The weekly conversation for people who shape how organizations work

Do your people have what they need to do the job? Korn Ferry looked at listening data from nearly 1.4 million employees and found that question predicts retention and revenue per employee better than whether people feel engaged. Jenni has been waiting a long time for someone to say it. Chuck is annoyed with himself for not making the connection sooner, having worked alongside sales and marketing enablement teams for years.

The rest of the week is about what leaders tell people, and what they leave out. McKinsey research says most of the jobs expected to change because of AI are frontline and support roles, but nobody seems to be telling those workers what to learn. BCG finds that vague AI messaging does more harm than saying nothing. And an alleged bugging case at OpenAI raises a question every company handing AI agents access to calendars and files will need to answer: what can the tools see, and do employees know?

Only half a hand went up when Chuck asked a live London audience who has an AI “employee” on their team. Plenty of people talk about AI as the newest team member. Almost nobody is counting it as one.

Recorded live at Unily’s Unite 26 conference in London, Chuck and Jenni swap news articles for stories straight from two days of sessions. Charlene Li’s call to stop doing pilots. The risk of calling AI a teammate when you need real headcount. Why Jenni can’t get on board with “taste-making.” And whether “do less but better” holds up against a songwriter who says 70% of his work is garbage. Running underneath all of it is Jenni’s question: small teams, no budget, poor HR data, blaming IT. Is any of this new, or has internal comms been making the same excuses for 20 years?