Good morning!
When a company is going through a crisis, outsiders can see headlines documenting executive moves, stock price dips, or acquisition rumors. What’s less obvious is how distressing these periods are for the rank-and-file workers.
My colleague Lila MacLellan recently wrote about Paramount’s tumultuous year, which included a CEO firing, a high-profile sale, and layoffs that impacted around 2,000 workers—more than Netflix, Disney, and Warner Bros. combined. Staffers were riveted and terrified by the changes, with one former employee telling Fortune the year was “honestly traumatizing, honestly inhumane.”
Paramount has been a Hollywood institution for decades, but a combination of family ownership squabbles, management missteps, and the disruption of the entertainment business all led to a brutal 2024. CEO Bob Bakish, who had a longtime close relationship with Paramount owner Shari Redstone, was abruptly fired in the spring of last year. He was replaced by three CEOs who were each responsible for different parts of the company, and proceeded to conduct mass layoffs, leaving employees fuming.
“There’s nothing redundant about three CEOs at all and yet they’re the ones that are sorting out redundancies,” another former employee told Fortune. “The jokes write themselves, right?”
There’s no perfect way to lay off workers. But Paramount’s struggles show just how demoralizing it can be when the workforce is left waiting for the ax to drop. That’s exactly what happened over the summer, after employees were told there would be job cuts, and left to wonder if they would be the ones to go.
“We knew that our particular division was going to be impacted,” said another former Paramount employee. “It was just kind of six weeks of nonstop stress.”
You can read more here about Paramount’s struggles, and its effect on the workforce.
Azure Gilman
azure.gilman@fortune.com
Today’s edition was curated by Brit Morse.
Around the Table
A round-up of the most important HR headlines.
Unemployed white-collar workers are having difficulty finding a job, with 1.6 million people reportedly looking for work for six months or more. Wall Street Journal
Diversity in the boardroom is at a standstill as lawsuits and other efforts dissuade companies from furthering DEI policies. Reuters
For centuries, manufacturing companies have relied on forklifts to move heavy products. After noticing how often this machinery hurts workers, employers are now eliminating them from warehouses. Wall Street Journal
Watercooler
Everything you need to know from Fortune.
Gloomy realizations. The CEO of buy-now-pay-later platform Klarna said AI’s reasoning capabilities will eventually make it possible for the technology to take the place of many executive’s roles. —Sydney Lake
Remote work for less pay. In order to land a more flexible job, some employees are willing to take lower pay. In response, job recruiters are adjusting their offers, and in some cases reducing starting pay. —Sydney Lake
Nice work. More than 40% of this year's graduates in Japan already have a job lined up amid a tight labor market. —Emma Burleigh