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2024 Work Trends: Return to Office, Sneaky Layoffs and are MBAs Worth it?
00:32:44
Kyle and Kaila from 'Per My Last Email' join MBD to shed light on 2024 work trends!
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- [00:01]
Kyle Haggie
This episode is brought to you by Google Gemini. With the Gemini app, you can talk live and have a real time conversation with an AI assistant. It's great for all kinds of things like if you want to practice for an upcoming interview, ask for advice on things to do in a new city, or brainstorm creative ideas. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. Download the Gemini app for iOS and Android today. Must be 18 to use Gemini Live.
- [00:26]
Neal Freyman
Good Morning Brew Daily Show I'm Neal Freyman.
- [00:29]
Toby Howell
And I'm Toby Howell.
- [00:30]
Neal Freyman
Today we are joined by Morning Brew's workplace whisperers and host of the Per my last email podcast, Kyle Haggie and Kayla Lopez.
- [00:37]
Toby Howell
Kyle and Kayla, join us to break down the biggest workplace stories of this year and the Next. It's Monday, December 23rd. Let's ride. Kyle and Kayla, welcome to the show.
- [00:53]
Kyle Haggie
Thanks for having us.
- [00:54]
Kayla Lopez
Thank you for having us.
- [00:55]
Toby Howell
Just real quick, before we dive in, can you give our listeners a quick explanation of who might enjoy or who might find useful your show per my.
- [01:04]
Kyle Haggie
Last well, obviously everyone would love the show, but early to mid career professionals looking to level up in their career, they want help navigating some of the thorniest work life scenarios per my last email of the show for them.
- [01:15]
Neal Freyman
Sweet. So let's dive into some of those issues and begin with what's expected to be the number one workplace battle of 2025. Return to office. Yes, it feels like we've been talking about the end of remote work for years now, but the push to bring workers back to the office ramped up in a big way in September when one of the nation's largest companies, Amazon, said it would require employees to work from the office five days a week. Meanwhile, Starbucks said starting next year it'll begin actually enforcing its hybrid work policy that requires employees to commute three days a week. Many see ulterior motives by these companies here, namely something called backdoor layoffs. The theory goes Amazon, Starbucks and other companies cracking down on remote work think they have too many employees. But instead of going through the grueling process of laying people off themselves, they're mandating return to office to accomplish the same thing because they know angry employees who love their work from home setup will just voluntarily quit. Kyle and Kayla, do you think there's any validity to this backdoor layoff concept? And more broadly, how do you see the remote work battle lines being drawn in 2025?
- [02:23]
Kyle Haggie
I mean, first, if I work at Starbucks and they're making me come in and Brian Nichols is like taking his private Jet from California to Seattle.
- [02:29]
Neal Freyman
This is the new CEO they're allowing to live in Southern California and commute up to Seattle.
- [02:34]
Kyle Haggie
Exactly. I would be pretty pissed. I mean, I think this is all about voluntary layoffs. Even in Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon's note, he said, we're doing this as well to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers. So I think this is a way to right size without actually having to assess talent. It's just an easier way to get people to quit if they don't want to work there or they like their work from home set up. And I'm actually like pretty disappointed. This feels like a big step backwards, particularly from Amazon, who's always been super innovative. They were like, people don't need to go into a physical bookstore. We can actually sell books online and embrace these new technologies. And now it seems like, but people still need to work in an office. It feels backwards. And I'm a little disappointed in Amazon.
- [03:16]
Kayla Lopez
Yeah, I think my hottest take here is that this is just laziness. It's laziness from the management team that basically is pining for these like older, the olden days when they could tell how hard people were working by standing behind their desk. And I think that instead of doing the actual work of determining who are high performers who maybe should be downsized or right sized or whatever the hell they want to talk about, they're just saying if you work from home and you want to stay there, just leave. And I think that that's a very lazy practice and it's not going to, it's not going to turn into improved performance. It's maybe going to cut costs for a little bit, but I don't think it's going to do that much in the long run.
