HR BESTIES - HR Besties: When Layoffs are the new normal: shifting trends and culture

Episode Date: November 12, 2025

Today’s agenda:  Remember the good ole days? Cringe corporate speak: come to Jesus Hot topic: all things layoffs: what we're hearing in the news, current trends, best practices and advice to employers and job seekers The latest on layoffs and unemployment in the United States How does AI play a role? Do organizations have an obligation to hire and retain talent? Learning how to navigate difficult times from past recessions Layoffs should never be an employer's go to solution Questions/Comments  Your To-Do List: Grab merch, submit Questions & Comments, and make sure that you’re the first to know about our In-Person Meetings (events!) at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.hrbesties.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Follow your Besties across the socials and check out our resumes here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.hrbesties.com/about⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.  Subscribe to the HR Besties Newsletter - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hr-besties.beehiiv.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ We look forward to seeing you in our next meeting - don’t worry, we’ll have a hard stop! Yours in Business + Bullsh*t,  Leigh, Jamie & Ashley Follow Bestie Leigh! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@hrmanifesto⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/hrmanifesto⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.hrmanifesto.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Bestie Ashley! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@managermethod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/managermethod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyherd/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://managermethod.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Bestie Jamie! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.millennialmisery.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Humorous Resources: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Millennial Misery: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Horrendous HR: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Tune in to “HR Besties,” a business, work and management podcast hosted by Leigh Elena Henderson (HRManifesto), Ashley Herd (ManagerMethod) and Jamie Jackson (Humorous_Resources), where we navigate the labyrinth of corporate culture, from cringe corporate speak to toxic leadership. Whether you’re in Human Resources or not, corporate or small business, we offer sneak peeks into surviving work, hiring strategies, and making the employee experience better for all. Tune in for real talk on employee engagement, green flags in the workplace, and how to turn red flags into real change. Don't miss our chats about leadership, career coaching, and takes from work travel and watercooler gossip. Get new episodes every Wednesday, follow us on socials for the latest updates, and join us at our virtual happy hours to share your HR stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You know, back in the day, we used to lay people off in person. Like there used to be a ton of planning. Number one, to decide who would be laid off. Spreadsheets upon spreadsheets, formulas, you name it, right? Massive, massive process. And then there would be lots of planning on how, on how we would do the layoffs, then there would be lots of coordination on who is in the meetings with employees and a whole schedule for it, right, depending on the size of the layoffs.

Then there would be all of this planning and documentation creation of like packets for the layoffs, right? I mean, we would have third parties that would help without placement services, and we would, you know, have all of these documents printed and, I mean, you name it, right? Just these folders for layoffs. And then, you know, there'd be multiple people in the room and a special place that you would hold that layoff meeting. And you would have ample time to have that layoff. And it was a massive undertaking. It really, really was.

And it still sucked even with all of that undertaking. It was just horrible for people. Oh, yeah. And you would still cry. I've cried with people in the layoff meetings. But the point is, is that there was just a lot of planning, right? And there was a lot of, I would say, respect in the process as much as you could possibly do when it is done right, right? I've seen that. I've seen best practices and layoffs, which is something absolutely nobody wants to do. All right, back in the day. Nobody wanted to do those, right? In fact,

this one time, I had a colleague of mine reach out to me and ask, hey, you are in region for one of our employees that is, you know, on the layoff list. Would you mind driving the two hours to their very remote location and holding a layoff meeting with them? We'll send you all the documentation and whatnot. And if you wouldn't mind printing all of that out, and let's have an hour call and I'll coach you on what to say, what's going on in our organization, like all the things, let me talk to you about this person, whatever. And I drove two hours to have a layoff conversation with employee that was not mine and sat down with him for an hour and a half. And, you know, he was sobbing. I was crying with him. We hugged at the end.

I walked him through all of his paperwork, documentation. And I got on my car and cried two hours on the way home. I was back in the day when you would really put a lot of organisms. Some do, of course, you know, still today. But back in the day, it wasn't an easy lever to pull whatsoever. It was like a badge of shame as an employer to have done layoffs. Oh, absolutely. As an employer to have to do that, I mean, you would be in dire straits to do that. And then when you had to do it, boy, I mean, you over-communications. You over-communication. as much as you could. And like I said, you put a lot of thought into the process as much as possible and did them in person and went out of your way to ensure that people had the

information they needed to plan their next steps and you name it. Right. And so that does not seem to be the case today from what we are seeing in the news, right? Colleen, no. No. But let me see this. So he's not your employee. How do you communicate to him that you're coming? Or do you just show up? I mean, obviously, that's a conversation to have. How do you set that up? Yeah, it was through his manager that, you know, HR needs to speak with you, right? Because this is a remote site.

