Millennials were asked what drives their disengagement and gave a one-line answer: “my leader doesn’t know me and doesn’t care to know me.” Chuck’s response sets the tone for the whole episode — it does not matter whether leaders privately care, because if that is how employees feel, that is the truth. Jenni breaks her own format and brings five stories instead of four, and they line up into a single argument about the distance between what leadership believes about its own organization and what everybody below them experiences: 60% millennial disengagement, Citigroup’s “we are not graded on effort” memo, a 40-point culture gap between the C-suite and entry level, Gallup’s span of control climbing to 12.1 direct reports, and a satisfaction gap on change communication that has widened from 13% to 30% in four years.
Jenni opens with Dr Debra Clary’s SmartBrief piece on replacing employee stagnation with curiosity, built on her own research with millennials — now 35% of the workforce, with disengagement rates reported as high as 60% — whose explanation for that disengagement was a single sentence: my leader doesn’t know me and doesn’t care to know me. Clary’s concern is compounding, because this is also the group being prepared for senior leadership in the next decade, which makes what they are learning about leadership on the job the actual risk. Her three tips are to make curiosity contagious, create space for connection, and reward curiosity rather than only results. Chuck’s answer starts with a precondition nobody has met: leaders have to want to fix this first, and he does not see that happening. He connects it to an early-episode study about people hiding what makes them unique at work, and argues that a culture of curiosity cannot grow where the message from the top is that we don’t care to know you. When Jenni offers the generous reading — maybe leaders do care and are simply bad at showing it, and she notes she is opening the door to a bit of leader bashing — Chuck closes it flat: it does not matter, because if leaders care and it is not coming across, that is still a failure, and if that is how employees feel, that is the truth. His advice to employees is to protect the trait itself, being curious outside work if the workplace has squeezed it out.
The second story is Jane Fraser’s memo to Citigroup staff, reported by Fortune, landing alongside about 1,000 job cuts inside a multiyear overhaul that could ultimately remove up to 20,000 roles. Fraser told roughly 200,000 employees that the bar is raised, that performance will be judged on outcomes rather than intentions or long hours, and that she expects the last vestiges of the bank’s old, bad habits to disappear. Jenni brings it in because credibility and distrust are what she hears from CEOs every week, and she is broadly for the shift — her question is how leaders and comms teams frame it so it lands as purposeful work rather than a beating. Chuck’s answer is that he has no problem with the memo at all. The industry has spent years asking leaders to be truthful and direct, and this is what that looks like when it arrives: nobody is pretending, and everybody now knows where they stand and how they will be judged. He would take this over a flowery approach that quietly means the same thing later. Jenni’s sharper observation is about the coverage rather than the memo — the press frames “fiery” as damning, when judging people on outcomes rather than hours is what most organizations claim to want. Her caveat is the human one: this will feel uncomfortable because it is different, and the job is helping people navigate the difference rather than trying to manage their feelings about it.
DHR Global’s second annual Workforce Trends Report, written up by UC Today, surveyed 1,500 corporate professionals across North America, Europe and Asia and found 77% of C-suite leaders calling workplace culture very important against 37% of entry-level employees, with executives 2.5 times more likely to say their culture is well defined. Only 36% believe the culture is defined well enough to drive performance, 46% describe it as reactive and inconsistent across teams, and 15% call it vague and not actively shaped by leadership. Chuck immediately inverts the headline number: the interesting figure is the 23% of executives who did not say culture is very important, because a leader who thinks culture is optional can be a very loud voice in a room, and eight-of-ten agreement at the top is exactly how inconsistency appears further down. He was surprised the vague number was as low as 15%, having rarely worked anywhere the culture felt genuinely nailed, and he offers his own model — one company culture made of micro-cultures inside teams, which he treats as normal rather than a defect. His conclusion is unhelpful to his own profession: comms and HR cannot close this gap while leaders exist who do not think culture matters. Jenni stacks the numbers instead — 46% reactive plus 15% vague is 61% saying it is not working — and Chuck’s pushback is that a culture reacting to a memo like Fraser’s is functioning correctly. Jenni’s answer is frequency: constant reaction is what makes an organization feel frenetic, and her practical fix is the unfashionable one, a competency framework that ties measurable behaviors to values so culture is not left to each person’s lived experience.
