News items mentioned in this episode:

1️⃣ Internal Comms Is Absorbing a Crisis It Didn't Create

2️⃣ Better Signals, Less Noise: The State of Workplace Communication

3️⃣ 'New Normal' Prompts New Guidelines for CEO Communications

4️⃣ Meta Is Tracking Employee Keystrokes to Train Its AI

5️⃣ Your Employees' Old Slack Messages Have a New Owner

About this week's episode of Frequency:

This week Jenni Field and Chuck Gose dig into a cluster of stories that all point to the same uncomfortable truth: in communications, playing it safe is often the riskiest move of all. From burned-out IC practitioners to CEOs retreating from the public eye to a tech giant quietly watching its own employees, the thread running through this episode is what happens when organisations choose silence over substance.

The episode opens with the Shifting Ground Report which surveyed 24 internal comms professionals. The findings are striking: 88% said their personal wellbeing had been affected by overlapping crises, and 83% reported stress or burnout. Nearly three quarters say they are aiming for a strategic communications model, yet only 18% believe they have actually got there, and 61% have no formal change comms approach in place. The report makes the case that neutral, sanitised language is not safe communication; it simply transfers risk from the organisation's legal exposure onto employees' trust. Jenni draws a direct parallel to psychological safety research, arguing that the very behaviour designed to feel cautious is the behaviour that undermines candour and organisational health.

The second story comes from a survey of 1,175 full-time US employees, and it surfaces a paradox every communicator should sit with: half of employees say the volume of communication they receive is about right, yet 44% simultaneously report feeling overwhelmed. On AI, 81% say they believe they can tell when something has been written by AI — a claim Chuck challenges with a pointed observation about AI detection tools flagging Mary Shelley. The shorthand from the survey is "reduce, don't produce," which Jenni and Chuck agree captures a governance conversation most organisations have still not had.

The third story looks beyond the internal function to the Golin CEO Impact Index, which tracks the public communications activity of the top 250 Fortune 500 CEOs - it tells a story about what happens when you say no to one thing and yes to something else!

Meta's are capturing employee keystrokes and mouse clicks across hundreds of sites and apps — including Google, LinkedIn, Slack, and GitHub — with the stated purpose of teaching its AI models how to use computers. Employees who called the programme dystopian did so in internal messages Meta was also monitoring. Jenni raises a pointed scientific objection: if you tell people they are being tracked, or they find out they have been, behaviour changes — meaning the "big and unbiased data set" Meta sought was never achievable in the first place. The absence of meaningful communication around the launch is, as Chuck notes, itself a choice, and one that sits alongside all the other stories this week as an illustration of what silence costs.

The episode closes with a fifth story about Asset Hub, built by a startup called Simple Closure, that helps shuttered companies sell their internal data — Slack conversations, email threads, meeting notes — as AI training material. Approximately 100 deals have been processed, with payouts ranging from tens of thousands to well into six figures. The legal question of who owns employee communications, and whether a company can sell them, remains largely untested. Jenni's reaction is clear: just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

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Want to find out more about Chuck’s work and ICology - check out the website and how to become a member here: https://www.joinicology.com/

Jenni’s a regular speaker and consultant on leadership credibility and internal communication, you can find out more about how to learn from her and work with her here: https://thejennifield.com/

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In this episode of Frequency, Jenni Field and Chuck Gose dig into four stories that, taken together, make a pretty uncomfortable case: that modern work is increasingly built on theatre and ambiguity.

From a personal essay that went viral, to engagement data from two continents, to the real story behind return-to-office mandates, this episode asks what happens when the structures organisations rely on stop working - and nobody says anything.

The first story is a personal essay from someone who confessed to spending an entire year at a software company doing no work - and never being found out. Her piece draws on David Graeber's concept of bullshit jobs - roles so pointless that even the person doing them cannot justify their existence - with Graeber estimating that 20 to 50% of all jobs fit that description.

Firstup have published some reports into employee engagement, surveying over 3,000 employees across corporate, manager, and hourly worker roles in both North America and the UK. The headline finding is that employee engagement scores look healthy on paper, but they are masking a significant and growing retention crisis. Nearly half of employees say they are engaged, and nearly half are also planning to leave within 12 months. The real question Chuck and Jenni discuss is what are the drivers behind why people stay if they aren’t engaged?

The third story, from Startups Magazine, is titled The Clarity Crisis: Why Your Culture Problem is Actually a Communication Problem. Its central argument is that what leaders diagnose as a culture problem is most often a communication problem, specifically a failure around clarity. It’s not new, but how does this knowledge start to have an impact with managers and leaders in the workplace?

The final story examines some return-to-office stats and trends for the USA. Only 27% of companies have returned to a fully in-person model, while 67% continue to offer some form of hybrid flexibility. Perhaps the most revealing statistic in the report: 25% of executives and 18% of HR professionals admit they hoped some employees would voluntarily leave because of an RTO policy - something Chuck calls out as weak.

Want to find out more about Chuck’s work and ICology - check out the website and how to become a member here: https://www.joinicology.com/

Jenni’s a regular speaker and consultant on leadership credibility and internal communication, you can find out more about how to learn from her and work with her here: https://thejennifield.com/

Articles mentioned in this episode:

• (00:40) The US and UK special relationship
• (04:11) I did no work for a year and no one noticed
• (10:19) Firstup report on employee engagement
• (17:14) The clarity crisis: why your ‘culture’ problem is actually a communication problem
• (22:20) Essential Return-to-Office Statistics and Trends (2026) USA insights

Episode's official page: Half Feel Engaged Yet Plan to Leave: Bullshit Jobs, the Clarity Crisis and RTO as Stealth Layoffs