• Many companies turn to layoffs to reduce costs, yet some purposefully refrain from making cuts.
• CEOs of companies that have never done layoffs told BI they think the approach is good for business.
• When workers aren't worried about getting cut, they expect to have better careers — and often do.

When the pandemic hit, friends at other companies began calling Melanie Dulbecco to ask whether she planned to lay off workers.

"It's the very last thing we would do," she told them.

Dulbecco has spent decades running Torani, a maker of flavored syrups used in coffee and other beverages.

Stay-at-home mandates presented a crisis for the company whose bottles line the shelves of innumerable cafés.

"We were ready to breathe into a paper bag," Dulbecco told Business Insider.

Instead, company leaders gathered to sketch out how big the blow to sales might be — and how to keep workers safe. The team then set a goal that might only amount to a nice-to-have at other companies: save the business without cutting a single employee.

Layoffs are so commonplace, even outside recessions and life-bending health emergencies, that companies like Torani are among a rarefied few that have never pink-slipped workers en masse.

Such employers are a study in the cultural tailwinds that can spin up when companies eschew broad-based job cuts.

'Grow, baby, grow'

One of Torani's values, and Dulbecco's mantra, is "grow, baby, grow." Yet, she said, it's not just about sales; it's also about employees' well-being. That's been good for business, Dulbecco said.

When she became Torani's CEO in 1991, annual revenue was less than $1 million. This year, the company's centennial, Dulbecco expects sales to top $600 million.

The grocer Publix is also a member of the no-RIF club. The Florida-based chain is the country's largest employee-owned company, with more than 255,000 workers.

One of them is Alec Jones. The 26-year-old has served as a cashier and a bagger and, lately, has been spending more time in the produce department at a Publix in Bonita Springs, Florida. Jones has been with the company for a decade, while many of his friends who work elsewhere have moved from job to job, he said.

"I've been having fun," Jones told BI. He said he feels more secure in his role, knowing that there would have to be a good reason to get fired.

A Publix spokesperson told BI that the company provides clear expectations, mentorship, and training to its associates to help them achieve their best.

The no-layoff bounce

For companies that avoid layoffs, the payoff can be big, said Darryl B. Rice, an associate professor of management at Miami University. He left a career in finance and moved into academia after watching banking colleagues lose their jobs amid the 2008 financial crisis.

He found that organizations that forgo layoffs create a sense of psychological safety that allows workers to thrive.

"Employees believe they are more likely to have career success," Rice told BI. That, in turn, makes it more likely they will do so, he said.

Layoffs, by contrast, tend to pierce that sense of safety and exact a "tremendous" cost in terms of workers' productivity and trust in leadership, said Wayne Cascio, a distinguished professor of management emeritus at the University of Colorado Denver.

When organizations start making cuts, those left standing often spend time doing things like sprucing up their résumés, Cascio told BI. Then, in the year that follows, the workers most likely to leave are the "good performers" because they tend to have more options, he said.

"There's an old saying: 'The first casualty in a downsizing is employee morale,'" Cascio said.

A subsequent casualty can be an employer's reputation with prospective employees, Rice said.

Millennial and Gen Z workers, in particular, have watched parents and grandparents get laid off at various points. That means, Rice said, there's often little sense that an employer would trade profits for people if the business soured.

Not having to think about cuts

Yet worker loyalty can grow when an organization hangs tight to its employees during a crisis.

That's what the window and door maker Marvin did during the 2008 global financial crisis — the deepest economic pothole in generations and one that emanated from the housing market.

As a result, the company saw an unprecedented drop in demand for its products. To make up for lost sales, Marvin temporarily cut full-time workers to 32 hours a week. For three years, the family-owned business also suspended a profit-sharing program, Paul Marvin, the company's chair and fourth-generation CEO, told BI.

During those lean years, "there was no money made," he said. That was the case for the Marvin family and the company's workers, Marvin said.

For more than a century, the manufacturer has been a mainstay in Warroad, Minnesota, a city of about 2,000 people along the Canadian border.

Laying off workers would change a place like Warroad forever, Marvin said. The company's long-term goal is to provide meaningful jobs in its hometown and beyond, he said. That matters more, Marvin added, than something like an annual dividend.

He said many employers are quick to say workers are their most valuable asset.

Yet, "When it comes time to back that up, it's like, 'Did you really mean that? Because it's the first thing you're cutting,'" Marvin said.

He said treating the company's 8,000-plus workers fairly — and the gratitude that results from successful efforts to save jobs in tough times — benefits the business far beyond even a protracted slump in sales.

As at Marvin, workers' tenures at Torani are often measured in decades rather than years.

Francisco Santos joined the San Leandro, California, company in 2002 and has risen to become a team lead for its first manufacturing shift each weekday. Despite his 4 a.m. start time, the 65-year-old isn't ready to give up working at a place where the support for employees is unlike anything he's experienced elsewhere.

For Santos, that includes not having to worry about himself and his colleagues when he hears about other employers laying off workers.

"You don't have to think about that," Santos said.

• JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently dismissed employee pushback on a return-to-office mandate.
• RTO pushes from some employers come as worker engagement is at its lowest in a decade.
• Experts argue that flexibility, not strict office mandates, is more likely to boost engagement.

Jamie Dimon wants employees focused on work, not sending snarky texts.

The head of JPMorgan said recently he also wants workers who pay attention in meetings — and to be able to get colleagues on the phone on Fridays.

In short, what Dimon seems to be seeking is staffers who are engaged in their jobs.

Many CEOs no doubt want the same. Gallup found that worker engagement in the US slipped to 31% in 2024, the lowest level in a decade.

Some leaders appear to see RTO as one way to help remedy the situation.

Workplace observers told Business Insider that bringing workers together can usher in a host of benefits. Yet, they said, returning to the office isn't a surefire way to improve lackluster worker engagement — and could even drive it lower.

"There isn't going to be this silver-bullet fix," Kelly Mendez-Scheib, chief people officer at the data platform Crunchbase, told BI, referring to RTO orders. In part, she said, that's because engagement was a challenge even before the pandemic lockdowns sent office workers home.

"Engagement is something that organizations have been trying to crack forever," she said.

For some CEOs, having workers back together is more appealing than sticking with pandemic norms. Asked about JPMorgan's plan to have most workers back in the office five days a week starting in March, Dimon on Wednesday dismissed pushback from some workers during an employee town hall in Columbus, Ohio.

"A lot of you were on the fucking Zoom, and you were doing the following," Dimon said in a recording obtained by BI and first reported by Barrons, "looking at your mail, sending texts to each other about what an asshole the other person is, not paying attention, not reading your stuff."

Most of the firm's workers are already back in the office five days a week. JPMorgan has said in-person work is the best way to run the company and that the benefits of being together are "substantial and irreplaceable."

A spokesperson didn't respond to a request for additional comment on the motivation for the bank's tighter RTO policy.

Crimping flexibility can hurt engagement

Tempting as it might be, ratcheting up control over workers by removing flexibility often "drives down engagement," Brian Elliott, a former executive at Slack who is now CEO of Work Forward, an advisory firm on future-of-work issues, told BI.

"You're going to get what you asked for if you're not careful, which is disengaged employees who are there to punch a clock," he said.

That might already be happening. Gallup data from late 2024 found that workers who could do their jobs remotely but were on-site each workday showed the biggest drops in engagement since 2020. Both hybrid and fully remote workers reported higher levels of feeling connected to their work.

Nicole Kyle, who researches the future of work, told BI that it's not accurate to assume that engagement levels are higher when workers are in the office. Yet, often, that's something leaders often gravitate toward.

"The RTO lever is the easy one to pull," she said.

Remote or hybrid arrangements can give workers a stronger sense of autonomy, said Kyle, who is cofounder of CMP Research.

"Nothing is less engaging to employees than not having flexibility and choice," she said.

'Predictable flexibility'

Ginnie Carlier, Americas vice chair for talent at EY, told BI that the firm's employees tend to work with their team leaders to plan days in the office — an approach she refers to as "predictable flexibility."

It's one that's proven fruitful, she said.

"Our most engaged and highest-performing individuals are the ones that are on a hybrid work arrangement," Carlier said.

For most EY workers, that means spending two to three days a week in the office, she said. The focus is on how teams can work best together, not solely on how much gets done.

"We've really gotten away from this discussion around this illusion of increased productivity by being in the office," Carlier said.

She said that when EY surveys new hires about why they accepted a job with the firm, flexibility reliably is one of the top reasons.

Studies from numerous settings show that giving people flexibility in how they work — and allowing them to work remotely part of the time — raises productivity, retention, worker satisfaction, and engagement, Siri Chilazi, a senior researcher at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the coauthor of the book "Make Work Fair," told BI.

Flexibility can also bring challenges

John Rossman, a business strategist who was an early exec at Amazon and is the author of the book "The Amazon Way," told BI that it can be easier for workers to be disengaged when they don't face the "peer pressure" of being observed by colleagues.

He said trying to increase engagement shouldn't be the main reason employers require workers to be in the office, though he said the move could reveal which workers feel most connected to their work.

"Those people who really want to be there are going to figure out how to do it," Rossman said.

One way to boost worker engagement is through training, Joe Galvin, chief research officer at the executive-coaching firm Vistage, told BI.

He said helping workers build their skills — especially in an environment where technology like artificial intelligence promises to reshape many jobs — can result in employers having more "highly engaged A players."

"They do it as best they can. They're focused on quantity. They focus on quality. They do all the right things," Galvin said.

• CEO Brendan Ripp's LinkedIn post helped his cousin secure job interviews quickly.
• Willingness to advocate for a relative on the platform is a signal it's becoming less formal.
• It can be a good thing to share with your network that a relative needs a job, experts said.

Brendan Ripp is a CEO. He's also a proud relative.

In December, Ripp shared with his LinkedIn network that a cousin who'd recently graduated magna cum laude was looking for a job.

"Anyone in my advertising & marketing networks hiring smart kids out of college?" Ripp, head of the audience-development platform Pushly, wrote before linking to his cousin's post about earning her degree.

It was the first time Ripp, who's often pressed for time running a young company, had shared with his more than 8,500 LinkedIn followers that someone he knew well was seeking work, he told Business Insider.

"This felt like the best and fastest way that I could provide assistance and yield a result," Ripp, who lives outside New York City, said.

Within two days of the post, his cousin had three interviews lined up, Ripp, 48, said.

Networking on LinkedIn has been central to the platform from the start. Yet anecdotal evidence suggests that the pandemic-tinged informality that's taken hold in so many workplaces — think athleisure at the office — has also seeped into how we network on LinkedIn.

While several posts on the platform about users' personal lives have gone viral — finding B2B sales lessons in a marriage proposal might be asking too much — when it comes to the friends and family posts, workplace observers told BI it's broadly a good thing.

"That's old-school Rolodex networking. We're just bringing it to the internet," Maria Ross, an empathy researcher and the author of the book "The Empathy Dilemma," said.

Ross told BI that some LinkedIn users' willingness to get a bit more personal stems, in part, from a collective experience over the past five years.

"What we've learned in the pandemic was that we can't park our humanity at the door," she said.

'She's dope. She's amazing.'

