The weekly conversation for people who shape how organizations work

People will shrug when AI summarizes a meeting. They will not shrug when it gets their pay wrong. A new PayrollOrg survey found 46% of employees are uncomfortable with AI in payroll, up from 39% two years ago, and the trend is moving away from trust, not toward it.

Recording in person after Unily’s Unite 26 conference in London, Chuck and Jenni work through five stories that keep circling the same idea: technology and structure only go as far as people trust them. Microsoft moves communications under its legal and policy group while asking employees to become its public voice. A “bait and switch” hiring survey leans on an inflated headline. Gen Z holds back on AI skills. And a study on training budgets sets up a $5,000 argument the hosts don’t quite settle.

A study that tracked every worker and company in Denmark for 25 years found that the gender pay gap at a firm narrowed when a male manager had his first daughter. Chuck thinks the data holds up, and finds that depressing. Jenni doesn’t buy the causation at all.

That argument opens episode 76, recorded with Jenni just back from a week in Boston and Chuck on the road in Omaha ahead of Unite in London. From there, the pair move to a union “watch list” allegation at the maker of Grand Theft Auto, why the CEO shouldn’t be the face of every message, and whether AI really deserves the blame for bland internal comms.