Internal Comms in 2026: Rediscovering Connection with IC Expert Rachel Miller

Episode 42 of the Rediscovering Connection podcast, Shelley Doyle with guest Rachel Miller

Episode 42 of Rediscovering Connection

Internal communication shapes how employees understand change, how they relate to leadership and experience belonging at work. In 2026, that work also includes navigating AI and connecting colleagues across remote and hybrid environments.

In this episode, I speak with Rachel Miller, founder of All Things IC and one of the UK’s leading voices on internal communication. We explore how trust grows through everyday interactions, why authenticity matters, what research can reveal about office presence, and how communicators can approach AI with curiosity and care. Rachel also shares a personal family ritual that began in lockdown, and we explore what back-to-back video calls cost the social battery, and the people who matter most.

If you are the go-to communicator in your organisation, expected to have the answers and keep people informed, this conversation is for you. How can you support connection while carrying that responsibility?

Why this conversation matters in 2026

Internal communication is more than sharing updates. It helps people make sense of what is happening, see how it relates to their work and feel part of the organisation’s direction.

That becomes especially important when colleagues experience work differently. A message that reaches someone in the office may not land the same way for a remote colleague, a frontline team or a person in another time zone. And when AI makes it easier to produce content quickly, the human choices behind communication matter even more: What is relevant? What builds trust? Where can people respond and be heard?

Rachel and I return to a simple but meaningful idea: connection is built through communication that feels human, relevant and trustworthy.

The idea: connection is part of the work

Belonging is not only about being in the same room. It also grows when people are curious about one another, take time to check in and have enough trust to show some personality.

For communicators, that offers a useful reminder. Your work is not simply to send a polished message. You can help create the conditions for genuine exchange: make space for questions, help leaders communicate in ways that feel approachable, and make sure messages connect with the people receiving them.

Authenticity does not mean sharing everything. It means choosing appropriate ways to be open and human. In the conversation, Rachel reflected on how less polished communication during lockdown helped people see leaders in a more immediate, personal way. As she put it, “It was never about the gloss. It should never have been about the gloss. It should never have been about the green screen.” Her point is not that every message should be informal. It is that connection can be lost when communication becomes so controlled that no human presence comes through. In her words, “if you’re trying to build connection, if you’re trying to be relatable, if you’re trying to be approachable and human in this age of AI, you can’t beat sharing the wonkiness, the kind of the things that aren’t polished and perfect, that are a bit raw, that are unvarnished.”

What I took from this conversation

  1. Make belonging visible in everyday communication.
    A sense of belonging can grow through small, consistent interactions. Build space for leaders and colleagues to check in, share context and ask questions. Consider:

    • Does this communication invite a response, or only deliver information?
    • Can people see how the message relates to their role and experience?
    • Are leaders showing up in a way that feels credible and human?

  2. Use evidence to design office rhythms with intention.
    My research included 1,218 remote and hybrid leaders. It brought together office attendance data and a large-scale survey about connection and communication habits. In this sample, the strongest reported connection appeared among people attending the office one to two days a week. Those attending more frequently reported feeling less connected. Rachel found the same pattern in how leaders described their office days: “if you go into a place of work with the hope to have connection, but then you’re on calls all day at a desk”, the hope does not become connection by itself. This is an observed pattern, not proof that office attendance alone causes connection. It is a reason to ask a better question: What are people coming together to do, and how will that time support relationships?

    Block time for purposeful conversations. Create shared rituals for days when teams meet. Make sure in-person time supports connection rather than assuming that proximity will create it. And if you want to see where your own team stands on the continuum, the Social Wealth Check for Leaders takes two minutes.

  3. Let people be human, not just polished.
    Clear, prepared communication matters. So does warmth. Consider how leaders can share context, acknowledge uncertainty appropriately and speak in a way that people can relate to. The aim is not to remove professionalism. It is to bring more humanity into it. As Rachel told me, “we used to meet on the Thursday morning, all make a cup of tea, sit there with our lovely Teal mugs that I, I sent to everyone, and we would talk about anything apart from work, and that was the rule. Anything apart from work, because that connection is really important.”

  4. Approach AI with curiosity and guardrails.
    AI can help communicators explore ideas and work with information. It still requires human judgement. Set clear boundaries for what tools may be used, check outputs before sharing them, and protect confidential information. Rachel’s framing is worth borrowing: “trusting our people to experiment with guardrails in place… what innovation is locked away inside people’s heads, hearts, and notebooks that actually we could surface internally.” How can AI support your work without replacing the relationships your work is meant to serve?

  5. Build a circle where you can think out loud.
    Being the person others turn to can be rewarding, but it can also leave little room to test your own thinking. Rachel’s All Things IC circle offers a practical example of peer support: a confidential, virtual mastermind for six in-house communications leaders over three months, with group sessions and one-to-one conversations. Rachel launched it in 2020 to give communicators a trusted space to learn from one another. You do not have to create a formal programme to benefit from this idea. Find two or three peers who understand your work. Set a regular rhythm to share challenges, compare perspectives and celebrate progress. A thoughtful question from someone outside your organisation can help you see new options.

What I took away

The person behind the internal communication role needs connection, too. You may be the visible communicator, the person who translates complexity and helps colleagues find their way through change. But you do not have to carry every answer alone. As Rachel told me, “our people are never coming to work as a blank sheet of paper… they’re never sitting there with nothing on their minds ready to absorb”, and that is as true for the communicator as it is for the leaders they support.

Create rhythms that support two-way communication. Make room for trust and appropriate candour. Use research to guide decisions, while staying curious about the people and relationships behind the data. And build a peer network where you can be supported as well as useful.

The Sunday evening call that began in lockdown and is still going six years later is my favourite example from this conversation. It shows what happens when a connection ritual is designed once and sustained: the rhythm carries it, and the people in it keep showing up.

This conversation is part of five years of applied research with more than 1,200 remote and hybrid leaders. Explore the research behind Social Wealth and Social Health, or listen to more conversations on the podcast and watch page.

If the cost question feels abstract, the Cost of Disconnection Calculator turns it into a number you can take to your leadership team.

What might shift if you treated connection not as an extra task, but as part of how communication succeeds?

Watch and go deeper

Watch the full conversation on YouTube, or listen on Buzzsprout if you would rather hear it on the move.

Find Rachel at allthingsic.com or on LinkedIn.

Learn more about my work and the Social Health in Professional Leadership Certification at thecommuniverse.com.

Further Learning

Watch, listen or subscribe to the Rediscovering Connection podcast.