If you have someone you feel called to help find a job by posting on LinkedIn, do it, Jasmine Escalera, a career expert with MyPerfectResume, told BI, adding that it's time to throw out "old-school narratives."

She said that as long as people are truthful in what they write, there shouldn't be an issue announcing that your niece has graduated from college and saying, "She's dope. She's amazing. You should hire her."

Josh Bersin, CEO of the Josh Bersin Company, a human resources advisory firm, told BI that because LinkedIn users don't operate anonymously, they should mean what they say if they make a laudatory pronouncement on someone's behalf.

"The reason LinkedIn has survived so well is because it's honest. You can't put a fake name on there. Your reputation goes with you," he said.

A LinkedIn spokesperson told BI that the platform doesn't have data on how often people help out relatives with networking appeals and endorsements.

'Work-adjacent' posts

Bob Gruters, a father of four, is a fan of the friends and family post. The 56-year-old executive turned to LinkedIn to share when his oldest son graduated, got a job, and was promoted. Gruters also issued professional huzzahs on the platform when his other sons nabbed internships.

Gruters, who's president at ReachTV in St. Petersberg, Florida, recently reposted his daughter's announcement that she'd earned her undergraduate degree and would begin a program to become a physician assistant.

"This human of ours dreams big and then makes them come true," he wrote.

Gruters, a former Facebook exec, told BI that the accomplishments he posts about on behalf of his family are "work-adjacent."

Gruters's posts about family members have often elicited friendly responses, he said. People have offered to introduce Gruters's sons or daughter to those already at a school or workplace.

"That's what we all used to do. We used to network," Gruters said. "LinkedIn, in its best form, is a way for us to professionally connect and link and network."

Gruters said that posting about these "big moments" in his family life is a window into what drives him as a businessperson. Letting connections know about these milestones also makes sense because many colleagues have, in some way, played a role, he said.

"Every boss I've had has contributed to my life," Gruters said.

However, he said the LinkedIn announcements he sometimes sees about birthdays and the like are better suited to other platforms.

Craving connection

Christie Smith, who's held leadership roles at Deloitte, Apple, and Accenture and is coauthor of the book "Essential," told BI that before they post on behalf of someone, LinkedIn users should consider their employers' norms regarding advocating for relatives. Yet, generally, she thinks it's a good thing to see people lifting up others on LinkedIn.

"People are craving connection and community, and that's part of why we're seeing more transparency," she said.

Ross, the empathy researcher, said a willingness to help others, even those in their family, is part of a broader shift toward being more open about once-taboo subjects like mental health, even on a professional platform like LinkedIn.

"The authenticity is good," she said. "You're not just some faceless EVP from a company, but I get to know you."

There can be risks

When someone on LinkedIn endorses a relative, it risks coming across as "cheesy," Randall Peterson, a professor of organizational behavior at London Business School, told BI. Yet, he said, it's not unethical the way lying on a résumé would be.

Plus, there's the conundrum that often faces people at the start of their careers: It's hard to get a great job without experience. That's where an online boost, even from a relative, might help, Peterson said.

"If it's no endorsements or one from somebody who is related to you, maybe you want that one because that's all you've got," he said.

Ripp, the CEO who went to LinkedIn to help his cousin, said she's had interviews with a half dozen employers she connected with.

That's proof, he said, that his 38-word post, which drew nearly 5,000 impressions and more than 60 "likes," was more effective than sending a handful of emails to connections who might be hiring.

"I was incredibly overwhelmed and surprised by the response," Ripp said.

• Meta's Andrew Bosworth recently told staff to "disagree and commit" or leave the company.
• The phrase, popularized by Bezos, emphasizes quick decision-making and commitment amid disagreement.
• The philosophy dates back to the Intel CEO Andy Grove, who believed in cohesion around decisions.

In Silicon Valley, an old mantra — "disagree and commit" — is making a comeback.

Meta's chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, recently told staffers to either leave or "disagree and commit" — echoing a phrase popularized by Jeff Bezos.

While Bosworth used the phrase to present a fork in the road for Meta employees unhappy about the company's recent policy changes, Bezos has talked about it as a management philosophy.

As Amazon's CEO, he elaborated on the phrase in his 2016 shareholder letter under a section labeled "High-Velocity Decision Making." Bezos argued that the use of "disagree and commit" could "save a lot of time."

"If you have conviction on a particular direction even though there's no consensus, it's helpful to say, 'Look, I know we disagree on this but will you gamble with me on it? Disagree and commit?'" Bezos wrote.

"By the time you're at this point, no one can know the answer for sure, and you'll probably get a quick yes," he added.

He argued that bosses should follow the ideology as well. Bezos recalled greenlighting an Amazon Studios original after telling his team he had concerns about its success — his team had a different perspective and wanted to move forward.

"I wrote back right away with 'I disagree and commit and hope it becomes the most watched thing we've ever made,'" Bezos said, adding that the decision-making would have been much slower if the team had spent time trying to convince him.

A useful phrase that echoes late Intel CEO Andy Grove's management philosophy

The concept appears to echo a management philosophy from the 1980s, when Andy Grove, known for his intense management style and visionary leadership, ran Intel. Grove, who escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary, died in 2016 at 79.

Richard S. Tedlow, Grove's biographer, told BI that while it could be "very hard" to agree with Grove, the concept of disagreeing and committing "was the essence of how he felt you should comport yourself at Intel."

"Disagree and then commit was a philosophy that you fight like cats and dogs, but once the decision is made, everybody's pulling in the same direction," Tedlow said.

While Tedlow wasn't sure whether Grove coined the phrase, he said it embodied the culture at Intel during the executive's time leading the company.

Christopher Myers, the faculty director of the Center for Innovative Leadership at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, used the example of a CEO acceding to a lower-level employee who's closer to a problem to show how "disagree and commit" could be beneficial.

In a 2024 interview with Lex Fridman, Bezos expanded on the philosophy. He said that companies "tend to organize hierarchically," often leaving the CEO to make the final call. The CEO might not agree with the decision — but Bezos argued that committing is better than compromising or giving in to whoever's the most stubborn.

"The advantage of compromise as a resolution mechanism is that it's low energy, but it doesn't lead to truth," Bezos said, adding that "you shouldn't allow compromise to be used when you can know the truth."

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has since adopted the phrase, which is part of the company's leadership principles outlined on its website.

In recent years, the phrase appears to have evolved into "disagree and commit — or leave." In a 2023 internal fireside chat about Amazon's return-to-office policy, Jassy told employees it was time to "disagree and commit," adding that "it's probably not going to work out" for workers who don't do so.

Bosworth recently took a similar approach in responses to comments in an internal Meta forum. "Unless you are referring to the policy changes, in which case Mark spent quite a while talking through them, it just sounds like you don't agree," he said. "In that case, you can leave or disagree and commit."

Myers said that in its purest form, the disagree-and-commit mantra can remind organizations that productive conflict is valuable.

• Getting laid off can feel awful. Yet, there are steps you can take to respond in a productive way.
• Helping someone else also offers structure and support during difficult job hunts.
• Because tech like AI is evolving quickly, job seekers might want to build their skills.

If you lose your job, it can feel like the end of the world.

The first thing to do is not to panic. The second is to hatch a plan of what should happen next.

Even though the overall job market is solid, it can still be tough for some desk workers to find a new role. That's because, in areas like tech, hiring has, at times, been sluggish.

Unemployment in the IT industry jumped to 5.7% in January, up from 3.9% in December. The jobless rate among IT workers was above the overall US unemployment rate of 4% in January.

Dan Schawbel, managing partner at Workplace Intelligence, told Business Insider that because technology like artificial intelligence is evolving quickly, workers might need to build their skills. He said many workers won't be able to become overnight experts in areas like AI or large language models.

"There's a period of time when those getting laid off are going to have to invest in themselves to get those right skills to then pivot," Schawbel said.

There are other steps the newly unemployed can consider taking. One of them is seeing how you might help others.

Jennifer Schielke, the CEO of the staffing firm Summit Group Solutions and the author of "Leading for Impact," said that seeing what others might be going through can help the newly jobless size up their own problems.

"If you have time to volunteer, go do it," she told BI, adding, "Go get some encouragement by sitting alongside someone who has it worse than you do."

Volunteering can be one way to find gratitude and help navigate landing a new role, Schielke said.

While volunteering shouldn't replace other must-dos — like building up your skills, turning to your network to help you find a role, and beefing up your résumé — it could offer a respite from some of the stress accompanying a job search.

Many employers are taking longer to hire, meaning the hunt for what's next could be more protracted than many job seekers might like.

Schielke said that committing to doing some work for others can also help retain structure in one's schedule when work hours disappear.

"Your days still have meaning and purpose," she said, adding, "That's going to keep you upbeat."

Schielke said that beyond the intrinsic benefits, volunteering can give you something to talk about in a job interview when you're asked about the things you've done since your last role.

"This is really a time where you can show yourself as different by showcasing your character," she said.

Turn to your network for help

Outside of seeing how you might help others, there are other steps you can take if you're newly unemployed.

Schielke said it's important to have a sounding board to help you remain accountable, as getting laid off can be a shock. She pointed to the job cuts in the tech industry in recent years.

"I know a lot of people didn't think it would be them," she said. Having people you can talk through the situation with can help.

Schielke said that newly jobless people sometimes need to separate what they want from what they need. Job seekers who are inflexible and insist on remote work or attaining a certain salary might find it harder to get a new gig.

"There's a real reality check and maybe a piece of humble pie that has to be taken in," Schielke said.

She recommended considering how people in your network can help you look for something new. She added that networks are increasingly important as it becomes easier to apply for jobs with a few clicks. Plus, there are other hurdles, such as fake job postings.

"Being able to connect with a person or know someone who knows someone who can get your résumé in front of the right people is so important," Schielke said.

Set up metrics as if it's a job

Schielke said it can be helpful to set up metrics like you might for a job. That might mean contacting, say, five people in a day to set up a time to meet for coffee. It could also mean reviewing a certain number of job listings or sending a certain number of inquiries.

"I wouldn't dillydally in a market like this because it can take a long time," she said. "Get into the rhythm that you're used to in the workplace."

But Schielke reiterated the benefit of building in time to focus on others' needs. Giving a few hours, if you can, is an alternative to donating money — which might not be advisable without a paycheck.

"This might be a time where you can pay it forward with that life-on-life connection," Schielke said.

Do you have something to share about what you're seeing in your job search or in the workplace? Business Insider would like to hear from you. Email our workplace team from a nonwork device at [email protected] with your story, or ask for one of our reporter's Signal numbers.

An earlier version of this story appeared on July 26, 2024.

• Some employers require time in the office based on how far away a worker lives.
• One company in San Francisco paid remote workers to move closer so they could report to the office.
• Some employers are sticking to hybrid setups even as some big names mandate a return to the office.

Oliver Shaw's commute to the office is 190 miles and takes more than 2 hours.

And "I am absolutely fine with it," he told Business Insider.

The CEO of the software company Orgvue travels by train from his home near Manchester, England, to London, generally on Tuesdays.

Shaw often then stays overnight near the office, takes a return train after work the next day, and gets back home at about 10 p.m.

What's not fine, however, in Shaw's view, is to say that those who live far from the office — like he does — get out of having to commute at least some of the time.

