Jenni is back from a week in Boston, where she spoke to students at the College of Communication and discovered that Boston cream pie is not, in fact, a pie. Chuck is heading to London for Unite. In between, the pair tackle four stories about who holds influence at work: a study linking male managers' daughters to the gender pay gap, an employment tribunal at the maker of Grand Theft Auto, the limits of CEO visibility, and whether AI is really to blame for bland internal comms.

The episode opens with research published in the Review of Economic Studies by Aarhus University and Northwestern. It tracked every worker and company in Denmark from 1992 to 2017. When a male manager had his first daughter, women's earnings relative to men's rose 4.1% at his firm, and the share of women employed rose 4.5%. Chuck finds the data convincing, if depressing, and questions why men only seem to wake up to how women are treated once they have a daughter. Jenni isn't persuaded that managers' behaviour explains a change in pay, given that pay is usually set by HR policy and grading structures.

Next, a former Rockstar North worker has told an employment tribunal in Glasgow that the company kept a watch list of union members after a 2023 petition about working from home. He is one of 23 dismissed workers taking the case. Rockstar denies the claims and says the firings were for gross misconduct after confidential information was shared on a Discord server that around 300 staff used to talk about the company. Chuck asks whether employees building their own channel is a failure of the official ones.

The third story, from an Inc. article, challenges the habit of making the CEO the face of everything. Just 24% of people say frequent CEO media appearances make them trust a company more, the weakest trust builder tested. Meanwhile, 38% of knowledge workers would rather hear a technical explanation from a specialist. The proposed fix is a portfolio of voices. Jenni explains why she has never built a comms plan around the CEO alone.

Finally, a TikTok from Heart to Heart Leadership claims that if your team can tell AI wrote your internal comms, you've already lost them. Chuck points out that generic corporate mush existed long before AI, and asks whether the profession is under-reacting, reacting, or overreacting. Jenni says overreacting. Drawing on her recent webinar with Shel Holtz, she makes the case for AI as a genuinely useful tool, and suggests the anxiety says as much about an identity crisis in comms as it does about the technology.

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: What having a daughter does to a boss https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2026/09/18/what-having-a-daughter-does-to-a-boss Sacked Grand Theft Auto worker claims Rockstar staff placed on 'watch list' https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjrx5xlz83jo Companies keep turning CEOs into thought leaders. Research says they're not always the best spokespeople https://www.inc.com/michael-kaye/ceos-thought-leaders-research-spokespeople/91400474 If your team can tell AI wrote your internal comms, you've already lost them https://www.tiktok.com/@h2.leaders/video/7683944901196696846

Jenni brought five stories this week — a first for the show — and they line up into one uncomfortable theme: the tools got faster, the talking got harder.

Chuck and Jenni open on Patrick Lencioni's The Advantage and the case for chasing organizational health instead of employee engagement. Then the Spellbook CEO who told 200-plus employees he wants their "D+ version" and insists customer comms stay "hand-written" — from an AI company. They walk Stephen Waddington's Wadds Inc. summer report and test whether its UK read holds up in the US (Chuck: it's a mirror).

They dig into new Predictive Index data showing 74% of CEOs think their managers are great at tough conversations while only 20% of managers would go in without a safety net. And they close on Priya Parker's claim that Slack turbocharged workplace conflict — with Jenni asking the fair question: why Slack, when Yammer was first?

Straight-talking, a little snarky, and more honest about leadership than most leaders manage.

