More than half of leaders who laid off workers due to AI admit to screwing up

Fearful of being left behind, employers have leaned heavily into AI over the past year. 

Part of that approach has been a zeal for replacing humans with AI. Earlier this month, Tobi Lutke, CEO of Shopify, sent a memo to employees informing them new workers would not be hired unless teams could “demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI.” In a similar memo, Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman warned employees that AI would be “coming for” them if they did not become “exceptional.” READ MORE

93% of employees say retirement benefits influence whether they’ll take a job. How to design a competitive plan

It might be counterintuitive, but thinking about retirement may be one of the best tools small businesses has to attract young talent. 

In fact, 93% of employees say that retirement benefits influence their decision about whether to join a company, according to research from Guideline, a small-business retirement platform. A separate report from payroll service provider Gusto found that offering a 401(k) plan can lead to more than $100,000 in annual savings from employee turnover. Yet 40% of small businesses do not offer the benefit. READ MORE

Federal workers are flooding the talent market. What does that mean for recruiting?

With the election of Donald Trump, the myth of the good government job may be disintegrating. Since the inauguration in late January, more than 120,000 federal workers have been fired, per CNN analysis of FedScope data. 

One of the hallmarks of the Trump administration has been the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, which has publicly gutted federal agency workforces in the name of recouping operating costs. As a result, Indeed reported last month that the number of applications by workers at federal agencies under DOGE review rose by 50%. READ MORE

Class of 2025 grads are experiencing disconnect between job expectations and reality, study finds

Class of 2025 graduates’ expectations seem to be clashing with reality during their job search, especially when it comes to pay, job preferences and beliefs about the job market, according to an April 23 report from ZipRecruiter. 

For instance, some graduates have found that the job search is taking longer than they expected. About 82% of those about to graduate expect to start work within three months of graduation, but only 77% of recent graduates accomplished that, and 5% said they’re still searching for a job. READ MORE

1 in 10 workers are clocking out for micro-retirement, survey finds

Workers cited mental health, a relief from work stress and a desire to have more life experiences as primary reasons for wanting to take an extended leave. However, concerns about financial insecurity, career setbacks and losing healthcare and benefits gave them pause. 

But roughly a third of millennials and Gen Z workers said they believe micro-retirement will become a standard career practice in the future, the study found. Already, companies have turned to more flexible benefits and time off policies to accommodate workers, such as expanded parental leave, ‘pawternity’ leave and paid leave for military spouses to help with moves. READ MORE

A strategy that breaks down workplace silos

For decades, companies have been structured around rigid functional silos—finance, HR, sales, engineering, marketing, R&D and customer service. “Structurally, the way companies have been set up—certainly as long as I’ve been working—is in functional silos or functional job families,” industry analyst Josh Bersin said in his recent HR Tech Europe 2025 keynote.

Organizational silos emerge from fragmented data systems, disconnected communication channels and lack of unified vision. Bersin emphasized that this segmented environment significantly impacts career development as well. READ MORE

The job market is ‘frozen.’ That’s not a good sign for DOGE casualties

The Trump administration’s culling of government programs and agencies has resulted in an unprecedented wave of federal workers joining the ranks of job seekers — and new data shows a spike in job applications from agencies impacted by the Department of Government Efficiency.

Those job hunts are coming at a time when rising uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s economic agenda is clouding businesses’ decision-making and further slowing hiring — especially for specialized and white-collar roles. READ MORE

For unbiased performance management, employees prefer ‘bots over bosses’

The use of artificial intelligence in performance management continues to be debated, but studies show that demand for AI in this area is coming from an unexpected place: employees.

Emily Rose McRae, senior director analyst at Gartner, says HR leaders need to recognize that the “performance of performance management is low.” An October 2024 Gartner survey of nearly 3,500 employees found that 87% of employees think that algorithms could give fairer feedback than their managers. An earlier Gartner survey of more than 3,300 employees revealed that 57% believe humans are more biased than AI when it comes to making compensation decisions. READ MORE

Quiet Quitting Is Out. Now Gen Z Is Revenge Quitting.

