Is “Employee Enablement” the Future of Internal Comms?

20 November 2025 Reading Time: 3 minutes

Wayne Aspland:

Over the past few months, Zora Artis and I have been conducting interviews for our third global study into strategic alignment.

We’ve spoken with more than 50 leaders from five continents spanning communication, HR, and strategy. We were even honoured to secure an interview with a CEO from a prominent Australian company.Along the way, our interviewees have shared some incredible insights about alignment and a few other topics.

From communicators to enablers

One of the most fascinating ideas was raised by Jorunn Aamodt, IKEA’s Global Communications Business Partner.

“I think there’s so much potential in actually thinking of ourselves as enablers. We’re not about pushing messages. We’re about making sure everyone has what they need.”

That one line got the three of us thinking about the role and future of Internal Communication.

When you strip it all back, everything we do is about enabling people. That is, making sure employees (and, critically, leaders) have the knowledge, tools and capabilities they need to do their jobs.

If you think about our role that way, you’ll see that even strategic alignment, the topic of our research, is essentially a form of enablement. It’s one of many ways we help people do their best work in service of the organisation’s goals.

The bigger picture: we’re only one part

But here’s the catch. Internal Comms doesn’t own Employee Enablement. We’re only one piece of a very large puzzle.

Enablement doesn’t live in one department. It’s spread across HR (from learning and benefits to recognition and maybe even remuneration), Change Management, Strategy, Employee Experience (the adoption side), and, perhaps most importantly, People Leaders.

Each of these groups own a slice of how employees are informed, supported, and equipped to succeed.

The harsh reality: Employee Enablement is a mess today

Sadly, in most organisations, those slices never quite come together. And this is where things gets messy.

Clearly, employee enablement isn’t just important. It’s existential. If employees can’t perform, the organisation can’t perform. It’s that simple.

Yet in most large organisations, employee enablement is a tangle of silos.

Each group runs its own programs, measures its own outcomes, and rarely co-ordinates with the others. There’s no shared framework, no unified accountability, and often no clear ownership.

The result? Confusion. Duplication. Frustration.And at the frontline, People Leaders… the people who shoulder the daily burden of translating change into action… are left to navigate the chaos. No wonder they’re so overworked.

The ‘Supergroup’ solution

So maybe it’s time for a new idea.

Internal Comms has long fought for a “seat at the table.” But perhaps we’ve been asking for the wrong thing.

Maybe we should strive to become part of something bigger.

Maybe organisations should be thinking about a new “Employee Enablement Supergroup”. A cross-functional powerhouse that unites the functions mentioned above under one co-ordinated umbrella.

A group that owns employee enablement end-to-end and, therefore, can be properly held accountable for it.

A group that finally treats enablement as a strategic, enterprise-wide capability rather than a collection of disconnected efforts.

That kind of collaboration might be tricky to bring together, but it would streamline and focus effort. At the same time, it could transform our profession by giving us a stronger voice, greater impact and access to a broader range of career development opportunities.

What about the rest of Comms?

Good question.

If Internal Comms evolves into the enablement powerhouse, where does that leave our externally-focused Comms cousins?

Maybe they’ll form their own “supergroup” together with frontline teams, Marketing, Industry/Investor Relations and so on. A supergroup that focuses on customer and external stakeholder enablement, reputation and, of course, revenue.

But that’s a conversation for another day.

The bottom line

Employee Enablement isn’t just a new buzzword. It’s a vital organisational function and potentially a blueprint for what Internal Comms could become. If we stop thinking of ourselves as message pushers and start acting as enablers, we move from the sidelines to the centre of organisational success.

And maybe… just maybe… that’s where we were meant to be all along.

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Wayne Aspland is an Australia-based communication professional and writer.

Written by: Editor