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Artificial Intelligence is everywhere these days, from how we shop to how we work. But when it comes to recognizing employees, can AI really help without making things feel… robotic? That’s exactly what we explored in our recent webinar with RPI, Employee Recognition in the Age of AI. Emily Gatton and Andrea Shepherd from Engage2Excel shared some eye-opening insights on how to strike the right balance. 

Is It a Hiring Freeze Nation?

The final jobs report of 2025 highlights a challenging U.S. labor market. Hiring momentum slowed significantly this year, raising an important question: Are we entering a period of widespread hiring freezes?

The U.S. labor market is shifting gears.

November’s Employment Situation report shows job growth slowing to 64,000 positions and unemployment holding at 4.6%, signaling a transition from the red-hot hiring of recent years to a more measured pace. While health care and construction remain strong, other sectors are cooling, and wage growth is moderating without reversing. For employers, this means moving from “acute scarcity” to “selective competition”—a moment to rethink strategies for attracting and retaining talent in a changing landscape.

We near the end of the review of the seven individual attributes of the RESPECT model (Recognition, Exciting Work, Security, Pay, Education and Career Growth, Conditions, and Truth) with a focus on positive working conditions. 

When I began my research, I anticipated that positive physical working conditions would be among the things employees most wanted. However, I was surprised at how powerful the desire was for a supportive social environment. In fact, of the employees who stated positive working conditions was what they most wanted from their employer, only 18 percent pointed to physical conditions. Most of them—82 percent— identified positive social conditions.