Yet, at many employers, that's what happens: Live close to the office, show up. Live far away, stay remote. Where the boundary lies, however, is often unclear.

Late last month, Dell CEO Michael Dell said that starting in March, the company would expect workers living within roughly an hour of an office to show up five days a week. A spokesperson told BI that guidance remains in effect.

Meantime, the federal government is giving different consideration, at least initially, to workers living more 50 miles from an office. The real estate company Redfin has drawn the mark at 20 miles. Last year, IBM moved to require managers in the US to live within 50 miles of an office or a client site.

Stay inside the line

In 2024, Density, a Bay Area company that makes radar sensors for anonymously monitoring office space use, offered relocation assistance to most of its remote workers so they could regularly report to its main office in San Francisco.

"By and large, if you didn't relocate, then you found another job," cofounder and CEO Andrew Farah said. "We take a reasonably hard policy on it."

Since January, Density has required workers who live within 30 miles of its San Francisco office to be in four days a week — Wednesdays are a work-from-anywhere day — from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. That's an extra in-office day from 2024.

Workers who live beyond 30 miles now have to show up two days a week, up from one last year, he said. New hires, regardless of where they live, must travel to the office four times a week.

Farah said it made sense for the company to revise its pandemic-era policy of allowing remote work. He credited Density's employees for dealing with the changes even if they didn't always like them, as indicated in a survey of the firm's some 100 workers.

Yet the same survey also found a 48% increase in workers who agreed with the statement, "I feel more aligned with the company," Farah said.

Farah said the move to require workers to show up more was also designed to boost key metrics like sales and the speed at which Density develops products.

"When we went from fully distributed to in-person, they all got better," he said.

Many employers still allow flexibility

Big-name companies, from Amazon to JPMorgan, have required many desk workers to be back in the office five days a week.

Yet many others have maintained flexible policies or offer RTO guidance but don't draw a circle around the office to determine who has to come in, Brian Elliott, a former executive at Slack who is CEO of Work Forward, an advisory firm on future-of-work issues, told BI.

Such employers will say, "We want you all to be together, but I'm not going to enforce it through monitoring," he said.

In some cases, Elliott said, employers are using "questionable logic" when implementing RTO policies. He said that before they settle on a line of demarcation, employers would be wise to determine which teams are located in the same areas so that people who work closely together might meet in person regularly.

Most workers would understand the need for that, he said. Yet, Elliott said, asking those who might do half of their work or more with people in other locations to show up often strikes employees as illogical.

"You're basically commuting to the same thing you would have been doing at home," Elliott said.

Opening an office but going hybrid

Prodoscore, which makes software for monitoring employee productivity, has operated as a remote company though it plans to open an office in Boston for some functions, CEO Sam Naficy told BI.

Yet even when there's an office to go to, he said, the company will rely on a hybrid setup. That's already what it does by gathering teams each month to help build culture.

Naficy said he believes many companies are too quick to call workers back to the office based on "gut feelings" and insufficient data.

"It's a Band-Aid solution," he said.

Instead, Naficy said, employers should consider setups that allow for worker flexibility, provided they're held accountable for their accomplishments.

Otherwise, he said, there will likely be a group of workers who think, "Hey, I am equally productive. Why are you forcing me to drive an hour a day?"

For Shaw, the head of Orgvue, being in the office a couple of days a week when he's not otherwise traveling gives him a chance to collaborate with his executive committee and the wider team, he said.

Plus, Shaw said, time in the office affords workers a chance to be productive together.

"I'm not managing staff in a Victorian way of being in this place for this many hours. I'm managing a set of outcomes," he said.

• Consulting firms have become a destination for some companies looking to make the most out of AI.
• AI leaders at these firms use tools like GPT Enterprise and internal chatbots like McKinsey's Lilli.
• BI asked AI leaders at several large companies to share tips for using the technology.

Working with artificial intelligence can sometimes feel more like an art than a science.

That's why many companies are turning to consulting firms for guidance on how to maximize the technology.

Top firms are not only helping companies develop AI tools, upskill their workforces, and identify potential security weaknesses, but they are also creating chatbots and agents to organize their firm's knowledge and streamline routine tasks. As a result, AI leaders at consulting firms tend to have a handle on AI strategies that can work for a broad range of tasks.

Business Insider asked AI execs at five top consulting firms — Deloitte, EY, KPMG, McKinsey, and PwC — to share their best tips for using AI in everyday work.

The AI leaders said they regularly used various AI tools, including models from OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Anthropic, as well as tools built internally, like McKinsey's Lilli, EY's EYQ, and ChatPwC, PwC's internal version of ChatGPT.

Here's how they use AI and some of their advice for getting the most out of it. Responses are edited for brevity.

How do you use AI in your work?

Dan Priest, US chief AI officer at PwC: I do a lot of research with it. For instance, I was doing some analysis on labor productivity and how AI will improve labor productivity. The typical search would produce labor statistics. Well, AI, the big powerful foundation models, it'll grab those labor facts and statistics, it'll do analysis, it'll show you trends, discontinuities, or cause analyses. It is much more robust. In terms of research and analysis, it emerges as a thought partner versus just a search engine.

You discover blind spots in your thinking. I was writing a policy and I thought it was pretty comprehensive, and I ran it through GPT Enterprise, and it found two other points in the policy that we should be adding.

Todd Lohr, head of ecosystems at KPMG: Part of my job as a leader is being able to synthesize information. AI is very helpful in that it has allowed me to understand trends and the marketplace and has enabled me to have a broader view as a leader and synthesize and ingest a lot more information.

It has also been helpful for communications in terms of preparing for meetings, follow-up from meetings, as well as correspondence.

Rodney Zemmel, global leader for McKinsey Digital and firmwide AI transformation: I've found it to be excellent at "level one" creativity and coming up with things you generally will not have thought of. It's an excellent aid to brainstorming for our teams. I haven't yet seen it as having true unbounded creativity, i.e., a new way of looking at the world. That won't be far behind, though.

What are your go-to AI prompts or advice you have for writing good prompts?

Dan Priest, PwC: I'll give some context about what I'm trying to do, a short, punchy question, and then ask follow-ups that make them increasingly specific, and then you can adjust based on what you're seeing.

During the week, I travel a lot, and if I get 100 or 200 emails in a day, it's just really hard to keep up with every single one of them. I go into Microsoft Teams, activate Copilot, and ask it to review all messages in Teams and email and find the actions for me. I'll just spend 15, 20 minutes at the end of the day, do the prompt "Identify emails that are addressed to me directly or that have an action for me," and it produces the list. It's not perfect, but it's good at it.

I like to cook, and I don't like to waste food in the refrigerator. So I will prompt, "Create a recipe with these ingredients," and I'll just list the things that I want to get rid of in the refrigerator.

Rodney Zemmel, McKinsey: Too many people are still using it to look something up. The trick is to have a dialogue with it and to get comfortable building agents that can execute simple tasks. Let AI handle the 80% of tasks we're mediocre at, so we can excel at the exciting 20%, as one of my colleagues likes to say.

Matt Barrington, Americas chief technology officer at EY: Context management is paramount. I keep separate AI "workspaces" for different focus areas — such as technical Q&A or drafting client communications.

I also give the AI clear instructions about the style and depth of response I want, like "Provide a concise, bullet-point summary," or "Act as a finance expert," or "cite credible sources or references and provide links."

What challenges are there with using AI?

Dan Priest, PwC: It is changing muscle memory.

I've spent a lot of years developing a certain writing style, a certain research technique, and I had to change that. And I am better for having changed it, but it doesn't happen overnight.

It was just like anything that you learn, you have to be disciplined about learning it, and then it sticks.

Todd Lohr, KPMG: The biggest challenge is connecting all my individual data sources that are disparate. If I want to build my own personal AI, the challenge is having access to the right information and knowledge.

I have been deliberate about addressing this challenge when I took over in my current role. I put everything in one folder and personally curated the content that I agreed with and liked.

Matt Barrington, EY: The main challenge is keeping pace with the innovation. There's a constant flow of new models, tools, and capabilities, and it can be tough to pinpoint which option is best for a given task. I follow newsletters, participate in AI-focused events, and learn from AI practitioners — but in my view, hands-on experimentation is the most effective way to stay informed and find what genuinely works.

Also, it is important to remember that while these models are confident and impressive, they can be wrong. Always validate the information and output before you utilize it.

What do your clients want to know about incorporating AI into their business?

Dan Priest, PwC: The questions have sort of shifted. A year ago, they were asking, "What's the killer use case?" "What's the most industrialized use case?" "What's the use case that's going to produce the most savings or the greatest deficiencies?" Now, the questions we're getting are less about those technical use cases and they're much more about "How do you evolve the business strategy to take advantage of AI capabilities?"

Rodney Zemmel, McKinsey: They want to understand how AI agents can integrate with their workforce, acting like talented interns who need proper training to be effective. We've also seen the conversation move from just productivity to growth and productivity, and to finding ways to do things better and faster than humans to doing things that no human could possibly do.

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• Donald Trump's leadership style can bring about short-term wins but long-term risks.
• Leadership experts described his approach to management and negotiations as a throwback.
• They said some corporate leaders might try to adopt a more hard-nosed approach with workers.

If you live in Canada or Mexico or you're a government worker, you might consider it the art of the raw deal.

President Donald Trump's approach to leadership and negotiation — more pugilistic than pluralistic — has allowed for what he sees as quick wins in trade spats with America's closest neighbors, looming cuts in the federal workforce under Elon Musk's direction, and the rollback of back diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

Only weeks into Trump's second term, the allure of the president's at times brash style is likely to embolden some corporate leaders fed up with return-to-office fights, discussions about DEI, and flagging worker engagement to adopt a brass-knuckles approach of their own, leadership experts told Business Insider.

But they said that shifting into Trump mode could come at a cost.

"Donald Trump's brand harkens back to an older time in America," said Erik Helzer, a core faculty member of the Center for Innovative Leadership at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School.

He added that the president's leadership style pointed to "an older understanding of how to lead."

One problem with following in his footsteps: Leaders' shoes may not be big enough.

"A small number may be successful at imitating it," said Brian Ott, a distinguished professor of communication at Missouri State University, "but the vast majority of people don't have the kind of power that Elon Musk and Donald Trump have."

Adopting the Trump playbook

Elizabeth Lotardo, the author of the book "Leading Yourself," told BI that leaders tempted to replicate the president's muscular stance should consider, among other things, the timelines they face.

"The trap is to view the time horizon as similar," she said. "Donald Trump is playing a four-year game. CEOs, the good ones anyway, are hopefully looking at a longer-term horizon."

Helzer said Trump's approach would likely trickle down into corporate America, though he added that some CEOs would buck such a trend.

High-profile companies, including JPMorgan and Apple, have defended their companies' work around DEI, for example.

Lotardo said the president's move to force the roughly half of federal workers who can do their jobs remotely to go to an office five days a week could ultimately be a Pyrrhic victory: It could achieve the goal of thinning government payrolls but also drain expertise and make it harder for the government to innovate if top talent flees.

A 'master negotiator'

Helzer said Trump's stance on trade seemed designed to be provocative and follow the negotiation principle of "make the first offer." Doing so, he added, means subsequent offers are anchored to the first.