Gallup’s span of control research gives Jenni the data behind a year of conversations about shrinking management layers: the average number of people reporting to a manager rose from 10.9 in 2024 to 12.1 in 2025, nearly 50% larger than when Gallup first measured in 2013, against a Bureau of Labor Statistics ratio of roughly one manager for every 11.5 employees. Gallup’s argument is that changing the number is not a structural tweak but a redefinition of the manager’s job, and it offers four questions — how engaged is the team, how much time do managers spend on individual contributor work, do managers have the right talent for the role, and do managers give meaningful regular feedback — with the finding that a highly engaged team of twelve or more can thrive under effective management while a badly managed small team still struggles. Chuck likes the questions but applies a filter from his friend Julia Markish: only ask what you can act upon. Each of Gallup’s four has a yes-or-no answer and then an obligation, and if no investment follows the answer, the survey was decoration. Then he does the math out loud — ten direct reports, one hour each per week, and 25% of a 40-hour week is gone before the manager’s own individual contributor work begins, with some organizations already near twenty reports per manager. Jenni brings in her own 2021 research from the period when people were declaring the line manager role dead, where the recurring complaint was control: managers without authority over budget or people, expected to manage anyway. Her advice is to write the thing almost nobody has written down, a guide to what being a manager means in this specific organization. Chuck’s closing thought is the one that reframes Gallup’s first question — engaged in what, exactly, when a Citigroup employee’s attention has moved to who gets cut next.
The fifth story is Lars Hancke’s LinkedIn post on the satisfaction gap, comparing survey results from 2022, 2024 and 2026 on communication during transformation. Top managers grow steadily more satisfied while employees move the other way: a 13% gap in 2022, 22% in 2024 and 30% in 2026. Hancke’s line is that what began as a misalignment is becoming a structural divide, raising the risk of misunderstanding, resistance and change fatigue, and that beneath the numbers sits a more fundamental problem — organizational communication is not built with the receiver in mind. Chuck’s first move is to lower the ambition: before reversing the trend you have to stop it, and the explanation for the divergence is not mysterious. Communicators are doing what leaders want, which is why leaders are satisfied, and are not asking employees what they want or delivering it in the form they would choose. His trade-off is deliberately provocative — given a choice between 70% of leaders satisfied and 30% of everyone else, or an even 50-50, he takes 50-50, because the second half is a far larger share of the population. Jenni agrees the profession is still skewed the wrong way, and the word receiver sends her back to the Shannon and Weaver model from her communication A level, which is the source of her frustration: this is not a new insight, it is one of the oldest in the field, and the gap is still widening.
Why are 60% of millennials disengaged at work? Dr Debra Clary asked them directly, and the answer in her research was that their leader doesn’t know them and doesn’t care to know them. Millennials are 35% of today’s workforce and the group being groomed for senior leadership, so Clary’s argument is that the disengagement compounds — they are learning leadership from the behavior they are currently on the receiving end of.
What did Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser say in her memo to staff? That the bar is raised and that performance will be judged on outcomes rather than intentions or long hours — “we are not graded on effort. We are judged on our results.” It came alongside about 1,000 job cuts within a multiyear overhaul that could ultimately eliminate up to 20,000 roles, and a stated expectation that the bank’s old, bad habits disappear.
Is a blunt CEO memo bad internal communication? Chuck argues the opposite. Communicators have spent years asking leaders to be direct and honest, and a memo that tells people exactly what is expected and how they will be judged delivers that. His preference is a hard message stated plainly over a softer one that turns out to mean the same thing later.
How big is the culture gap between executives and entry-level employees? DHR Global surveyed 1,500 corporate professionals and found 77% of C-suite leaders calling workplace culture very important against 37% of entry-level employees, with executives 2.5 times more likely to describe their culture as well defined. 46% of respondents said their culture is reactive and inconsistent across teams and 15% called it vague.
What is span of control, and what is the average team size for managers now? Span of control is the number of direct reports a single manager carries. Gallup found the average rose from 10.9 in 2024 to 12.1 in 2025, nearly 50% higher than when it first measured in 2013, and argues the change redefines the manager’s role rather than just resizing the team. Gallup’s finding is that engagement and management quality, not headcount alone, decide whether a large team works.
Why are leaders more satisfied with change communication than employees? Lars Hancke’s survey data shows the gap widening from 13% in 2022 to 22% in 2024 to 30% in 2026. Chuck’s explanation is that communicators are producing what leaders asked for, so leaders are satisfied by definition, while nobody is asking employees what they want or delivering it in the form they would choose. Hancke’s own conclusion is that organizational communication is not built with the receiver in mind.
