2025: The Year HR Stopped Pretending and Revealed the Truth

Somewhere between 180,000 tech layoffs globally and the invention of “job-hugging” as a workplace trend, 2025 became the year Indian workplaces stopped pretending. The masks came off. What we found underneath wasn’t pretty, but at least it was honest.

“We’re a Family” finally died After years of companies calling themselves “families” whilst laying off thousands via Zoom, the metaphor mercifully expired in 2025. TCS announced major workforce cuts. Microsoft eliminated 9,000 employees. Indian startups shed 6,500 jobs between January and April. Nobody called these families. They called them “strategic workforce optimisations” and “AI-driven restructuring”—which is at least honest euphemism recognising that families don’t eliminate members when quarterly numbers disappoint. The coup de grace: 75 per cent of Indian employees admitted they’re “job-hugging”—staying in current roles not from loyalty but from fear. That “something else” is employment, not family. The distinction matters. “We’re a family” was never culture—it was a warning label.

“Return to Office” revealed its true self Remember when RTO was sold as “collaboration” and “culture”? 2025 stripped away the pretence. Companies mandating office returns weren’t optimising for innovation—they were managing real estate costs and reasserting managerial control over workers who’d proven remote productivity for three years. When some firms announced RTO whilst simultaneously reducing office space, the contradiction became too obvious to ignore. The best part? Climate predictions for 2026 suggest extreme temperatures will disrupt RTO mandates in affected regions. Turns out you can’t mandate office attendance when offices become uninhabitable. Who knew? “Hybrid work was never about flexibility. It was about control”

“AI will create more jobs” became 2025’s funniest joke One in four of 2025’s 180,000 global tech layoffs were explicitly linked to “AI-driven restructuring.” The World Economic Forum cheerfully projects automation could eliminate 80-85 million jobs within three years. But don’t worry! AI will create jobs! Lovely new jobs! In fields we haven’t invented yet! For skills you don’t have! Starting… eventually! India’s IT services sector—long considered more stable than your grandmother’s fixed deposit—According to independent tracker Layoffs.fyi, 112,732 tech employees were laid off across 218 companies worldwide. But the optimists keep insisting: AI will create 170 million new roles eventually! “Eventually” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. So is “roles.” Meanwhile, “this month’s rent” remains distinctly unimpressed by future hypotheticals. Several companies already regret AI-driven redundancies, according to surveys. But regret is cheap. Rehiring is expensive. And admitting you made a mistake is apparently impossible. So instead we get thoughtful LinkedIn posts about “learnings” whilst the people you sacked are still updating their CVs. “Hybrid work was never about flexibility. It was about control”

Gen Z invented “conscious unbossing” In possibly 2025’s most delightful trend, Gen Z started rejecting management promotions deliberately. Not because they’re “entitled” or “don’t want to work”—because they did maths. They watched millennials burn out managing teams for 15 per cent raises and thought: “That’s a terrible deal, actually.” They chose individual contributor roles over managerial positions to preserve something revolutionary called “having a life outside work.” Wild concept, we know. “Conscious unbossing,” they’re calling it. Which terrifies companies whose entire organisational model assumes everyone wants to climb the ladder. What happens when your top talent says “no thanks, I’d rather code than spend six hours daily in meetings about meetings”? The trend pairs beautifully with “career catfishing”—where 34 per cent of Gen Z reportedly accepted job offers then ghosted on day one. Companies called this unprofessional. Gen Z called it market signalling. Both are correct. Welcome to employment in the age of mutual disrespect. It’s rather refreshing, actually.

Labour law reform: The grand announcement nobody can implement On 21 November, India implemented what the Prime Minister called “one of the most comprehensive labour-oriented reforms since Independence.” Twenty-nine colonial-era laws became four shiny new codes. The press releases were magnificent. The actual implementation? Still pending. Minor detail. Yes, the codes are technically “in force.” The detailed rules required to actually follow them? Coming soon! The single registration system everyone celebrated? Under development! The digital infrastructure? We’re working on it! So organisations face the delightful situation where legacy laws still apply until superseded by new rules that don’t exist yet. It’s Schrödinger’s Labour Law—simultaneously in force and completely non-operational. Quantum physics has entered HR compliance. Nobody is having fun. The changes sound significant: basic salary must be 50 per cent of compensation, fixed-term employees get gratuity after one year, gig workers get social security coverage. Lovely reforms. Also reforms nobody can implement because the implementation mechanisms don’t exist. It’s like being given a car with no engine and being told: “Drive safely! Engine coming shortly!” Welcome to labour law limbo—where reform exists in principle whilst practice remains a mystery wrapped in bureaucracy and sprinkled with optimism.