Long gone are the days of “sucking it up” in the workplace. Workers are tired of being overworked and underpaid, and they’re no longer staying silent about it.

In today’s economy, it’s common for many to spend years getting a college degree, putting themselves in incredible amounts of debt, only to secure a “stable” career that barely pays the bills or allows for any sort of work-life balance. Ah, the American dream. READ MORE

Gen Z is ‘task masking’ to look as busy as possible in the office. Experts warn they’re self-sabotaging

Ever since Amazon’s seismic return to office mandate late last year, more employers have been ending remote work and demanding that more staff show up in person.

Even in the face of desk shortages and counter petitions from employees, bosses across the board are maintaining that increase presence equates to increased productivity. They may find the opposite is true. READ MORE

JPMorgan official defends bank’s DEI programs, says hiring is 'merit based'

A spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase is defending the bank's diversity equity and inclusion polices, saying their hiring practices are "merit-based" – while the Wall Street titan's CEO appears to be wavering on the company's commitment to DEI. 

"We strictly adhere to the law and prohibit discrimination of any kind. Our hiring is merit-based," a spokesperson told Fox News Digital.  READ MORE

Trump asks Apple to drop diversity policies after stockholders back pro-DEI stance

President Donald Trump urged Apple (AAPL) to "get rid" of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies a day after the company's investors voted down a proposal to scrap them.

"APPLE SHOULD GET RID OF DEI RULES, NOT JUST MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO THEM. DEI WAS A HOAX THAT HAS BEEN VERY BAD FOR OUR COUNTRY. DEI IS GONE!!!" Trump wrote in a Wednesday post on Truth Social. READ MORE

How AI Startups Are Evaluating The Latest Model Advancements

DeepSeek’s R1 is shaking up the AI landscape. Launched on January 20, this advanced reasoning model claims performance on par with OpenAI’s o1 — at just 2% of the cost. Unlike other frontier models reliant on high-end chips and massive datasets, R1 is optimized for older hardware and leverages novel reinforcement learning techniques, allegedly slashing training costs to $6 million.

Beyond efficiency, R1’s open-source MIT license makes it freely accessible, allowing companies to integrate or customize it freely. This raises a pivotal question: Will AI companies embrace DeepSeek, or will stalwarts like OpenAI and Anthropic remain the industry’s default choices? READ MORE

With Proxy Season Ramping Up, SEC Targets ESG in New Guidance

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday, Feb. 12, announcedOpen in a new tab it had rescinded Staff Legal Bulletin 14L (SLB 14L) and reinstated guidance put out under the first Trump administration, which companies had referenced when excluding, for instance, proposals tied to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues on the grounds they constituted micromanagement. 

The guidance change occurs as proxy season ramps up for the agency and U.S. corporations. READ MORE

Jamie Dimon: I should never curse. But we’re going back to the office

Jamie Dimon is apologizing for using some particularly salty language about work-from-home policies, after he tackled an increasingly combative issue for workers and employers across the United States. But he’s not backing down on requiring JPMorgan Chase employees to return to the office.

The CEO of America’s largest bank told CNBC Monday that he grew frustrated when an employee at a Columbus, Ohio, town hall two weeks ago asked about a petition signed by more than 1,000 employees that demanded the company keep its hybrid work model in place. READ MORE

The collapse of DEI: What went wrong?

It is difficult to think about the practice of human resources today without talking about the astonishing collapse of DEI practice and influence. I cannot think of any equivalent change in modern times—with the possible exception of the rapid rise of industrial unions after the UAWs sit-down strike in Flint, Mich., in 1936, almost a century ago now.

While it’s hard to identify good evidence on how extensive DEI practices had become before 2024, it would be difficult to find an employer of any size that did not recently have some executive DEI position and associated practices. DEI as a field has its own associations, conferences and, of course, a plethora of consultants pushing it along. That is just as much, or more, the case in the public sector and especially in higher education. READ MORE