Jenni: Welcome to Frequency, I’m Jenni Field.
Chuck: And I’m Chuck Gose. Frequency is your go-to for real talk about comms, culture and employee experience, beyond the buzzwords and straight to what matters. And Jenni, it is only the middle of January and it already feels like we’ve been through a year. It seems like it, at least here in the US. It certainly feels that way. So I decided — we haven’t really thought about, how’s your year? I want to do a check-in with you. How’s your year started so far?
Jenni: Okay, so how’s my year started? A little bit chaotic for me, which is no bad thing, but we had a big client project, so I just feel like my diary has felt more chaotic than normal, because we’ve had to do a lot of one-to-one conversations. I’m pleased that I have got back to running after Christmas. We had a bit of snow and ice down here in the south of the UK, which means that we can’t do anything, because we’re that country. So that’s frustrating when you want to get out. Yeah, it’s felt very busy. It’s very grey and dark here, which I don’t enjoy very much. And it’s quite cold. Other than that, it’s been smashing.
Chuck: Yeah, I think for me it’s been very conflicting, because here in the States — and I know the rest of the world is watching — you almost feel guilty when you’re enjoying something knowing what is happening in other parts of the country. It’s this weird conflict of, you still have to lead your life, there are still things you have to do, you can enjoy those things, but how do you properly recognize the struggles and challenges that other people are having? And it’s all I see on Instagram and TikTok. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because I do think I need that reminder. I’m not getting sucked into it in a negative way. I think I’m being sucked into it in a way of making sure that I’m paying attention to what’s happening and not losing touch. But yeah, it’s an odd one in the States, which is always a bit weird here, but this is not one that’s a fun odd, put it that way.
Jenni: Yeah. And I think you have got to protect yourself a little bit. I hear what you’re saying about needing that kind of reminder, but I think having certain time limits on being on social media is probably quite a helpful thing to do at the moment, so that it’s not drowning you — which is important for your own wellbeing, of course.
Chuck: Well, we live in a very suburban Indianapolis, which is probably not on any ICE target cities list. But we live in a very multicultural neighborhood. The majority of our neighbors are not white, and I love that about our neighborhood. So we’ve had the conversation in our house: where’s the line for us? And the line is, I will interrupt, I will engage. And if that means getting arrested, so be it. If that’s what you get arrested for, so be it.
Jenni: Yeah, I hear you, I hear you. And I feel for you guys at the moment as well. But I also enjoy your Instagram stories when you do share some of the things that I don’t see so much over here. It’s helpful. It’s very helpful. And yeah, I’ve got my jaw open a lot of the time, just in shock of the whole thing. So yeah, I hear you.
Chuck: I’m just relentless. I’m relentless.
Jenni: Right, I’m kicking things off today with some articles. I’ve done a you and I’ve got more than four, which I’ve not done before, but there were too many things that I wanted to talk about today. So I’m going to have a little chat about team size for managers — there’s some research that’s come out from Gallup. We’ve talked about this a lot, so I thought this was quite good to have a bit of data around. I’m also going to talk about the satisfaction gap between what employees and leaders think good communication looks like. What else is on my list? Some research — you know me, love some research. We’ve got a global survey talking about the culture gulf between execs and employees. I’ve got a memo from a CEO who’s telling people we’re not graded on effort, and I’d like to talk about that. But I’m going to kick us off with an article that I saw on SmartBrief, which is about three tips to replace employee stagnation with curiosity in 2026.
Jenni: Now, this article is from Dr Debra Clary, where she is sharing her own research into this topic. She’s asked millennials, who now make up 35% of today’s workforce and report disengagement rates as high as 60%, what drives their disengagement. And their answer was, my leader doesn’t know me and doesn’t care to know me. She goes on to share that millennials are not only the largest segment of today’s workforce, they’re also the very group being prepared for senior leadership roles in the decade ahead, or should be. And this is where the risk is: what are they learning about leadership on the job? Her three tips around this are to make curiosity contagious, create space for connection, and reward curiosity, not just results. So my question for you, Chuck, is what do you think of curiosity as the antidote to the challenge, and how can we help leaders today address this issue around disengagement with this particular population?