“Skills-based hiring” was just desperation India’s hiring grew 23 per cent year-on-year, with HR roles up 33 per cent. Sounds impressive until you realise “skills-based hiring”—celebrated as progressive revolution—was primarily about expanding candidate pools when degrees became scarce. Companies didn’t suddenly realise credentials don’t matter. They realised they couldn’t fill positions with credential requirements intact. So they dropped them, called it innovation, and took credit for disrupting elitism they’d created. The proof: when markets tighten, credential requirements quietly return. Skills-based hiring is market adaptation, not philosophical transformation.

DEI programmes disappeared quietly Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programmes—loudly championed during 2020—quietly disappeared from corporate priorities in 2025. Nobody announced this. Job postings for DEI roles simply decreased. Budgets shifted. The infrastructure built over five years dissolved in months. First “equity” got dropped—too controversial. Then entire programmes got shelved as “non-essential” during cost-cutting. DEI was performance during profitable times, dispensable during lean ones. Companies maintaining genuine commitment continued work without fanfare. Others revealed what programmes always were: expensive compliance theatre, abandoned when inconvenient.

“Hybrid” became “Come in when we say” Hybrid work—celebrated as enlightened middle ground—turned out to mean “we decide when you come in, and it’s most days, actually.” The flexibility was always employer-controlled, never employee-chosen. 2025 just made this explicit. Some companies maintained genuine flexibility. Others used “hybrid” as gentle transition towards full RTO—slowly increasing mandatory days until “hybrid” meant “in office with occasional WFH when we’re feeling generous.” The companies that truly trusted remote work continued remote work. Everyone else was always planning return. They just didn’t want to admit it during the talent war. Now the war’s over, and surprise! You’re wanted in office. For “collaboration.” And “culture.” Definitely not because your manager misses seeing you pretend to work.

What we’re still not admitting For all 2025’s truth-telling, some admissions remain unsaid: Companies don’t know how to measure productivity in knowledge work, so they measure presence, activity, and hours—proxies that don’t actually indicate value creation. Most meetings are status performances, not decisions. We schedule them because work culture demands visibility, not because they accomplish objectives. “Talent shortage” often means “won’t pay market rates.” Companies claiming they can’t find talent usually can’t find talent at the price they want to pay. Layoffs during record profits reveal priorities. When profitable companies cut staff to increase margins, they’re choosing shareholder value over employment stability. That’s fine. Just don’t call it unavoidable.

What 2025 actually taught us Strip away the euphemisms and 2025’s lesson is simple: employment is economic relationship, not family, identity, or calling. Companies operate in their interests. Workers should operate in theirs. Pretending otherwise benefits nobody. The best employers maintained honesty throughout. They didn’t call layoffs “rightsizing”—they called them layoffs and treated affected people with dignity. They didn’t pretend hybrid was generous gift—they acknowledged mutual benefit and structured it fairly. They didn’t claim to be families—they aimed to be good employers, which is actually more valuable. The worst employers doubled down on performance. They laid off thousands whilst announcing record profits. They mandated RTO for “culture” whilst executives remained remote. They eliminated DEI programmes they’d championed months earlier.

Looking ahead (with eyes open) Predictions for 2026 suggest hiring growth of 2.3 percentage points—translating to 1.28 crore jobs in India. Sounds optimistic until you remember growth is “expected to be front-loaded,” which means companies hire early, then reassess, which means job security remains elusive. AI will continue eliminating roles and creating different ones. The eliminated roles are clear and present. The created roles are future and theoretical. That gap is where real people live. Gen Z will continue redefining work norms—not because they’re entitled but because they watched millennials sacrifice work-life balance for loyalty companies don’t reciprocate.

The real takeaway The year HR stopped pretending is the year work became honest. Not kinder, not easier, but at least intelligible. Honesty didn’t make work kinder—but it made it intelligible. HR credibility now comes from truth, not tone.