- [03:53]
Toby Howell
I do also want to talk about the Department of Government Efficiency, AKA DOGE here. It's the non governmental agency led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Their goal is to cut costs across the government. Government cut bloat as well. And one of the ideas they floated is ending remote work for federal employees. But they've explicitly come out and said we want to downsize the federal workforce and we think this is the mechanism we can use for doing it. So I guess my question is, would you rather have Amazon or Starbucks just come out and say like, hey, we are doing this to cut employees or do you think that it is better to do it in this like backdoor layoffs method? A little bit under the, more under the radar.
- [04:32]
Kyle Haggie
If I'M an employee. I'd rather them just be honest. I think from Amazon's perspective, they have so many employees that it's probably hard to go and assess each individual's talent and like make layoffs that way. So this is like just a more effective way for them to do that. But I'd rather them just be honest.
- [04:48]
Neal Freyman
Well, Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman did, did actually say this explicitly. He said, if there are people who just don't work well in that environment and don't want to, that's okay. There are companies, there are other companies around. So he was basically giving, giving Amazon employees license to go apply that didn't want to come back to the office, license to go apply elsewhere. My question also around recruitment, right? So Amazon may be downsizing now and they're like, it's okay, we have too many employees and people who don't want to come into the office are going to leave that. This is kind of all shaking out the way we want in. The high performers are going to continue to come in. But what about when they have to compete against Google, Microsoft, other big tech companies for workers going forward? They're not, they're not going to be able to say, we have these remote, flexible work environments like our competitors and that may put them at a disadvantage in the future.
- [05:39]
Kayla Lopez
I think it depends on the general environment. Like, I think if every single company starts to enact mandatory return to office policies, then employees may not have a choice. But I think if companies like Allstate, which we talked about in a previous episode, decide to make co working and flexible working and hybrid working more of an option, they're going to have the leg up and you will see in the long run better talent going and driving to those companies.
- [06:06]
Kyle Haggie
Yeah, ultimately, like, it is a war for town. I think the genie is out of the bottle on hybrid work. And so if you're a very talented employee and you want to work in a hybrid setup, I think there is going to be a company that will pay you the same to do that and you're ultimately going to end up there. And so I think Amazon is going to be stuck in this, like, messy middle where if you want to work for a large company, you probably also want to work hybrid. If you want to work in person and like, tackle really, really thorny challenges, you might want to go for a startup. And that's not what Amazon is.
- [06:32]
Toby Howell
I wonder if we should revisit this segment. If Amazon has just a killer year, if Starbucks just has a killer year, maybe, maybe it does work. Yeah, I mean, we're all poo pooing it right now because workers have shown this desire for flexibility. But maybe good old fashioned in person office working arrangements are going to be best for the company in the long run.
- [06:50]
Neal Freyman
It is very fascinating to see how much workers value flexible environments. They value it more than even money. I mean, 76% of Gen Z workers said they'd give up a salary bump for more flexible work environment. So that is a pretty fascinating and stark statistic right there.
- [07:06]
Toby Howell
Okay, so this next topic I want to ask you guys about also deals with this concept of layoffs, but this time it's a term called sneaky layoffs. You all actually spoke about it on your show and defined it as these tiny technicalities that big companies are using to justify firing someone instead of maybe just laying them off. So what are these tiny technicalities? Earlier this year, Meta laid off about 30 employees in their L A office for misusing their $25 meal credits. The employees were found to be spending them on things like nail polish, toothpaste, non food items. Another instance of this happened at ey, the big accounting firm which fired employees for watching multiple online training sessions at the same time.
- [07:46]
Neal Freyman
Sometimes you can't pay me to do one. How are you doing multiple.
- [07:50]
Toby Howell
Sometimes gas. They were using multiple monitors. Fidelity fired some workers. You guys spoke about this on your show. For joining a fantasy football league at work which violated company gambling policies. So to the average person, letting go of someone over these seemingly minor offenses seems pretty crazy. But what is the broader context here? Are these companies using selective enforcement to justify these reductions in headcount?
