to find them

  
  

And after a while, people stop paying attention, not because they don’t care but because the effort to keep up becomes too high.

This isn’t a problem of individual skill. It’s a system problem. And it’s especially common in remote or hybrid teams where communication has to work without the nudge of in-person interaction.

The real reasons your internal messages fall flat

Even thoughtful, well-written updates can fail to do their job when the surrounding conditions aren't set up to support them.

Here are some of the most common underlying causes:

1. Too many tools, not enough flow

When Slack, Teams, Notion, email and SharePoint are all in play with no clear division of purpose updates get lost in the noise. There’s no reliable place to “anchor” important information, so people are forced to hunt.

2. No shared tone of voice

If your onboarding email sounds friendly and clear but your HR policy sounds cold and legalistic and your weekly update is full of jokes… it creates confusion. People don’t know what to expect. Tone isn’t just style it’s trust.

3. No communication rhythm

A message that appears randomly in a random format, in a random place is a message that’s easy to ignore. When teams have no rhythm (e.g. monthly updates, onboarding flow, campaign timeline), there’s no internal logic to how information is shared. Everything feels reactive.

4. Overloaded formats

A SharePoint page with a wall of text, newsletter with five unrelated announcements, Slack post with six bullet points and a follow-up thread. These are all signals of a deeper issue: formatting is doing nothing to support the content.

What this looks like in real life

If you're leading or supporting a team especially in a remote or async environment, these signs might feel familiar:

• Updates buried in chat threads

• New hires lost in onboarding or unsure where to start

• Conflicting versions of the same message

• A company voice that depends on who's writing that week

• Policies people agree with but can't remember where to find

  
  

This isn’t just frustrating. It slows teams down, erodes trust and leads to real gaps in understanding sometimes with serious consequences.

So what can you actually do?

Here’s the good news: most of these issues don’t require hiring a full-time comms person or writing a 60-page playbook. A few key changes in structure, rhythm and formatting can improve things fast — especially for small and scaling teams.

• Start with a clear purpose for each tool

What lives in Slack? What goes in SharePoint? What belongs in a Google Doc? Decide once, write it down and share it with the team. This one step alone reduces cognitive load dramatically.

• Create or adapt a tone of voice guide

It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just agree on how formal you are, how you explain things, and how much personality shows up in your messages. Consistency here builds trust over time.

• Introduce repeatable formats

Think: onboarding templates, monthly update structure, quick campaign kits. Don’t reinvent how you communicate every time — let the format do the work so your content can shine.

• Give your messages breathing room

Visual layout matters. A page that feels inviting and skimmable will always outperform a well-written wall of text. Think headlines, spacing, bolding key info. Your future self and your team will thank you.

Don’t overcomplicate it

Internal communication doesn’t have to be perfect. But it should feel intentional.Clear beats clever. Repeatable beats reactive. Consistent beats beautiful-but-chaotic.

The goal isn’t to sound like a brand. It’s to sound like a team that knows what it’s doing and helps others do the same.

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This post is part of a practical series on internal communication for remote and hybrid teams.

Curious how this could look inside your company? Explore our Toolkits for self-serve clarity, or start with a Starter Pack to build your whole system from the ground up.

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