"From the standpoint of trying to gain the upper hand in negotiation, there may be some strategy associated with that," Helzer said.

That's how the White House sees it.

"President Trump, a master negotiator, is strategically leveraging his skills to fulfill the promises that earned him a resounding mandate from the American people," Harrison Fields, a principal deputy press secretary, said in a statement to BI.

Indeed, Trump has said that dealmaking is his art.

"Other people paint beautifully or write poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals," Trump tweeted in 2014. "That's how I get my kicks."

Rulership versus leadership

Ott told BI that Trump often demonstrated "rulership" rather than leadership.

"Leadership requires, by definition, followership," which involves people voluntarily doing things without coercion, Ott said. "Real leadership is leading and building consensus."

Trump, he said, "has no interest in consensus building."

Describing Trump's recent trade moves, Helzer said, "He will get people to acquiesce, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're partnering."

Ott said that even though the president and supporters like Musk, newly installed as a "special government employee," appeared to be getting what they want, leaders who try to copy the Trump playbook might find they fall short.

Throwback leadership

Maria DeLorenzis Reyes, an executive-leadership coach who said she has worked with more than 1,600 companies, said that while Trump's approach to trade with Canada and Mexico, for example, might seem to some observers to be one of strength, she didn't see it that way.

"It models this leadership style that's completely opposite to what's needed," DeLorenzis Reyes said.

She described Trump's methods as a throwback to a command-and-control style of leadership that was more popular three or four decades ago but that ultimately isn't as effective as inspiring people about an idea. She said that using fear as a cudgel could reduce quality work, collaboration, and innovation.

"Leadership that marginalizes or disrespects members of teams hinders an organization's ability to actually operate and be productive," DeLorenzis Reyes said.

In her experience, she said, some corporate leaders appeared to talk a good game about concepts they might view as squishy, like empathy and connecting with workers. In some cases that extended to corporate DEI programs that mushroomed after the 2020 killing of George Floyd, and even flexibility in how workers got their jobs done after the pandemic.

Now, DeLorenzis Reyes said, Trump's tone is giving some permission to consider walking away from things they perhaps felt forced into in recent years.

A reversion to "Mad Men"-era leadership might work now that it's harder for many desk workers to find a job than it was a few years ago. But she said that in the longer term, when the pendulum of power swings back toward workers, harder-line leaders could get pinched when it comes to attracting skilled workers.

Meanwhile, for some CEOs, reverting to an old-school leadership style and less touchy-feely management techniques is a return to their comfort zones.

DeLorenzis Reyes said these executives "never really bought into" these more recent ways of working. "They just wanted to get back to the way things were."

• With a deadline looming to accept a buyout, federal workers might look to the corporate sector.
• Career coaches have been hearing from federal workers who wanted to beef up their résumés.
• They advised networking and making résumé adjustments for transitioning to private-sector roles.

Laura Labovich, who runs an outplacement firm in the Washington, DC, area, has been hearing from government workers like never before.

With a deadline looming for federal employees to accept a buyout offer, she has nearly two dozen consultations with such workers scheduled in the coming weeks.

Ordinarily, Labovich might only have a handful a year.

She said that, unlike in the past, some employees weren't saying they were frustrated by difficulties in getting a promotion or pay.

"They just say, 'I want to leave,'" Labovich told Business Insider.

The Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory group run by Elon Musk, has been looking for ways to slash federal spending. Federal workers are likely facing a February deadline to offer their resignations and continue to be paid through September.

For government workers trying to dodge the DOGE — or who may just have philosophical differences with the new administration — landing a job in the private sector might require a different tack than getting ahead in government, career experts told BI.

The 'hidden job market'

To get started, Labovich said, workers should try to talk to people who are employed where they may want to work; they should focus on finding people and companies instead of open jobs.

So, for someone who wants to work in a marketing department, making contact through LinkedIn or being introduced by professional contacts with people who work in that unit may help someone stand out. Job seekers could ask to set up a brief call to learn more about the department, she said.

Labovich said that's important because of what's referred to as the "hidden job market." Unlike in government, where the race for a job often starts once a role is posted, it's better to be on a hiring manager's radar before a posting goes up in the private sector, she said.

Beyond going big on networking, Labovich said, one of the biggest changes in looking for a private-sector job will be the length of your résumé. She said that, unlike federal CVs that might run four to six pages, someone looking for a private-sector job should typically keep the document to two pages unless it's for a C-suite position.

Ayanna Jackson, who founded and runs AEJ Consulting, an executive coaching and career-development firm in metro Washington, DC, offered similar advice about what corporate recruiters want: "They're going to give you six to nine seconds, tops, to scroll two pages max," she said.

Don't just rely on AI

Jackson advised against solely relying on artificial-intelligence tools to compress a résumé that was a half-dozen pages into two. AI, she said, could introduce errors and leave a résumé bloated with empty phrases and inaccurate metrics.

"You've got to articulate your specific results," Jackson said.

For those remaking résumés for work outside the government, Jackson said it's important to avoid relying on acronyms or namechecking obscure agencies that hiring managers and recruiters might not know.

She recommended that those looking for work focus on soft skills that many employers say they want. This includes the ability to influence, communicate ideas, and solve problems.

Jackson also said getting coaching before an interview is a good idea, especially for candidates who haven't gone through the interview process in a long time. She said workers must be ready to tell their stories without rambling and able to demonstrate how they achieved goals and overcame obstacles.

Both Jackson and Labovich recommended that job seekers use the STAR method for answering questions. This involves describing the situation or task the worker faced, the action they took, and the results.

Consider other factors

Richard Poulson, a partner at the law firm Willig, Williams & Davidson in Philadelphia, told BI there could be unique factors that government workers might have to consider.

Poulson, who specializes in issues involving public-safety workers, said that when public-sector workers move to the private sector — in effect from being a regulator to the one being regulated — it might not be possible to work in the same field, with the same client, or on the same projects for some time.

"There may be restrictions in effect there," he said. "People need to make sure that they've got their eyes wide open before they make those decisions."

Stepped-up job growth in the private sector could worsen problems that some government agencies have had in attracting people, Poulson said.

He said he'd advise public-sector workers with a choice to consider how careers in government often span many power shifts in politics. Poulson also suggested that government workers focus on the importance of what they do.

"That tends to weigh more than the changes in administration that happen every few years," he said.

Are you a government worker, or do you have something to share about what you're seeing in the workplace? Business Insider would like to hear from you. Email our workplace team from a nonwork device at [email protected] with your story, or ask for one of our reporter's Signal numbers.

An earlier version of this story appeared on November 19, 2024.

• Lower-cost AI tools could reshape jobs by giving more workers access to the technology.
• Companies like DeepSeek are developing low-cost AI that could help some workers get more done.
• There could still be risks to workers if employers turn to bots for easy-to-automate tasks.

Cut-rate AI might be shaking up industry giants, but it's not likely to take your job — at least not yet.

Lower-cost approaches to developing and training artificial intelligence tools, from upstarts like China's DeepSeek to heavyweights like OpenAI, will likely allow more people to latch onto AI's productivity superpowers, industry observers told Business Insider.

For many workers worried that robots will take their jobs, that's a welcome development. One scary prospect has been that discount AI would make it easier for employers to swap in cheap bots for pricey humans.

Of course, that could still happen. Eventually, the technology will likely muscle aside some entry-level workers or those whose roles largely consist of repetitive tasks that are easy to automate.

Even higher up the food chain, staff aren't necessarily free from AI's reach. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said this month the company might not hire any software engineers in 2025 because the firm is having so much luck with AI agents.

Yet, broadly, for many workers, lower-cost AI is likely to expand who can access it.

As it becomes cheaper, it's easier to integrate AI so that it becomes "a sidekick instead of a threat," Sarah Wittman, an assistant professor of management at George Mason University's Costello College of Business, told BI.

When AI's price falls, she said, "there is more of a widespread acceptance of, 'Oh, this is the way we can work.'" That's a departure from the mindset of AI being a pricey add-on that employers might have a hard time justifying.

AI for all

Cheaper AI could benefit workers in areas of a business that often aren't seen as direct revenue generators, Arturo Devesa, chief AI architect at the analytics and data company EXL, told BI.

"You were not going to get a copilot, maybe in marketing and HR, and now you do," he said.

Devesa said the path shown by companies like DeepSeek in slashing the cost of developing and implementing large language models changes the calculus for employers deciding where AI might pay off.

That's because, for most large companies, such determinations factor in cost, accuracy, and speed. Now, with some expenses falling, the possibilities of where AI could show up in a workplace will mushroom, Devesa said.

It echoes the axiom that's suddenly everywhere in Silicon Valley: "As AI gets more efficient and accessible, we will see its use skyrocket, turning it into a commodity we just can't get enough of," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote on X on Monday about the so-called Jevons paradox.

Devesa said that more productive workers won't necessarily reduce demand for people if employers can develop new markets and new sources of revenue.

AI as a commodity

John Bates, CEO of software company SER Group, told BI that AI is becoming a commodity much quicker than expected.

That means that for tasks where desk workers might need a backup or someone to double-check their work, low-cost AI might be able to step in.

"It's great as the junior knowledge worker, the thing that scales a human," he said.

Bates, a former computer science professor at Cambridge University, said that even if an employer already planned to use AI, the reduced costs would boost return on investment.

He also said that lower-priced AI could give small and medium-sized businesses easier access to the technology.

"It's just going to open things up to more folks," Bates said.

Employers still need humans

Even with lower-cost AI, humans will still have a place, said Yakov Filippenko, CEO and founder of Intch, which helps professionals find part-time work.

He said that as tech firms compete on price and drive down the cost of AI, many employers still won't be eager to remove workers from every loop.

For example, Filippenko said companies will continue to need developers because someone has to verify that new code does what an employer wants. He said companies hire recruiters not just to complete manual work; bosses also want a recruiter's opinion on a candidate.

"They pay for trust," Filippenko said, referring to employers.

Mike Conover, CEO and founder of Brightwave, a research platform that uses AI, told BI that a good chunk of what people do in desk jobs, in particular, consists of tasks that could be automated.

He said AI that's more widely available because of falling costs will allow humans' creative abilities to be "freed up by orders of magnitude in terms of the sophistication of the problems we can solve."

Conover thinks that as prices fall, AI intelligence will also spread to far more areas. He said it's akin to how, decades ago, the only motor in a car might have been under the hood. Later, as electric motors shrank, they showed up in places like rear-view mirrors.

"And now it's in your toothbrush," Conover said.

Similarly, Conover said omnipresent AI will let professionals create systems that they can tailor to the needs of jobs and workflows. That will let AI bots handle much of the grunt work and allow workers willing to experiment with AI to take on more impactful work and perhaps shift what they're able to focus on.

"Humans are very good at adapting to their circumstances," he said.

• Return-to-office mandates and cost-cutting could signal a shift in some bosses' empathy for workers.
• The apparent change follows a pandemic-era focus on flexibility and worker well-being.
• CEOs are facing pressure from AI risks and some execs are worried about keeping up.

Like social distancing and elbow bumps, another pandemic-era norm has faded: bosses who seem to care about your feelings.

