Happy Wednesday, everyone.
I'm Frank Richardson, an organisational psychologist observing the workplace with curiosity and care. Each week, I share insights to help HR leaders better understand the people behind the processes and build cultures where both individuals and organisations can thrive.
This week in workplace whiplash 🌀
In the never-ending soap opera that is modern work, here are this week’s episodes:
📉 Verizon Plans Its Biggest Layoffs Ever
Verizon is preparing to cut about 15,000 jobs, focused largely on management roles. It is a textbook example of cost-cutting that will send shockwaves through trust, morale and leadership credibility.
👉 Reuters📊 Gartner Names 2026 HR Priorities
Fresh research out of the Gartner HR Symposium in Sydney highlights the top trends shaping HR priorities next year, including skills, AI and employee experience. It is basically a cheat sheet for what your execs will suddenly care about in Q1.
👉 Gartner🏢 Return to Office Doesn’t Have To Be A Horror Show
New survey data suggests employees can actually thrive with RTO if flexibility and mental health support are baked into the design, not treated as afterthoughts. Translation: it’s not the office that’s the problem, it is how you drag people back.
👉 Morningstar💸 Two in Three Workers Need Extra Income To Cope
A new survey of full-time US workers found that 2 in 3 are planning to take on extra work just to cover basic expenses, with many blaming rising costs and stagnant pay. Financial stress like this is jet fuel for burnout, disengagement and job searching.
👉 Yahoo Finance
Taken together, it is the same pattern as the Condé Nast mess. When leaders avoid hard conversations, culture fills the silence for them… and it rarely fills it kindly.
I once worked somewhere where “going to HR” felt like visiting a strict aunt. You’d rehearse your lines, check the mood, maybe even wait for a better day. The door was technically open, but socially… absolutely not.
So when I read that Condé Nast employees confronted their head of HR about sudden layoffs, and several were fired hours later, it hit a very familiar nerve. It’s that moment when people finally ask for clarity and leadership responds with the corporate equivalent of “know your place.”
It was an instant culture check. Nothing shows you a company’s real personality faster than an employee asking a reasonable question.
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🧠 The behavioural science lens
Underneath all this is a very predictable psychological pattern:
Threat sensitivity spikes when people feel loss of control: Behavioural economists have long shown that humans react more intensely to potential losses than to equivalent gains.. which is why layoffs activate such strong threat responses. When HR dodges a straight answer, people read it as “yep, the bad thing you’re worried about is probably happening.” Cue heightened fear, frantic Slack messages, and a collective anxiety spike.
Uncertainty drives people to close ranks: Work published in the Journal of Social Issues shows that when people feel uncertain about their environment or status, they rely more heavily on group identity for stability. This is why employees unify quickly during layoffs. It can look like rebellion from the outside. In reality, it’s just everyone clinging to the nearest emotional life raft.
Unfair processes hit harder during uncertainty: Columbia Business School found that uncertainty makes people react more strongly to unfair processes, which can seriously affect how committed they feel to the organisation. This interaction explains why even small communication missteps during layoffs can produce disproportionate cultural damage.
HR behaviour becomes a symbolic cue for the whole culture: Employees look to HR as a fairness barometer. Studies show that procedural fairness heightens how strongly people react to outcomes. When HR closes communication channels, employees interpret it as a cultural message: “do not question decisions here.”
🚀 What this means for leaders
Treat knock-on-the-door moments as data: They’re basically cultural smoke alarms going off (ignore them at your own risk). When employees approach HR directly, the organisation is giving you real-time insight into cultural strain.
Communicate early, even when details are incomplete: People tolerate ambiguity far better when it is acknowledged openly. Clear, timely updates prevent rumour spirals and stabilise the emotional temperature of the team.
Signal availability, not avoidance: You don’t need to have all the answers, but you do need to show you are willing to engage. Sometimes people just need you to show up like a grown-up instead of vanishing the moment things get uncomfortable.
Explain the process behind decisions: Most people can handle a tough decision. What they can’t handle is being left in the dark. Explain the “why” and suddenly the whole thing feels less like a threat.
💬 Final thoughts
Condé Nast didn’t just mishandle a conversation. They taught their entire workforce that curiosity is a liability.
Culture is built in these tiny, inconvenient moments when someone asks a hard question and leadership decides whether to lean in or shut down. If your instinct is to close the door, don’t be surprised when people stop knocking and start organising instead.
How's the depth of today's edition?
If something here speaks to you, I’d love to hear it.
Until next week,
Frank
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