Employers not trusted to be honest incomms, warns new report

The report, produced in conjunction with Ipsos Karian and Box, also reveals trust issues around the use of AI in comms as well as around decisions to bring staff back to the office post-pandemic.

It draws on surveys of 4,000 employees in organisations employing more than 500 staff, and 220 internal comms professionals.

A key finding is that the level of trust between employees and employers is linked to the quality, or otherwise, of internal comms.

The IC Index 2024: The Trust Issue report reveals a 74 percentage point difference in the level of trust in senior leaders between employees who rate communication as excellent and those who rate it as poor. Just six per cent of people who rate internal comms as “very poor” have trust in their organisation's leadership. This percentage rises to 80 per cent where people rate internal comms as “excellent”.

The majority (74 per cent) of internal comms practitioners claim that leaders in their organisation “understand the importance of internal communication to organisational outcomes”. However, less than half (49 per cent) of internal comms practitioners agree that “leaders in my organisation are effective at communicating with employees”.

The report shows there is room for improvement in the internal comms at many organisations. Less than two thirds (61 per cent) of employees rate the way their organisation communicates with them as excellent. And barely half (55 per cent) trust their chief executive or equivalent.

Suspicion surrounds the decisions of many firms to bring workers back to the office post-pandemic, with “a lack of trust in how the ‘return to office’ has been communicated”, according to the report.

“More than two in three people said they thought the reason for bringing people back to the office was something other than what their employer communicated, a pretty damning statistic for hybrid working communications,” it states.

The report says 68 per cent think their organisation "lied about the rationale for bringing people back to the office”.

It adds: “Many employers cited collaboration as the main reason they wanted people to come back, but many employees think management oversight of working hours was the real motivation.”

Only half (51 per cent) of internal comms practitioners thought that comms around hybrid working policies had “landed well with employees”.

The way that changes such as restructures and redundancies are communicated is also looked at, with only one in ten (11 per cent) of managers saying “they’ve been trained in communicating change effectively”. The report states: “People want more clarity, honesty and listening to improve how change is managed.” 

Yet only one in three (32 per cent) of internal comms practitioners state that “they are treated as strategic advisers, deeply involved in how change is communicated from the outset”.

Another issue is the use of AI in comms. Some 17 per cent of internal comms practitioners are already using AI to create internet articles, while seven per cent are using AI to create content for chief executives and an additional 10 per cent are considering doing so.

“Significant proportions of people don’t trust – or don’t know if they can trust – communications developed using AI,” according to the report. 

It says that 33 per cent “would not at all trust a message from their CEO or most senior leader that was developed with AI”. However, 37 per cent would trust such a message “a great deal” or “a fair amount”. This is an example of the divide that exists among people “on whether they can trust AI to be used to create content”.

Jennifer Sproul, chief executive of the Institute of Internal Communication, said: “As we navigate through constant change and the rise of AI, it has never been more critical to maintain trust through authentic and transparent communication.”

She added: “This report provides actionable insights to help organisations enhance their internal communication strategies and build a more trustworthy workplace.”