📉 47% of Gen Z employees take time off after a breakup

Hey HR Pros!

Romantic heartbreak is showing up in your attendance logs. Nearly half of Gen Z workers are taking time off to recover from breakups, often using sick days or PTO under the radar.

It’s a clear signal: emotional disruptions impact focus, productivity, and team dynamics, even if they’re never formally reported.

Upcoming In This Issue:

• 🌍 Global teams use 18+ apps a day, and it costs teams up to 40% of their productive capacity

• 🥹 Only 41% of younger workers feel someone at work cares about them

• 📉 47% of Gen Z employees take time off after a breakup

• 🔢 This CPO breaks down the ROI of caring, and it’s not what you think

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🌍 Global teams use 18+ apps a day, and it costs teams up to 40% of their productive capacity

Work is now distributed by default, and the smartest HR leaders aren’t arguing over remote vs. in-office anymore — they’re rewriting the operating system of how work gets done.

This report by Hubstaff draws on data from 140,000 workers across 17,000 global organizations to surface a few uncomfortable truths: focus time is nearly extinct, meetings now crowd out productivity, and “triple-peak” workdays are quietly reshaping the rhythm of global teams.

Key Insights

• 🧠 Focus is the new KPI
  Focus time averages just 2–3 hours per day — dropping as low as 25% for hybrid teams, the lowest across all workstyles.

• 🕘 Triple-peak days are real — and intense
  1 in 5 weekdays now follows a 3-peak pattern, with some workers logging back in after dinner to reclaim quiet time.

• 🔧 Tool overload quietly drains 4 hours per week
  With 18+ apps used daily, context switching costs teams up to 40% of their productive capacity — especially marketers and SEO pros.

• ⏰ 50+ hour weeks = system failure
  28% of managers and 21% of support staff log 50+ hour weeks. That’s a red flag for burnout risk.

read the full report here

🥹 Only 41% of younger workers feel someone at work cares about them

Report by Gallup

Across industries and age groups, employees are showing signs of disconnection, with the biggest drops in areas as basic as role clarity, growth, and feeling cared about.

And while numbers like "31% engagement" may feel abstract, the human impact is anything but, that’s 8 million fewer people bringing energy, purpose, and full effort to work.

Key Insights

• 📉 Gen Z and Millennials: -13 pts on “feeling cared about”
  Only 41% of younger workers feel someone at work cares about them — down from 54% in 2020.

• 🧭 35% of workers want better communication to clarify expectations
  Employees don’t need micromanagement — they need transparency on direction, priorities, and how their work fits in.

• 🧠 Just 1 in 5 non-leaders knows what “great performance” looks like
  Clarity on exceptional performance is tightly linked to engagement — and sorely lacking for most employees.

• ⏳ Managers logging 50+ hour weeks are less clear, more burned out
  Overworked teams show lower clarity, higher disengagement — and younger workers suffer most when support systems collapse.

read the full 1,050-word article here

Free Webinars for HR Leaders Coming up in Feb:

• 4th Feb | AI Competence at Scale: How HR Can Lead the Charge on AI-Related L&D

• 13th Feb | Future-Proof Your Workforce: Building a Gen Z-Ready Workplace

• 25th Feb | Scaling Across Borders: The Hidden Complexities of Global Hiring

📉 47% of Gen Z employees take time off after a breakup

Romantic breakups may feel personal, but they’re showing up at work, and the data says it’s time to pay attention. And while the term “heartbreak leave” may sound unconventional, the trend is already happening, just without structure or support.

Key Insights

• 📆 33% of U.S. workers use PTO or sick days to cope after breakups
  Most do this informally — without policies, support, or conversation — risking hidden disruption across teams.

• 🧑‍💻 Gen Z (47%) and Millennials (45%) most likely to take time off
  Younger workers feel heartbreak’s impact more acutely, affecting attendance, decision-making, and collaboration.

• 😬 65% wouldn’t request “heartbreak leave” due to stigma
  Even when leave is needed, fear of judgment keeps workers silent — especially men and younger employees.

• 🕰️ Top support requests: remote work, flexible hours, fewer meetings
  Only 30% want more PTO — most want space, autonomy, and privacy to recalibrate and stay engaged.

read the full 975-word article here

🔢 This CPO breaks down the ROI of caring, and it’s not what you think

At Wellhub, the people team isn’t just a support function; it’s a strategic engine that links well-being, autonomy, and flexibility directly to business performance. By aligning benefits like extended leave and flexible schedules to measurable outcomes, they’ve reframed care as a productivity driver, not a cost center.

This is the future of HR leadership: not choosing between empathy and impact, but operationalizing both.

Key Insights

• 📈 Engagement is tracked like a business metric
  Wellhub measures tenure, loyalty, and impact to gauge whether its benefits strategy is driving real performance outcomes.

• 👶 CEO took 6 weeks parental leave — by design
  A long, flexible leave policy applies equally to all parents — including leadership — reinforcing a culture of care from the top.

• 🌍 Benefits fall into 3 tiers: mandatory, well-being, and local
  Designing globally means customizing care by country, while maximizing universal support like PTO, flexible leave, and wellness.

• 🎯 HR as a business driver, not a service desk
  Data-backed people strategy turns the people function into a core driver of resilience, retention, and long-term value.

read the full 1,050-word article here