Return-to-office mandates, continual cost cutting, and high-profile rollbacks of diversity, equity, and inclusion work signal that, in many cases, the manager is back in charge.

Five years ago, the emergence of the pandemic and the overnight surge in remote work, along with the racial justice protests that followed George Floyd's death, pushed many bosses to talk to their teams about far more than their jobs.

For some leaders, checking in on how their people are doing has become old, Maria Ross, an empathy researcher and the author of the book "The Empathy Dilemma," told Business Insider.

"We have this percentage of bosses that are sort of like, 'Oh, the pandemic is over. You had your fun being treated like humans. Now it's time to get back to work,'" she said.

Powerhouse corporations from Amazon to JPMorgan have called workers back to the office, sometimes full-time. Amazon has said the move was about strengthening the company's culture, while JPMorgan has said it's the best way to run the company.

Microsoft is planning to cut jobs and is stepping up scrutiny of underperforming employees. Meta has announced plans to dismiss an additional layer of what it deems lower-performing workers. Meta is also among companies that said they would cut back on some DEI work.

Microsoft previously told BI its focus is on "high performance talent," while Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the company's workers the move was designed to "raise the bar on performance management."

Meanwhile, some employers are engaging in so-called "stealth firing."

It's not just in the corporate world. Last week, President Donald Trump ordered an end to federal DEI programs. He also said many federal workers would need to be back in the office five days a week — upending years of WFH arrangements for the roughly half of employees who could work remotely at least part of the time.

"This is an absolutely terrible idea," one federal contractor in Washington, DC, told BI, who asked not to be named so she could speak freely without fear of repercussions. BI has confirmed her identity.

The autonomy she's had meant she was willing to give more in exchange for the privilege of working from home some of the time. Rather than closing her laptop "at 5:01 p.m.," if her boss asked her to take an after-hours meeting, she would agree.

Now, she said, she's considering looking for a job that allows for a more flexible setup, at least on some days, even if it meant earning less.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly previously told BI that Trump signed the RTO order to make the federal government more efficient.

AI is weighing on business models

While many bosses would surely argue that RTO mandates and tougher performance evaluations are just part of having — and keeping — a job, some concede that their company cultures aren't what they would like.

In 2024, about half of CEOs said in a survey from Businessolver, which tracks empathy in the workplace, that their companies' workplace culture was toxic. Thirty-seven percent of chiefs also said empathy didn't "have a place in the workplace," more than the 30% of HR execs and a quarter of employees who agreed empathy didn't belong on the job.

"Empathy is lacking in the CEO office," Dan Kaplan, senior client partner at the recruiting firm Korn Ferry, told BI. He said some CEOs are "fed up" with quality-of-life discussions. Some bosses believe they made allowances for things like remote work during the pandemic that weren't meant to be permanent, Kaplan said.

The draining of some CEOs' batteries comes at a precarious time.

The rise of artificial intelligence — and the attendant risks to business models — is making some execs and rank-and-file workers feel FOBO: fear of becoming obsolete.

That's perhaps one reason some leaders, juggling worries about innovation and market competition, want people back in the office. Those concerns come even as US workers' productivity is up, thanks partly to AI efficiencies.

Siri Chilazi, a senior researcher at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and coauthor of the book "Make Work Fair," told BI that productivity is "incredibly difficult" to determine for desk workers and that most organizations that say working from home hurts output have never measured it.

"A lot of times, this is really about control and senior leaders just feeling more comfortable when they can see butts in seats and faces in front of computers, regardless of what's actually being done on those computers," she said.

'This is a power play'

Yet, Anders Indset, a tech investor, philosopher, and author of the book "The Viking Code," told BI that part of what can get missed when the RTO conversation focuses on productivity is what he sees as the intangible benefits of togetherness.

Being in an office, bumping into a colleague, and having discussions that aren't laid out in an agenda — and even disagreeing — can create what he sees as a healthful level of friction.

"Often something magical happens. Either you come to an agreement, or you start to spark a new project, or through a symbiosis, you tap into the unknown and come up with some new idea," he said.

While that appears to be what some bosses want, not all of them are eager to risk the ire of workers by disrupting work routines established, in some cases, over several years. The data platform Crunchbase is a remote-first company with about 170 workers across 20 states.

Kelly Mendez-Scheib, the company's chief people officer, told BI that employees will remember how they're treated.

She predicts that while bosses have more power now, in a sometimes tough job market for desk workers, some CEOs will be forced to soften their stance on edicts like RTO if the market heats up.

"This is a power play, in my opinion, and it always has been," Mendez-Scheib said, referring to RTO orders.

• Donald Trump and activists are taking aim at DEI programs in government and the corporate world.
• Fortune 500 companies, like Meta and Walmart, have begun scaling back some DEI initiatives.
• Yet a defense of DEI by JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon and leaders at Costco show the efforts aren't dead.

DEI might be down, but it's not dead.

One of President Donald Trump's first executive orders upon returning to office aimed to stomp out federal DEI programs, a pledge he made on the campaign trail. Before Trump's inauguration, industry bellwethers Meta, McDonald's, and Walmart had announced plans to roll back at least some of their diversity, equity, and inclusion work.

On Friday, Target said it was ending its several programs related to diversity.

Yet, elsewhere in the corporate world, there are still high-profile supporters. Take Jamie Dimon. This week, the JPMorgan CEO defended the bank's DEI work as activist shareholders appear to be targeting the company, among other financial heavyweights, over their DEI programs.

"Bring them on," Dimon told CNBC on Wednesday in reference to the critical investors.

Costco has also shown support for DEI in the days leading up to Trump's return to the Oval Office. Then, on Thursday, the retailer's shareholders overwhelmingly defeated a proposal from the National Center for Public Policy Research that would have required Costco to produce a report on its DEI work — a move the board opposed as being both politically biased and a waste of resources.

Many companies stepped up or talked more about their DEI efforts after the 2020 murder of George Floyd and the racial justice protests that followed.

Yet diversity efforts have been under attack in recent months, first by conservative activists and now by Trump, prompting many companies to reconsider their advocacy for progressive initiatives.

Trump's executive order has the potential to ripple further through the private sector. The president wants federal agencies to identify "the most egregious and discriminatory DEI practitioners" across public companies and nonprofits for possible civil investigations.

Still, the companies that are sticking by DEI seem unperturbed.

More innovation, smarter decisions

One of the reasons some major companies are doubling down on DEI today is because they say it's good for business.

Dimon, for example, said JPMorgan's efforts to reach out to the Black, Hispanic, LGBTQ+, and veterans groups, among others, were "90% for-profit." He spoke to CNBC on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

In the company's most recent annual report, issued in April, Dimon wrote that JPMorgan's work around DEI leads to "more innovation, smarter decisions and better financial results" for the company and the economy. A JPMorgan spokesperson declined to comment further to BI.

At Costco, 98% of shareholders voted against a measure that would have required the retailer to investigate any legal or financial risks tied to the company's DEI work. The results followed a unanimous recommendation by the board urging them to reject the proposal.

The board wrote in December that its commitment to running a business "rooted in respect and inclusion is appropriate and necessary." Costco did not respond to BI's request for further comment.

About half of US residents are female, while more than 40% consider themselves non-white, according to the nonprofit USAFacts.

Activists are targeting DEI programs

Other companies have made pitches in favor of DEI. Apple has encouraged investors to vote against a shareholder proposal to jettison its DEI programs. In a filing this month, it criticized the petition as one that would constrain Apple's "ability to manage its own ordinary business operations, people and teams, and business strategies."

Some of that pressure from investors comes as activists, like the influencer Robby Starbuck, have pushed companies — sometimes successfully, in the case of Walmart — to alter their programs.

A Walmart spokesperson told BI that the company remains committed to "creating a culture where everyone can be successful, and ensuring we are a Walmart for everyone."

Meta's vice president of human resources, Janelle Gale, wrote in a memo this month that the parent of Facebook and Instagram would cease to have a team focused on DEI. She also said that the term DEI had "become charged" because it's sometimes seen as a "practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others."

In Target's announcement Friday, Kiera Fernandez, the company's chief community impact and equity officer, wrote that, as a company that sees millions of customers daily, "we understand the importance of staying in step with the evolving external landscape."

Part of that shifting landscape, as Meta's Gale noted in her memo, involves what's legal. That reassessment follows the Supreme Court's 2023 decision ending affirmative action in college admissions. While it's not permissible to practice DEI in a way that becomes discriminatory, the Trump administration's push to weaken DEI could prompt added scrutiny of corporate programs, legal experts told BI.

Meta, McDonald's, and Target didn't respond to BI's requests for further comment. Apple didn't immediately respond to an inquiry sent outside normal business hours.

Even before the White House's pushback, it was already a tough political environment for DEI, which critics often assail for prioritizing gender or ethnicity over merit. In addition, some who sympathize with the aims of DEI programs contend that some of the efforts aren't effective and need to be reimagined.

'A business imperative'

Companies might be convinced to stay the course on DEI because such efforts are often part of a strategy to attract and keep the best workers, Diana Scott, US human capital center leader at The Conference Board, told BI. The Conference Board describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit entity. As part of its work, it operates councils for business leaders in areas including diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

The majority of execs Scott talks with from the large companies that make up the think tank's membership say they plan to continue their DEI work.

"For them, it's a business imperative," she said.

Having a diverse workforce where the focus is on equity — things like fairness in opportunities and in how workers are rewarded — leads to better culture and collaboration, Scott said. That, in turn, drives innovation and better business results.

"People don't view this as a zero-sum game," she said, referring to the views on DEI among many of the business leaders she talks to.

Some DEI efforts haven't been working

That support doesn't mean, however, that there aren't DEI efforts that couldn't be improved, Scott said.

Some researchers agree.

Iris Bohnet, a behavioral economist at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and coauthor of the book "Make Work Fair," told BI that some measures, like diversity training, too often fail to change behaviors that could be influenced by bias, such as decisions on hiring, promotions, or performance appraisals.

"What we have been doing in the past five to 10 years really hasn't been working," she said.

That's one reason to revisit — yet not abandon — DEI, Bohnet said. Focusing on ideas like fairness could create greater buy-in from skeptics, she said.

Many workers support DEI

Another reason some employers are likely to stick with DEI is because employees often support it.

In an August survey of some 1,300 workers and executives at US companies, 58% of respondents told the Conference Board that their organization put an appropriate amount of effort into DEI. About one in five workers said their employer didn't go far enough.

For groups that have historically often faced a tough time on the job, DEI often matters a great deal. About half of women and 56% of Black workers told the Conference Board they wouldn't work for an organization that didn't regard it as important.

"Many of these companies have been practicing DEI for decades," Scott said. "This is not performative for them."

Jennie Glazer, CEO of the think tank Coqual, which focuses on barriers to advancement for underrepresented people in the workplace, told BI that its members, which include big companies like JPMorgan, believe that "inclusive" workplaces are more effective.

"Diverse teams make better decisions and solve problems faster," she said.

That's why she thinks it's unlikely that many companies will ultimately abandon all of their efforts in this area.

"We are going to have a very multicultural workforce, whether or not you invest in DEI," she said.

• Trump's order may end remote work for many federal employees.
• Yet, collective bargaining agreements and other factors may affect the return-to-office timeline.
• With only 15% of federal jobs in DC, workers nationwide will be impacted.

