#workplace-trust

#workplace-trust

Today's job market is more ruthless than ever, leaving many desperately clinging to their roles amid mass layoffs and side-eyeing the competition. In such environments, a rival colleague or workplace nemesis may make themselves known. Watching a smug colleague get called out for a mistake in a meeting or blundering a promotion is often deeply satisfying (even if we may not admit it).

As I said in previous articles, executives like to say they're "integrating AI." But most still treat artificial intelligence as a feature, not a foundation. They bolt it onto existing systems without realizing that each automation hides a layer of invisible human work, and a growing set of unseen risks. AI may be transforming productivity, but it's also changing the very nature of labor, accountability, and even trust inside organizations.

A third of British companies are using "bossware" technology to monitor staff when they work from home, and it's causing serious trust issues among staff. That's according to a survey of 900 UK managers by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). Crucially, nearly as many said they didn't know what tracking their employer did, so the figure could well be higher.

"This has the potential to leak sensitive credentials, modify files, or serve as a vector for broader system compromise, placing Cursor users at significant risk from supply chain attacks," Oasis wrote. While Cursor and other AI-powered coding tools like Claude Code and Windsurf have become popular among software developers, the technology is still fraught with bugs. Replit, another AI coding assistant that debuted its newest agent earlier this week, recently deleted a user's entire database.

But AI isn't just another disruption: it's a moment of reinvention. If your company is investing in AI but seeing uneven results, it may not just be a technology problem. While technology may still be evolving in some areas, a challenge also lies in adoption. In many organizations, that breakdown happens along the lines of hierarchy, trust, and communication, not just code or capability. This is HR's opportunity to lead the transformation.

Building trust means being intentional in how AI is used and keeping people at the center of every decision, according to Kathy Pham, vice president of AI at Workday.