Their HR was, they never even met them. They met me before their actual HR team, you know what I mean? Small team field services, two hours away from me in a big city. I mean, literally middle of nowhere. So, you know how it is in HR. We're just HR, you know, like this like crazy. entity of HR, but no, it was, it wasn't pleasant. But kudos to you for driving out there because what you do see sometimes, especially now that you have things that look like come to the office

and it's on the flip side and you have, you have an employee who has to drive two hours to then be laid off in an office and drive home themselves. And so, again, it's always the idea of picking just from like that logistics. Again, it seems like a small piece, but it matters, I think, to all of us so much because it's that communication about someone losing their job. I mean, there are a lot that comes with it. But the logistics of how does that get planned? What do you do? Do you have a phone call?

Do they come here? Do you come there? Okay, are there safety risks with you going there to a remote risk? I mean, all of these conversations. And I agree. I do think they used to happen a lot more because I think now the idea of remote, you know, remote layoffs by Zoom, layoff by email is obviously so much more prevalent than it was. Mm-hmm.

Text. Post it. layoff by post it email at four in the morning you name it my gosh but that is what we are talking about today layoffs in the news right gosh so when layoffs really become the new normal shifting trends here in layoffs I mean we've just got an onslaught of DMs and messages and friends and connections and our network, right, of just unfortunately, you know, people being involved in layoffs or being affected by layoffs. So, oh, everything, layoffs here, what not to do, some best practices, perhaps. But before we jump into that, we do have some cringe corporate speak on the

agenda. Then as always, we will end with some questions and comments. Who is up for cringe corporate speak? Jamie, is that you today? It's me, it's me. Today we have, and also can't believe we haven't done this one, come to Jesus. Yeah, and I'm definitely guilty of saying this. I mean, it's mostly when I'm talking with a manager and like I need to have a come to Jesus with them because they keep doing this or I keep getting employee complaints and I need to have a come to Jesus with this manager about how they're leading their team. I say coming to Jesus. Oh, we're going to have a coming to Jesus. Sometimes every once in a while, you're more southern than the Texas would let on.

I was about to say that's very like a Texas southern. Probably. It's a Texas nuance. We say, well, we're going to have a coming to Jesus here. Which just means, hey, we are about to be real honest with each other. We're about to get on the same page with some stuff. I'm going to set your ass straight. Okay.

Uh-huh. We're going to lay our sins out here and we're going to figure this out. who we can move forward. Baptized. And this came to us from Cindy Opeka, who's at Murphy's mom on TikTok, who's been a friend of the podcast. And we talked about fireside chats.

She's like, you know, another good one is come to Jesus. And another good slash bad one. And I just looked, because I was thinking, I don't think I've ever used this. Probably for the best. Looked at a variety of my email inboxes,

and I don't see it anywhere. And so I don't think I've said this, but of course I also at the same time looked up the origins of Come to Jesus, which, again, from the late 1900s, that was when it was used in actual the church setting, which was in a revival. Oh, we're going to have a rival. Okay, who's going to come, who's going to come to Jesus? Who's going to come up and, you know, be accepted at the front of the church? But in the

corporate setting, it is, you know, in a similar of like, who's going to get on board at this because it's going to be one way or another. And so it has, it has infiltrated the corporate speaking. So I've definitely, I've heard it. I just have not used it. It means I'm going to beat your ass in corporate. I'm going to slav a bit. I'm going to baptize you with my position here. Coming to Jesus. Oh, man.

Yeah, it probably is a little regional. Yeah, I'm curious to people. This has to be a southern thing. Like, if you're in... Cindy's in California, though, right? Oh, that's true. That's true. Cindy's in California.

Yeah, yeah. She's like the California HR expert. But if you're in, like, Seattle or... Italy? I don't know. Like, that's what I'm just thinking of like, do y'all say that? Come to the Spock.