If you're a federal employee who works remotely even part of the time, your daily life could soon change.

President Donald Trump's return-to-office order means that the roughly half of federal workers who can sometimes log on from outside the office could spend more time commuting.

Yet how quickly that might play out is unclear, despite Trump's mandate.

Which federal workers will have to go back to the office?

Which federal workers are required back in the office may depend on factors like whether they're covered by a collective bargaining agreement — a contract between an employer and workers — or whether they're eligible for an accommodation to maintain a remote setup. In short, the particulars make the situation difficult to parse for many workers.

"It's a mess," Kristin Alden, an employment attorney in Washington, DC, who often works with federal employees, told Business Insider.

The order also states that it will comply with applicable law.

Vanessa Matsis-McCready, an employment attorney at Engage PEO, which provides HR services, told BI that the wording over applicable law could be an acknowledgment of possible conflicts with collective bargaining agreements. RTO orders that appear to run counter to those could result in workers filing grievances, she said.

Alden said it's unlikely that Trump's order would supersede the collective bargaining agreement for federal workers whose roles are covered by that agreement.

Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a labor union, told BI that a little over half of federal employees are covered by such agreements.

How will the process work?

For RTO mandates to unfold, she said, agency and department heads will most likely issue an order for workers to come back within a certain period. After that, workers who don't comply will be warned that they're in violation of the policy. They'd then be given time to respond — at least 30 days — before they'd be fired, she said.

It's possible that leaders will show some discretion in how and how quickly they enforce the RTO rules, Alden said.

In the meantime, workers are left wondering what their timeline looks like.

The White House and its supporters could make a big push to propel the RTO effort. In a November op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy wrote that making workers return to the office five days a week "would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome." That effort is part of the Department of Government Efficiency advisory group aimed at slashing federal spending and regulations.

RTO orders won't just affect those in the nation's capital. Only about 15% of all federal jobs are in the Washington, DC, area, according to USAJobs, the government job board.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement to BI that Trump signed the order to make the federal government more efficient.

"Study after study shows that employees are more productive, more focused, and more collaborative when working in the office rather than at home," she wrote.

DOGE didn't respond to BI's request for comment.

When will federal workers have to return to office?

Only about half of the 2.28 million civilian federal workers can do their jobs from home. Others, including those providing healthcare to veterans, who staff national parks, or who inspect food supplies, can't work remotely, the government's Office of Management and Budget said in an August report.

Federal workers who can do their jobs remotely and who have an office to report to already spend about 61% of their time working there. According to OMB, 10% of federal employees are fully remote.

Because the wording of Trump's executive order walking back remote work includes the phrase "as soon as practicable," there appears to be some wiggle room for how long it might take for agencies to implement those orders, Matsis-McCready said.

"It signals that we know that there's going to be obstacles that will have to be addressed with this directive," she said.

The mandate requires federal employees in the executive branch, including employees for agencies like the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Labor, to return to the office.

Will there be any accommodations?

Erwin from the National Federation of Federal Employees said that telework is one of the most important concerns for many federal workers outside pay and benefits.

Matsis-McCready said telework, either part time or full-time, can be one allowance granted to a worker who's disabled. There's a process, she said, for how workers can seek these types of adjustments.

Trump's executive order contains the phrase, "agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary." That's another signal there could be some discretion, she said.

Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, wrote in a memo Wednesday that all agency leaders should revise their telework policy by 5 p.m. on Friday to require workers to be at their "duty stations" unless they have a disability, qualifying medical condition, or "other compelling reason certified by the agency head and the employee's supervisor."

One group of federal workers who could be in particular peril, Alden, the DC attorney, said, are those who have had an informal OK — though not an official accommodation — from higher-ups to work remotely because of, say, a medical need.

"Those are the people that I'm most concerned about," she said.

Federal workers should expect some confusion

Donald Kettl, a professor emeritus and former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, told BI that for a share of those workers who spend part of the time working from home, the change could be enormous. That's especially true, he said, if they joined the government when remote or hybrid setups were commonplace.

Pew Research reports that slightly more than half of the federal government's civilian workforce has been on the job for less than a decade.

Kettl said younger government officials who might have school-age children, for example, could see their lives disrupted.

"For many people, it's going to be very, very, very messy," he said.

Kettl said even things like commutes could get harder as more workers use the roads and rails.

Do you have something to share about your RTO experience? Business Insider would like to hear from you. Email our workplace team from a nonwork device at [email protected] with your story, or to ask for one of our reporter's Signal numbers.

• JPMorgan's David Kelly said US workers have been too timid when it comes to asking for raises.
• One career advisor suggests you create a "brag sheet" to outline your accomplishments.
• Experts also recommend doing research on pay, knowing your worth, and leveraging tech for raises.

A top Wall Street exec thinks most of us need to get better about asking for a raise.

David Kelly, the chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, told Bloomberg that many US workers appear timid when going to their employer for more money — even though there are some 8 million job openings across the country.

"Everybody knows it's hard to find a good employee," he said.

Kelly said that, in some cases, discussions about layoffs can make workers believe it's not a good time to ask for a boost.

"It's good messaging from these companies," he said, adding, "There's nothing like announcing prospective layoffs to quiet down the labor force."

So, if you're thinking it's time for a bump, here are four tips from workplace experts on how to talk with your boss.

Keep a record of your wins

It's easy to lose track of all the things you've accomplished at work, especially as the months roll by. Jasmine Escalera, a career expert with MyPerfectResume, recommends that workers keep a "brag sheet" of the major contributions they've made in their role and to their team — and on behalf of their manager and the organization.

"What are the top things that really showcase the impact that you've made?" she said.

Escalera said it doesn't have to be an exhaustive list. She added that if there are smaller accomplishments that don't warrant being mentioned in a discussion over compensation, they could serve as the basis for asking a client or a colleague for a LinkedIn endorsement.

Keeping a list can also help identify when it might be time to ask for an increase in compensation or a heftier title, even outside an annual review cycle, Escalera said.

Too often, she said, workers shy away from discussing their achievements because they want to avoid the appearance of bragging.

"We stop ourselves from self-promotion because we think it's bad, but self-promotion is the breadcrumbs that lead to the titles and the promotions and the pay raises," Escalera said.

Know your financial worth

One way to feel less uneasy about promoting ourselves is to have a sense of what others in similar roles at other organizations are earning.

Having that data on hand can appeal to many bosses' desire to be competitive in the marketplace and even to live up to the values the organization espouses, Maria Ross, who researches empathy and is the author of the book "The Empathy Dilemma," told BI.

She said workers who have information about pay rates at other organizations and who have deep knowledge about the state of their employer's business are likely to fare better in a discussion about pay.

Ross suggested people should consider how getting a raise might benefit the organization. A hike in pay might come with added responsibility or taking on some of your boss's work. Or, she said, if you get a promotion, that could create an opening for someone to move into your old role.

"How can you frame the ask as a benefit to the organization?" Ross said.

Don't make it an easy 'no'

Often, workers consider themselves lucky to have a job. While that might be true, the organization can also be lucky to have you, Julie Smith, author of the book "Coach Yourself Confident," told BI.

"It's kind of a scary thing to ask, 'Do you think I'm worth more?'" she said.

Smith said the discussion over a bump in pay might end up spilling into more than one conversation — and that's OK. That's because, sometimes, raising the topic of a pay increase can prompt a busy boss to pay more attention to all of the things you're doing.

She said that instead of asking for a raise immediately, you might benefit from asking your boss to consider a pay bump, or that your boss brings it up with senior leaders or HR.

The one-off ask can make it easier for your boss to say "no," Smith said.

It can also be helpful to ask others at your job who are ahead of you how they asked for a raise and what steps they took to advance.

"How did it go down?" she said. "What can I take from that?"

Smith also suggested that you practice asking aloud before the conversation with your boss. You might prepare with a friend. It doesn't have to be a full-on role-play, Smith said. Yet hearing yourself make your case can help you edit out apologetic phrases that can creep in and can help you get a sense of how your statements come across.

"Don't say the words out loud for the first time with your boss," she said.

Show you're keeping up

Many employers are investing in artificial intelligence tools with the goal of improving productivity and efficiency. If you can, learn how to use this technology so you can boost your own productivity — and your value to the business, Ger Doyle, country manager for the staffing firm ManpowerGroup US, told BI.

He said workers who are thinking about how they can use tech — including, in some cases, an AI copilot — to do their jobs more effectively and efficiently will look good in the eyes of the boss.

"How do you use that copilot to make your job more effective, make your department more effective, make the company more effective?" Doyle said.

• Some employers are extending the hiring process with multiple interview rounds.
• Employers don't want to hire someone who is a bad fit for the role or the organization's culture.
• Job seekers who are patient can learn something about their prospective employer, an exec told BI.

There's always room for one more.

Finding a job is often a tough slog. But lately, the slogging has grown more intense as some employers tack interview after interview onto the hiring process.

It can be maddening for job seekers forced to sit through rounds of interviews that might stretch into the double digits. Yet, for all the hassle, there could be a modest upside: You really get to know the place.

Mary Olson-Menzel, the founder of MVP Executive Development and author of the book "What Lights You Up?" told Business Insider that unlike an interview process involving only a few conversations, the meet-everyone approach gives job seekers a chance to get a better feel for the position — and whether the employer is a good one.

"You're going into an opportunity or a role with your eyes wide open versus having just met two people," she said.

The drawn-out process for some roles is occurring as the job market for many white-collar roles remains tight — even as the overall US job market is strong.

Employers can still go overboard

Of course, if the job market improves in 2025, that could push some employers to shorten the hiring process, which Olson-Menzel would welcome in some cases.

She has clients who've sat through a dozen interviews for a job. While something around 10 might be appropriate for a CEO, Olson-Menzel said, for an accountant, four or five might suffice.

Some employers are slow-walking the hiring process because they've had to adjust to everything from wars to political unrest to the pandemic in recent years, she said. Add to that a lingering uncertainty over how artificial intelligence might rewrite corporate playbooks, and you get ambivalent employers.

"Organizations are becoming much more risk-averse," Olson-Menzel said.

That means some employers put job seekers through more rounds than an NFL draft. To endure, Olson-Menzel said, many applicants will draw on their tenacity when they're asked to complete assessments or interviews with people who would be their peers.

"It's just something that candidates have to have patience with and be prepared for," she said.

One recent arrival that could help job seekers endure long hiring processes is AI. There are AI tools for helping people prep for interviews and for feeding candidates answers in interviews, for example, though some critics would say that goes too far.

Adam Stafford, CEO of recruitment marketing and AI analytics platform Recruitics, told BI that the tech can benefit job seekers by helping them improve their applications. That, in turn, could lead to an interview.

"Candidates are taking advantage of technology to elevate their own economic horizons, which is awesome," he said.

Nailing the culture fit

Olson-Menzel said that as difficult as it could be, it's best to try to embrace the process. Having a boatload of interviews gives job seekers more chances to determine whether an employer is a good fit for them.

Likewise, she said, employers are also trying to determine whether a person would align with the company's culture.

In part, that's because more workers are staying put compared with a couple of years ago during the "Great Resignation," when job-hopping was more common — and easier to pull off. Now, as employees stick around longer, making sure they mesh well with an organization is more important.

