Your Employees Don't Have a Change Problem. They Have a Clarity Problem.

Last month, communicators and HR leaders gathered in Nashville for Ragan's Employee Experience Conference 2026, and the themes that emerged were less "shiny new framework" and more "things we probably knew but needed to hear out loud again." In the best way.

Here's what actually stood out — and why it matters if you're doing any kind of internal or change communications work right now.

CHANGE COMMUNICATION ISN'T JUST ABOUT WHAT'S DIFFERENT

Ryan Poe, APR, director of executive communications at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, made a point worth writing on a sticky note: values define who an organization is, and cultural principles determine how its people act — and neither can be introduced once and then left to collect dust.

His colleague Hilary Hamblin, manager of organizational change management and internal communications at St. Jude, added that during disruption, organizations need to actively remind employees what won't change. That's not spin. That's smart anchoring. When everything feels like it's moving, people need a fixed point. Culture can be that point — but only if you're actually communicating it consistently.

MANAGERS ARE FILTERS, NOT FUNNELS

This one's deceptively simple. Heather Kestly, senior communications director at Medtronic, put it plainly: managers should filter information, not just pass it along. Their job isn't to forward the company-wide email with "FYI" in the subject line. It's to give their teams the context they need to understand what actually matters.

Jamesia Harrison, director of university communications at North Carolina A&T State University, took it further — employees can only execute what they understand, not what leadership believes it communicated. That gap between intent and reception is where most internal comms fall apart.

AI SHOULD SOLVE A REAL PROBLEM, NOT PROVE A POINT

Scott Armstrong, director of communications at Microsoft, offered a refreshingly honest take: organizations should resist assuming AI belongs everywhere. When technology replaces a human interaction, someone should stop and ask whether that's actually the right call.

Shoshana Leon, strategic communications lead at CSAA Insurance Group, gave a concrete example — someone dealing with the aftermath of an accident probably needs a person, not a chatbot. And Samantha Stark, founder and chief strategist at Phyusion, pointed out that AI adoption lives or dies on culture. If employees don't have room to experiment and fail, their AI use will stay cautious and surface-level. Which kind of defeats the whole point.

MORE DATA IS NOT THE SAME AS BETTER DECISIONS

Adam Perrow, senior director of employee experience and HR at Ally Financial, made the case that communicators add real value by identifying what leaders actually need to know — and filtering out the noise. He also pointed out that employee frustration often lives in workflows, systems, and handoffs, not just in attitudes or morale. If you're only measuring sentiment, you might be missing the structural stuff entirely.

Craig Thomason, director of global employee and executive communications at Merck, offered a simple filter worth stealing: ABC — audience before content. Know what your audience needs before you write a single word. Honestly, this applies to every piece of communication ever written.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOUR PR STRATEGY

A lot of PR pros think internal communications is someone else's department. But the principles from this conference map directly onto external comms work:

• Anchor messaging in what's stable. During any kind of organizational shift, your audiences — internal or external — need to know what's not changing. Lead with that.
• Close the gap between intent and understanding. What you meant to say and what people heard are often two very different things. Build feedback loops that catch that gap early.
• Don't automate the moments that matter. AI is a tool, not a strategy. Use it where it genuinely helps; keep humans where they genuinely matter.
• Know your audience before you write anything. ABC isn't just good internal comms advice. It's the foundation of any communication that actually works.

Kerrie Vnuk, head of internal communications at Cotality, also made a point about building relationships with skeptics, not just supporters. That's PR 101 — but it's easy to forget when you're busy talking to the people who already agree with you.

The through line across all of this? Judgment, curiosity, and empathy are becoming more valuable as technical skills get commoditized. That's not a consolation prize. That's the job.

If you're thinking through how these principles apply to your communications strategy — internal, external, or somewhere in between — Winsome Marketing helps brands figure out what they're actually trying to say and how to say it in a way that lands. Let's talk.

This post was originally inspired by Top takeaways from the Employee Experience Conference 2026 via prdaily. We encourage you to read the original piece for full context.