The New Reality Of ‘Rolling Layoffs,’ AI’s Impact On Jobs And The Worst Email Sign-Offs

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It started in tech. But could it be spreading beyond Silicon Valley and startup world to other major mainstream firms?

I’m speaking of the “rolling layoff”—the name one former human resources executive gave to describe companies making job cuts in a series of rounds, rather than executing them all at one time. Disney said Monday it plans to cut 7,000 employees starting this week, my colleague Brian Bushard reported. “A second, larger round of notifications will happen in April with several thousand more staff reductions, and we expect to commence the final round of notifications before the beginning of the summer to reach our 7,000-job target,” Disney CEO Bob Iger wrote in a memo obtained by CNBC.

In recent months, the long-held conventional wisdom “cut once and cut deep” often hasn’t been followed, as a range of employers announce rounds of layoffs within a period of several months. On March 14, Meta said it was cutting 10,000 more jobs in the coming months after announcing cuts totalling 11,000 in November. Amazon said last week it planned to reduce headcount by 9,000 more jobs after saying in January 18,000 roles would be eliminated.

The impact on employees, human resources say, can be distracting and anxiety-inducing. When repeat rounds of job cuts happen, companies can be “filled with people where everybody is waiting for the other shoe to fall,” says Robert Sutton, a management professor at Stanford University.

But the old mantra appears to be harder to manage by today, coming out of an era when the prevailing ethos was that talent was incredibly scarce—and amid a rising interest rate environment that has radically shifted investor pressure.

Colleen McCreary, a longtime chief people officer now consulting on human resources issues, says what employees want to hear is clarity. “When is this going to stable out? What does ‘good’ look like? What are we solving for?” she says, are the kinds of questions people want answered.

“Rolling layoffs,” meanwhile, can have negative impacts if dragged out. “The amount of psychological insecurity while people wait this out over weeks and months is truly sad,” McCreary says.

For more on the impact such an approach can take, and why some companies said they’re taking this route, check out my story from last week. And for more ideas on managing survivor guilt after layoffs, navigating a job cut financially and—if you have to do them yourself—making layoffs happen with dignity, check out these stories and more from Forbes.

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FEATURED STORY

How ChatGPT Is Fast Becoming The Teacher’s Pet

In a February survey of 1,000 kindergarten through 12th grade teachers nationwide, 51% said they had used ChatGPT, with 40% reporting they used it weekly and 10% using it daily. About a third of teachers in the survey, commissioned by the Walton Family Foundation, said they use ChatGPT for lesson planning and coming up with creative ideas for classes. Read more from Forbes education reporter Emma Whitford on how the natural language AI tool is getting more time in teachers’ workflows.

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ON OUR AGENDA

News from the world of work

AI is going to impact your job: A paper published by a team of researchers from OpenResearch, the University of Pennsylvania and OpenAI, the organization behind ChatGPT, found that the tool is likely to alter tasks within at least 80% of all jobs, contributor Joe McKendrick reports.

‘Succession’ succeeds: The family business drama series’ season four premiere hit a series high when it opened March 26, drawing an average of 2.3 million viewers. Get ready for the end, Forbes Marisa Dellatto reports: “There’s a promise in the title of Succession,” creator Jesse Armstrong said in February. “I’ve never thought this could go on forever.”

An AI startup for all: Mozilla, the not-for-profit force behind the Firefox browser, is launching an AI-focused startup to create a trustworthy alternative to ChatGPT and other big players, reports Forbes’ Diane Brady. “Some of the biggest companies humanity has ever built are rushing with all this AI innovation to do what they're naturally designed to do, which is consolidate control,” Mozilla Foundation president Mark Surman told Brady.

Game time: Electronic Arts Chief Operating Officer Laura Miele sat down with Forbes’ Diane Brady to discuss her career, lessons for success, and how Gen Z gamers really are different.

Canva launches ‘Magic’ AI tools: Ok, yes, it does feel like all AI news all the time. Add Canva’s latest headline to the mix: The design software company is announcing a range of additional products for business brands, writes Forbes’ Alex Konrad. New AI features include Magic Design, which allows the creation of personalized design templates from an image or style and Magic Presentation, which can create slideshow style presentations from a prompt.

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