TIMESTAMPS 00:00 — Intro: five stories, and Chuck's three weeks on the road 01:50 — The Advantage: organizational health over engagement (Lencioni) 08:40 — The 'D+ version': Spellbook's hand-written AI memo 15:10 — Wadds Inc. summer report: does it track in the US? 22:10 — The work got automated, the talking didn't (Predictive Index) 26:50 — Did Slack turbocharge conflict? (Priya Parker) 30:40 — Freq-outs: college tuition and packing lists

LINKS & MENTIONS - The Advantage, Patrick Lencioni: https://www.tablegroup.com/product/the-advantage/ - Spellbook CEO's AI writing memo (Business Insider): https://www.businessinsider.com/spellbook-ceo-ai-policy-employee-writing-2026-9 - Wadds Inc. summer report, Stephen Waddington: [drop in the report link] - "Doing the work got automated. Talking about it didn't" (HRD): https://www.hcamag.com/us/specialization/corporate-wellness/doing-the-work-got-automated-talking-about-it-didnt/588222 - Priya Parker on The Interview (NYT), via TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theinterview_nyt/video/7683495206485789965 - The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker

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In this episode of Frequency, Jenni Field and Chuck Gose work through a week of rising costs, shrinking headcounts, and a rare bit of good news for PR, before landing on why "restructuring" has become the most trusted-sounding word companies use to say the least.

They open with the strange things people post online, including a genuinely dark one: an employee who posted a photo of a deceased family member inside their company's internal app, then kept re-posting it after it was removed. Where's the line on employee-generated content, and what does that moment say about people needing somewhere to grieve?

Then the stories. US employer healthcare costs are set to rise 9.2% to 11.1% in 2027, the steepest jump since 2003 and up 76% over the past decade. Employers have quietly cut GLP-1 coverage from 72% to 60% in a single year, the benefit people want most, while Business Group on Health's Ellen Kelsay calls it an "existential reckoning." Chuck's take is blunt: rising costs don't force you to pass them to employees, especially in a year of record profits. Jenni brings the UK view, where the NHS changes the maths but private cover is getting the same GLP-1 scrutiny.

Next, the Challenger numbers. August brought 52,000-plus announced job cuts, up 58% from July, led by consumer products and food (Tyson alone was nearly a third of its sector). But year-to-date cuts are down 41%, hiring announcements are up 725%, and AI has dropped to the fourth-most-cited reason after five months on top. The pair dig into why "restructuring," the vaguest word on the list, is the one everyone reaches for.

That runs straight into Uber, cutting roughly 3,300 jobs (about 10%) to remove "managers who manage managers," while pushing remote work to near zero and hybrid staff back three days a week. Revenue has tripled in five years, so this is a profitable company choosing lean. Chuck reads a threat in the "smarter and leaner" framing; Jenni argues faster decisions come from fixing process, not cutting people. Both land on the same word: greed.

They close the news with Lindsay Bennett's "new communications playbook." Same job title, different job: media relations in 2022, AI visibility and GEO in 2026. Earned media now has two audiences, the human today and the AI tomorrow. PR is "cool again," so the question is whether internal comms gets the same moment or watches external comms take the budget.

Chuck's freq-out closes the show: a reflection on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and the drive home from Atlanta with three strangers when the skies were empty.

• 00:00 — Welcome, and the strangest things people post (including a dark internal-app story)
• 03:34 — US healthcare costs and the quiet GLP-1 pullback
• 09:03 — August job cuts up 58% (and why AI isn't the villain)
• 15:20 — Uber's 3,300 cuts and the RTO bundle
• 20:11 — The new comms playbook: AI, GEO, and "PR is cool again"
• 25:20 — Freq-out: Chuck on 9/11, 25 years on
• 33:09 — Wrap-up

• Employers brace for a record rise in healthcare costs: https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/employers-brace-for-record-rise-in-healthcare-costs-9304042/
• Challenger report: August job cuts up 58%, consumer products and food lead: https://www.challengergray.com/blog/challenger-report-august-job-cuts-up-58-consumer-products-food-lead/
• Uber to cut more than 3,000 jobs in a major restructuring: https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/uber-to-cut-more-than-3k-jobs-in-massive-restructuring-7560948/
• The New Communications Playbook: AI, GEO and the Corporate Creator (Lindsay Bennett): https://mediatrainedhq.substack.com/p/the-new-communications-playbook-ai