Internal communication can seem like a relatively young profession, born with the corporate intranet and transformed by Microsoft Teams. Its roots, however, stretch back to the factories, offices and paternalistic employers of Victorian Britain.
Its history is not simply a story of new technology replacing the old. Running through it is a tension that still shapes the profession today: is internal communication primarily a way for management to speak to employees, or a way for people throughout an organisation to participate in its conversations?
The industrial organisation
Industrialisation created organisations operating on an unprecedented scale. As factories and companies grew, managers needed ways to coordinate work, maintain discipline, and communicate across increasingly complex hierarchies.
The classical management theories associated with Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol and Max Weber reflected this environment. Taylor’s ‘Principles of Scientific Management’ was published in 1911, while Fayol’s influential work on administrative management was published in French in 1916. Weber’s model of bureaucracy emphasised hierarchy, defined responsibilities, formal rules and impersonal procedures.
Communication in these organisations was largely vertical and focused on instruction, coordination and control. Employees were more likely to be seen as part of the production system than as stakeholders whose views management should actively seek.
That began to change with the human relations movement. The Hawthorne studies, conducted at Western Electric between 1924 and 1933, directed attention to social relationships, motivation and employees’ attitudes to work. The researchers conducted more than 21,000 employee interviews, helping to establish listening as a subject worthy of management attention.
The house journal
The earliest recognisable form of formal internal communication was the employee publication, usually called a house journal or house magazine.
The earliest known British example is ‘Ibis’, published by the Prudential Assurance Company in 1878. Company magazines subsequently spread through large organisations, helping employers distribute information, promote welfare initiatives and build a shared corporate identity.
One early example captures a debate that has never entirely disappeared. Lever Brothers established the employee-run ‘Port Sunlight Monthly Journal’ in 1895. In 1899, it was replaced by ‘Progress’, a company-controlled publication intended to connect the head office, factory, branches, overseas operations, and other audiences. The change illustrates the difference between communication “by employees” and communication “to employees”.
House journals could boost morale and foster a sense of community, particularly when workforces were dispersed. But they could also become polished expressions of management paternalism, portraying the organisation as a happy family while leaving little room for disagreement.
After the Second World War, Britain saw a significant expansion in corporate publishing. The industrial editor role became increasingly professionalised, often drawing on individuals with journalistic skills. In 1949, the British Association of Industrial Editors, the predecessor of today’s Institute of Internal Communication, was established to improve professional standards and share good practice.
From publication to system
Internal communication was no longer synonymous with the staff magazine.
During the 1960s and 1970s, organisations began developing broader communication systems. Briefing groups, inspired in part by wartime military briefings, evolved into team meetings with greater scope for questions and dialogue. Publications were supplemented by face-to-face briefings, conferences, video, closed-circuit television, teletext and early computer technology.
This corrects a common timeline. Internal communication was already emerging as a distinct managerial practice in Britain in the 1960s and became more widely institutionalised in the 1970s, rather than first appearing as a discipline in the 1990s.
The turbulent 1980s accelerated change. Deregulation, restructuring and increased competition prompted organisations to use communication to explain, and often sell, change to employees. By 1989, an Institute of Directors survey found that 80% of responding companies with more than 1,000 employees had some form of planned communication system, up 30 percentage points from five years earlier.
Internal communication was becoming more closely aligned with organisational strategy, although publications and editorial skills remained central to many practitioners’ roles.
The digital workplace
Email and intranets transformed the speed and reach of workplace communication in the 1990s. Sun Microsystems’ SunWeb, introduced in 1994, is often cited as an early corporate intranet, while Microsoft launched SharePoint in 2001 as a platform for storing, finding and collaborating on organisational content.
But the first generation of intranets often replicated the old publishing model electronically. Management still created the information; employees were expected to find, read and absorb it.
Web 2.0 introduced something new. Blogs, wikis, comments and social networks enabled employees to become visible contributors rather than merely an audience. Yammer launched in 2008 as a private, workplace equivalent of Twitter; Slack followed in 2013, and Microsoft Teams in 2017.
These platforms made peer-to-peer and multidirectional communication easier, but technology did not automatically create employee voice. Research on enterprise social networks suggests they can support collaboration and participation, while also raising questions about management control, psychological safety, and whether employees feel able to speak openly.
Engagement and voice
The global financial crisis also pushed employee engagement higher up the UK management agenda. Commissioned as the recession took hold, David MacLeod and Nita Clarke’s 2009 ‘Engaging for Success’ report identified four enablers: strategic narrative, engaging managers, employee voice and organisational integrity.
This reinforced the idea that effective internal communication required more than attractive content and efficient distribution. It also involved visible leadership, capable line managers, credible organisational behaviour and genuine listening.
Academic thinking moved in the same direction. Rather than treating “employees” as a homogeneous audience, researchers argued for a stakeholder approach that recognises different internal groups, relationships and communication needs.
The pandemic test
The COVID-19 pandemic transformed internal communication into operational infrastructure. When the UK Government announced its stay-at-home instruction on 23 March 2020, millions of people had to change how and where they worked almost overnight.
Communicators had to explain rapidly changing health guidance, support anxious employees, connect remote teams and help leaders communicate more frequently and with greater empathy. Research conducted during the pandemic found that timely, substantial and transparent internal communication was associated with employees’ perceptions of trustworthiness, commitment and satisfaction.
Hybrid working has outlasted the emergency. Between January and March 2025, 28% of working adults in Great Britain combined home and workplace working, while three-quarters of organisations surveyed by the CIPD reported having hybrid arrangements.
Internal communication now spans interactive intranets, video meetings, mobile apps, infographics, livestreams, podcasts and employee-generated content. Accessibility has also become a more explicit consideration: digital content needs to be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust for people with different disabilities and access needs.
Yet the profession’s oldest question remains unresolved. Who gets to communicate, who controls the channels — and who is truly heard?
The history of internal communication is therefore not a journey from the house magazine to Teams. It is a continuing shift from publishing information to creating shared understanding. The technology changes; the challenge of balancing organisational and employee voices does not.
[Image of floating speech bubbles by Unsplash+]
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