Internal communication challenges in corporate South Africa after the COVID-19 pandemic

The survival of organisations depends greatly on internal communication, but this function faces seemingly incompatible challenges, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Relatively little has been published on internal communication challenges in emerging economies and specifically in South Africa, with no research on these issues after the pandemic. To fill this gap, this qualitative longitudinal study inductively identifies internal communication challenges in the South African corporate context after the pandemic. Semi-structured interviews with internal communication practitioners at the Top 500 Companies in South Africa and highly recognised internal communication consultants provide the data. From data collected pre-pandemic, 12 challenges that internal communication functions must deal with were identified, which they grouped into four categories: access to technology, lack of formal communication training, parameters for inclusion of internal stakeholders, and management styles and structures. The longitudinal findings of this study show that many of these challenges are still relevant and even worsened, but new themes on internal communication issues emerged after the pandemic, with a specific focus on employee well-being, little credible information, digital imbalance, and future work structure issues. Suggestions are made on how to mitigate these challenges. Contributions include recommendations for practice and further research.