Oh my God. That's hilarious. I'm going to start saying that. You admit or later like, no, we don't hear that either. But I'm mostly Italian, so I'm going to start saying that. Oh, it's a spicy meatball. Jebedo Yardia, the way you said that. Oh, my gosh. Oh, boy. Legalized marinera. That's so good. I saw that the other day. I sent you the picture of that. I saw you all that. That's so funny.

Oh, gosh. That's funny. Oh, shit. But, yeah, we're going to have a coming to Jesus a day about layoffs, right? Oh, man. Like we said, there's been a lot of layoffs in the news, a lot going on with that. I think we have some stats and figures, right? Just kind of high level what we've seen.

Jamie, do you have that? Yeah. There's, you know, I think. probably most have seen this floating around the internet. I myself have posted it on my stories on humorous resources, but some of the recent layoff announcements are 15 pretty large companies, and they range from 600 employees all the way up to 48,000 employees. So, for instance, UPS, 48,000 employees. And I don't know what those employees do, but I'm thinking, oh, geez, what about Christmas time and packages.

That's where mine went. And then the next is Amazon up to 30,000 employees, Intel, 24,000, Nestle, 16,000. And then, I mean, just the list keeps going on, and it's staggering. Because as of right now, I want to say that, what are we at, 72 million are unemployed at this point? In the U.S.? Yeah, in the U.S. I want to say. Oh, I haven't seen the latest unemployment rate. But if it seems like there's a lot going on in this space, there is.

I mean, I saw a stat that 25 versus 2024, 41% of organizations issued some sort of layoff versus 30% in 2024. I mean, wow, that is significant, very significant. From a practical standpoint, people see it. People feel it. I mean, you go on LinkedIn and you can see it all the time and people personally, their family, their friends, their neighbors. And it's increasing. And I said recently that I feel, I'm 44, the elder of this group. But I feel very fortunate to have grown up and meaning grown up until I was like, you know, my mid-20s in the time period where there were not smartphones. So in high school and college and so there was not there were not smartphones. social media. And so, and yeah, the things of, like, be like, oh, glad our things we didn't do were on social media. But also, like, I didn't care about social media. I cared about conversations with my friends. And, you know, we passed notes. We did those things. But we had real conversations. You go to a concert. There were flames, not cell phones. And people just were more present. And I feel so fortunate to have grown up in that. And I miss that. And I wish my kids and other

people as adults, I wish we had more of that. I mean, I say that recording on technology equipment now, but I'm very, every more and more every day, I'm sentimental for that time period where it just felt like we lived. I feel in some ways very similarly to, for me, it's my parents' generation. They both retired last year. And they were able to retire without working. I mean, there have been recessions. There have been all sorts of things. But with this AI, it just feels different. And I almost have this, like, I don't know, like, jealous. I can't have sentimentality because I'm not living it. I'm still very much in the thick of working. And so, but that this generation can, you know, they're retiring and they haven't had to work in this area where there's so much stress and worry about, like, is AI taking my job? Or what, is my company going to downsize by thousands of people just because of it? And so for me, I do feel like this is really a, like a sticking point that I love a lot about what AI does and how it can help people more efficient. But this idea that it can replace people's jobs and we can live in this, you know, robotic world I personally very much struggle with.

As of August 2025, which obviously it's a little behind here, the unemployed people in the United States is 7.4 million. So the unemployment rate right now is 4.3%. But I believe, without looking it up, this is highest it's been, but also even COVID. Yeah, I mean, I know there's high unemployment, because also those unemployment numbers, I believe, are people that it counts people out of that are also actively looking for work. And so if you're not actively looking for work, you've kind of checked yourself out of the job search process, which I think a lot of people who otherwise would be wanting to, you just, you have. And so we are very real people. And from an HR perspective, like, yeah, the point of work is, is creating things and shareholder returns are

a real thing that funds things. But how did so much of this come to the expense of what really matters? Like, I mean, as I get older by day, by week, by month, I appreciate so much more. the human element, human element of friendships, you know, having deepening my friendships, people I work with that I still keep up with years later. I cherish those so much. And it's like you just feel like so many people making these decisions are so blinded by profit and fear about HR. And this is an opportunity to do that. And so I struggle. It is an easy button that I would never push layoffs. I would never do that in a million years if I was running a business. There are so many other creative levers that you can pull. And the reason why I say that is because the

effects of layoffs, especially mass, are so detrimental to brand and culture for years, sometimes decades. Like, you cannot easily recover from a layoff. So be mindful of your processes and systems. Why are you getting so fat? Like, what's happening? You know, know, because is it all AI these layoffs, or is it opportunistic, 4-Q cuts, you know, and something else happening, you know, politically and the ecosystem here? And, I mean, you name it. People take it as an opportunity. And it's not an opportunity. It's a serious decision to Ashley's point that affects lives, livelihoods, futures, families, especially, you know, in a country that doesn't have a lot of social support

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And it's, I'm not meaning to. But think of all the people that have already been laid off this year and you're adding that many more people almost to that pool. Like the job market was already hell. going to become even worse. Like the flames are higher. I mean, some of it, I think, is AI. I mean, you're seeing certain roles. You're seeing automation, innovation advancement. Yeah, you see automation. You say, okay, okay. Like, you know, I think of, for example, I coming out of college, talking about how I did sales, you know, there were different jobs in that. So first level was more

of like admin sales. So it was like research about the calls that were going to happen. Had no, you know, run on the phone with people, just they were basically researchers. That job is widely very much done by AI now. That was inside sales, meaning that I, you know, sat at a phone and called people in scheduled meetings. You know, send emails, scheduled meetings by phone, called it, all that. That's a function people are definitely trying to automate with AI. It's not, it's not working. Like, I don't think people are seeing the returns on that like they, like they expected, but there's some technology. Again, there's technology that can make that a lot more efficient. There's tools now, I wish I had when I was, you know, sitting there trying to come up with my,

you know, clever scripts and whatnot. But, and then there were in-person's, the in-person's And that gap, what you're seeing is like it's the traveling salesperson is not as common anymore. Like sometimes in some like big roles and things like that. But so much this is done virtually. So I think about that as an example. And yeah, like you probably don't need as many people with the capabilities of technology. But the flip of that is, is how do you think about with organizations the responsibility to employ people or not? And I ask that as a question because the answer may be there's none. But you think about what's the ultimate, you know, goal and responsibility of an organization. And a lot of times it's maximizing shareholder returns, which means getting people

that are owners or shareholders of the company the most money. But do you all think that there is an obligation to hire employees or retain employees? How do you think about that as a public an HR's in kind of like ethical standpoint? Yeah. I mean, I think there's a broad community impact. I mean, there's the whole field of corporate social responsibility. And what organizations owe to the communities in which they live, build, work, and obtain profit from, I do think that there is accountability on the side of business to be, I'd say, more progressive, more responsible, whatever the case may be, in looking at the skills within their workforce and transforming those into roles beyond what AI can do and support, right?

That's where we're not there. That's the huge gap in disconnect, right? Is that AI and this advancement is happening so quickly, big bureaucratic, clumsy, clunky organizations, as many of them are, they do not have the agility to now shift and accommodate for the innovation and the advancements with like AI in particular that are occurring, you know what I mean? And they are just tossing incredible talent that has all of that internal knowledge, all of those connections with customers and clients. They're just tossing them to the wayside versus, hey, let's evaluate now. If AI is handling this,

How are our roles transformed? How's our job structure and hierarchies in the organization? How do they then catch up, move, shift, you know, to now actually serve, better serve our customers, to focus more on innovation, to do whatever, right? I mean, this is all happening so quickly that we're just fucking ourselves as organizations, basically, by not investing more in that space. like strategic workforce planning and just jobs in general. Because those skills within that organization, oh my gosh, you've invested so much as a business. How can you shift them to other things? And that just, it takes a lot of thought and it takes a lot of expertise and it takes a lot of commitment. And yeah, it takes some time. And it's not going to be right day one. But I think

it's worth investing in. I think people are worth investing in, but the easy button is to look at human beings as commodities in some organization, and that's not the right play, not in the long term. Long answer to, yeah, major community impact and, yeah, big accountability to the people that work tirelessly for you. I wish more employers felt that level of responsibility. Yeah, I mean, we're fucked with a capital F. But, I mean, we all have 20 plus years of of experience in corporate. We've unfortunately lived through layoffs or been laid off, but even recessions. And so I know I've mentioned this on an episode where I had worked for a company during the 2008 recession, and no one was laid off during that recession. And I know

this is different, but things were changed within the organization to help cut costs and to save money, but jobs were not cut. So you can't tell me that business, and companies can't look back. And if they were around in 2000, what did we do in 2008? What did we do at the last recession? What did some successful companies do that we could mirror here at UPS, for instance? It's interesting because I think about that because I worked in a law firm in 2000. I started as I graduated from law school in 2008. I started and I was an employment law and there was a transition in presidential administration in the U.S. So it had gone from President Bush to President Obama.

