🕵️‍♂️ Slack, Spies & Startups

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Happy Sunday!

In this edition, we’re diving into the deeper implications of the lawsuit that rocked the HR tech space last week—and what it says about trust, competition, and the future of platforms that handle your most sensitive employee data.

Also inside: a fresh look at corporate drama at Nike, what garden leave really means, and how AI is reshaping job design from the ground up.

Looks like HR is playing hardball this year.

Upcoming in this issue 📰

• 🕵️‍♂️ Slack, Spies & Startups: Rippling vs. Deel Gets Messy

• 👟 Power, Silence, and the Fallout at Nike

• 🌱 Garden Leave: The Paid Pause That Protects Everyone

• 💡New Data | The Future of Work Is Getting a Makeover

 📰 Latest in HR News

• 🧑‍⚖️ Yet another lawsuit: Google to pay $28 million to settle racial class action

• 🧑‍💼 COVID-driven disparities at work: Here’s what HR can do to help.

• 📆 April 2025: What’s coming up for HR?

• 🤖 AI Coaches: How a new generation of AI coaches could transform management training as we know it

🕵️‍♂️ Slack, Spies & Startups: Rippling vs. Deel Gets Messy

Read the full 782-word article here

The ongoing Rippling vs Deel drama feels like a plot twist from Succession—only it’s playing out in the HR tech world.

The latest on this is that Deel denies any wrongdoing and promises a countersuit, but the whole episode exposes a deeper truth: this is so much more than tech rivalry—it’s war for control over the booming global workforce management space.

Quick Recap:

• 🕵️ Secret searches: 23 times a day
  Rippling alleges Deel’s mole combed through internal data daily, including sales plans and high-risk customer churn reports.

• 📉 Breach of trust hits brand image
  HR leaders on LinkedIn voiced concern: “How safe is our data?” one asked, shaking confidence in both companies.

• 💼 $25B rivalry on the line
  Rippling and Deel are valued at $13.5B and $12B respectively—both chasing dominance in the global hiring tech market.

• ⚖️ Legal drama far from over
  Deel denies spying and plans to countersue, raising stakes and leaving investors calm but customers uneasy.

👟 Power, Silence, and the Fallout at Nike

Read the full 585-word article here

After a three-year legal battle, court documents now reveal that allegations at Nike stretched far beyond mid-level managers, implicating former top executives including a president, CFO, and the iconic sneaker designer Tinker Hatfield.

Despite Nike’s 2018 internal reforms, a new wave of scrutiny is rising, fueled by documents unsealed after years of legal resistance.

Key Takeaways

• 🚨 Top brass implicated
  Executives like Charlie Denson and Tinker Hatfield were named—contradicting Nike’s earlier claim issues were only at mid-management.

• 📄 Starfish survey sparked reform
  An anonymous internal survey catalyzed Nike’s 2018 investigation and ongoing lawsuits, now tied to a tentative discrimination settlement.

• ⚖️ Legal resistance delayed truth
  Nike fought to keep executive names redacted, but a 2024 appeals ruling forced full disclosure of the misconduct allegations.

• 🗣️ Allegations dismissed as ‘gossip’
  Hatfield’s lawyer brushed off claims of inappropriate comments as “bathroom stall gossip,” igniting further backlash.

😄 Comic Relief (HR Edition)

corporate.bro

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🌱 Garden Leave: The Paid Pause That Protects Everyone

Read the full 1,497-word article here

Garden leave is that rare moment in corporate life when you’re still on payroll, but you’re banned from working, logging in, or even talking to clients.

This article breaks it down as both a protective tool for employers and a paid timeout for employees—ideal when resignations or dismissals threaten trade secrets or client poaching.

Key Insights

• 🌿 Garden leave = paid silence
  You're still employed and paid, but completely sidelined from duties—protecting data and slowing exits to competitors.

• 🚫 It’s not just a break—it’s boundaries
  No emails, no Slack, no LinkedIn DMs to clients. Employers use it to shield operations during high-risk transitions.

• ⚖️ Varies wildly by geography
  In the UK, it's common and enforceable. In the U.S., legality depends on state laws and reasonableness of the clause.

• 💼 It’s not all roses for employees
  While it offers financial security, it can stall career momentum and feel like being benched—just with benefits.

💡New Data | The Future of Work Is Getting a Makeover

Read the full 1,972-word article here

In this article, Bersin walks us through how companies are ditching blunt layoff strategies and instead using AI tools like Reejig, Gloat, and Draup to intelligently redesign work from the ground up.

From media managers to HRBPs, he explores how work decomposition, task benchmarking, and role reinvention are unlocking massive efficiencies—without sacrificing people in the process.

Key Insights

• 📊 Bureaucracy breeds bloat
  Companies discover up to one-third of roles are redundant, prompting shifts from admin-heavy jobs to streamlined, AI-supported functions.

• 🤖 Work intelligence tools are real
  Platforms like Reejig analyze real-time job tasks, enabling companies like Microsoft and Macquarie to automate with precision and speed.

• 💼 Not all inefficiency is task-based
  A client found their sales team underperformed not from bad jobs, but because they were selling to the wrong customers.

• 🧠 AI can predict your next hire
  Gloat’s Mosaic shows leaders every step of a job, then recommends internal talent with matching skills—in real time.