- [08:14]
Kayla Lopez
Yes. And also I would like to say that those last two I actually think might have been a little bit justified. And we went back and forth.
- [08:21]
Kyle Haggie
Kayla hates fantasy football.
- [08:23]
Kayla Lopez
It's not necessarily that, but there are rules for a reason. And I'm not saying that, you know, META should have fired these people for misusing these perks or that EY should have fired these people for, you know, whatever they're doing. I think it's more like it is slippery slope. If they're fudging the rules on these small things to that be an indication of a larger issue with those employees. So that being said, I do think it's very silly to fire somebody for being part of fantasy football league, but I kind of understand where they're coming from. They are rules that they've set. They're allowed to like enforce those rules.
- [08:57]
Kyle Haggie
Yeah, I mean, I think we already talked about voluntary layoffs. Now we're talking about sneaky layoffs. We're going to talk about I. The. The under. Like, the word that's pinning all of these together is efficiency. And even Zuck said, like, this is the year of efficiency. I think we're seeing companies with new tools and with hiring too much during COVID wanting to right size and finding any way to do that. And so if they can find someone that's like, broken a company policy, they can fire them. It looks better from a PR perspective. You're not having to do mass layoffs. And I think that's what this is all about. I think what gets tricky is if you're a. If the person running the fantasy football league was like, the top performer at that company, they wouldn't have fired them. And so I think you're going to get into this place where, like, some people break the rules and they're given more leeway. Some people break the rules and they're not performing well and they're given no leeway. And we'll see how that affects overall employee morale.
- [09:45]
Toby Howell
Right. So when a company's in hiring mode, for instance, they're happy to overlook the small things, but if they're in austerity mode or the year of efficiency mode, they might nitpick.
- [09:54]
Neal Freyman
I believe they remember the employee manual and all the things.
- [09:56]
Kyle Haggie
Yeah, interesting.
- [09:58]
Toby Howell
Well, let's go down that. I'm sure a lot of people now hearing that, listening to this, are saying, what can I do to make sure I don't run afoul of these things? You guys have any perspective on what you can do to make sure you're not part of these sneaky layoffs?
- [10:10]
Kyle Haggie
Yeah. I mean, I think going back to what I said, the problem is most people think they're above average. So, like, everyone's probably like, oh, I'm doing a great job at work. It would never happen to me. I think be realistic. So, like, don't do something that the company says not to do. We probably all do a little bit of that. But don't do something egregious. But then the second thing is, I think you just have to decide, do I want to work at a place that legitimately would fire me for doing fancy football for me, I'd be like, f that, like, I don't even want to work here. Like, that is super, super lame. So I think you also just have to come to terms with, like, do you want to be micromanaged to that degree? I personally want it.
- [10:45]
Kayla Lopez
So I think also one of the things that we actually don't know about these sneaky layoffs is how abrupt they were. Were people warned about this and then they were fired. If that's the case, then you have, you know, you're probably fine if you get about misuse of the $30 credits. Maybe just don't misuse them again and now and you'll be okay. But I think for the most part, maybe revisit that employee handbook if you're a little nervous and try to reduce your rule breaking.
- [11:10]
Kyle Haggie
If, if I'm a company and I found someone doing two training videos at once, I'd promote the person. Like, that's, like that's efficiency. Come on.
- [11:17]
Toby Howell
Year of efficiency. I will need to see both of your fantasy football records to see where your head's at.
- [11:23]
Kyle Haggie
I'm eight and five.
- [11:24]
Toby Howell
Oh, sure you are. Sure you are. All right. Another topic that you've mentioned and that we've talked about on Morning Brew Daily a lot is how many people that are using AI at work. Google released this survey where they talked to over a thousand young knowledge workers and 93% of Gen Z respondents said that they were using two or more AI tools a week. 93%. Some of the use cases they mentioned for AI at work were revising emails, taking notes, or generating ideas. Nearly 90% actually said that they use AI to start a task that felt overwhelming. Now our take on this was consider the source. Google ran the survey and they obviously have a vested interest in showing that our products are catching on in the workplace. But from where you guys sit, give us a broad overview of where you see AI in the workplace. Is it really a game changer or is it still a ways off from affecting people's daily work lives?