When a Democrat comes into office, there tends to be a lot of employee-friendly litigation, employer-side law firms. While they tend to skew more conservative politically, the lawyers there, I can tell you that plenty of them welcome a Democratic president because it means much higher revenue when those laws take effect. That's what happened, but it was also 2008. It was the economy. And so, like, my law firm hired, normally they heard two associates a year.

I was the only associate. And then it was things that they did. I mean, and I know, I remember thinking, like, Some senior associates had, like, their pay frozen or certain bonuses frozen. And at the time, when those things happened to you, it always feels frustrating in that. But they actually did a really good job of communicating at the time. Still, people are, you know, pissed, but communicating, like, you know, we don't want to cut jobs. And as I look back on it now, Jamie, I thought about that as you raised that.

I mean, I remember that now. And at the time, remembering, like, my pay didn't get cut because I was brand new. But I had people a year older than me, had they're like, oh, your hours worth their pay or whatever. like yours is cut. It's like things kind of felt unfair and otherwise, but like they did that as opposed to letting people, letting people go. And I just think there's options. And so I, like, if you're there and you're like, oh, this is great, what about resources? Something I've recommended, at least a time before on the podcast, but Harvard Business Review, no affiliation, not a sponsor, but they welcome to. I read their magazine. It comes generally about every two months. And you can get their digital

articles and stuff when you subscribe. But I get it. And they had two things this month. They've had a lot talking about the economy and AI, but a lot of it's really practical. In this month, two things really stuck out to me that I was thinking as we were talking about this episode. One is just a short snippet with research from Alex Partners, which shows that when you do cost coding alone, that does not lead to higher shareholder returns. And that can sound obvious, especially to those, like, in HR or those employees that are that, but there's so many in leadership that think, we'll cut, we'll just have people do more.

And there is no plan or communication about, you know, how we're going to reprioritize. And think about what is that gap between layoffs and layoffs and all the work that you expect them to do? And so that's one to look at it. So as you're looking at resources as well, and we'll put these in our newsletter, but also there's a whole section called leading in a low growth economy. And again, whether you call it low growth or AI or all those things, they talk about the different things that you can do.

And one includes like strategic subtraction, which it doesn't come off the tongue quite as well. It's like quiet quitting. No, no. But it talks about strategic subtraction. It's not just about people. So I actually appreciated a lot of that article as I read through it, which was about making things more simple, like processes. What are we going to stop doing?

Yeah, so whether you're in HR or you're trying to influence as you can, again, leaders tend to, they probably listen to Harvard Business Review more than they do HR besties, unfortunately, but you're listening to it. And so there are a couple things there that you can have some ideas and bring as a leader because, I mean, that's it. When we talk about the come to Jesus, the reality. is there will be layoffs. We have a lot of thoughts. We've done episodes on how to do those more humanely because that is an absolute necessity. But even before that step, is thinking about

what can we do instead? I mean, I'd say there's been a lot of articles in there about things that can be better that are alternatives to layoffs that have proven data can have much more of a positive effect on your balance sheet and otherwise. Millions of things. It's just that those things take time. in care and consideration. But, you know, if you're a leader, you're a manager, you're someone in a decision-making capacity here, I mean, try to slow the organization down on these things as much as you can or introduce more creative ideas or propose to have, you know, a brainstorming session on other levers that

you can pull here. You will be much better off. You will. Research like science. Please. I mean, just chat GPT it shit, you know? Like, you're going to get some quick cash, but it's going to be detrimental for years to come trying to recover from a layoff, especially from a talent loss perspective. Oh, my gosh, a skill loss perspective, which is going to affect your quality, which is going to affect your customer relationship.

