August 04, 2026

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In today’s edition:

🔑 The key to culture

🏢 The winner is…

💬 People person

—Mikaela Cohen, Lance Holt

HR STRATEGY

The secret sauce

Photo illustration of a month wall calendar showing Monday through Sunday, with Friday, Saturday, and Sunday highlighted in pink and covered in drawings of a sun, rainbow, and party blower. Above the dates

Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Adobe Stock

What’s a good strategy for improving employee well-being? At corporate wellness company Exos, the four-day workweek is key.

Since May 2023, the company has observed “You Do You Fridays,” during which the roughly 400 corporate employees based at its Phoenix, Arizona, headquarters can spend the day however they please, as long as they’re not engaging with their colleagues. The rest of the 2,600-person workforce, scattered across 300 global facilities, can choose any day of the workweek to do the same.

“What that means for us is we still value flow time, recovery, and autonomy,” Greg Hill, Exos’s chief people officer, told HR Brew. “We’ve really figured out how to leverage Fridays as an important day to advance the organization where we can.”

But, a four-day workweek is only one “shiny and important” component of Exos’s company culture, Hill said.

For more on how prioritizing employee well-being has helped Exos improve its culture and retention, keep reading here.—MC

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HR STRATEGY

It’s a draw

Split photo illustration of an in office worker and at home worker.

Illustration: Anna Kim, Photos: Adobe Stock

The winner of the return-to-office debate remains…unclear.

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, up from 33.4% in 2024. Despite this comeback of sorts, office attendance is still seemingly on the rise.

Total office visits reached a new post-pandemic high last month, hitting 8.5% YoY, according to Placer.AI data. Though, as many companies increased the number of days employees are expected to work in the office, visits were down just 21% from 2019 levels, a slow improvement from 27.2% in June 2025.

“We do continue to see improvement in return-to-office trends. There’s been a lot of debate this year whether or not we’ve hit that new normal, kind of a new equilibrium, whereas other people continue to think we’re going to see more office visits,” R.J. Hottovy, Placer.AI’s head of analytical research, told HR Brew.

For more on the state of the RTO debate, keep reading here.—MC

HR STRATEGY

From the store to the C-suite

Everyone wants to make it to the C-suite. Almost no one has the recipe to get there.

In a recent episode of HR Brew’s People Person podcast, Kate Noel, SVP and head of people operations at Morning Brew, sat down with Sara Kelly, EVP and chief partner officer at Starbucks, who started her career in a Starbucks store and spent 25 years working her way to the top.

So, what ingredients have been key to her success? Five principles taped to her computer monitor, a stint learning “ops chops,” and a rule about where to find answers (hint: it’s never the boardroom).

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work perks

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Most employers (62%) now require employees to show up in-office three days a week, but less than one-half of workers comply with this mandate. (CBRE)

Quote: “You could have a month where you make zero dollars, or you could have a month where you make $10,000.”—Abi Platock, a “microinfluencer” who makes videos offering career tips and beauty advice, on the volatility of content creation (Bloomberg)

Read: Employers are grappling with how much to spend on AI, and to what degree—if at all—that spending should replace human labor costs. Enter “tokenomics,” an emerging field that’s helping businesses understand the pricing and value of AI. (the New York Times)

Fill roles faster, stay in the loop: Workday HiredScore AI guides recruiters and hiring managers through their existing tools. Surface relevant talent, prioritize applicants against role requirements, and unlock internal mobility. All that, and humans stay in control.*

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Written by Mikaela Cohen, Lance Holt, and Courtney Vinopal

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