- [12:16]
Kyle Haggie
Yeah, I mean my take is it is a game changer. Personally, I think, and I think people forget like the world is an open notes test. And so like you should be using every tool available to you. And I think there are so many really incredible tools out there now. Chatbots, perplexity being a few. And Toby, you mentioned this. Like people are using this when they're stuck. And I think that is a common thing you find in knowledge work. Like you're overwhelmed at a task, even having something to prompt to get you started. I think it's very effective. The thing I think people are hesitant about is they feel like they need to understand how, how the tool works or like they need to like learn deep LLM technology to use these tools, which you don't. You just have to be open to experimenting and trying them. So if I was a worker, I would definitely be experimenting with AI tools.
- [13:01]
Neal Freyman
Retired. If you were a worker, are you using AI tools? You are a worker.
- [13:06]
Kyle Haggie
Yes.
- [13:07]
Neal Freyman
Just to remind you, I am also.
- [13:08]
Kayla Lopez
A worker and I am not. I really don't care about AI, so it's tough for me to have a big opinion on this. I think when you're using AI tools to get unstuck, to help brainstorm, to reduce task fatigue, to be more productive, great. Where I run into issues is when it's used to communicate to other people. And then it's very obvious that AI has been used to me and I think to other maybe potentially hiring managers, that's a signal that you're not thinking very deeply to at least try to mask the fact that you used AI in the first place. So that's one of the things I think we might see a backlash of in 2025.
- [13:45]
Neal Freyman
Do there. There does seem to be somewhat of a stigma, as you mentioned, around communicating using AI and somewhat. You had an email and you're like, this was so obviously Chachi BT written. Do you think that will go away? I mean, as these twos become tools become more popular? You know, one of the other findings in the survey that, that stood out to me was that more than 50% of gen of the people of the Gen Z people that they surveyed said that they freely talk about their AI use at work and they're not shy about it. Like maybe some older workers are. So they're talking about it, they're, they're blatantly using AI and they're proud of it.
- [14:20]
Kyle Haggie
I think human in the loop is still very important. I mean, even thinking about like the Morning Brew newsletter, for example, like an AI could write that and I could curate the news. But what makes Morning Brew newsletter so special is the tone. It's witty, it's smart, it's irreverent, it's funny. And right now I don't think I can emulate that. And I think people still love communicating with other people. So I think when you're doing some sort of communication that goes to an external person, they want to feel like you actually care. It is a sign of respect to like, I put effort into this email and that's going to get their attention. I think to Kayla's point, when it's obviously AI, people feel like, okay, I'm just getting 100 spam emails a day now. They're all, I, I don't really care. So external facing communication, I think a human should still be in the loop. Internal Efficiency. I think AI should be used all the time.
- [15:05]
Neal Freyman
Well, so you know, Kayla doesn't use AI, but I'm just listening. You know, I'm hearing this survey as a regular person who's working in our. In our current workfor and I'm seeing that 93% of Gen Z leaders, they surveyed leaders and future leaders, aspiring leaders, these people who are very motivated to get ahead. And I'm seeing that 93% are using AI. What would you say to people who aren't using AI? Is that, should I just light a fire under my butt or. Or am I okay, you know, kind of living in an A list world.
- [15:36]
Kayla Lopez
Yeah. Sometimes I kind of feel like somebody before the Internet being like, why would I use the Internet when I have books? So I could be wrong. And I will. Let's revisit this in December of 2025.
- [15:48]
Kyle Haggie
The one thing I will say is a lot of AI, you are using AI, it's just built into the existing tools you're already using. So I think also asking people, are you using AI Depends on if they recognize that like Google already has AI.
