What is a good reach for an intranet news post? Until October 2026, there was no shared, external benchmark for it in the Netherlands and Flanders. The first internal communication benchmark for the Dutch-speaking market, published by vonk, the Belgian network for internal communication professionals, now gives a first point of reference.
The conclusion: the intranet is the heart of internal communication. It is the most used and the most measured channel. In this article, you’ll learn what good reach looks like, and we compare the figures with what we see across the 300+ organisations that work with Involv.
What does the 2026 internal communication benchmark show?
The intranet is the central channel for internal communication: 90% of organisations use it. An intranet post in the top quarter reaches around 55% or more of all employees.
- The intranet is the hub: 90% of organisations use it, more than any other channel.
- The intranet is the most measured channel: 69% of organisations track its reach, more than for any other channel.
- Biggest barriers to reach: information overload (58%) and employees’ lack of time (56%).
- What works: relevant content, targeted distribution and clear goals.
The report Hoe goed bereikt interne communicatie de medewerker écht? (How well does internal communication really reach employees?) was carried out by Sander Dorst and Jeroen Naudts (Starfish Consultancy) among 617 communication professionals in the Netherlands and Flanders, with the support of KBC.
Why is the intranet the heart of internal communication?
Because the intranet is where information comes together, stays findable and can be measured.
Nine out of ten organisations use an intranet, often as the central hub within Microsoft 365. It is also the channel communication teams have the clearest view of: 69% measure the reach of their intranet. For other widely used channels, reach remains a blind spot. Teams messages are used by 58% but measured by only 10%, and digital signage hangs on the walls of more than half of all organisations but is measured by less than 1%.
The strongest organisations make their channels work together: email, the newsletter and Teams point the way, and the intranet is the source. Read more about this approach in our article on an omnichannel strategy for internal communication.
What is a good reach for an intranet post?
From around 55% of all employees per post, you belong to the top quarter. Typical reach is around 40%.
That is what the vonk benchmark (2026, in Dutch) shows, the first external reference points for intranet reach in the Netherlands and Flanders. To read these figures correctly, keep three things in mind:
- It is about a single post, not the intranet. 40% does not mean that 60% of employees don’t use the intranet. It means that an average news post reaches 40% of all employees.
- The measurement is strict. Views are usually divided by the total headcount, even for posts that are only relevant to part of the organisation. If you measure against the target audience of a post, the figure comes out higher.
- 100% is not a realistic goal. Not every employee needs to read every news post. The goal is for the right people to see the right posts.
Results vary widely between organisations. The same channel produces very different results in comparable organisations. So the difference lies not in the intranet itself, but in how you use it.
What do organisations with high intranet reach do differently?
They target news to the people it concerns, make the intranet the starting point of the workday, reach employees without a computer too, and measure more than views.
Respondents name four success factors themselves: interesting content (64%), clarity (54%), relevance to the job (49%) and findability (46%). In the intranet projects we support, four choices keep coming back in organisations with high reach.
They target news to the people it concerns
According to the report, information overload is the biggest barrier to reach (58%). Overload happens when everyone gets everything. With audience targeting in Involv, employees see the news for their department, location or role, and organisation-wide news is reserved for what truly concerns everyone. Less noise means employees learn again that a post on the homepage is worth their time. This is how Plopsa communicates per park or per audience, instead of spreading generic messages and hoping the right people see them.
An added benefit: if you publish in a targeted way, you measure reach against the target audience. A post for 200 production employees that reaches 140 of them has a reach of 70%.
They make the intranet the starting point of the workday
An intranet where employees start their day, with news, tools, documents and colleagues in one place, draws readers in naturally. At AZ Klina, a Belgian hospital with 2,400 users, the Involv intranet has become the starting point for daily information. The organisation itself says the intranet strengthens internal communication and increases employee engagement.
They reach employees without a computer too
A quarter of organisations name reaching employees without a computer as a barrier. With the Involv mobile app, employees in healthcare, manufacturing, construction or leisure get intranet news on their smartphone, with push notifications for anything urgent. They don’t need a company laptop or a fixed workstation.
Plopsa is a telling example. The theme park group employs nearly 5,000 people in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, the vast majority of whom work in the parks without a dedicated computer. Internal communication used to hang on the walls, quite literally, on posters. A poster in De Panne never reached colleagues in Hasselt or Germany, and nobody knew whether a message had arrived.