Chuck: Yeah, I think first leaders have to want to help with this, and I don’t know that we’re necessarily seeing that. One of the lines in here said, my leader doesn’t know me and doesn’t care to know me. And this is what employees are saying. So if leaders don’t care and don’t care to know people, you’re not going to fix this, plain and simple. It goes back to something we talked about very early on the podcast — I don’t remember the study — where people don’t feel like they can even bring themselves to work, or what makes them unique. They’re trying to hide some of those things. You’re not going to develop a culture of curiosity. If the behaviors from leadership are one thing, saying we don’t really care and we don’t really care to know you, and employees don’t feel like they can even share who they are, I don’t see that you’re going to bridge that gap. It’s going to ultimately take leaders expressing that interest and wanting to fix that, and I just don’t see that happening.
Chuck: Curiosity is an amazing thing. It’s an amazing thing. It’s hard to be curious, though, when orders are barked at you, or your meetings are slammed one to one — it’s almost impossible. So I guess I would say to employees, if you don’t feel like you can be curious at work, be curious outside of work. Find things that open up that curiosity. Maybe it’s things you can bring back into the work, maybe not. But we’re all naturally curious. It’s just, how do we stoke that a bit more?
Jenni: And I’m interested in your take on that answer around my leader doesn’t know me and doesn’t care to know me. Do you think that’s true? In the sense of, do we think that leaders actually do want to know them and do want to, but they’re not very good at really showing that or articulating it? Or they just feel like they don’t have the time? And I know you like a bit of leader bashing, so I’m opening the door to that today.
Chuck: I don’t think it matters if that’s how employees are feeling. It actually really doesn’t matter, because if the leaders do care and that’s not coming across, you’re certainly not doing enough. So I don’t think it matters. If that’s how employees are feeling, then that’s the truth.
Jenni: Fair. I’m going to move us on to an article that was on fortune.com, which is, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser warns of job cuts and says it’s time to raise the bar in a fiery memo to staff that says we’re not graded on effort. Now, I talk to CEOs each week about challenges in the workplace, and this year we’re discussing more and more this importance of leaders being credible, the issues of disengagement and distrust. So all of this for me is showing up in this memo from Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser. It’s something I hear all the time.
Jenni: The article says the bank is pushing ahead with about 1,000 job cuts, and the memo warns staff that we’re not graded on effort, setting a tougher tone for 2026. The cuts are part of a multi-year overhaul that could ultimately eliminate up to 20,000 roles, as they shift focus to hard results and an end to what Fraser calls the bank’s old, bad habits. In the memo, previously reported by Bloomberg, Fraser told Citi’s employees — which is about 200,000 — that the bar is raised, and stressed performance will be judged on outcomes rather than intentions or long hours. Just reiterates again: we are not graded on effort, we are judged on our results, she wrote, adding that she expects the vestiges of old, bad habits to disappear as the bank pursues a leaner, more commercially aggressive culture in 2026. Now, my question for you, Chuck, is that this focus on results and not effort alone is a culture shift that’s happening a lot of places. I’m all for that, but how can leaders and comms teams get this message right so that it leans into purposeful and meaningful work and doesn’t feel like you’re just being bashed?
Chuck: I don’t know, going through this I actually don’t have a problem with this approach. We’ve talked about wanting leaders to be truthful and authentic. This is it. No, I don’t work for Citigroup. I don’t know their CEO, Jane. I don’t bank with Citigroup. I don’t have a Citigroup credit card, so I have no skin in the game whatsoever on this. I don’t have a problem with this. She is saying, I don’t really care how hard you work — if we’re not getting the results, you might lose your job. And so at least that’s out in front. I think this is almost a kind of culture-be-damned moment. Like, we’re done trying hard, we’re done. The interesting part about it is not how long you work. So maybe they’re seeing that there are people putting in tons of hours and really not getting any results. So I think calling that out is fine. They’re sort of saying, we don’t really care about your greater purpose, we don’t care if you like your job, you’ve got to get results. And I would rather them take this approach and be honest about it than take some other flowery approach and then later down the line actually mean these things.
Jenni: Do you feel like sometimes the reporting of this doesn’t really help? Because I’m with you, right? I was reading this and thought, I’m all for this. People should be judged on outcomes rather than just long hours or good intentions. But it feels like the media reporting of it is like, this is a bad thing. And I don’t really understand that, because if we want the economy to grow, we want things to happen, we want to make impact in the world — surely this is what we want.
