Employees are still listening. So how do we get them talking?

There’s a question internal communicators have been wrestling with for years: how do we get more people to engage?

Usually, that sends us looking in familiar directions. Maybe we need better content. Maybe leaders need to post more often. Perhaps people just aren’t interested in Viva Engage. Or perhaps, after years of encouraging likes, comments and conversations, employees have simply changed how they participate.

SWOOP Analytics’ latest Viva Engage benchmarking gives us a clearer picture. Based on more than 10.4 million interactions from 2.6 million employees across 71 organisations, it shows that people haven’t stopped paying attention or looking to colleagues for information and expertise, but they are participating differently.

At SWOOP, Cai focuses on what the data reveals about how people communicate and collaborate at work across familiar Microsoft 365 tools like Viva Engage and SharePoint. Meanwhile, Amanda and the team at Silicon Reef support internal communications teams to shape and build their Microsoft 365 communications stack across SharePoint, Viva and Copilot.

We’ve brought together some of the most interesting findings from both sides.
 

1. People are paying attention, but they’re talking less

One of the clearest shifts in this year’s data is that attention hasn’t disappeared, but the way people participate has changed. People are increasingly responding with lighter-touch interactions rather than getting involved in longer conversations. In 2026, almost nine in 10 posts received some form of response or reaction, yet deeper measures of conversation and connection have declined.  

For internal communicators, reactions only tell part of the story. A healthy stream of them shows that people are paying attention, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re sharing experiences, asking questions or contributing ideas.

We also need to be realistic about what we’re comparing against. The proportion of ‘Engagers’ has fallen 39 per cent since 2020, when the pandemic drove us all to connect with colleagues online. Rather than trying to recreate an exceptional period for digital workplace interaction, the more useful question is what meaningful participation looks like now.
 

Cai’s take:

“I don’t think the answer is that people have simply stopped engaging. What we’re seeing is a change in how they engage. During the pandemic, enterprise social networks were doing a particular job for people, and it isn’t realistic to expect those behaviours to continue indefinitely.

“I’d be much more interested in whether the response you’re getting matches the outcome you wanted. A reaction can be a perfectly valid response to an update that is there to create awareness. It’s much less useful if you were hoping to start a conversation.”

Amanda’s take:

“Where I’d take that finding is into the Viva Engage environment itself. If you want more conversation, have you set the platform up to make that easy?

“Look at the communities you’ve created, where they appear, who owns them and what employees encounter when they get there. If you’ve got dozens of overlapping or inactive communities, unclear naming or no obvious reason to contribute, asking people to ‘engage more’ isn’t going to get you very far. There are practical things you can change in Microsoft 365 before you start assuming the problem is your people.”
 

2. There isn’t a perfect content formula

Many people think there must be a perfect recipe for Viva Engage: the right balance of discussions, announcements, questions and praise that will get people participating. The findings suggest it isn’t that simple.

One of the more surprising examples is announcements. Despite the assumption that using too many will suppress engagement, the highest-performing organisations used almost the same proportion of announcements as the lowest-performing organisations, yet generated almost three times as much engagement per post.

What seems to matter more is choosing the format for the job it needs to do. Announcements achieved the greatest reach, while discussions generated almost twice the engagement among the people who saw them. Rather than worrying about getting the content mix right, the more useful question is what you want people to do when they see the post.

Cai’s take:

“This was one of the findings that challenged our own assumptions. We went looking for the ideal mix of announcements and discussions and couldn’t find one. The more useful distinction was between reach and participation.

“Rather than asking whether you’re using too many announcements, ask what you’re trying to achieve with that particular communication.”

“If it needs maximum visibility, an announcement can do that job very well. If you want people involved in the conversation, you’ll make different choices.”

Amanda’s take:

“The post type is only one part of the experience. I’d also look at where that conversation is happening and how people are expected to find it.

“Viva Engage doesn’t sit in isolation from the rest of Microsoft 365. Think about whether important communities are surfaced in the places people already work, how Viva Engage and SharePoint content connect, and whether you’ve created unnecessary duplication between Engage, Teams and your intranet. Sometimes what looks like a content problem is actually a channel design problem.”
 

3. Healthy communities need structure behind them

The healthiest Viva Engage environments aren't necessarily the busiest, and there isn't one type of community that consistently performs best. The top performers range from formal communication and operational communities to spaces built around recognition, travel, pets and workplace culture.

What separates them is less about what people are talking about and more about the environment around those conversations. High-performing organisations consistently combine things like clear governance, active leadership participation, strong community practices and broad involvement beyond the communications team.
 

Cai’s take:

“One of the things I like about the community data is that it challenges the idea that everything on Viva Engage needs an obvious corporate purpose. Some of the best communities aren’t the ones you would necessarily have included in an internal comms plan.

“What matters more is that people understand what a community is there for and have a reason to participate. The strongest communities create the conditions for people to contribute, connect with others and share what they know. That purpose and structure seem to matter much more than the subject itself.”

Amanda’s take:

“Governance is where technology and behaviour really meet. We often talk about healthy Viva Engage communities needing the right structure around them, so it’s good to see that reflected in the data.

“But governance shouldn’t create another big job for internal comms.

“Keep it practical: clear ownership, simple processes for when something needs attention, and give community admins the training and support to manage their own spaces.”

4. More communities won’t necessarily create more community

When Viva Engage has been around for a while, it’s easy for the number of communities to grow. A new project needs somewhere to talk, a team creates its own space, an initiative comes and goes, and before long employees are faced with a long list of communities that may overlap or no longer be active.

