Half of Employees Don't Trust Their CEO
FrequencyMay 18, 202600:14:31

Half of Employees Don't Trust Their CEO

The 2026 IC Index from the Institute of Internal Communication surveyed 5,000 UK employees — not IC professionals, not HR — and the picture isn't improving. Change is accelerating while clarity is falling. Trust in senior leaders has declined again. And leaders are consistently overestimating how well they've communicated strategy, AI direction, and what change actually means for the people doing the work.

Jenni and Chuck dig into the six key findings, but the sharpest exchange is about which drivers of employee confidence IC can actually own. Jenni argues two. Chuck argues three. The one they disagree on — whether IC should claim AI communication — cuts to a bigger question about where the function's responsibility realistically ends.

Jenni's broader take: this report isn't asking IC to improve, it's asking them to become something different. Organisational communication versus internal communication is a distinction that matters, and most functions haven't made that shift. Chuck's take: the trust collapse inside organisations mirrors exactly what people are experiencing outside of work — and that mirror isn't going away.

https://www.ioic.org.uk/insight-practice/ic-index.html