Chuck: I agree. Even saying that it’s a fiery memo, right? It’s very direct. It’s very intense. It might be shocking to a few, but again, I would rather have this approach. I feel like she is being honest here, and perhaps even authentic here. So if this is what you want, this is what you get. Now you know where you stand. Now you know what’s expected of you, which I think sometimes that’s all employees really want — is to know what’s expected, and how is their performance being judged. It sounds like it’s all laid out right now.
Jenni: Yeah, and it is. I think also it’s recognising that this is going to be uncomfortable for people, because it is going to be different, and it just comes down to helping people navigate that difference. That is going to feel uncomfortable, and that’s okay. I think we sometimes worry too much that it’s going to upset people, or people aren’t going to be happy about it, but actually you can’t control other people’s emotions. Let them — you know, big fan of that book. And I think what this screams to me is that, to your point, be honest, come out there and be real about stuff, be genuine about it, and then let’s make some stuff happen. It’s hard to argue with that, I think.
Jenni: Right, the next article is a global survey, and the headline of this was Global Survey Reveals Workplace Culture Gulf Between Execs and Employees. Now, according to DHR Global’s latest research, a significant disconnect is emerging between how corporate leaders and junior staff experience workplace culture. The firm’s second annual Workforce Trends Report, which surveyed 1,500 corporate professionals across North America, Europe and Asia, uncovered a troubling pattern: while executives champion culture as a strategic priority, entry-level employees remain largely disconnected from that vision.
Jenni: Now, the data reveals quite a big perception gap. It says 77% of C-suite leaders described workplace culture as very important. Only 37% of entry-level employees agreed. Executives were 2.5 times more likely than their junior colleagues to view their organisation’s culture as well-defined. When asked what matters most, the survey showed employees have a nuanced view of their cultural priorities. Nearly all respondents acknowledged that workplace culture affects their employee experience, with 53% calling it very important and 40% saying it was somewhat important. However, the enthusiasm for it really stops there. Only 36% believe their company culture was well-defined enough to drive performance. The disconnect becomes clearer when examining how employees describe their current cultural reality, with nearly half of respondents — that’s about 46% — characterising their organisational culture as reactive and inconsistent across teams, while another 15% found it vague and not actively shaped by leadership. So my question for you is, how can comms and HR close this cultural gap?
Chuck: I want to know if Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser had filled out this survey. And this isn’t a dig, I would love to know. The stat that stood out to me was the 77% of C-suite leaders who described workplace culture as, quote unquote, very important. I would love to know where she would vote on that, because that’s more interesting to me — that there’s 23% of C-suite leaders that say culture actually is not very important, which to me could be a very loud voice in a room. And so if there’s a significant amount, and I count 23% as pretty significant, of leaders who say, yeah, culture doesn’t really matter, then of course when you look down the line there’s going to be inconsistency across teams. If you’ve got a leadership team of 10 people, per these numbers, eight are going to think culture is important, two are not. So those teams that are the two are probably going to behave very differently, or culture is going to look very different than the other side of people that would vote there.
Chuck: I actually was a little bit surprised that only 15% found it vague and not actively shaped by leadership. I would have thought that would have been higher. Very few organizations I’ve worked for have I felt like the culture was absolutely nailed and the value was there and everybody knew what it was. I found there’s a ton of ambiguity when it came to culture. In fact, I’m of the belief that you have a company culture that is ultimately made up of a bunch of micro-cultures that exist within teams. There’s going to be some different behaviors, different ways teams interact. That’s fine, that’s like living organisms in there. So I don’t know that comms and HR can actually close that gap, unless you can start demonstrating this is why culture is so important. If culture is not important to you, then maybe this isn’t the organization for you. But as long as there are leaders who say culture is not important, then it’s not going to be important.
Jenni: And you’re right, that 15% feels quite low. When you add that to the 46% who said that their organisational culture is reactive and inconsistent across teams, that’s 61% who are saying it’s just not really working here.
Chuck: Well, again, let’s go back to Citigroup. This memo comes out — I guarantee you that culture reacted. It should react to that. It’s not like, nope, we’re rock solid, nope, this is how we are over here. When your leader is over here saying something like that, it absolutely should react. So I don’t know that a reactive culture is actually necessarily a bad thing.