- [16:01]
Kayla Lopez
Built into auto products, all that stuff.
- [16:03]
Kyle Haggie
Autocomplete, stuff like that. So I think everyone is using AI, just not everyone knows they're using AI.
- [16:08]
Toby Howell
I will give you a little feather in your cap, Kayla, because you've been getting ganged up on in this segment. Slack Slack ran this larger survey. They talked to 17,000 workers across multiple countries. And they found that overall, across all ages, air use in the workforce was actually stalling out a little bit. So perhaps it was a more international survey talked to just a wider range of people, not just these young, hungry knowledge workers. So you could be right that maybe it isn't vibing with a lot of people's workflows. Maybe they've had bad experiences with that. So I'm just giving you a little bit of backup.
- [16:40]
Kayla Lopez
Thank you. I appreciate it.
- [16:42]
Toby Howell
You're not alone out there.
- [16:43]
Neal Freyman
Yeah. Okay. I want to talk. I want us to talk about the hottest three letters in higher education. Mba. Many people listening to this might be at the point in their careers where they're considering whether to go to business school or not. And more and more young workers are saying, I'm in. After two years of declines, applications for business schools spiked 11% between 2023 and 2024. That's according to a recent survey by the Graduate Management Admissions Council. The Tippy Top B school saw an even bigger surge in applications. Columbia up 27%. Northwestern's Kellogg up 23%. University of Chicago Booth up 22%. Harvard Business School up 21%. Its huge double digit increases across the board driven by Americans rather than international students. And people are searching for the full immersive MBA experience rather than evening part time classes. Applications for full time in person MBAs jumped 32% to their highest level in a decade. So, Kyle and Kayla, I'd love to hear your take on why we're seeing such a rise in MBA applications and what you think it says about the current state of the job market.
- [17:50]
Kayla Lopez
Yeah, I think it's all connected. Right? So we've been talking about sneaky layoffs, backdoor layoffs. If these knowledge workers, tech workers, are getting laid off and don't necessarily see any prospects in the job market, it makes sense that they're looking for ways to strengthen their resume. And typically, I guess I don't have exactly the data on this, but typically the idea is when you see expected declines in the economy, these graduate degrees or additional degrees, additional credentialing will increase. So I'm not surprised that you're seeing that. At the same time, what I'm surprised by is the fact that I'm also seeing anecdotally an increase in distaste for hiring people with MBAs. And just a few months ago we did an episode on if you should get an mba, and one of the stats that we saw was actually that people who graduated from the Harvard Business School, which is one of those tippy top business schools that you mentioned, were having a vast increase in unemployment six months after graduating. I believe it went from like 7% unemployment to like 23% unemployment, something like that. So I'm curious what's going to happen when this next batch of increased students graduate?
- [18:57]
Kyle Haggie
Yeah, it's interesting too. It's also a bit of supply and demand. So I think in a vacuum, I would say like most people see an mba, they're like, oh that, that's good. But if more people are getting an MBA and you're now fielding more candidates with MBAs, you still have to find a differentiating way to stand out to a hiring manager. So it'll be interesting to see after this batch goes through the process if they're actually lucky enough to get a job. I think really what underpins this is people don't like to go home on the holidays or whatever and see their aunt and be like, I'm not working. It's so much easier to be like, well, I'm getting an mba, Pam. And so I think there's a bit of this, like you feel stuck, you're not sure where to go and an MBA is a convenient off ramp to like feel like you're doing something and to figure out what you want to do next in your career.
- [19:40]
Neal Freyman
I think also we're in a period of pretty rapid technological change. We talked about AI. There's a lot of other things happening from clean energy to machine learning that's part of AI. Data analytics is becoming, there's new fields popping up every single year. And so something that might be going into applicants minds is, you know, I would love to level up my game in these various fields and be a leader in this space, but I don't really have the skills or the knowledge set to do it right now. Why don't I go to get an MBA and become an AI data science person? And I like, I'm just looking at the trend line here and I'm seeing, wow, they're probably going to be hiring a lot of employees, a lot of leaders in this space going forward. So it might be an opportunity to learn more about the changes that are happening pretty rapidly in our, in our labor force.
