Why More Budget, More Messages, and More AI Won't Fix Employee Experience

This week Jenni and Chuck dig into four stories that all circle the same theme: more isn't working.

They start with Nick Bloom's latest research on whether working from home helps or hinders mental health, unpicking the tricky question of causality versus correlation, and landing on the idea that autonomy and choice, not location, are what actually drive wellbeing.

From there they turn to a Harvard Business Review piece on why effective leaders so often get branded as "the problem," using the example of a decisive executive whose pace exposed a culture of over-consensus rather than created one, and reflecting on how organisations are too quick to blame the leader rather than the system they've stepped into.

Next up is Scarlett Abbott's World Changers Report, where they pull out striking gaps between what HR and internal comms believe employees understand about vision and strategy, and questions why performance management remains the top investment priority in employee experience despite engagement continuing to fall.

Finally, they cover a new report from Fresh Intranet on the "intent gap," revealing that only 12% of employees read internal communications in full, that the vast majority have turned to AI to summarise messages, and that volume of competing communications, not quality or relevance, is the single biggest factor in whether anything gets read at all.

____________________________

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:

Does WFH help or hinder mental health?

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nick-bloom-stanford_how-to-tell-correlation-from-causation-does-share-7468658679458971648-2pJh/
Why Effective Leaders Get Branded as Problems
https://hbr.org/2026/05/why-effective-leaders-get-branded-as-problems
World Changers report from Scarlett Abbott
https://publications.scarlettabbott.co.uk/world-changers-2026/home

The employee attention recession
https://freshintranet.com/ebook/the-employee-attention-recession-report-2026/

Видео Why More Budget, More Messages, and More AI Won't Fix Employee Experience канала Frequency