IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Katherine Chapman will use her opening keynote at the Make Work Better Conference on 8 September to challenge leaders navigating AI and workplace change to ask a simple question: what are people protecting themselves from?
LONDON, 8 September 2026 — Organisations risk making AI adoption and wider workplace transformation harder if employees do not feel able to speak honestly, use their judgement or say when something is going wrong, the new CEO of Investors in People will warn today.
Katherine Chapman will open the Investors in People Make Work Better Conference at Kings Place, London on 8 September with a keynote examining what she describes as “lived trust at work”.
She will make the point that trust becomes particularly important when organisations are changing quickly and that leaders need to look beyond whether they believe they run a trusting organisation to understand what employees experience day to day.
“People need to feel able to speak honestly, use their judgement and say when something is going wrong,” Chapman will tell attendees. “If they do not then change becomes much harder.
“For HR this is an important moment to lean in. Trust will be a big part of whether organisations manage well what comes next.”
Chapman joined Investors in People as CEO on 1 June, having previously spent nearly 10 years leading the Living Wage Foundation. She has worked on good work and job quality for almost two decades, including earlier roles at the UK Commission for Employment and Skills.
Her keynote comes as organisations continue to grapple with rapid advances in AI, changing skills needs and pressure to adapt the way work is organised.
Chapman will draw on Investors in People’s Trust Paradox research, which exposed a significant gap between how HR leaders view trust and how employees experience it.
While 82% of HR leaders believe employees are completely or mostly trusted to use their judgement, 61% of employees say they cover themselves at work at least occasionally. Some 65% had also avoided raising or speaking openly about something at work in the previous six months.
Chapman will ask organisations to consider what lies behind those behaviours.
“Organisations can genuinely believe they are trusting places to work while employees are having a rather different experience,” she will say. “One question I think organisations should ask themselves is: what are people protecting themselves from?”
Her keynote will explore how everyday decisions by leaders and managers, as well as the systems and technology people encounter at work, shape whether employees feel they can rely on their organisation.
“For me this is part of what Investors in People’s core mission – to Make Work Better – is about,” Chapman will say. “We want people to be happier and healthier at work, to feel they can contribute and to get something positive from the work they do. And this means that organisations will perform better – the two go hand in hand.”
The Make Work Better Conference 2026, themed Trust. Transparency. Transformation., will bring together senior HR and people leaders to examine how trust is built, lost and rebuilt as organisations manage change.
Speakers include broadcaster and High Performance Podcast co-founder Jake Humphrey, former special forces operative and television presenter Jason Fox, organisational trust expert Professor Veronica Hope Hailey, psychotherapist and workplace mental health specialist Petra Velzeboer and performance coach Charlie Cannon.
Trust Paradox Whitepaper
The full whitepaper, The Trust Paradox: Why behaviour, not belief, determines trust and how leaders can bridge the trust gap to drive performance, is available to download here. The research was conducted by Censuswide for Investors in People in February 2026 among more than 1,000 employees and 500 HR leaders.
About Investors in People
Investors in People helps organisations make work better by improving the everyday practices that shape how people are led, managed, supported and developed. Its framework assesses the organisational conditions behind trust, transparency, employee involvement, management capability, performance and continuous improvement. Delivered by experienced practitioners, the framework gives employers independent analysis, actionable feedback, and a practical route to stronger workplace cultures and better long-term results. Since 1991 Investors in People Community Interest Company has worked with more than 59,000 organisations across the globe.