Featuring scholarly and practitioner insights from HR and people leaders, industry experts, and researchers.

Recent data reveals that workplace undermining is widespread, with the vast majority of employees reporting behaviors like backstabbing, credit-stealing, and knowledge-hiding over the past year. This toxic environment is heavily driven by job insecurity, economic anxiety, and competitive organizational structures that frame professional success as a zero-sum game. Consequently, workers often resort to self-protection and hostility, severely damaging collective problem-solving, trust, and overall company performance. To counteract these tendencies, organizational leaders must actively reshape the corporate climate by removing relative-ranking rewards, ensuring transparent communication, and enforcing strict conduct norms. Ultimately, by prizing collaboration and making acknowledgment routine, companies can transform cooperation into the safest and most rational choice for employees.

Recent data reveals that workplace undermining is widespread, with the vast majority of employees reporting behaviors like backstabbing, credit-stealing, and knowledge-hiding over the past year. This toxic environment is heavily driven by job insecurity, economic anxiety, and competitive organizational structures that frame professional success as a zero-sum game. Consequently, workers often resort to self-protection and hostility, severely damaging collective problem-solving, trust, and overall company performance. To counteract these tendencies, organizational leaders must actively reshape the corporate climate by removing relative-ranking rewards, ensuring transparent communication, and enforcing strict conduct norms. Ultimately, by prizing collaboration and making acknowledgment routine, companies can transform cooperation into the safest and most rational choice for employees.

Abstract: A November 2026 survey of 1,014 employed U.S. adults found that 69% had experienced at least one form of workplace undermining in the past year, from being blamed for problems to having information withheld or credit taken. These findings arrive amid continuing layoff anxiety, AI-attributed job cuts, and record-low employee engagement. This article synthesizes research on social undermining, knowledge hiding, knowledge theft, job insecurity, and tournament-style incentives to explain why threat pushes employees toward zero-sum behavior and what that behavior costs organizations and individuals. It then outlines five evidence-based organizational responses: redesigning evaluation and rewards to value collective contribution, making credit and attribution visible, reducing threat through fair and transparent workforce decisions, enforcing conduct norms without regard to status, and building trust-based knowledge-sharing systems. Documented examples from Microsoft, Atlassian, Adobe, Nucor, Uber, Netflix, Pixar, Toyota, Virginia Mason, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Wells Fargo illustrate both effective practice and common failure. The article closes with three long-term capabilities for making cooperation the rational choice even when jobs feel uncertain.

Contract and temporary workers are rapidly transitioning from peripheral staffing stopgaps into core components of modern organizational operations, driven heavily by economic uncertainty and artificial intelligence projects. However, integrating this blended workforce introduces significant challenges, including diminished loyalty among permanent employees, heightened safety risks, knowledge erosion, and complex legal liabilities regarding misclassification. To successfully navigate these issues without creating a divisive environment, organizational leaders must implement intentional workforce architectures, establish minimum standards across extended suppliers, and foster seamless team collaboration. Additionally, leadership needs to share safety and well-being obligations jointly with vendors, continuously govern legal classification rules, and maintain total visibility over all talent tiers. Ultimately, treating contingent labor as a strategic design choice rather than an unmanaged default enables companies to capture the benefits of flexibility while safeguarding organizational health.

Contract and temporary workers are rapidly transitioning from peripheral staffing stopgaps into core components of modern organizational operations, driven heavily by economic uncertainty and artificial intelligence projects. However, integrating this blended workforce introduces significant challenges, including diminished loyalty among permanent employees, heightened safety risks, knowledge erosion, and complex legal liabilities regarding misclassification. To successfully navigate these issues without creating a divisive environment, organizational leaders must implement intentional workforce architectures, establish minimum standards across extended suppliers, and foster seamless team collaboration. Additionally, leadership needs to share safety and well-being obligations jointly with vendors, continuously govern legal classification rules, and maintain total visibility over all talent tiers. Ultimately, treating contingent labor as a strategic design choice rather than an unmanaged default enables companies to capture the benefits of flexibility while safeguarding organizational health.

Contract and temporary workers are rapidly transitioning from peripheral staffing stopgaps into core components of modern organizational operations, driven heavily by economic uncertainty and artificial intelligence projects. However, integrating this blended workforce introduces significant challenges, including diminished loyalty among permanent employees, heightened safety risks, knowledge erosion, and complex legal liabilities regarding misclassification. To successfully navigate these issues without creating a divisive environment, organizational leaders must implement intentional workforce architectures, establish minimum standards across extended suppliers, and foster seamless team collaboration. Additionally, leadership needs to share safety and well-being obligations jointly with vendors, continuously govern legal classification rules, and maintain total visibility over all talent tiers. Ultimately, treating contingent labor as a strategic design choice rather than an unmanaged default enables companies to capture the benefits of flexibility while safeguarding organizational health.

Contract and temporary workers are rapidly transitioning from peripheral staffing stopgaps into core components of modern organizational operations, driven heavily by economic uncertainty and artificial intelligence projects. However, integrating this blended workforce introduces significant challenges, including diminished loyalty among permanent employees, heightened safety risks, knowledge erosion, and complex legal liabilities regarding misclassification. To successfully navigate these issues without creating a divisive environment, organizational leaders must implement intentional workforce architectures, establish minimum standards across extended suppliers, and foster seamless team collaboration. Additionally, leadership needs to share safety and well-being obligations jointly with vendors, continuously govern legal classification rules, and maintain total visibility over all talent tiers. Ultimately, treating contingent labor as a strategic design choice rather than an unmanaged default enables companies to capture the benefits of flexibility while safeguarding organizational health.

In this HCI Webinar, I talk with Guillermo Corea about building psychological capital. Guillermo Corea is a seasoned business leader with over 25 years of experience in digital media, business development, venture capital, and strategic management. Currently serving as the chief business innovation and growth officer at APA, he holds the distinction of being the first person appointed to this pivotal role. In this capacity, Corea is responsible for spearheading the development and implementation of innovative revenue generation strategies for both the association and its affiliate, APA Services, Inc. Corea brings a wealth of expertise to this role, underscored by his successful track record in launching new operations, expanding revenue streams, and fostering impactful partnerships.