"My problem isn't just getting through the workday. It's that I've stopped believing that it's going to get any better." If that sounds like you, you may be struggling with more than just tiredness - and it's a surprisingly common pattern. The truth is we have been naming #work exhaustion for a long time. In 1869, neurologist George Miller Beard called it neurasthenia, a nervous exhaustion from the pace of modern industrial life. A century later, Herbert Freudenberger gave it

Is your #office looking fuller and fuller these days? Almost hitting pre-pandemic levels? And yet Gallup's 2026 global workplace report, published this month, found that, although physical presence has increased in offices globally, daily loneliness among workers is still a struggle. 5 years after the pandemic, with people back in buildings, the emotional state of the workforce is worse than before COVID hit. #RTO mandates were supposed to fix this. But they didn't. Here's wh

ASML posted record sales of €32.7 billion last year. Then cut 1,700 management roles. ABN Amro announced 5,200 job cuts by 2028. Philips has been reducing layers for over a year. Globally, over 80,000 tech #jobs were cut in Q1 alone. Google removed 35% of its managers last year. None of these companies are in trouble. All of them are removing the middle. This pattern showed up in last week's Q1 2026 overview and it's shaping the current landscape so much that I wanted to do a

Q1 2026 didn't feel like a normal quarter. AI adoption accelerated. Org structures flattened. New terms entered the workplace like "workslop", "burn-on" and "coffee-badging". Underneath all of this sits the same pattern: organizations making big moves without a plan behind them. The Flattening of Middle Management Gartner's 2024 predictions report estimated that by the end of 2026, 20% of organizations will use #AI to flatten their structures and cut more than half of their m

If you scroll long enough, you'd think the world of #work is only getting worse. But that's not entirely true. In 2025, some things genuinely moved in the right direction, and beyond that, there are quietly uplifting shifts taking place and real opportunities starting to form. That's why, in this two-part post, I'm choosing to focus on hope. Here's my take as we head into the new year. AI Is No Longer a Concept. It's a Working Tool. Stanford's 2025 #AI Index confirmed somethi

Everyone talks about “investing in people.” But when it comes to actual learning and development, too many leaders tick a box and move on. Maybe you have a learning budget or maybe your #team even attended a workshop last year. That's a great start but not a real investment. Especially not when McKinsey’s research shows that demand for advanced #tech #skills could rise by almost 90% by 2030. And it’s not just technical know-how but social, emotional, and critical thinking ski

Hiring the right #talent has become increasingly challenging. There are fewer roles, but the stakes are higher - every new #hire needs to...

The job market isn’t bouncing back as fast as we hoped. Admittedly, we've seen worse. Nevertheless, if the current situation is causing...

In my 16 years in HR, I've participated and managed countless #performance cycles for multiple organizations of various sizes. But, I've...

Happy 2025! The workplace is evolving faster than ever, and keeping up with the latest trends can feel like a full-time job. But don’t...