"A cultural fit is the No. 1 thing that you need to look for these days because the skill set, you can teach somebody. It's the cultural fit that's going to actually make them a success," she said.

Employers are also taking their time because they can. While the job market is still strong, it isn't as hot as it was in some sectors.

That's why many employers aren't rushing to hire. And when a single opening can draw hundreds of applicants or more, employers understand they can be choosy about finding the ideal candidate, Olson-Menzel said.

"They're being much more picky about bringing in the right person," she said.

-An earlier version of this story appeared on October 4, 2024.

• Return-to-office mandates risk eroding trust between employees and employers.
• Remote work and other flexibility that arose during the pandemic often fostered employee goodwill.
• Companies enforcing RTO could lose some workers if the job market strengthens.

"Trust me, I'm getting my work done."

That's the sentiment coming from some workers who have bridled at the return-to-office orders flowing from some C-suites.

Many bosses who call their employees back talk about wanting to boost productivity, teamwork, and innovation. What they don't often talk about is trust.

Yet trust — or the absence of it, amid reports of sly employees deputizing Fridays as de facto weekend days — is at the heart of why many bosses are demanding workers resume their commutes, workplace experts told Business Insider.

The surge in remote work during the pandemic engendered goodwill between workers and their employers "in a way that we haven't seen since the old days of retiring from IBM with the gold watch," Dan Kaplan, senior client partner at the recruiting firm Korn Ferry, said.

Now, though, as more CEOs push for workers to return to the office — often against the advice of HR teams, Kaplan said — workers' faith in their employers is also at risk.

"This is going to be studied as a time where companies forfeited the trust that they worked so hard to build," Kaplan told BI.

Autonomy breeds employee trust

Disagreements over how work gets done can erode relationships. PwC has reported that companies that offer remote work but monitor how often workers show up at the office or track things like when workers log on can diminish workers' sense of trust in their employers.

In early 2024, PwC found in a survey of some 2,500 workers in the US — a mix of business leaders and employees — that nearly nine in 10 execs said they had a high level of trust in their people, yet only six in 10 workers said that leadership regarded them as highly trusted.

PwC found that when employees feel a sense of autonomy, trust in employers tends to go up. In the survey, for example, seven in 10 workers said flexibility around when they do their work would build trust.

Employers have reasons for concern

Reports about "over-employed" workers holding multiple remote jobs or others quiet vacationing — thanks, mouse jiggler — are sure to give some leaders heartburn.

That potential abuse of trust by workers has frayed bonds built during the pandemic. When COVID-19 emerged, many bosses checked in on workers, and many employers provided information and resources for workers to help them stay safe, Kaplan said. Often, that included permission to work remotely.

Even as the pandemic ebbed, workers could still focus on family, go to the gym, or walk the dog, he said.

Now, thanks to the tight job market facing many white-collar workers — and fewer remote roles — employers wanting people back in the office have regained power.

Workers got used to WFH

Peggie Rothe, chief insights and research officer at Leesman, which tracks employee experiences, told BI that when the pandemic hit, employers trusted employees would get their work done from afar. This set many employees' expectations for what life would be like when the pandemic subsided.

In part, many workers wanted to keep their setups because logging on from home is something people often enjoy, she said.

Rothe also said the pandemic showed that the average home is better at supporting work than the average office. That's left some workers struggling to understand why they'd need to head back to the office every day, she said.

"Unless you communicate a clear why — why do you need your employees to be back — inevitably employees are going to feel like they're not trusted anymore," Rothe said.

Workers who say they don't trust their employer tend — no surprise — to be less happy at work. That dissatisfaction can then cut into productivity, innovation, and teamwork.

I can't see you

Randall Peterson, a professor of organizational behavior at London Business School, told BI that the biggest factor animating CEOs' decisions to call people back to the office is the fear that they can't see their people and that they might be slacking off.

Yet Peterson said one concern for CEOs should be that by making people go back to the office, employers are taking away a way of working that many people have come to see as a right, not a privilege, as was the case before the pandemic.

'The fact you're forcing me back is taking something away from me," he said. "I don't think enough employers have really figured that out yet."

Kaplan, from Korn Ferry, echoed a similar concern. He said if the US economy heats up as he expects, there's a risk companies could start losing workers who've grown frustrated by bosses taking attendance.

"I suspect the companies that are more flexible are going to look really, really smart in six months," he said.

Do you have something to share about your RTO experience? Business Insider would like to hear from you. Email our workplace team from a nonwork device at [email protected] with your story, or to ask for one of our reporter's Signal numbers.

• Meta plans to cut more low-performing employees, calling the move "nonregrettable attrition."
• Companies often use euphemistic language for job cuts to avoid alarming investors and employees.
• Yet such phrasing often doesn't soften the impact of cuts on affected workers.

Allow for a quick riff on RIFs.

Many companies go out of their way to avoid calling job cuts what they are. Whether it's a "reduction in force," "rightsizing," or "streamlining," the fancy language doesn't soften the blow for workers — or hide the reality of lost jobs.

One recent example: Meta said this week it would push out an additional 5% of what Mark Zuckerberg called "low-performers." Clear enough. Yet in a subsequent memo from Hillary Champion, Meta's director of people development growth programs, the focus became "non-regrettable attrition."

At Amazon, a phrase often used for such cuts is "unregretted attrition."

It's the type of language that can draw snark online. Following Meta's announcement, one person wrote on X: "'Non-regrettable attrition' lmao.'"

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment beyond saying the company plans to fill the vacated positions in 2025.

Steve McClatchy, who consults on leadership and is the author of the book "Leading Relationships," told BI that public companies often use euphemistic language around job cuts to try to avoid spooking investors and raising concerns that the business is in trouble. But, he said, that effort often falls flat when they use terms like nonregrettable attrition.

"How sad is that language? It's trying to say to the ownership group, we're headed in the right direction, not the wrong one," McClatchy said.

There are numerous other ways to frame offboarding, err, cutbacks, err, workforce adjustments, and the need to do so.

For example, the news site TechCrunch told BI on Tuesday it's reducing staff because of "evolving needs."

It's possible that for many employers, workforce optimization, organizational realignment, and — shout out to ChatGPT for this one — internal mobility challenges just sound better than job cuts.

Yet, workplace experts told BI, the fallout is the same.

"We're seeing a lot of companies now do everything not to use the actual word layoff, even though that's exactly what they're doing," Peter Rahbar, an employment attorney who founded the boutique law firm the Rahbar Group, told BI.

A spokesperson for the food giant Cargill previously told BI that job cuts were designed to "realign our talent and resources to align with our strategy."

Last year, Bumble said it would cut about 30% of its workforce "to better align its operating model with future strategic priorities."

The hidden messages behind layoff language

Cutting jobs is often bad for morale and can hurt productivity when workers become consumed with worrying they're next. That can be true even with a case like that of Meta, which said it planned to "backfill" roles in 2025. Translation: hire better people — though not you.

Yet, McClatchy said, to imply that a worker who gets pushed out for poor performance is solely at fault misses the responsibility that employers have to make good hires and that managers have to help those under their tutelage perform their best.

"It's 100% an attack on the employee that has to go then find a job. And what a shame that is," he said.

Sandra Sucher, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School who has studied layoffs, told BI that most terms for layoffs are designed to make an otherwise negative act appear more positive.

She said companies often use the term regrettable attrition for good workers they're sorry to see leave. So a term like nonregrettable attrition is a way of "sugarcoating" the fact that an employer is letting people go. Connecting it to attrition is meant, Sucher said, to imply that employers have a handle on the outflow. Yet, she said, attrition isn't always something companies can control.

"The point of attrition is that you're not managing it. It's something that, by and large, happens to you," she said.

'It's not going to soften the blow'

Rahbar, the attorney, said employers' choice of wording when it comes to culling workers isn't about protecting themselves legally. Instead, he said, it's mostly a public-relations dance and, ultimately, one that does little good.

"If you're an employee who is impacted by this, the language they're using to describe it is irrelevant. It's not going to soften the blow," Rahbar said.

Ravin Jesuthasan, a coauthor of the book "The Skills-Powered Organization" and the global leader for transformation services at the consulting firm Mercer, told BI that employers have been cutting jobs for more than a century when business falters.

"I don't know why there was a need to introduce new language," he said.

In some cases, the words aren't new; they're just redeployed, reassigned, or transitioned to a new role. In Champion's memo at Meta, she wrote that the company was "aiming to exit" an additional 5% of its workers who'd been around long enough to get a performance rating.

"'Exit' as in GTFO!" one X user posted.

Not all euphemisms might be as likely to whip up worker cynicism, of course. The practice of scoring workers based on various metrics and getting rid of the worst performers sometimes goes by the human-resources shorthand "rank and yank."

Corporatespeak can also be a handy way to add levity in uncertain times. One social media user wrote on X about what might happen when artificial intelligence shows up to make cutbacks, oblique language in tow.

"Humans will become 'Non-Regrettable Attrition' for AI," the person wrote.

Do you have something to share about job cuts or something else at work? Business Insider would like to hear from you. Email our workplace team from a nonwork device at [email protected] with your story, or ask for one of our reporters' Signal numbers.

• AI hiring is rising 30% faster than overall hiring, LinkedIn reports.
• By 2030, 70% of the skills needed for most jobs will change due to AI, the platform predicts.
• LinkedIn's COO told BI that fluency with AI will be something that comes up in many job interviews.

If you want to get a new job this year, it might pay to lean into artificial intelligence.

Since last fall, AI hiring has risen 30% faster than overall hiring, new figures from LinkedIn show.

This doesn't just mean being one of the technologists who build AI, though many employers are desperate to find workers with these skills. It can also mean workers comfortable using AI to do their jobs, Daniel Shapero, COO at LinkedIn, told Business Insider.

He said that, in part, that desire reflects a need to have people best positioned to withstand an enormous shift in the workplace.

"There's a feeling from employers that they need to make sure that the workers that they're hiring are up for the changes that are about to occur in the labor market," Shapero said.

Part of the coming shift is underscored elsewhere in the LinkedIn report: By 2030 — in only five years — 70% of the skills required for most jobs will change, the company said. That's largely because of AI.

"That's just an indication of how prevalent AI is likely to be across different kinds of jobs," Shapero said.

AI has also only recently become mainstream. ChatGPT was the first major chatbot to burst onto the market, and that was in late 2022. Yet workers who embrace the technology will be most likely to succeed, LinkedIn says.

Employers are expecting AI fluency

The forecast about how much many jobs will change comes years into what's sometimes called the Big Stay, the buttoned-down sequel to the job-hopping that unfolded during the pandemic era. Before the pandemic, LinkedIn said, some workers were adding to their AI skills. Then, during the so-called Great Resignation, many workers didn't feel pressure to tack on abilities because they could often readily change jobs.

Now, years later — and with many workers reporting that they feel stuck in their roles — adding to their bona fides can seem prudent, Shapero said.

LinkedIn found that the share of jobs listed on the platform that included AI literacy skills jumped more than sixfold in the past year.

Yet, even with that increase, employers are only spelling out their desire for AI literacy in one of every 500 job listings on the platform, LinkedIn found. That's perhaps in part because fluency with AI is becoming an expectation for employers, Shapero said.