Jenni: I suppose it depends on how often it’s reacting, and I think that’s probably the issue, isn’t it? It feels like it’s a bit frenetic or whatever. I think that would be hard to operate in. But I do think you’re right, it’s a hard gap to close for comms and HR when actually there are so many different elements that make up a culture. The thing I was thinking about with this was some of the foundational things like competency frameworks and stuff like that, that measure behaviours and things. I feel like they’ve disappeared a little bit over the years and I don’t know why. Maybe I need to read a bit more of that. But in the clients I’m working with, where we’re looking at culture shifts and we’re looking at leadership behaviours and all of that, I’m going, we need some sort of framework here, a competency framework that allows us to measure people or hold people to account of a set of behaviours guided by our values. Otherwise you’re just guiding things by your own lived experience, which is really difficult in terms of creating a culture that people can kind of get behind and be aligned to. And I just don’t know why some of those things that for me feel quite foundational seem to not be being used as much as maybe they were 20 years ago. Maybe we’ve just got bored of them. I don’t know.
Jenni: Right, let’s go on to some Gallup data, because apparently I can’t stop talking about Gallup over the last six months. They dropped an email into my inbox this week which was called, Span of Control: What’s the Optimal Team Size for Managers? And because we’ve talked about this shift for managers in organisations a lot in the last year, I was quite keen to dig into this. So it talks about the fact that the reduction of managers and the bigger teams that come as a result are all signalling a poor employee experience, and the data basically says the same. They say that increasing the number of direct reports to a single manager, often called span of control, isn’t just a structural change. It fundamentally reshapes the role of the manager and changes what it takes to practice effective leadership.
Jenni: Now, this is US data, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there is roughly one manager for every 11.5 employees, and Gallup data shows a similar pattern. The average number of people reporting to managers has increased from 10.9 in 2024 to 12.1 in 2025, and this is nearly a 50% increase in team size since Gallup first measured in 2013. Now, Gallup go on to suggest there are four questions that shape the span of control. They talk about the fact that uncertainty about the future effects of AI on team size and employee management may add extra pressure to define this ideal span of control. But they suggest that the answers depend on four factors. So these are their four questions: how engaged is the team? How much time do managers spend on individual contributor work? Do managers have the right talent for the role? Do managers give employees meaningful, regular feedback?
Jenni: The key takeaway from this is that team size is only as effective as the engagement behind it. So highly engaged teams of 12 or more workers who are supported by effective management — double the current median of six workers per team — can thrive, while poorly managed teams struggle even when they’re small. Now, this tracks to what I’ve always said, which is it doesn’t matter if there’s seven of you or 7,000 of you in an organisation, effective communication is the thing that’s going to make or break it. And I stand by that, and have done for about the last 20 years. So my question for you is, what do you think about these four questions, and do you think they would be enough to shape the role of the line manager in organisations? Because the headline of this is also that the role of the manager has to change if we’re changing the span of control.
Chuck: Yeah, I think when you look through the questions, they’re great questions to reflect on. But going back to a phrase that I keep close to me from my friend Julia Markish: only ask what you can act upon. So, do managers have the right talent for the role? Yes or no. If no, well, what are you doing about it? Are companies making that investment? Do they give regular feedback? Yes or no. Okay, they do, great. If no, what are you doing about it? So it really comes down to, are there any action items related to this?
Chuck: What’s interesting to me is thinking back to — let’s just talk some math here on it. Let’s say you’re a manager of 10 people, you’ve got 10 people that work for you. If you spend just an hour a week individually with each of those people, that’s 25% of your 40-hour work week right there, which probably means you’re probably working more, because you also are an individual contributor in addition to managing a team of people. And let’s say you even check in with them daily. That’s only 10 minutes a day. All of a sudden that’s a quarter of your week. Even looking at those numbers, we’ve shared some previous stats where some companies are now close to 20 people per manager, and that manager still has a job, which means you’re not set up for success. We’ve talked about this within our industry for a decade plus about not properly supporting managers. Now we’re simply seeing the data act out on it. Managers catch it from both sides. They’ve got to manage an employee team, but also they’re an employee who reports to someone who is probably also part of a team and gets dumped on. So they’re also feeling it there as well. So it’s a systemic issue that’s been plagued for a long time. And I think it can point to the fact of when we simply got rid of people managers, when people simply just managed a team and that’s what they did, that was their job. And now that we’ve given them a job, and oh, by the way, you’re also managing 12.1 people now. Woof, I don’t know. Can you be successful? I was going to say, you take a pretty rare breed of person to pull that off.