When that happens, low participation can easily get labelled as an engagement problem. But if people aren’t sure where to go, which communities are still active or where a particular conversation belongs, the problem may be the environment they’re being asked to participate in.

This is where having the data becomes really useful. Rather than making changes based on assumptions, it gives you a starting point and guides you towards where to look. Which communities are thriving? Where has participation dropped away? Where are conversations actually happening? You can then investigate what sits behind those differences before deciding what needs to change.
 

Cai’s take:

“When we see a network with lots of inactive communities, or a small number accounting for most of the meaningful activity, the data gives us somewhere to investigate. I’d look at what distinguishes the healthy communities. Are questions answered? Are different people contributing? Are members connecting with one another? And, just as importantly, what isn’t happening in the quieter spaces?”
 

​​​​​​​Amanda’s take:

“This is where I’d resist the urge to simply relaunch Viva Engage or keep creating more communities in the hope something sticks. Start with the environment you’ve already got. Which communities still serve a purpose? Which overlap? Which could be consolidated? Who owns them, and can employees easily find the right place to go?

“We’ve worked with organisations where simplifying that environment has been part of a broader reset of Viva Engage, alongside clearer governance, identified admins, training and a more considered rollout. You’re improving the experience people are being asked to participate in, rather than simply asking them to participate more.”

​​​​​​​5. Your intranet and Viva Engage aren’t separate worlds

We tend to plan and measure internal communication in channels. Employees don’t experience it that way. They might discover something through a conversation in Viva Engage, head to SharePoint for the full story or authoritative information, and then carry that conversation into Teams.

That makes one of the findings particularly interesting: organisations using Viva Engage alongside their SharePoint intranet recorded 16 per cent higher median intranet engagement than those in the SharePoint-only group. The sample is relatively small, so we can’t say one causes the other, but it does point to the value of looking at how the channels work together rather than judging each one in isolation.

For internal communicators, that opens up a bigger question than “Which channel should we use?” It’s about the journey between them: where should employees discover something, where should they find the detail, and where should they be able to respond or join the conversation?
 

Cai’s take:

“Internal communication doesn’t stop at the boundary of a platform, and our measurement needs to catch up with that.

“Somebody might discover something in one place, read the detail somewhere else and join the conversation somewhere else again."

“We’re only looking at 17 organisations here, so I wouldn’t claim that Viva Engage causes better intranet performance. What the data gives us is a good reason to look at the communication ecosystem rather than judging every channel independently.”
 

​​​​​​​Amanda’s take:

“SharePoint and Viva Engage are sometimes treated as completely separate decisions when they can play complementary roles. You might use SharePoint as the structured, governed place for news, policies and information people need to come back to, while Viva Engage gives people somewhere to respond, ask questions and bring their own experience into the conversation.

“I’d look at the whole journey. If you publish something important on SharePoint, what happens next? Can somebody easily join the conversation? If useful knowledge emerges in Viva Engage, can people find the authoritative information behind it? The technology gives you options, but you still need to design how those pieces fit together.”

6. People still want to learn from each other

For all the changes in how people participate, there’s an encouraging thread running through the data: people are still curious, and they’re still using Viva Engage to find knowledge and expertise beyond their immediate teams.

Those behaviours have been remarkably resilient. Over seven years, the proportion of people participating across multiple communities has remained between 41 per cent and 45 per cent, even while other measures of engagement have fallen. People are still asking questions, looking for answers and connecting across organisational boundaries.

That feels especially relevant now. The true value in Viva Engage lies in the knowledge employees create between themselves.

Cai’s take:

“This is probably one of the findings I’m most optimistic about. Lots has changed in how people participate, but the knowledge-sharing behaviours have proven remarkably resilient.

“For me, that’s a reminder of where much of the value in these communities lies. Somebody asks a question, somebody in another part of the organisation knows the answer, and suddenly knowledge that might have stayed inside one team is available much more widely.”

Amanda’s take:

“One of the common misconceptions we come across is that Viva Engage is basically ‘social media for work’. That can be a sticking point when organisations are deciding whether they need it or where it fits alongside SharePoint and Teams.

“But this is where I think the knowledge-sharing findings are really interesting. Viva Engage gives people somewhere to ask a question, find expertise outside their immediate team and add their own experience to the answer. Those conversations become part of the organisation’s knowledge, rather than disappearing into an email chain or a closed conversation.

“That becomes even more relevant as organisations think about Copilot and AI. Before getting carried away with the AI piece, I’d look at whether people have good places to share what they know, whether those spaces are well structured, and whether useful knowledge is easy to find.”
 

What would we look at first?

Across all of these findings, there’s one idea we both come back to: don’t start by asking how to get people to engage more.Understand the behaviour first. Then make sure the technology and environment are helping rather than getting in the way.

Cai’s starting point:

“Start with the behaviour. Are people seeing content but rarely responding? Are certain communities driving most of the conversation? Are questions getting answers? Are people connecting across different parts of the organisation? Get specific about what’s actually happening before deciding it’s a problem.”

Amanda’s starting point:

“Look at the Microsoft 365 environment around that behaviour. Does your community structure still make sense? Are people clear about the role of Viva Engage alongside SharePoint and Teams? Are the right governance and ownership arrangements in place? Is useful content easy to discover? Are you connecting these experiences, or simply creating more places for employees to check?”