🥷 DEI Is Happening In Stealth Mode

Hey HR Pros!

Employees are holding onto roles out of fear, while companies are quietly removing DEI language from public filings. Both trends point to a workplace culture shaped by caution — where saying or doing less feels safer.

Upcoming In This Issue:

• 🤔 HR How To | Blending Remote, Hybrid, and In-Office Teams

• 🌈 The Latest on DEI | The Quiet Disappearance of DEI from Corporate America’s Vocabulary 🕵️‍♀️

• 🧑‍💼 Latest Workplace Trend | Job Hugging Is the New Career Risk

• 🎙️ Featured Podcast: Gen Z Work Culture Clashes by HR Besties

Struggling to pick the right HR software? Join the club

If you’ve ever tried to research HR software, you know the drill:

• Every vendor looks the same

• Demos eat up hours

• Budgets get blown

It’s no wonder HR leaders call the process overwhelming. That’s exactly why so many turn to SSR’s free HR software matching service.

Instead of sifting through hundreds of options, you get matched with a shortlist of vendors after just one call.

 📰 Latest in HR News

• Walmart expands 10% grocery discount for its workers

• Arkansas firefighter may have been illegally fired for anti-abortion post, 8th Circuit holds

• Revealed: Google's research program for developing better managers

• Office attendance returns to pre-pandemic levels in some cities

🤔 HR How To | Blending Remote, Hybrid, and In-Office Teams

Supervisors are being asked to perform a delicate balancing act: manage teams spread across kitchen tables, cubicles, and everything in between — without clear rules or consistent support.

Without top-down clarity, policies drift, resentment grows, and managers are left making impossible calls: Who gets flexibility? Who gets facetime? Who gets left behind?

According to Wharton’s Peter Cappelli, the real chaos begins when managers are left to set their own rules about anchor days, video calls, and exceptions. The offer some best practices:

• 📏 Top-down consistency beats local flexibility
  Letting individual managers decide remote rules creates resentment; clear, universal policies reduce conflict and build organizational trust.

• 📅 Anchor days must be enforced for everyone
  Hybrid setups only work when in-office days are standardized; exemptions dilute effectiveness and undermine informal learning and collaboration.

• 📦 Remote roles need clear structure and boundaries
  Remote workers should focus on solo tasks, with structured check-ins and defined workflows to avoid disconnect and performance ambiguity.

• 🙅‍♂️ Remote managers break the system
  When supervisors aren’t physically present, visibility collapses; employees end up managing up, and accountability across teams disintegrates.

read the full 972-word article here

🌈 The Latest on DEI | The Quiet Disappearance of DEI from Corporate America’s Vocabulary 🕵️‍♀️

Companies are still pursuing diversity and equity — but you’d never know it from their annual reports. Amid a political and legal climate that’s grown more combative, firms are scrubbing mentions of DEI from their public disclosures, especially in the legally required 10-K filings.

So, instead of abandoning DEI efforts, many companies are now choosing a quieter path: do the work, but don’t say the words.

📉 What’s Really Happening with DEI:

• 🔻 Use of “DEI” dropped 68% in S&P 500 filings
  From 2024 to 2025, the term all but vanished from official documents as companies seek to reduce legal and political exposure.

• ❌ “Equity” was erased by over a third of top firms
  More than 1 in 3 S&P 100 companies removed the word “equity” from public filings entirely, avoiding perceived political signaling.

• 📊 Voluntary workforce data disclosure is down sharply
  Reports on women in management dropped 16%; board-level gender and racial data disclosures declined by over 20%.

• 🤐 DEI work is still happening—just in stealth mode
  Companies still see inclusion as core to talent strategy, but many are opting for legal safety by keeping it under wraps.

read the full 653-word article here

😄 Comic Relief (HR Edition)

🧑‍💼 Latest Workplace Trend | Job Hugging Is the New Career Risk

In today's climate of hiring freezes and economic caution, employees are clinging tightly to roles they don’t love, simply because the alternative feels riskier.

This new wave of “job hugging” — staying put out of fear, not fulfillment — is leading to widespread career stagnation, and companies are beginning to feel it too.

🧭 Key Insights on the Rise of Job Hugging

• 📉 Hiring is at a 10-year low, deepening the freeze
  With fewer openings available, workers aren’t just reluctant to leave — they’re afraid to even look, fueling collective stagnation.

• 💸 Staying put = losing out on raises and skills
  Changing jobs often brings higher pay and new growth; job hugging delays both, especially after the 3-year mark.

• 🌍 Global instability is locking workers in place
  Economic and political uncertainty is leading people to prioritize safety over advancement — even if it means feeling stuck.

• 🧠 “If you’re not learning or earning, it’s time”
  Career expert Kim Perell says three years with no raise or new skills is your sign to move on — or fall behind.

read the full 432-word article here

🎙️ Featured Podcast: Gen Z Work Culture Clashes by HR Besties

While you go about your day, plug in to today’s featured podcast below: