Global trust in 'my employer' has fallen five percentage points since August 2024, dropping to 74% in the latest Edelman Trust at Work special report. The figure matters because employers have long served as the trusted institution when governments, media and business at large were not. That cushion, the report implies, can no longer be taken for granted.

For internal communicators, the timing is awkward. Employees are living through repeated transformation programmes, and the data show that how those programmes are experienced separates organisations that build trust from organisations that erode it.

What does the change experience actually change?

The report's sharpest numbers sit in the gap between employees who had positive transformation experiences and those who did not. Among the positive group, 82% trusted their CEO. Among the negative group, only 49% did.

The same divide appears on two questions practitioners care about most:

• AI adoption: employees with positive change experiences were more than twice as likely to embrace growing workplace use of AI — 40% versus 18%.
• Retention: 83% of the positive group said they wanted to stay with their organisation for many years, against 51% of the negative group.

Employees with positive experiences were also considerably more likely to go beyond what was expected of them to help their employer succeed.

A caveat is worth stating plainly. These findings do not prove that a positive change experience alone creates trust. They do show a powerful relationship between how people experience change and their trust in leaders, their commitment to the organisation, and their willingness to embrace new ways of working.

Where does internal communication fit?

The report positions internal communication as central to building and protecting trust during change — and it defines the job more broadly than sending announcements. It is about much more than explaining decisions and keeping employees informed.

Communicators can bring employee insight into decision-making, help leaders understand how change is being experienced, and identify concerns and barriers. They can also challenge approaches that risk undermining trust.

That only works under certain conditions. Communicators need involvement from the outset of a change programme, not at the point of launch. And they need the skills, confidence and influence to help shape how change happens, rather than merely messaging it.

What does this change for practitioners?

The report's underlying argument inverts the usual sequence. Trust is not simply an outcome of successful transformation. It is one of the conditions that makes transformation possible. How change is led and experienced can strengthen or undermine that trust.

The practical conclusion for comms leaders: if organisations want people to embrace new ways of working, they need to invest as seriously in the human experience of change as they do in the transformation itself.

The report also points to capability gaps inside the function. As more internal communicators are asked to support organisational change, the report argues, the work requires different skills. Teams should review their understanding of how change works alongside their capability in supporting it — a hint that the five-point fall in employer trust is not a problem messaging alone will fix.