Snap Inc. CEO chalks up layoffs to AI advances; New Disney chief emphasizes openness in job cut memo

Greetings, comms pros! Let’s take a look at a few news stories from the past week and see what we can learn from them.

1 . Snapchat chief announces layoffs, citing rapid AI advancements

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel announced that his company is cutting 1,000 jobs, or 16% of its workforce. In a memo obtained by Business Insider, Spiegel attributed the layoffs to several factors, including advances in AI technology.

While these changes are necessary to realize Snap’s long-term potential, we believe that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers. We have already witnessed small squads leveraging AI tools to drive meaningful progress across several important initiatives, including Snapchat+, enhanced ad platform performance, and efficiency improvements in our Snap Lite infrastructure.

Spiegel also told North American employees to work from home and that affected employees would receive notification shortly.

Spiegel’s messaging is pretty straightforward — AI is changing the landscape, and Snap needs to adapt. The memo’s focus positions the move to AI as a longer-term solution for Snap rather than a short-term gap filler. However, Spiegel, while explaining the larger reasoning for the layoffs, doesn’t dive too deeply into details and stays abstract. Employees can read an overall sense of direction but less about how their day-to-day work will change. The best layoff comms (if we can say there is such a thing) are detailed ones, and they don’t always come out in the first memo.

2. Disney CEO “optimistic” despite confirming layoffs in employee memo

New Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro told employees he’s staying positive about the company’s future despite confirming a round of job cuts. In a memo obtained by Adweek, D’Amaro said that the company needed to remain agile amid a changing media scene.

Over the past several months, we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect from Disney. Given the fast-moving pace of our industries, this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs. As a result, we will be eliminating roles in some parts of the company and have begun notifying impacted employees.

He also acknowledged the difficulty of the move and thanked employees for their contributions.

Despite these difficult decisions, I remain optimistic about where we’re headed as a company. I’m deeply grateful for all of your contributions and for the dedication, professionalism, and care you bring to your work each day. Even in challenging moments, you continue to demonstrate what makes Disney so special.

Disney’s memo sticks to the employee reassurance and company continuity playbook for layoff comms. D’Amaro anchors the note in business terms like “agility” and “streamlining”, but doesn’t get too specific about the causes behind the move. But he also ties everything back to Disney’s identity as an entertainment superpower at the end, attempting to communicate that the company’s status isn’t going anywhere. That helps keep the focus outward on keeping up the work that gives Disney its reputation, as opposed to internal disruptions.

3. Deloitte says it’s cutting and adjusting PTO and other benefits for some employees

Deloitte announced that it’s cutting or changing employee benefits for thousands of employees across the United States. In a statement to Business Insider, the company said the move is about making benefits correspond to people’s work.

“Deloitte US is modernizing its talent architecture to provide a more tailored experience reflective of our professionals’ broad range of skills and the work they do serving our clients,” a Deloitte spokesperson told Business Insider.

Deloitte’s framing of this move aims to normalize it to employees — that’s apparent in the fact that the company said that it regularly updates benefits packages to correspond to the market. But the big takeaway is how impersonal the tone of the message is. Benefits are a major reason people take jobs and are often deeply personal (like health insurance coverage). Creating distance and sharing that the change is part of an ongoing model is understandable, but these kinds of comms often go over better when there’s a piece about the human impact in follow-ups.

4. How about some good news?

• A rare cloud jaguar was spotted on a trail camera in Honduras.
• A priceless golden helmet was recovered after being stolen from a museum in the Netherlands.
• Archaeologists found the remnants of a Roman villa in the UK.
• Ragan Training is an excellent place for communications professionals to find inspiration and valuable resources.
• You should be rewarded for your work. Find out how to earn an award here!

Have a great weekend comms all-stars!

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications.