Editorial
Like my waistline after conference season, internal comms platforms are carrying more than they should. All those extra snacks — that update, that quick news item, that PDF no one asked for — seemed like a good idea at the time. But they add up.
Before you know it, the good stuff is buried under years of digital flab.
Organizations are drowning in duplicated updates, vague announcements and bloated newsletters. Free storage, non-existent governance and fear of deleting the CEO’s message from 2011 means content sticks around.
We call it ROTten content: Redundant, Outdated, Trivial. It clogs up intranets, erodes trust in internal channels, kills search and makes people give up before they’ve even started looking.
Because if everything is communicated, nothing cuts through. When content is everywhere, attention is nowhere.
This Calls for a Content Diet
A common misconception in internal communications is visibility equals value. If we’re pushing out content regularly — publishing news items, firing off emails, updating the intranet homepage — surely we’re doing our job?
The truth is, more content doesn’t equal more impact. The opposite is usually true. When comms teams shift from how much they’re publishing to how useful it is, everything changes. Less content, delivered with purpose, is far more likely to be read, remembered and acted on.
Our job is to communicate, not publish. Communication is the act of successfully transmitting information and being understood, not the act of sharing it.
Cutting the volume isn’t about doing less work. It’s about doing the right work. It takes real skill to distill a message down to its essentials.
Think of it as a content diet; not a juice cleanse, but a sustainable plan to cut the empty calories and keep the good stuff. People aren't looking for more information. They want the right information, at the right time and in the channel of their choice.
User-Focused Content Means Knowing User Needs
“User-focused” too often means “we wrote something we hope people will read.” True user focus requires more than good intentions. It takes research, structure and a willingness to cut what doesn’t serve a purpose.
Comms teams often start with an internal comms audit — assessing existing channels, messages and publishing patterns. While communications audits are useful, they're the wrong place to start. Audits look at what you're providing, not what people need. It's like taking stock of everything in the fridge without asking what people are hungry for or knowing their dietary restrictions.
User focus begins with a discovery phase, drawing from service and content design practices. It combines qualitative methods (like interviews, observation and usability testing) with quantitative ones (such as analytics, search logs and content performance data). The goal is to understand what people are trying to do, what’s getting in their way, what they expect from internal channels and how they actually experience them.
At Lithos Partners, we go to people’s workplaces and observe as they try to access and use information. We spot frustrations and barriers as they are experienced, and ask about employee needs.
The question isn’t, “What comms do you want?” It’s about uncovering unspoken friction, workarounds, missed messages and moments of confusion. It’s about mapping user journeys, identifying pain points and understanding context.
Only then can you design comms that are not just well written, but well placed, well timed and well received.
Tidy Content Is Trustworthy Content
Well-managed content doesn’t happen by accident. It requires discipline, decisions and getting used to saying "no." Yet in many organizations, internal content is treated like a never-ending noticeboard — anyone can put something up, and no one ever takes anything down.
One organization we worked with had 17 years' worth of content — over half a million pieces total — which had been auto-migrated twice. Search was a mess and users were frustrated. Trust in the intranet — and the team behind it — was rock bottom. The intranet needed more than a diet; dealing with this mess needed a lifestyle change.
Content Management Starts With Governance
Good content management starts with governance: clear roles, responsibilities and rules around who can publish what, where and when. It means having an editorial calendar that doesn’t just track content, but curates it, prioritizing what’s important and politely binning what isn’t. It means owning the full content lifecycle, from creation to review to eventual retirement, rather than letting pages gather digital dust for decades.
Content Design Pulls It All Together
This is where content design comes in. Not as a buzzword, but as a professional practice grounded in user needs, evidence and empathy. Originally developed in the world of digital government, content design brings together writing, research, UX and information architecture to make content work, not just look good.
Content design starts with a simple question: what do users need to know, and what do they need to do with that information?
From there, it’s all about clarity, usability and ruthless usefulness. It’s not adding a friendly tone to a 2,000-word policy. It’s redesigning the content itself (headings, flow, layout, structure) so people can get in, get what they need and get out.
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For example, UK Children's charity Barnardo's needed easy to access content that people could consume in a minute or less.
We worked with them to rewrite, restructure and move key content outside the firewall to remove access friction (which means I can share examples with you). Every policy page surfaced who it applied to, what they needed to know and what action to take — right up top.
Content design helps comms teams make content that earns attention, rather than demanding it. Less communicating what we want to say, and more communicating what people want and need to read. And yes, that means telling leaders to stop asking for puff pieces that massage egos.
When you apply content design principles and manage your content estate with care, something magical happens: people stop ignoring your channels. Because now, when they visit the intranet or open a comms email, they find relevant, timely and clear information.
From Internal Comms Clarity Comes Confidence
Clear internal communication doesn’t just help people do their jobs. It helps them feel confident doing them. When employees can find information quickly, trust that it’s current and understand it the first time, then comms is positively impacting people's work.
It cuts friction. Fewer “just checking” emails to HR. Fewer “who owns this?” messages to IT. Fewer workarounds, repeated questions and whispered desk-side confusion.
Most importantly, clarity builds credibility. When internal channels are cluttered, outdated or hard to navigate, people stop using them. But when content is well-managed, user-focused and designed with intent, it signals that the organization values people’s time and attention.
And that doesn’t just earn trust. It creates opportunity.
A well-structured, high-quality content ecosystem lays the foundation for AI tools to actually work. Whether it’s intelligent search, automated summaries or personalized comms delivery, these tools are only as smart as the content they’re fed. If the underlying corpus is a mess of ROTten content and wordy PDFs, no algorithm can save you.
Get the basics right — governance, clarity, user needs — and you unlock the real potential of your digital workplace.
Do Less, Better
No one's ever said, “What I really need is another comms platform in my life.”
In a world of constant notifications, channel creep and inbox anxiety, the best internal comms teams are the ones brave enough to say: “Actually, no one needs this message.”
It starts by putting user needs above stakeholder wants. That means evidence, not ego. Discovery, not assumptions. Content design, not comms-by-committee. When we tighten governance, trim the fat, and design around what employees actually need to do, we don’t just cut the noise, we build trust.
So let’s stop chasing volume and start defending value. Fewer messages. Better channels. Higher impact. And if that means telling a few stakeholders "no"? Good. That’s the job.
Editor's Note: Explore more articles on internal comms:
- Employee Communications Management Platforms May Be Coming, But They're Not What We Need — Our focus as communicators has to be on improving communication outputs and outcomes for the organizations we work for, not on efficiencies for ourselves.
- The Communicator's Guide to Building a Corporate Intranet, Part 1 — Ready to fix the mess that is your intranet? Part 1 of this five part series explains what an intranet is for and who should build it.
- The Neuroscience of High-Impact, Lower Noise Internal Communications — How brain-based communication strategies drive business results in an era of information overload.
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