Say goodbye to dedicated desks and hello to collaborative workspaces.

More companies are ditching individual desks and embracing shared spaces, as 62% of employers are aiming for a ratio of 1.5 employees per desk, and the amount of individual workspaces has already decreased from 51% in 2021 to 40% in 2024, according to data from the commercial real estate company CBRE.

US companies are “way behind” other global employers in utilizing shared workspaces, said Kate Lister, principal at consulting firm Global Workplace Analytics. But with the prospect of shared workspaces cutting space and costs, and increasing collaboration, many employers finally see “what’s in it for me,” Lister told HR Brew.

Adding more shared or collaborative workspaces doesn’t mean companies have to eliminate dedicated desks entirely, and experts shared how optionality helps employees.

For more on how workspace variety can enhance a company’s culture, keep reading here.—MC

Hearing constant layoff news can sometimes feel like a stressful dream you can’t wake up from.

And the stress might get worse as companies reach historic highs in workforce cutbacks. Intel’s recent announcement of a reduction-in-force (RIF) of up to 20% of its 109,000-person staff, or roughly 21,000 jobs, and UPS’s plans to cut 20,000 employees would make these RIFs among the largest in US history. The biggest RIFs typically have accompanied economic downturns, as when Citigroup laid off 50,000 employees in 2008, and Hewlett-Packard cut 27,000 jobs in 2012.

Economic fears loom large over a workforce that’s already seen 3.5 million layoffs or discharges so far in 2025. HR Brew spoke with economists about what recent RIFs could signal about the labor market and how HR pros can navigate the year ahead.

“There is absolutely economic uncertainty right now. There are many different policies that are at play…that have a lot of people and companies rightfully taking an approach of, ‘Let’s just sit and wait, see what happens when the dust settles,’” Rachel Sederberg, senior economist at Lightcast, told HR Brew.

For more on ways HR can prepare for the range of potential economic outcomes, keep reading here.—MC

AI overhype is real.

Business leaders have salivated over the possible transformations the technology can bring to their companies, and poured more than $1 trillion into generative AI investments. But one nagging challenge has emerged: leaders are failing to fully think through how to change their workforce amid this transformation, including how job tasks will get done, and the skills required of workers who complete them.

It’s a problem that’s preventing many organizations from seeing real value from AI investments, recent research from Accenture states. Only 36% of 3,450 C-suite leaders surveyed by the consulting giant have scaled generative AI solutions within their organization, and only 13% have gotten real value from those solutions, per a report released last month.

Karalee Close, global lead for the talent and organization practice at Accenture, told HR Brew that the difficulty for most organizations is being able to make whatever big ideas arise actually work as a practical matter.

For more on how HR pros can use AI more effectively, keep reading here.—PM