"It may not be on the job description, but it's going to be something that shows up somehow in the interview," he commented.

Shapero said one head of recruiting for an employer told him that the No. 1 question they're asking candidates is how they've used AI for work or at home within the past year.

"What they're trying to get at is comfort and fluency and the ability to learn new things and new technologies," he said.

AI will affect "almost every job," Shapero said.

Kelly Mendez-Scheib, chief people officer at Crunchbase, which collects data on companies, told BI that the company is hiring for roles including machine learning engineers and data scientists.

"I'm pretty bullish on AI," she said.

Adding more skills to our profiles

Job seekers appear to feel the need to beef up — or at least enumerate — their skills.

"People are trying to make sure that they are showcasing what's most attractive about them as a candidate," Shapero said. "And it comes down in many ways to AI skills."

Since 2022, LinkedIn users have increased the rate at which they add skills to their profiles by 140%. This includes so-called soft skills like communication and leadership.

A lot of what employers are after is workers who can marry tech with old-school basics. Communication, for example, was the most in-demand skill in 2024, LinkedIn figures show.

Parminder Jassal, CEO of Unmudl, which focuses on developing workers' abilities through hands-on training, told BI that, in many ways, the ideal is a matchup is AI's power with people's skills and emotional know-how.

"You put that together with AI intelligence, and now you get this super intelligence skillset," she said.

LinkedIn's report found that "leaders and companies understand that AI is the most powerful when collaborative humans surround and lead it."

Do you have something to share about your job search? Business Insider would like to hear from you. Email our workplace team from a nonwork device at [email protected] with your story, or to ask for one of our reporter's Signal numbers.

• A couple moved from the US to Morocco for a better lifestyle and work-life balance.
• They work remotely, allowing them time to enjoy the country's late-night culture and leisure.
• They're expecting a baby, so they value Morocco's safety, healthcare, and family-oriented culture.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Arleevia and Ricoyo Lyles. The couple moved from the US to Tangier, Morocco, in November. Arleevia, 26, works in marketing, and Ricoyo, 40, works in finance. Both work remotely in jobs focused on the US, and they're expecting a baby in April. The couple posts on YouTube about their experience living abroad. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Ricoyo: After spending a few days here during our honeymoon, we fell in love with the culture, the people, and the food. I was joking with Arleevia when I asked her, "Hey, what do you think about moving to Morocco?" I didn't think I would get the response that I did. That sparked us going down the rabbit hole of "What if we actually moved here?"

Arleevia: We work remotely, so we thought it was feasible. We didn't own any property in the US. It was simply a conversation with my employer. They said, "As long as you get your work done." Ricoyo has his own financial firm that he had just started, so he's his own employer. So, for him, working remotely wasn't an issue. He works on US Central Standard Time. He works from about 4 p.m. until about 2 or 3 a.m., and he's up by 11 a.m. the next day.

Ricoyo: We were living in Nashville. We had been there for about three years, and then we relocated back to my hometown of Las Vegas right before moving to Morocco.

My biggest concern was, "Am I going to be falling asleep talking with clients?" But we've adjusted to it. It's almost turned into an evening-type position. It's funny because the culture here is kind of a late-night culture anyway. At night, there are still people in the cafés drinking coffee and going out to restaurants. My schedule almost fits with the vibe of the city.

Arleevia: We're still able to go out, explore the city, and hang out with friends in the afternoon if we want to. I work in the morning and often close out in the evening because I'm not on as many client calls as he is. We've been able to acclimate and socialize.

They have a healthy work-life balance here. Yes, they work very hard, but also they believe in leisure and rest. You see a lot of people out during the day — at cafés drinking tea together. A lot of men will be out, and they'll go back to work. Having that kind of influence has been very helpful for us to be like, "OK, we can take a break from work." We don't have to grind, grind, grind, like we did in the US.

Ricoyo: The priority of family feels like it's so much higher on the list. Even just seeing families out and about is a super-calming thing. We went to a park the other day, and we were thinking, "When was the last time we saw this many kids at a park?"

From the standpoint of raising a child here, that would be a great thing for our daughter.

From a safety and crime standpoint, it's a very low crime rate.

Arleevia: When it comes to gun violence, especially, we don't have to think about that. We just feel a lot safer.

Also, the healthcare is amazing. We had to find a gynecologist. We were not expecting it to be as amazing as it was. I've had the most thorough doctor experience of my life. In the US, my appointments for baby checkups would be five to 15 minutes, on average. Here, we spent 45 minutes to an hour with our doctor. She was so thorough, cared so much, and was deeply invested in answering every question I had.

Ricoyo: I was always conditioned that it doesn't get better than the US, that nowhere else has the luxuries that we have in the US. Yet in terms of the lifestyle, in Morocco the food quality, for example, seems so much better.

Arleevia: Even when it comes to customer service and how they treat people, it's with such respect and care — and they make sure that everybody feels supported. I feel like that comes through in people being able to take time away from work and spending time with their family.

Ricoyo: I set my own schedule, and sometimes Arleevia will be like, "Hey, babe, maybe don't book as many meetings today. Let's go and do something and explore a little bit." So, she kind of keeps me grounded. Otherwise, I'll work the day away.

There are other differences. For example, in terms of race, it's not something that you're thinking about as soon as you meet somebody. Here, they seem to think more in nationality, if anything. They're thinking, "Are you from Senegal? Are you from the US?" Even then, many people seem to love other countries.

Going back to safety: As a Black man, that's something that I always had in the back of my mind. Being here, we don't have to think about that as much, if at all. It's been nice to just interact human-to-human and then try to connect with your experience versus the stereotype behind your skin color.

In the US, when a complete stranger approaches me, it's kind of like I'm on guard. But here, you just meet some of the most amazing people who take time out of their day. They'll be like, "Hey, let me show you something around here." I find myself having to lower my defenses. I will stop and spend time and talk to them and enjoy cups of tea.

When my friends ask me what it's like living here, I think of it as a one-sentence answer: "This reminds me of the good old days." It feels like time has really slowed down. You're really able to take time out of your day and — not to be cheesy — really smell the roses.

Arleevia: There's a heightened level of respect for people here, especially with me being pregnant. There's so much care around that. Men are like, "Hey, take a seat. I can help you with your luggage."

We see often — and this is something very different — if an older person is trying to cross the road, somebody that's much younger will come and assist them. They don't even know them from Adam, but they'll go and walk across the road to make sure that they get across safely. That's something that you see in old movies, but that's a common practice here.

Arleevia: We want to be here for several years because we've moved so much. It'd be ideal to stay for three to five years. Even if it's not in Tangier, we would be open to living in another country. We definitely see this as a long-term living abroad.

Not having a church has probably been the most difficult thing for us to get acclimated to. Morocco is a predominantly Muslim country. There are Christian churches around, but it's tough to find them.

Being away from family is obviously also hard. We miss them dearly. The language barrier has probably been the other tough thing. But outside that, it's been a very easy transition for us.

Ricoyo: The best things in life are often outside our comfort zone. People always talk about how it would be great to travel the world, to see other places, and to experience other cultures. This is making that a reality.

• An RTO push by some employers is leading to logistical challenges and space shortages.
• Many companies cut office space during the pandemic, complicating the return-to-office.
• Still, many CEOs are "ripping that Band-Aid and getting people the heck back in."

You might not have a parking spot or a desk, but you might have a CEO who wants you back in the office anyway.

That's the situation facing some corporate workers who've had a bumpy return-to-office process thanks to logistical hiccups.

Late last year, Amazon delayed RTO requirements for some workers because of a dearth of office space and a need to reconfigure some setups. At AT&T, which has also called workers back, employees at some offices have had trouble snagging workspaces in the new year and have resorted to working in a dining area or at conference tables, BI recently reported.

The push to populate hot desks and cubicles comes as many leaders appear fed up with talking about working from home. Some chiefs might see RTO mandates from high-profile companies like Amazon as the cover they need to issue similar orders. Yet, in the effort to bring workers back, not every office was ready for the influx.

"Towards the end of last year, it became clear that CEOs were just done," Dan Kaplan, senior client partner at the recruiting firm Korn Ferry, told BI.

However, he said, some organizations didn't do sufficient prep work to call everyone back — especially after cutting office space during the depths of the pandemic when those who could do so logged on from home.

Now, Kaplan said, for some CEOs, the thinking goes, "We'll clean up the mess later, but for now, we are ripping that Band-Aid and getting people the heck back in the office, come hell or high water," he said.

AI could be adding uncertainty

Some employers are shifting back to the office even as they don't know how much space they'll ultimately need in the next few years because artificial intelligence could one day replace some workers, Dan Root, head of global strategic alliances at Barco ClickShare, which makes tech used in office meeting rooms, said.

"That starts to really make you question, 'OK, well, how much square footage am I going to be committing to?'" he told BI.

Last week, the World Economic Forum reported that in a survey of companies worldwide, 41% said they planned to cut their workforce during the next five years in instances where AI could take on the work.

Another challenge: Some employers adjusted for hybrid setups — and added places for couches and other amenities to draw workers back to the office — that worked well when offices weren't always fully staffed. Yet now that more workers are coming back, space can be tight.

Nick Romito, CEO of VTS, a commercial real estate technology firm, told BI that two to two-and-a-half years ago, many employers looking for office space might have been shopping for less square footage than they'd need to accommodate a full staff. Many employers optimized for hybrid, yet that only works if people don't show up at the same time.

"People trying to adjust for that a few years ago has now hurt them," he said. "They took 10,000 feet when they really needed 15,000."

Employers are catching up

An AT&T spokesman told BI that the company is "constantly enhancing" its facilities to make them desirable and ensure workers have what they need. Office seating for 70% to 80% of employees is an industry standard, given the variables that can affect attendance on any given day, they said.

AT&T is "quickly working through the challenges in select locations so the rest of our employees are best positioned to support their coworkers," the spokesperson said.

An Amazon spokesperson told BI that as of last week, the "overwhelming majority" of its workers had dedicated workspaces and have returned to the office full time. Among Amazon's hundreds of offices globally, "only a relatively small number" aren't yet ready for workers to return five days a week, the spokesperson said.

One reason some CEOs might feel comfortable calling workers back to the office is that while the overall US jobless rate remains low, it's often still a challenging job market for white-collar workers.

The difficulty many might face in finding other work could mean they're at the mercy of their employer's plans, Dan Schawbel, managing partner of the research firm Workplace Intelligence, told BI.

"They might have no choice but to return to the office," he said, though added that in some cases, workers won't be able to comply because of family circumstances or owning a home too far from the office.

Worksites could get crowded if more workers comply with RTO orders than employers might have expected.

"Strategic companies have made these calculations, but there is room for error," Schawbel said.

If workers do quit because they're unhappy with the RTO, Korn Ferry's Kaplan said, it's an easy way for employers to reduce costs without generating negative headlines around job cuts or incurring related expenses like severance or extended benefits.

"For some of them, it's a free layoff," he said.

Do you have something to share about your RTO experience? Business Insider would like to hear from you. Email our workplace team from a nonwork device at [email protected] with your story, or to ask for one of our reporter's Signal numbers.