Internal communications has expanded from a function that managed all-hands emails into a discipline that touches every dimension of employee experience: change management, culture reinforcement, leadership visibility, crisis communication, and benefits enrollment. The channels have multiplied — email, intranet, Slack, Teams, digital signage, video — and the expectation for consistent, well-produced content across all of them has grown with them.
What has not grown at the same pace is internal communications team headcount. Most organizations still staff internal comms with one to three professionals, regardless of organization size, according to a 2025 Gallagher benchmark study. The result is chronic underproduction relative to what the function is expected to deliver.
A virtual assistant purpose-built for internal communications operations closes the gap between what the team is capable of strategically and what it can produce operationally.
Where Internal Comms Teams Get Bottlenecked
The bottleneck is almost always content production and channel management, not strategy. An internal communicator who understands what employees need to hear during a reorganization is not the right person to be reformatting that message for six different channels, uploading it to the intranet, updating the distribution list, and pulling open-rate analytics from the email platform afterward.
A 2025 Staffbase survey found that 61 percent of internal communicators said they did not have enough time to measure the effectiveness of their programs — a direct consequence of spending that time on production tasks instead.
Tasks an Internal Comms VA Handles
Editorial calendar management. VAs maintain the content calendar in project management tools like Asana, Trello, or Monday.com, tracking deadlines for each channel, flagging gaps in the schedule, and managing the flow of drafts through the review and approval process.
Newsletter content drafting. Regular employee newsletters require consistent production. VAs draft recurring sections — HR updates, facilities news, recognition callouts, upcoming events — using provided information and approved templates, delivering drafts for communicator review and sign-off.
Intranet content publishing. VAs upload approved content to intranet platforms like Simpplr, Staffbase, Viva Engage, or SharePoint, maintain page accuracy, archive outdated content, and manage navigation updates when the content structure evolves.
Distribution list and audience segment management. Sending communications to the right audiences requires current employee lists, properly structured segments, and regular audits against HR system data. VAs own this maintenance in collaboration with HRIS teams.
Channel analytics compilation. Monthly reports on email open rates, intranet page views, and newsletter engagement require pulling data from multiple platforms and presenting it in a consistent format. VAs produce these reports so communicators can analyze and act on the data rather than build the reports.
Digital signage and video caption support. Organizations with physical locations manage digital signage content that requires weekly updates. VAs prepare and schedule signage content, and can handle captioning or transcript work for executive video messages.
The Case for VA Support in Internal Comms
A full-time internal communications coordinator costs $55,000 to $72,000 annually in a mid-size U.S. market, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data for 2025. A virtual assistant covering the same production functions costs significantly less and can be scaled up during high-volume periods — open enrollment, mergers, annual reviews — and reduced when the calendar lightens.
For organizations that cannot justify a full additional headcount but whose communications team is consistently behind on deliverables, a part-time or full-time VA is the most direct solution available.
Stealth Agents places internal communications virtual assistants with experience in enterprise platforms, editorial workflows, and the discretion that employee-facing communications requires.
Sources
- Gallagher, Employee Communication Benchmarking Report, 2025
- Staffbase, State of Internal Communications, 2025
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025