Jenni: Yeah. And I think you’re right about asking the questions that you can actually address. I think that’s always true in any kind of data. When I did research into the role of line managers back in 2021, which came about because people were saying during the pandemic, we don’t need line managers any more, the role of the line manager is just dead, because why do we need them if we’re all just working? And I was like, ah! So I did some research into it. And one of the biggest things was understanding the difference between empowerment and autonomy and being clear about that. And the majority of managers that we spoke to were saying, I don’t have control — either I don’t have control over my budget or I don’t have control over my people. There’s something I don’t have control over, and therefore it makes it really hard to actually manage and get stuff done. And I hear that a lot: it’s the budget, or it’s the people, or whatever it is.
Jenni: And I think the whole world of management needs looking at in work, and actually what you’re expecting people to do. One piece of advice I would give is to come up with, what is the guide to being a manager in your organisation? And if you don’t have that, that’s the thing that I often come back to: what does it mean to be a manager in this organisation? Get that documented and get that shared and discussed and part of the cultural furniture, because I think that’s important.
Chuck: I think that first question too is kind of fascinating to me, when we talk about how engaged is the team. It’s engaged in what? Right, because let’s say you’re a Citigroup employee. Now, I love that I keep coming back to this story. That’s now what you’re engaged in. You’re probably not engaged in your day-to-day task any more. You’re probably looking around seeing who else is going to be laid off, who’s working long hours, who’s not getting results. That’s now what you’re engaged in. So that’s one of my biggest challenges with employee engagement — engaged in what? What are we looking for here?
Jenni: I love that you keep coming back to that. Whenever I can, that’s been our anchor point today. And I have got one more today, because I’ve done a you and got five. And this is a post that I saw on LinkedIn, and this is the satisfaction gap between employees and leaders and what they think good communication looks like. This was a post from Lars Hancke, and it came up in the last week on LinkedIn, and it shared the different view that employees and leaders have. He shared survey results from 2022, 2024 and 2026 that examined corporate communications and the impact through the organisation. And it seems that this is specific to change communication, having read the post.
Jenni: While top managers continue to grow more satisfied with the communication around transformations in their organisation, employees continue to move in the opposite direction. In 2022 there was a 13% gap. In 2024 it was 22%. And now in 2026 it’s 30%. He says in the post, what began as a misalignment is becoming a structural divide, raising the risk of misunderstanding, resistance and change fatigue. Beneath the numbers lies a deeper, more fundamental issue: organisational communication is not built with the receiver in mind. Now, my question for you is that the numbers feel like a bit of a trend, in that they’re only going to go higher. How do we reverse this?
Chuck: I think before reversing it, you have to stop it. You have to hold it there, or else that trend’s going to keep going. Maybe I’m oversimplifying this, but it really seems like we as communicators, whether we’re doing the communication or we’re advising on the communication, we are doing what leaders want. Of course they are satisfied in it. We are not doing what employees want. We are not asking employees, what do you want, and doing it in ways that they want to receive it. To his point, we’re not building with the receiver in mind.
Chuck: And so I think that’s it. How do you hold that? How do you start balancing that with what leaders want, what leaders expect from communication, but also in the style and ways that employees, the frontline, whoever that is, want it? Because once you balance that satisfaction — you’re never going to make everyone happy, but would you rather have 70% of leaders and 30% of the rest of employees, or would you rather have 50-50? I’d probably take 50-50, because that other 50% is going to be a larger percentage of your population. Not to say that that’s the best way to look at that, but I think that demonstrates we are very reactive to leaders, not at all to employees, from what I’m seeing. I think we need to start paying more attention to what do employees want in their style, still deliver what leadership needs out of communication, but in the ways that employees want it.
Jenni: Yeah, I agree with you. I think we are still too skewed the other way.
Chuck: That’s disappointing.
Jenni: I know, but I think it’s very nice to say. The use of the word receiver in this really took me back to my communication A level and the Shannon and Weaver model of communication. And I don’t even know if you know what that is. And it was literally like sender, receiver, and then there was something in it.
Chuck: I don’t.
Jenni: And it’s just taken me back to that. And I suppose when I read this, it was disappointing to see those percentages change. But I also feel like we’ve been talking about this for such a long time. And it’s that frustration, I suppose, that sometimes comes out for me of, what is it going to take to really make a difference with leaders, with managers and organisations, to get this right? And because I spend a lot of time helping people be less chaotic by improving communication, I see this every day and I’m starting to see why it’s happening, and I’ll talk about that another day. But yeah, I’ve gone right back to my A level. So thanks to myself for making me go there. Now, what are you freq-ing out about today? Because that’s the end of our articles.