- [20:25]
Kyle Haggie
It's really interesting Neil though because as you said like as new fields get developed more and more rapidly, I feel like a two year program should actually become less relevant and you'd want to focus on really quick bits of learning that are hyper relevant to the scenario you find yourself in right now. Because you start an MBA program in two years, there's like 100 new fields that didn't even exist when you started. So that's an interesting like counter trend and we'll have to see how it plays out.
- [20:49]
Neal Freyman
Well, hiring for roles that require a bachelor's degree drop below 2019 levels in recent months. So I think that stat has a lot to do with what we're seeing.
- [20:58]
Toby Howell
I think some Silicon Valley people and some founders just cringed at the fact that Neil said best way to get ahead in these emerging fields is to go get an MBA in it. No, the best way is probably to go and like actually work in the field to go do research in IT and stuff like that. So, so I definitely do think if.
- [21:13]
Neal Freyman
You can get a job, if you are just the whole reason you can't get a job, you have to go establish your credentials. You can't just say hey, I'd love to get in, I'd love to be your AI CEO. And they'll be like, you don't know nothing about that. Go to school. And they're like okay, yeah Neil, I would.
- [21:27]
Toby Howell
The way I got the job is by literally saying, hey, give me the job. Not not credentialing it that way.
- [21:33]
Kayla Lopez
But you're not working in data science.
- [21:35]
Toby Howell
That is true.
- [21:36]
Kyle Haggie
Personally, I would love to be an AI CEO, so if anyone's hiring, just let me know.
- [21:39]
Neal Freyman
Where did I come up with There you go.
- [21:42]
Toby Howell
All right, let's take a quick break.
- [21:47]
Kayla Lopez
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- [22:16]
Toby Howell
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- [22:23]
Neal Freyman
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- [23:02]
Toby Howell
All right, they say good artists copy, but great artists steal. So to finish off this episode, we're going to steal a segment that you guys do on your show show called Am I the A Hole like you? We asked our listeners to submit some instances where they've butted heads with a coworker or beefed with a boss with the hopes that you guys can help them choose who the A hole is in the situation. We changed the names from some of these submissions to help protect anonymity, but are you guys ready to dive in?
- [23:31]
Kyle Haggie
Let's do it. And we have not heard these ahead of time. So these are live reactions off the cuff.
- [23:36]
Toby Howell
This one is from Brooke. I was once in a meeting with all men when one of them started to curse but then stopped himself and said sorry, I shouldn't curse when there's a girl in the room. Is he an A hole or is he just being considerate I'm going to go.
- [23:51]
Kyle Haggie
I'm going to go give him an assignment that's not even part of this a hole. That's cringe. I'll go full cringe.
- [23:58]
Kayla Lopez
It's 20, 24. That's a hole. That's a hole behavior.
- [24:02]
Kyle Haggie
Yeah.
- [24:03]
Kayla Lopez
Women swear. Okay, that's crazy. I'm so sorry, Brooke. They are the a hole.
- [24:08]
Kyle Haggie
Yeah, I mean, it's. That's just showing that you're like getting treated very differently based on your gender. I think, like, just where.
- [24:15]
Kayla Lopez
I don't know.
- [24:16]
Kyle Haggie
That sounds like discrimination.
- [24:18]
Toby Howell
Yeah, I think that is probably true. A lot of. I mean, a lot of the women I know swear more than I do.
- [24:24]
Kyle Haggie
Just even hearing that made me cringe, like so.
