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Beyond workslop

A desktop computer that has green goop spilling from the top of the screen

Illustration: Morning Brew Design, Photos: Adobe Stock

Emails chock full of bullets and emojis, “delving” and “pivotal” galore—you’re not imagining it—your coworker has hit you with “workslop.”

Stanford professor Jeff Hancock and BetterUp Chief Scientist Kate Niederhoffer were on a team that coined the evocative term in fall 2025, just before Merriam-Webster chose “slop” as the dictionary’s word of the year.

And don’t expect orderly inboxes or chat windows any time soon, they said. “We’re going to see, potentially, a worsening, because it takes a long time to change these organizations,” Niederhoffer told Morning Brew.

AI is everywhere in the office now, and it’s brought with it a rambling lexical flatness that can vex your coworkers when inserted into emails, memos, and reports. The technology has already begun to reshape in-office communication and information flows, experts said. And with enterprise software companies pitching AI agents not just as workplace tools but as fellow nodes on the org chart, HR leaders are going to have to rethink the norms of how workers communicate with each other—and with bot intermediaries—to avoid a workslop overload.

For more on how AI is shaping workplace communication, and what HR leaders should guard against, keep reading here.—PK

together with Indeed

The details on Davos

If you couldn’t make it to Davos for the World Economic Forum annual meeting, don’t worry. Indeed was on-site, and they aren’t gatekeeping the insights they shared on the global labor market.

As a leading, global two-sided talent marketplace, Indeed has a comprehensive view of the labor market. They see real-time hiring activity for both job seekers and employers in over 60 countries. And their Hiring Lab economists analyze that data so you can leverage it as a strategic hiring advantage.

These hiring insights are ready and waiting for you in the Global Labor Market and Workforce Trends report. Inside you’ll find:

where job opportunities are growing
where skills shortages and mismatches could impact business performance
how immigration patterns are shaping workforce capacity
how AI is transforming occupations, skills, and employer adoption

Use the report to prepare for what’s next. See the trends.

DEI

Burning at both ends

Tom Werner/Getty Images

In 2024, then-Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on employers to better support working parents. But a year and a half later, new data suggests that caregivers (especially women) are still under pressure.

Roughly half a million women in the US exited the workforce in 2025, and 42% of those who voluntarily left cited their caregiving responsibilities as the main reason, according to a recent survey from Catalyst. As employers restrict flexible work options and cut back on hiring, women appear to be bearing the brunt of the changing economic situation.

Of the women who voluntarily left their jobs over the past year, 37% said that their employers did not offer flexible work schedules.

Sheila Brassel, lead researcher at Catalyst, told HR Brew that even though career opportunities for women have improved over the past several decades, the impact on caregivers “is not getting better.”

For more on why so many women are still leaving the workforce over lack of caregiver support, keep reading here.—KP

HR STRATEGY

Coworking with Tony Castellanos

Tony Castellanos

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.

Tony Castellanos leads the people teams at Nextdoor, the online platform and app built to connect neighbors at the local level. As head of comp and talent, his team works to serve the business beyond those simple HR-related transactions. Nextdoor’s HR strategy brings a strategic people context to the business and it advises the company to make the smartest talent decisions.

Castellanos is a former competitor and coach in sports, so bringing people together to accomplish shared goals is a role he’s found himself in throughout his life, even before his earlier recruiting work at tech companies like Google and Square. In HR, he’s found, there’s always another layer to peel back, but people are the “throughline” in his career.

“The thing that I found in people [teams] is you have this blend of complex problems that are analytically driven, but with the human, empathetic bend,” he told HR Brew. “So it’s very rare for me that you get to apply both of those lenses, and that's what's kept me going.”

Together With Spark Hire

Turn chaos into momentum. Messy kickoff calls. Vague role requirements. Interview feedback that doesn’t line up. Spark Hire’s Modern Hiring Toolkit is a free AI workspace of custom GPTs made for recruiters. Create structured plans, stronger JDs, and aligned interviews, all without extra meetings. Download the free toolkit and drive better hiring today.

WORK PERKS

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Klarna has halved its workforce through attrition since 2022, but thanks to AI, its revenue has only grown, from $300,000 to $1.3 million per employee, according to CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski. (Time)

Quote: “Marc made a very bad joke.”—Parker Harris, cofounder and chief technical officer of Salesforce, reportedly addressed in an internal meeting the ICE jokes made by his cofounder and CEO, Marc Benioff (Business Insider)

Read: States are increasingly seeking to ensure employees are saving for retirement. Since 2017, 15 states—including California, New York, and Oregon—have required private-sector employers that do not sponsor retirement plans to offer “auto IRAs,” or retirement accounts that are automatically funded by employees’ paychecks. (CNN)

See both sides: Indeed recently shared their insights on both job seekers and employers during the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos. Curious about what insights they’ve uncovered? Find out here.*

^{*A message from our sponsor.}

Is the office worth the trip?

Getty Images

While most workers tolerate their commute, satisfaction drops as travel time rises. Here’s how HR leaders can “earn the commute” by improving flexibility, office experience, and in-person engagement.

Check it out

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Written by Patrick Kulp, Kristen Parisi, Adam DeRose, and Vicky Valet

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