Chuck: Well, I’m going to circle back to basically what we kicked off at the beginning of the year. I will say personally, I am a very political person. I am freq-ing out about ICE. What I’m seeing on TikTok, on Instagram, in the news, wherever it is — how we are treating people in our country. We say our country, the United States of America. I remember years ago, this was probably back in the very first Trump administration, I was at an international event and people were kind of mocking us and mocking Trump and whatever, and I sort of rolled with it, because that’s what you have to do. And there was actually somebody, a Brit, who spoke up and he’s like, you’re a German living in Spain, you’ll always be a German in Spain. And he’s like, anybody can be American. And I thought, that is truly what makes this country so great, is that it is a nation of immigrants. That is what built this.
Chuck: But the fact that you’re seeing Native Americans getting picked up and detained by ICE — Native Americans getting picked up and detained by ICE — just shows that this is not about immigration. It’s not about immigration. It’s about something far worse. And it’s something that a lot of us who are white have to start recognizing and dealing with. And that is what I’m freq-ing out about. Native Americans are being picked up by immigration officials. I just can’t. I can’t.
Jenni: I can’t. I saw something today actually that was like a five-year-old boy has been picked up, and I was like, I can’t. I can’t.
Chuck: So when you talk about the things that I post on, specifically typically Instagram, often I add the same title to it, which is, cruelty is the point. That is the point. This is an administration based on cruelty and we’re seeing it played out, and they seem quite proud of it. And I have to remind people who voted for that side: this is what you voted for. People tried to warn you and you said, no, it’s not going to be like that. Well, guess what? You now get what you voted for. We are an international embarrassment and we are harming people on a daily basis.
Jenni: Yeah. I mean, my freq-out is going to feel really insignificant now.
Chuck: Well, no, that’s okay. That’s okay. But we’ve said we weren’t going to not be political on the podcast, but also I am going to be.
Jenni: We can’t not, but also you can’t not talk about it. I mean, we could get into the Brooklyn Beckham saga instead. We could really talk about that, because I have to say that the memes are bringing me some light relief this week. But my freq-out this week is LinkedIn and consultants. I know, I know it’s not…
Chuck: You’re right, this is not anywhere close to mine.
Jenni: Really, no, I’m not going to swear. I get very frustrated with people, and I think this is LinkedIn’s fault more than anything. So LinkedIn keeps going, suggested post, suggested post, at me. Every other post is not someone in my network, and it’s a lot of talking about, this is everything that you’re doing wrong, this is what you should be doing right, but I’m not going to help you do that. I’m not going to give you any guidance on that. I’m not going to do a webinar to help. Like, where’s the help? Where’s the stuff to do that?
Jenni: And I mean, I have a very big service ethos, and we’re both very, very similar in that from a values perspective. So I always try to create a PDF, or I do an Ask Me Anything where you can turn up for free. There’s stuff we do that is here to help people that are working in organisations to improve comms, leadership, employee experience. And I’ve just had enough of the people that are just throwing rocks and not doing the work to actually help people. And that’s, I think, LinkedIn’s fault more than anybody else’s, but it’s just pissed me off this month.
Chuck: It’s very kind of you to blame LinkedIn. However, LinkedIn is not creating the posts. I just had to point that out.
Jenni: No, but it’s surfacing them, and it’s surfacing a lot. And I think that’s why it feels like it was.
Chuck: So LinkedIn is rage baiting you and the posts are the bait.
Jenni: Yes, and it’s worked. And here I am. Well, thank you for joining us this week. All of the articles that have inspired this conversation are in the show notes, and don’t forget to rate and review after you’ve listened. Subscribe so that you don’t miss another episode, and pass this along to someone that you think would enjoy listening or watching, because don’t forget, we are also on YouTube. Thank you to Poet Ali for contributing the music to the show. And we’re back every Monday with more news, insights and opinions about everything comms and leadership in workplaces today. Keep tuning in and turning up.
Chuck is a US-based internal communications strategist and the founder of ICology – a community and resource hub for IC professionals. He brings a practitioner lens to every conversation. Chuck is a recognised voice in the industry, a regular speaker and event host, and one of the most connected people in the North American IC world.
Jenni is a UK-based leadership and internal communications consultant, author of two best-selling books, and international speaker. She runs Redefining Communications, a consultancy working with organisations around the world to help them communicate better and close the gap between what leaders say and what employees experience.