- [24:27]
Neal Freyman
All right, moving on. This one is from Brooke. Recently at work, I was given a shoulder tap job opportunity within my company, A K A. If I wanted it, they would give me the promotion. I spent a lot of time getting to know the team and other teams this role has a part in. All the conversations went extremely well and I was getting excited. I accepted the offer and waited three weeks for the written offer to be sent back. No response. I asked for a follow up, which turned into a 15 minute conversation about revoking the offer. Saying things like, it's not you, it's us. I called my director and they were equally as ticked off. I also decided to email the president directly. Am I the a hole for escalating this potential promotion that went south?
- [25:09]
Kyle Haggie
1. If this is the same Brooke, you've had a tough go, so I apologize. I don't think this person's the asshole at all. I mean, I think they were put in a tough situation. They're kind of promised something, it didn't pan out, and you should use every tool available to you to make sure that it comes to the conclusion you want, which is you ultimately do get that job. I would say even if they were like, okay, we'll give it to you, it's probably not a good scenario. It's like once someone shows you who they are, believe them. Sounds like this company kind of pulled the rug on you and I would start trying to find something else.
- [25:37]
Neal Freyman
Yeah. To what point do you push? Where? When do you stop?
- [25:41]
Kayla Lopez
Well, I think once they've reneged on the offer, it's. And it seems like everyone is upset, I think it's time to say, okay, clearly this is not a fit for some reason, it's time to start looking. I don't think you even have to message the president.
- [25:56]
Kyle Haggie
I mean, I Would I would push, I would try to get the job and see how it goes. But in the back of my head I'd be like, even if I get it, I'm going to start evaluating my options elsewhere because again, the company promised me something that didn't come through. This probably isn't the first time or the last time it's going to happen, and I'd be a little more weary going forward.
- [26:10]
Toby Howell
Is this one of those tough love scenarios, though, where if you don't get it in writing, then it wasn't actually an offer? Like, is. Is Brooke here just being naive in this case?
- [26:19]
Kyle Haggie
I don't think so. I mean, I think personally for me, like, I wouldn't want to work in a place where they're like, we didn't technically give that to you in writing, even though we promised it to you, so legally we don't have to give it to you. Like, I just wouldn't want that. You told me I was going to get something. I put in all the work. I didn't get it.
- [26:33]
Kayla Lopez
What I will say is, because it's internal, I agree with that. If it was external, I don't think you should believe anything until you see it in writing. Because they have that you're not already employed. But yeah, it's the internal part that's like, all right, you gave us your word.
- [26:45]
Neal Freyman
Like, what seems. Yeah. What seems the most wrong about the company's behavior here is the communication. They, they didn't communicate with Brooke about why the offer was pulled in the first place. And then they said, it's not you, it's us. I mean, some clear explanation about saying like, okay, well, we, we thought this job was going to be available, but things changed and the job is not available. So we still value as employee, blah, blah. I mean, I have done that. I've put out a job applic for that people applied to and then actually like the position. We decided not to go through with it. So to email a lot of people and be like, we're actually changing gears our strategy. So I had to explain about, you know, why the job, you know, why the job they applied for wasn't. Wasn't available. And that wasn't fun. But I just tried to over communicate.
- [27:29]
Kyle Haggie
Yeah, I mean, treat people like adults and communicate clearly as soon as, you know, and this issue doesn't happen.
- [27:33]
Toby Howell
It is so wild how this all feels like relationship vibes. If you just flip some words around company instead of company, you do like girlfriend or boyfriend. So this is very helpful for a lot of people in that sense, yeah.
- [27:44]
Kyle Haggie
Me and Kayla are actually going to launch a relationship.
- [27:47]
Toby Howell
Basically, you already have. All right, our final question from our audience is how can I gracefully handle being promoted from within? I am newer to the team and younger than my colleagues, and I'll be their manager starting next week. The transition feels difficult to navigate as I want to maintain existing friendships while also taking our team in a new direction. So not really a. Am I the a hole scenario here? Just some advice on how to deal with a promotion into a team full of her friends.
