Skip to main content
What do you want?
To:Brew Readers
HR Brew // Morning Brew // Update
It’s not what you think.

Greetings, friends! As this annual performance review season waxes on, remember: It’s totally fair play to ask ChatGPT for more useful ways to say “needs improvement.” We know. We asked ChatGPT if it was okay.

In today’s edition:

Hard truth

That escalated quickly

Coworking

—Paige McGlauflin, Kristen Parisi, Adam DeRose

RECRUITMENT & RETENTION

A man using a laptop to apply for a job.

Rawpixel/Getty Images

Is your company an “employer of choice?” Does it have a long history that you want to brag about to anyone who’ll listen? Do you think it stands out from competitors?

That’s nice. Job seekers don’t care—or, rather, they don’t care when they’re applying.

Attention spans are as short as ever, leaving employers seemingly struggling to make an impression via their job postings: A November 2025 survey by Indeed found that, in the prior year, 65% of employers were missing the mark on the first try and had to revise its job description. Of those employers, 42% said they had to revise it because they were getting too many unqualified applicants, while enother 21% said they weren’t getting enough candidates, period.

Job seekers don’t read postings to learn about your company’s entire story. They want to know: “What’s in it for me?”

For more on what candidates are really looking for in job postings, keep reading here.—PM

Presented By Ashby

DEI

Nike storefront

Li Hongbo/Getty Images

On Feb. 4, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a subpoena request to obtain records from Nike about its DEI programming, a move the company called an “unusual escalation.”

What’s happening? The EEOC filed the request in the Eastern District of Missouri Court, and claims that white workers could have been discriminated against as a result of Nike’s DEI initiatives. Among the documents the EEOC is requesting are criteria considered before layoffs, how the company used race and ethnicity data, and “information about 16 programs” related to mentoring, leadership, and career development.

According to the EEOC, Nike allegedly has not fully complied with their previous requests for documents, but Nike claims otherwise.

Part of the anti-DEI strategy. This is the latest instance of federal agencies investigating a company over its DEI practices, dating back to President Trump’s first days back in office.

On Jan 30, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a warning to roughly 40 law firms that participated in a diversity certification program, according to Bloomberg Law. The FTC claimed that the certifications could indicate “anticompetitive collusion,” a move that Stephen Calkins, a law professor at Wayne State University, told the publication is “untested legal territory.”

For more on the subpoena request, and the Trump administration’s broader anti-DEI strategy, keep reading here.—KP

HR STRATEGY

A portrait of Bettina Deynes, Chief Human Resources Officer of Carnival, a cruise line operator

Bettina Deynes

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.

What do a cruise line, a suburb, a baseball team, and SHRM all have in common? It’s not the set-up for a joke. They’re all stops along the CV of this HR leader.

Carnival Corporation’s CHRO Bettina Deynes has had a “very untraditional career journey.” The Uruguayan immigrant got her start in the workforce at the age of 17 as a janitor in Washington, DC. Still in high school, Deynes cleaned office buildings just blocks from Congress, looking out onto the US Capitol, imagining a future from a corner office with these views of her own.

Nearly a decade later, Deynes took it upon herself to grow her career at the cleaning company. She moved into an office role, helped with payroll, and began developing her HR skills by attending the Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) conferences and work sessions. She was then tapped for a senior HR role at a company in one of those same office buildings on Capitol Hill. Imagine her stunned pride walking into a corner office with the same views of the Capitol dome, having manifested her dreams.

Deynes credits this moment as the catalyst for her “maverick” approach to HR.

For more from our conversation with Deynes, keep reading here.—AD

Together With eMed

WORK PERKS

A desktop computer plugged into a green couch.

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: The US coworking market grew 17% in 2025 as some businesses looked to shared office spaces to address RTO mandates and reap the benefits of in-person work closer to where employees live. (Inc.)

Quote: “Brett Matsumoto is a Brilliant, Reputable, and Trusted Economist who will restore GREATNESS to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”—President Trump on Truth Social after he nominated Matsumoto, a current White House economist, to lead the ailing statistics agency responsible for publishing reports on the labor market (the Washington Post)

Read: Workday co-founder and former CEO Aneel Bhusri will helm the enterprise software giant again following the Monday ousting of Carl Eschenbach as CEO. (TechCrunch)

GLP-1 and done: eMed’s GLP-1 program helps employers offer GLP-1 coverage they can trust, with benefits that employees actually value. Learn more.*

*A message from our sponsor.

Employee and robot

Illustration: Brittany Holloway-Brown, Photos: Adobe Stock

As AI reshapes jobs and entry-level roles disappear, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are facing growing uncertainty about their careers. Experts share why anxiety is rising—and what HR leaders should understand about supporting the next generation of workers.

Check it out

SHARE THE BREW

Share HR Brew with your coworkers, acquire free Brew swag, and then make new friends as a result of your fresh Brew swag.

We’re saying we’ll give you free stuff and more friends if you share a link. One link.

Your referral count: 5

Click to Share

Or copy & paste your referral link to others:
hr-brew.com/r/?kid=9ec4d467

         
ADVERTISE // CAREERS // SHOP // FAQ

Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here.
View our privacy policy here.

Copyright © 2026 Morning Brew Inc. All rights reserved.
22 W 19th St, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10011

Quick-to-read HR news & insights

From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.

A mobile phone scrolling a newsletter issue of HR Brew