By: You wrote the company update. Proofread it twice. Hit send on Tuesday at 10 AM, because someone said that's when open rates peak.
A week later, the same three people replied. The same two managers forwarded it to their teams. Everyone else? No idea if they even saw it.
This is the frustrating reality for most internal communications teams. The update goes out. It vanishes. And then people say they weren't told about the benefits change, the office move, or the new policy that takes effect Monday.
They were told. The problem is the telling didn't work.
Why Do Company Updates Get Ignored?
Think about your own inbox for a second. How many emails did you get today? Probably between 50 and 120 if you're in a typical corporate role. A McKinsey study found that workers spend an average of 28% of their workweek managing email. That's over 11 hours every week just triaging messages.
Your company update is competing against all of that. And honestly? It's losing.
The biggest reasons:
It looks like every other email. Plain text or a basic HTML template. The brain registers "email" and applies the default email behavior: scan, decide, archive. Your update doesn't get special treatment because it doesn't look special.
It arrives at the wrong time. You sent it Tuesday morning. Half your employees were in meetings. A quarter were putting out fires from Monday. By lunch, it's buried under 30 newer messages.
It asks too much. A 2,000-word email with six different topics. Nobody's reading that. They'll skim the first paragraph, decide it's not urgent, and move on. Research from the Nielsen Norman Group has consistently shown that people scan rather than read online. Long blocks of text get skipped entirely.
There's no accountability. Nobody checks whether you read it. So there's no reason to prioritize it over the 47 other things demanding your attention right now.
How Should You Format Company Updates?
Format is where most teams can make the biggest improvement with the least effort.
Make It Visual
A wall of text in an email says "this is boring." A designed document with sections, images, and clear headings says "this is worth a few minutes."
You don't need a design team. Upload your content to a flipbook tool and it automatically becomes something that looks intentional. Pages to turn. Visual flow. Sections that feel browsable instead of overwhelming.
Interactive content drives 52.6% more engagement than static formats. That's not a small bump. That's the difference between half your company reading the update and a quarter of them reading it.
Keep It Short
One screen per topic. That's the rule.
If your quarterly update covers five topics, give each topic one page. People can flip through and stop on what matters to them. Nobody needs to read your update linearly. Let them browse.
The total should be under 10 pages for a weekly update, under 20 for monthly or quarterly. If it's longer than that, you're putting too much in one place. Split it.
Lead With What Matters to Them
The CEO's strategic vision is important to the CEO. The new PTO policy is important to everyone. Lead with the PTO policy.
Organize by employee impact, not by organizational hierarchy. What affects their daily work goes first. What affects their benefits or compensation goes second. Leadership updates and company wins go after that.
This isn't disrespectful to leadership. It's practical. If you put the PTO change on page seven, most people will never get there.
What's the Best Way to Distribute Company Updates?
The channel matters as much as the content.
Email as Envelope, Not as Content
Don't put the update in the email. Put a link in the email.
The email should be three sentences: what this update covers, why it matters this week, and a link to read it. The actual content lives in a flipbook or designed document that opens with one click.
Why? Because email is for notifications. It's terrible for reading. But it's excellent at getting someone's attention for five seconds. Use those five seconds wisely by giving them one clear thing to click.
Pick a Consistent Schedule
Plenty of ink has been spilled on the best day and hour to send. Ignore most of it. Consistency matters more than optimization, and if your update always comes Wednesday at 9 AM, people will start expecting it Wednesday at 9 AM.
Build the habit. A predictable schedule trains people to look for your update instead of stumbling across it.
Use Multiple Channels for Critical Updates
For things that absolutely must be seen, like benefits enrollment deadlines or safety policy changes, email alone isn't enough. Post it in Slack. Mention it in the all-hands. Put it on the intranet. And yes, still send the email with the flipbook link.
Redundancy feels annoying to you. It feels thorough to them.
How Do You Know If People Actually Read It?
This is where most internal comms teams are flying blind. You send the update. Maybe your email tool shows open rates. But opens don't mean reads.
Track the Right Metrics
With a document platform that includes analytics, you can see:
- Who opened it - not just how many, but which individuals
- How long they spent - 5 seconds or 5 minutes tells very different stories
- Which pages got attention - so you know what topics resonated
- Where people dropped off - so you know where you lost them
- Completion rate - the percentage who made it to the last page
These aren't vanity metrics. They're actionable. If page three consistently loses everyone, page three has a problem. If the benefits section gets twice the attention of the leadership message, now you know what employees actually care about.
Report to Leadership
Executives care about numbers. Give them numbers.
"72% of employees viewed the Q1 update. Average time spent was 4.2 minutes. The benefits section had the highest engagement. Three departments had view rates below 50% and we're following up with their managers."
That's a report that gets attention. Compare it to "we sent the newsletter." One is data. The other is hope.
As Gallagher's State of the Sector report noted, 74% of internal communicators say measuring effectiveness is a top priority, but less than half feel confident they're doing it well. The gap between wanting to measure and actually measuring is where most teams get stuck.
Close the Loop
When analytics show that a department didn't engage with a critical update, follow up. Not punitively. Just practically. "Hey, noticed your team might have missed the benefits enrollment deadline update. Want me to present it at your next team meeting?"
That's not micromanaging. That's communication doing its job.
What Does a Good Company Update Look Like?
Here's a simple structure that works:
Page 1: Cover with the date and one headline about the biggest news Page 2: The thing that affects the most employees Page 3-4: Department highlights or project updates Page 5: Upcoming dates and deadlines Page 6: Leadership message or company wins
Keep each page scannable. Use headers, bullet points, and images. Nobody wants to read paragraphs in a company update. They want to find what matters and move on.
And make it easy to share. A single link that works on any device, no login required. If someone wants to forward it to a colleague who missed it, that should take one click.
Stop Hoping, Start Knowing
The difference between good internal comms and bad internal comms isn't writing talent. It's infrastructure.
Good format so people want to read it. Smart distribution so it actually reaches them. Real tracking so you know what happened after you hit send.
Most of that is just choosing the right tools and building a consistent process. Upload your content to something that makes it look worth reading. Send a short email with one link. Check the analytics to see who engaged and who didn't.
It's not glamorous work. But when the next person says "I didn't get the memo," you'll know whether they did.
FAQs
How often should I send company updates?
Weekly or biweekly works best for most companies. Monthly is too infrequent for people to form a reading habit, and daily overwhelms inboxes. Pick a consistent day and time so employees know when to expect it.
What's a good read rate for company updates?
For targeted department updates, aim for 70% or higher. Company-wide updates typically land between 40-60%. If you're below 30%, your format or channel needs rethinking.
Should I send company updates by email or use an intranet?
Email is better for getting attention. Intranets are better for archiving. The best approach is a link in email that opens something visually engaging, like a flipbook. That way you get the email notification and the engagement of a better format.
How do I know if employees actually read the update or just opened it?
Track time spent and page completion, not just opens. If someone opens a 10-page update and leaves after 5 seconds, they didn't read it. Page-level analytics show you exactly where people stopped.
What should I include in a company update?
Lead with what employees care about: things that affect their job, their team, or their wallet. Company wins and leadership messages matter, but put employee-impact items first.