- [28:13]
Kayla Lopez
Yeah, sounds like nobody's the a hole here, so we love that. My advice here is that it's going to be really challenging, especially if it's, you know, you're a group full of your peers and then all of a sudden you're. You're managing them. I can completely understand why that's going to be tough. And so my recommendation is to completely over communicate. Explain the awkwardness, name it, call it out, Allow your new direct reports to express any discomfort to you directly so that they don't harbor resentments. And that basically will open up a clear channel of communication for the future and hopefully will make your bonds and relationships stronger moving forward.
- [28:48]
Kyle Haggie
Yeah, I think that's a brilliant answer. I mean, name it to tame it is the saying we use often. Like, it is going to be awkward and it's going to be a challenge if you go from, you know, a colleague to a manager of your friends. So have that conversation. Ultimately, if you're able to help them grow in their career and help them achieve the success they want at work, they're going to love you as a manager. And so I think the hard part internally, after you name it to tame it, is kind of getting into that manager role and understanding it is not all about you now. It's also about growing your direct reports, and that really matters to them. If you can prove that you're going to grow in your friendship in, I think, unique ways, too.
- [29:22]
Toby Howell
Is it a scenario, though, where you have to kind of put your manager hat on and then take it off and then put your friendship hat on and take it off, or should you try to maintain kind of a consistent Persona throughout the friendships and throughout the work environment? Or should you be kind of code switching here and there?
- [29:39]
Kyle Haggie
I don't know what your take is, Kayla. I do think, like, the relationship dynamic will change. Like, when you go from just a colleague and a friend to a manager and a friend, your. Your responsibilities to that person do change in, like, almost like a legal way, like you in the hierarchical way. So I think it will change and it'll probably change the nature of your friendship a little bit. And that's just realistic. But I think that's what you get when you accept that role.
- [30:01]
Kayla Lopez
Yes. And I think that it might be helpful to say, like, I'm putting on my manager hat now and I have to give you hard conversation and that could, or hard, hard advice that could give you a little bit of, like, alter ego mindset where I'm now the manager and therefore I can give you this, this difficult feedback.
- [30:21]
Neal Freyman
All right, well, sadly, we do have to wrap it up there. Kyle and Kayla, thanks so much. I think it was an awesome discussion. I mean, I was 25% of it. So great. Where can people find you if they want to listen to Per my last.
- [30:33]
Kyle Haggie
Email, we're on every platform out there. Just type in per my last email to your AI powered search engine and.
- [30:39]
Neal Freyman
You don't even know. But definitely listen to them in the year forward because they'll talk about all of these really interesting work issues that are happening in 2025 that we previewed here, but also ones that emerge that we don't even know yet.
- [30:52]
Toby Howell
And maybe a little relationship advice along the way.
- [30:56]
Neal Freyman
Don't, don't, don't give them any ideas. For any questions, comments or feedback on this particular show, send an email to Morning Brew Daily at Morning Broadcom. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Lu is our producer. Michaela Heck is, per my last emails producer who helped out on this show. Thanks so much. Olivia Graham is our associate producer. Chenowa Ogu is our technical director. Billy Menino is on audio, hair and makeup defected to their podcast. Okay. Devin Emery is our chief Content officer and our show is a production of Morning Brew.
- [31:29]
Toby Howell
Great show today, everyone. Let's run it back tomorrow. Wait, wait. Before you go, Neal has one more thing to tell you.
- [31:42]
Neal Freyman
It's time to come clean. Hosting Morning Brew daily isn't my only job.
- [31:47]
Toby Howell
Wait, are you Batman?
- [31:48]
Neal Freyman
No. When I'm not here sitting next to Toby. I'm also the executive editor of Morning Brews, free daily newsletter. If you love the pod, you'll love the newsletter. Not only does it give you your daily dose of news, but it also has crosswords and trivia and jokes written by people way funnier than me and Toby.
- [32:05]
Toby Howell
I hate to admit it, but it's true. I read it every day and I think you all will love adding it to your routine as well.
- [32:11]
Neal Freyman
Subscribe now at Morning Broadcom or head to the link in the show notes.