I've just seen it a million times. It is a shit show. Man, come on. Come on. Come on. like oh kills me there's there's a lot of a lot of things you can you can do but if you do do layoffs do not expect trust or productivity don't expect all that shit you know what i mean employees are going to lean to self-agency and there's no such thing as a safe job in your

organization and you are going to get the the results you've asked for you know what i mean by doing by doing those layoffs, fast, cheap, and easy. So HR professionals have a come-to-spaghetti with your leadership team if they bring up doing layoffs. They're already against the wall. See if that shit's al dente. Does it stick? That's skeddy.

That's skinny. Any questions or comments? Should we shift to that? Questions or comments? I have something. As you all know, I was laid off in April and I have been in this weird job market hell, the worst I've seen it in my years. And I think I've been, I'm pretty old. But it's hard and it's rough. And every day sucks. I didn't realize how much of a funk that I get in some days. And so I actually posted a video about this like a week ago. But something

that I have found that I'm forcing myself to do is get out of the house at least once a week and not just like to go shop because, you know, when I shop, I breathe and $100 spent. But I've been volunteering with the PTO at my children's school a lot. And it gives me not only something to do, but I feel like I'm at least helping. I even walk dogs at our shelter down the road. Love. But I'm doing stuff for free. But it's. getting me out of the house and I feel like I've accomplished something than staying on the computer and keep hitting Quick Apply and it has actually helped my mental health, like actually getting up and trying to have somewhat of a normal routine. Because I just, I don't think I realized how

much I needed my job and my career. Yeah, your identity. Like it's not your word. Yeah. And so like kind of disassociating from that has been quite a challenge and really a mental mind. fuck for me. And I think I'm finally understanding that and I'm hopefully coming out on the other side. Right when the time's about to change, it's going to get cold. Oh, God. Now seasonal depression kicks in. Yeah. That's good advice. It's really good advice. And one thing is for those that are struggling of how am I going to find a job after these times because some people say, I go employers, they don't look kindly on a period of being unemployed. I mean, one thing is, you know, one of the very, very thin silver linings of so many layoffs is done to the sense that you worry that there's

this badge of shame or people think differently. Again, if people think differently, people think that then it's not the person you want to work for. And I get that when you're really looking for a job, you're like, yeah, but I don't need anything else to narrow my pool of employers, get it, but knowing more and more, I mean, people are seeing this. But one thing is, like, for example, like let's say that you're volunteering with the PTO, you're dog walking. You get yourself out there and like, okay, that feels good. But think about ways that you can articulate that, whether it's your resume or in an interview. And if you don't want, you don't have the mental bandwidth to think about, like, what am I doing in these?

Again, like, that's something that, you know, use a chat GPT, pop it in and say, how can I talk about these experiences or what can I do in these experiences? And you may work on a project that actually helps, you know, you're able to frame that as a positive as well. I think that's something that can be helpful when you're in that in between period period. But the other thing is, for those that aren't, I've heard from a number of people recently that have been laid off. in their comments saying, I'm shocked by how few people I heard from that I worked with. Like, oftentimes they're like, you know, I was afraid to talk about it to people or people in my life were so kind, like so wonderful to me, my personal life. But it's the people that used to work with and they're like, that's what hurt the most. It's like I just disappeared. To the extent that you're a

manager and you're having that conversation with someone leaving, talking to someone about the things that they did of value and what you can do to support them on their way out. But whether you're a manager or those that worked with them, reaching out to someone, reaching out to someone because that silence is very, very, very lonely and just giving people levels of support. If that's all you can give, that is far more than just leaving them hanging and thinking to themselves because they're probably wondering, why haven't I heard of this person? I've also heard from some of those people like, I now realize I didn't reach out to people. And again, sometimes you live and learn. And so people don't need feelings of guilt or to look back at things. Just take the time now to reach out to

people and even people that have been let go a while ago that you know are still still looking for our role. See, I mean, shout out to the importance of establishing some work besties that help you navigate through chaos, especially when bad times hit like layoffs, you know? Very, very important. I have a comment, not a question, but just a quick comment. Just a plea to employers again to move beyond this mentality of reactionary cuts because that's what's happening. It's knee jerk, it's easy button, and just focus more on like very intentional workforce planning and cultural preservation. That is so important. And I just really stress that because guess who has to clean that up. I have done that so many times or attempted to, and it's just like we're years away.

We're years away. We'll never be able to regain the skills needed to produce now. We've worked 10 years out from that. But anyways, just a selfish plea there, please reconsider. And don't be so cliche here to do it near the holidays. My God, it's disgusting.