Pink Slips, Quiet Scripts, and RTO Flip-Flops
Leaders are blaming AI, budgets, and “collaboration days” while trust bleeds out. The talent market is loud and contradictory. Your employer brand has to be clearer than the noise.
Future of Work
The 2025 layoffs deep dive: what is driving cuts, what changes next, and how to protect your employer brand
Layoffs surged in 2025, with October the worst for that month in 22 years. EBN breaks down what is driving cuts, which sectors are most exposed, the 2026 outlook, and how HR, TA and employer brand leaders can protect trust with employees and candidates.
Future of Work
Generations at Work 2026: prepare for peak overlap
The most multigenerational workforce in modern history is here. Millennials and Gen Z will dominate headcount by 2030 while older workers exit later. This guide translates the noise into operating decisions that reduce churn, speed ramp, and protect knowledge before overlap peaks.
Paper Cut
Count the Cuts, Ditch Ultimatums, Fix the Middle
AI layoffs are finally being counted. CEOs flirting with “agree or quit” and memos scoring AI usage are culture tells. Hybrid isn’t broken. Management is. HR becomes the growth engine. Ship skills. Publish the plan.
This article is for Members only
Paper Cut
CEOs Say AI Is Boosting Efficiency. Employees Aren’t Convinced.
AI agents are arriving fast, but the proof is lagging. This week’s Paper Cut looks at the widening gap between “efficiency” claims and employee reality, why retention is built on systems not slogans, and what a tighter hiring mood means for employer brand leaders.
This article is for Members only
Perspective
Layoffs, Silence, and Spin: Why Employer Branding Must Acknowledge Pain
If layoffs are now a feature of modern work, not a bug, then employer branding has to stop acting surprised and start telling the truth. What you say, and do not say, when people leave matters more than any “top workplace” badge.
Paper Cut
Time Is the New Perk
AI will keep stealing the headlines. The 2026 talent story is quieter: calendars, workflows, and entry routes. This edition looks at how organisations turn promises into operating choices, protecting time, building skills, and keeping pathways into work open.
This article is for Members only
Perspective
The Skills-Based Hiring Con
Skills based hiring was meant to replace pedigree. In many organisations it has simply learned to live alongside it. Degrees vanish from job ads, but preferred schools and brands still dominate shortlists, while “skills evidence” shows up as one more hurdle at the end of the process.
Perspective
Employer Branding Almanack 2025: What The Year’s Big Stories Really Told Us
In 2025 employer branding grew up. AI rewrote jobs, RTO became a reputational event, CEOs turned into brand signals, and radical honesty replaced generic “great place to work” claims. This Almanack distils 28 stories into practical rules.