Today, news posts and push notifications via the mobile app are Plopsa’s most used channel. When the team received a limited number of buy-one-get-one-free tickets for the final K3 performance at very short notice, there was no time for a visual or an email. An intranet post, a push notification and two reminders were enough: within a few days, almost every ticket had been claimed.
Without Involv, we’d fall back on the old, analogue way of working, and that means missing employees all over again. Push notifications and reporting have become so second nature to us that we simply can’t do without them anymore.
HR Generalist & Intranet Administrator, Plopsa
They measure more than views
97% of organisations that measure their intranet look at views. Whether employees actually understand the message is measured by only 17% of organisations that measure their internal communication. We recommend thinking in three layers:
- Reach: how many people in the target audience saw the post?
- Engagement: did they click through, react or share?
- Understanding: do they know what is expected of them? A poll or a single check question under important posts is often enough.
With Involv Insights, you get more figures on your intranet content than with standard SharePoint analytics, so you don’t get stuck at the view counter. At Plopsa, that made a real difference: where the team could never say whether a message had arrived, it could answer the CEO’s question about what the intranet delivers with concrete figures for the first time.
How do you calculate the reach of your intranet?
Divide the number of unique readers of a post by the number of employees it was intended for, and take an average over three months.
- Use unique readers, not views. Otherwise, a colleague who comes back three times counts three times.
- Divide by the intended audience: reach = unique readers ÷ number of employees the post was intended for.
- Take an average over three months. A single outlier says little. Only then agree on a target.
Then compare your score with the benchmark:
| Average reach per intranet post | Where do you stand? | Next step |
|---|---|---|
| Less than 40% | Below the typical level | Target news to specific audiences and let email and Teams point to the intranet. |
| 40% to 55% | Around or above the typical level | Reach the groups you are missing, such as employees without a computer. |
| 55% or more | Top quarter | Look beyond reach: measure engagement and understanding. |
Thresholds based on the vonk benchmark (2026): typical intranet reach around 40%, top quarter from around 55%. The categories and recommendations are Involv’s.
Want to look beyond the intranet? In our article on measuring the effectiveness of internal communication, you’ll find an approach for all channels.
Does it pay to set goals for internal communication?
Yes. Organisations with defined goals are more often satisfied with their reach (32%) than organisations without them (22%).
The benchmark shows this too. Organisations that benchmark internally are almost twice as often satisfied (39% versus 21%). These links hold up after correcting for organisation size.
Yet 59% work without defined goals, and 71% don’t benchmark at all. That is not a lack of will: there simply were no reference points. Now there are.
Ready to join the top quarter? More than 300 organisations use Involv for their SharePoint intranet. In a short demo, we show you how to target news to the right audiences, reach frontline employees through the mobile app and get more out of your intranet figures.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good reach for an intranet post?
According to the 2026 internal communication benchmark by vonk, an intranet post belongs to the top quarter if it reaches around 55% or more of all employees. Typical reach is around 40%. That figure refers to a single post, measured against the total headcount. If you measure against the target audience of a post, the figure comes out higher.
How do you calculate the reach of an intranet post?
Divide the number of unique readers of a post by the number of employees it was intended for. Use unique readers instead of total views, use the target audience for targeted news, and take an average over at least three months as your baseline.
How do you increase the reach of your intranet?
Target news to specific audiences, make the homepage the starting point of the workday, let email and Teams point to the intranet, reach frontline employees through a mobile app with push notifications, and set a measurable goal.
Which internal communication channels are used most?
According to the 2026 benchmark by vonk, these are the intranet (90%), email (88%), live events such as town halls (80%) and the digital newsletter (73%). The intranet is also the most measured channel: 69% of organisations track its reach.
Sources
- Dorst, S. & Naudts, J. (Starfish Consultancy) (October 2026). Hoe goed bereikt interne communicatie de medewerker écht? Benchmarkrapport interne communicatie (in Dutch). vonk, netwerk voor interne communicatie, with the support of KBC. The benchmark figures are shared with attribution, as the report permits.
- Involv (2026). Case study: Plopsa.
The interpretations, customer examples and recommendations in this article are Involv’s.
