🔍 45.8% of Execs Say Honest Feedback Is Broken

Hey HR Pros!

Most organizations say they value honest communication. The data suggests most of them don't have it.

New research from Radical Candor puts numbers to what many HR leaders already sense: executives and employees are frustrated about the same problem but naming it differently.

Coming Up:

• 🔍 45.8% of execs say lack of honest feedback is their top concern: Meanwhile, 45.2% of employees say they don't feel psychologically safe enough to give it.

• 🎭 70% of workers feel pressure to appear "okay" at work: Even when struggling, most employees believe being honest about it will cost them something.

• 🤖 75% of Google's code is already AI-generated: How Google is using AI in job interviews

• ⚠️ 32% of Gen Z job seekers are ignoring scam red flags: Competitive market pressure is overriding basic caution for younger professionals more than any other generation.

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🔍 45.8% of execs want honest feedback. 45.2% of employees are too scared to give it.

Executives and employees are both frustrated about a broken feedback culture. They just don't realize they're describing the same one.

Radical Candor's 2026 State of the Workplace Insights report surveyed 603 professionals across all levels, company sizes, and industries. Nearly half of executives say a lack of honest feedback is their single biggest workplace concern. Nearly half of individual contributors say psychological safety and trust are theirs.

Both are pointing at the same gap: candid communication has broken down, and the conditions for repairing it don't exist at most organizations.

Key insights:

• 🔍 The same problem, two different names: Executives call it a feedback gap and employees call it a trust problem, but both are pointing at a culture where honest communication has stopped flowing in both directions.

• 🤫 Silence is the default across every level: 67% of HR professionals, 63% of managers, and 61% of individual contributors say people often or very often stay quiet when they have concerns or disagreements.

• 📝 Feedback fails because it's vague, not because it's blunt: 61.8% of all respondents say feedback misses the mark because it sidesteps the real issue, while only 12.1% say the problem is that feedback is too harsh.

• 📉 Trust in leadership has reached a critical point: 68% of people globally now worry that business leaders deliberately mislead them, up 12 points since 2021, per the Edelman Trust Barometer.

Read more: https://www.radicalcandor.com/trust-gap/thank-you

🎭 70% of workers feel pressure to appear "okay" at work even when they're not

Workplace mental health has grown as a category. The culture inside most organizations hasn't caught up with it.

Monster's 2026 State of Workplace Mental Health Report, shows that 59% say their job negatively impacts their mental health at least monthly. Nearly half report burnout. And yet, 70% feel pressure to appear fine regardless.

Most employees know their employer offers some form of support. Most also read the cultural signals clearly: keeping personal struggles private is the safer choice.

Key insights:

• 🎭 The "okay" mask is nearly universal: 70% of workers perform wellness at work even when they're struggling, pointing to a culture problem that EAP programs and mental health days alone cannot close.

• 📢 Speaking up still carries real professional risk: 37% say they can't be honest about their mental health without negative consequences, and the top fear is simply being labeled "difficult" (41%).

• 🏢 Structural causes are driving the numbers: 39% cite increased workload or understaffing as their primary stress driver, followed by poor management (33%) and lack of work-life balance (30%).

• 🚨 Leadership accountability is the missing piece: 44% of workers don't believe leadership is held accountable for toxic behavior, and 51% say high-performing employees regularly escape consequences for harmful conduct.

Read more: https://www.monster.com/career-advice/research/workplace-mental-health-report

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🤖 75% of Google's code is already AI-generated: How Google is using AI in job interviews

As part of a new pilot, candidates applying for junior and mid-level roles in the US can now use Gemini, Google's own AI assistant, directly during the interview.

Three-quarters of the company's code is AI-generated, so the interview now reflects the actual job rather than a test of skills candidates won't use once hired.

Key insights:

• 🤖 Google built its interview around how work actually happens: With 75% of its code already AI-generated, allowing Gemini in interviews isn't a perk for candidates. It's a test of the skills the job requires daily.

• 🎯 The evaluation focuses on judgment, not just usage: Interviewers assess prompt engineering, output validation, and debugging, meaning Google is testing whether candidates can catch AI errors, not just run prompts.

• 🏢 The pilot starts narrow and scales deliberately: Junior and mid-level software engineers in the US are first, with expansion planned if results hold, a model other HR teams can borrow for rolling out AI fluency standards.

• 🔑 Clarity is what makes this replicable: Google can test AI fluency because it knows exactly which tools its teams use. For other organizations, defining that first is the prerequisite before any interview format can follow.

Read more: https://www.thehrdigest.com/using-ai-assistants-during-job-interviews-google-embraces-a-new-era-of-hiring/

⚠️ 32% of Gen Z job seekers are ignoring job scam red flags because they feel they can't afford not to

Job scam awareness is at an all-time high. For younger professionals, awareness and action have pulled apart.

LinkedIn's 2026 Job Search Safety Pulse shows that questioning whether a job posting is real has become a routine part of applying. Gen Z faces the highest scam exposure of any generation, with 32% reporting they've been a victim compared to 17% of Gen X. Yet nearly a third of Gen Z admit they ignore red flags anyway.

In a market where opportunities feel scarce, pausing to verify a role is a risk many younger job seekers don't feel they can afford to take.

Key insights:

• ⚠️ Gen Z faces the highest scam exposure at 32%: Nearly one in three has been a victim, and a similar share knowingly ignores red flags because competitive pressure outweighs the perceived cost of missing an opportunity.

• 🔍 Questioning job legitimacy is now a routine step for most professionals: 72% of job seekers stop to assess whether a role is real before applying, and 57% say they are more suspicious than they were just a year ago.

• 📤 Off-platform requests are the most reliable red flag to watch for: 90% of reported scams involve attempts to move conversations away from LinkedIn, and more than half of those attempts happen in the very first message.

• 🤝 Trust erosion is a recruiter problem, not just a candidate one: 67% of recruiters say job scams are making it harder to build trust with candidates, and 68% are now actively taking steps to signal that their outreach is legitimate.

Read more: https://news.linkedin.com/2026/LinkedIn-Job-Search-Safety-Pulse