July 22, 2026

Presented By

Happy hump day! Unless, of course, you are part of the 17% of HR pros whose organizations observe summer Fridays. What a flex.

In today’s edition:

🤖 The full picture

🤝 Coworking

🏢 The comeback

—Kristen Parisi, Paige McGlauflin, Mikaela Cohen

DEI

Soup to nuts

A woman in business attire standing at podium (view is from the audience perspective)

Dan Creighton: Courtesy of NYU Photo Bureau

As AI is embedded into most HR functions, some inclusion experts have publicly voiced concern that it could bring with it new biases. But it’s not just the AI tools that leaders should concern themselves with. It’s every step of the development process.

Nicol Turner Lee, senior fellow and governance studies director at the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, recently addressed bias in AI in a room of lawyers and diversity and inclusion practitioners at the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at New York University School of Law.

“There are so many people, even to this day, who are actually not part of the digital ecosystem,” just one issue with the development process, she said. Therefore, “these technologies are not necessarily designed by us…These are actually technologies being created and controlled by a handful of companies that are dictating the direction and where AI shows up.”

Digital invisibility, she said, doesn’t just apply to those who lack broadband access, but those who are ignored in AI development and by AI systems. And while much attention has been paid to AI tools, there’s been less focus on deep learning, a type of machine learning that underlies AI tools, like pre-hiring algorithms that rate pre-recorded job applicant video interviews, according to Turner Lee.

For more on how bias can find its way into the development of AI tools, keep reading here.—KP

Sponsored By LHH

New structures call for new strategies

Research from LHH shows that nearly 9 in 10 organizations are restructuring right now.

In their Mobility Breakdown Report, LHH reveals that 87% of surveyed HR leaders have completed layoffs or are planning them in the next 12 months.

But at the same time, 77% said they offer redeployment or mobility during layoffs, with only 19% of workers recognizing them.

As AI, skills mismatches, and M&A duplication drive layoffs, HR leaders have the opportunity to reevaluate their talent strategy.

Are you thinking about how to connect recruitment, skills development, mobility, and career transitions? Help is available. Get some ideas from the report or talk to LHH about your workforce strategy.

RECRUITMENT & RETENTION

Internal mobility investment

Josh Bronstein, head of global talent at Bank of America

Here’s this week’s edition of our Coworking series. Each week, we chat 1:1 with an HR Brew reader. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

When asked what HR leaders should prioritize in today’s labor market, experts almost always say internal mobility.

Bank of America exemplifies the value of doing just that. The bank has invested in talent development for years, and in 2025 14,000, or around 44%, of the bank’s job openings were filled by existing employees.

Josh Bronstein, Bank of America’s head of global talent, oversees these and other efforts related to talent acquisition, management, and development for the bank’s 20,000 employees and 20,000 managers and senior leaders.

Investing in internal mobility is a “win-win,” Bronstein said, because it benefits the bank’s growth and employees’ career development while incentivizing retention.

For more on Bank of America’s internal mobility strategy, keep reading here.—PM

HR STRATEGY

RTO is a no

Man working on laptop on his couch at home

Getty Images

Will 2026 be the year that RTO makes its final curtain call?

Despite many companies tightening their in-office attendance policies, work from home is still holding strong, with more than one-third (35%) of full-time employees worked from home “some or all of the time” in 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a jump from 33.4% in 2024.

This data, released late last month, comes as companies like Amazon and AT&T announced five-day RTO mandates , and office attendance numbers hit post-pandemic highs, HR Brew previously reported.

For more on the debate over remote vs. in-office work, keep reading here.—MC

Sponsored By Mitratech

No sales slides. HR leaders: Forget endless vendor meetings. Miratech Demo Day is a free virtual event featuring live product demos on hiring, onboarding, compliance, and workforce management. Compare solutions in a single two-hour session, ask experts questions live, and find your tech fit. Register now.

work perks

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: The pay gap is widening for Black women, who earn 65 cents for every $1 paid to white men, as compared to 66 cents last year. (Equal Rights Advocates)

Quote: “So no matter what you do, no matter what the other companies are doing, your best strategy is to adopt as much of this technology as possible…And that’s called a dominating strategy in economics.”—Gerry Tsoukalas, co-author of research paper “The AI Layoff Trap,” said on the New Normal podcast, of the pressure for companies to adopt AI (Business Insider)

Read: Are you in the zone? The zone of genius, that is. Nearly 20 years after Gay Hendricks’ coined the self-help concept in his book, The Big Leap, it’s seeing a resurgence thanks, in part, to AI. (the New York Times)

Let’s talk redeployment: LHH research found that 78% of HR leaders believe more effective redeployment would reduce the need for layoffs. Check out their report for insights on how to improve formal programs at your company.*

^{*A message from our sponsor.}

How employers are approaching summer flexibility in 2026

Red and white beach chair on top of a calendar.

Getty Images

Dive into a recent HR brew survey that found that employers that issued an RTO mandate in the past year were less likely to offer employees summertime flexibility than those that did not.

Check it out

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Written by Kristen Parisi, Paige McGlauflin, Mikaela Cohen, and Vicky Valet

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