Fortune

“We got rid of our HR team.” For most executives, that’s a sentence likely to provoke intense anxiety. But for Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow, it was unavoidable. Speaking at the #FortuneWorkplaceSummit, the 31-year-old defended sweeping workforce cuts at Bolt—including a recent layoff affecting roughly 30% of employees—as well as his decision to eliminate the company’s HR team. “We had an HR team, and that HR team was creating problems that didn’t exist,” Breslow told Fortune editorial director Kristin Stoller. “Those problems disappeared when I let them go.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/eZ9rGkJc

“The sectors that are most exposed to AI right now are seeing the most growth in terms of demand for those jobs,” Indeed's chief economist Svenja Gudell recently said onstage at the #FortuneWorkplaceSummit. Gudell used software developers as an example. As advanced tools have evolved to write code, traditional developers are having a harder time finding jobs—yet within that same industry, AI-fluent developers are experiencing a renaissance. “AI is creating a whole bunch of new jobs, and interestingly enough, if you are an AI software developer, things are looking quite good for you,” she continued. “There’s a wage premium on your skills right now.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/eEu3HYPY

Over the past year, companies have scaled back or eliminated their commitment to DEI partly under pressure from President Donald Trump—yet experts say the organizations that stay the course are the ones that will come out on top. Ray Dempsey, a former chief diversity officer at BP and Barclays and now the founder of Dempsey Inclusion Group LLC, said corporate America’s pivot toward stigmatizing the acronym “DEI” has been led by people who don’t understand it. The companies that have continued to emphasize DEI understand that their efforts "create value for the business", he added at the #FortuneWorkplaceSummit. “They understand that it actually is not just a good thing to do or the right thing to do, it’s not just a social imperative, it’s a genuine business imperative." Read more: https://lnkd.in/eB33Wjjj

"We work with the largest enterprises in the world and we're not seeing any role getting eliminated." Glean CEO Arvind Jain told the #FortuneWorkplaceSummit audience that AI might augment and enable us, but it’s not even close to a place where it can replace humans. "My opinion is that it's going to be like that for foreseeable future." Learn more: https://bit.ly/42GBMkk

For the vast majority of modern workers, the annual performance review is a dreaded ritual defined by paperwork and an uncomfortable conversation. According to David Hassell—CEO of AI-powered performance review firm 15Five—this frustration is a structural failure, and one that’s grown obsolete amid speedy technological innovation. Speaking at the #FortuneWorkplaceSummit, Hassell said that the traditional review system is a relic of an age with slower technology. “Annual reviews made sense when the world was pretty static,” he said. “We’re at an accelerating pace of technology and change, and the practice just hasn’t kept up.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/e7iBwAXv

"We got rid of our HR team.” At the #FortuneWorkplaceSummit, Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow defended major workforce cuts — including layoffs affecting roughly 30% of employees — saying the fintech company had shifted from “peacetime” to “wartime” mode and needed to return to a more “gritty” startup mentality. “We had an HR team, and that HR team was creating problems that didn’t exist. Those problems disappeared when I let them go,” he told Fortune's Kristin Stoller. 🔗 Read more: https://lnkd.in/eZ9rGkJc

In recent months, as political pressure against DEI has intensified, many organizations have quietly scaled back or abandoned DEI commitments. That retreat, according to Bernice A. King, CEO of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change (The King Center) and daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., reveals something fundamental: many companies were never truly committed to DEI. “If you retreat that quick, it suggests to me that reveals who you really are,” she said Tuesday at the #FortuneWorkplaceSummit. “When you know who you are, when you know those values, when you live by those values, when you infuse those values in the culture, when the pressure shows up, you don’t retreat.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/e55FyMzq

It’s no secret that Gen Z is facing the brunt of AI job disruption. “There’s no question that the entry-level hire is under pressure,” WeWork CEO John C. Santora said in an interview at the #FortuneWorkplaceSummit on Tuesday. “It’s incumbent upon all of us to bring that talent in and to educate the talent and teach them to be the future growth of all our organizations,” he continued. “AI is not going to provide empathy and leadership and mentoring and all those skills that you need to lead a company for a company to be successful.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/dpPj34fX