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Meta's 'nonregrettable attrition' and the other corporate lingo used to downplay job cuts

Companies often use corporate jargon to describe job cuts. The move doesn't always sit right with employees.
  • Meta plans to cut more low-performing employees, calling the move "nonregrettable attrition."
  • Companies often use euphemistic language for job cuts to avoid alarming investors and employees.
  • Yet such phrasing often doesn't soften the impact of cuts on affected workers.

Allow for a quick riff on RIFs.

Many companies go out of their way to avoid calling job cuts what they are. Whether it's a "reduction in force," "rightsizing," or "streamlining," the fancy language doesn't soften the blow for workers — or hide the reality of lost jobs.

One recent example: Meta said this week it would push out an additional 5% of what Mark Zuckerberg called "low-performers." Clear enough. Yet in a subsequent memo from Hillary Champion, Meta's director of people development growth programs, the focus became "non-regrettable attrition."

At Amazon, a phrase often used for such cuts is "unregretted attrition."

It's the type of language that can draw snark online. Following Meta's announcement, one person wrote on X: "'Non-regrettable attrition' lmao.'"

Meta didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Steve McClatchy, who consults on leadership and is the author of the book "Leading Relationships," told BI that public companies often use euphemistic language around job cuts to try to avoid spooking investors and raising concerns that the business is in trouble. But, he said, that effort often falls flat when they use terms like nonregrettable attrition.

"How sad is that language? It's trying to say to the ownership group, we're headed in the right direction, not the wrong one," McClatchy said.

There are numerous other ways to frame offboarding, err, cutbacks, err, workforce adjustments, and the need to do so.

For example, the news site TechCrunch told BI on Tuesday it's reducing staff because of "evolving needs."

It's possible that for many employers, workforce optimization, organizational realignment, and — shout out to ChatGPT for this one — internal mobility challenges just sound better than job cuts.

Yet, workplace experts told BI, the fallout is the same.

"We're seeing a lot of companies now do everything not to use the actual word layoff, even though that's exactly what they're doing," Peter Rahbar, an employment attorney who founded the boutique law firm the Rahbar Group, told BI.

A spokesperson for the food giant Cargill previously told BI that job cuts were designed to "realign our talent and resources to align with our strategy."

Last year, Bumble said it would cut about 30% of its workforce "to better align its operating model with future strategic priorities."

The hidden messages behind layoff language

Cutting jobs is often bad for morale and can hurt productivity when workers become consumed with worrying they're next. That can be true even with a case like that of Meta, which said it planned to "backfill" roles in 2025. Translation: hire better people — though not you.

Yet, McClatchy said, to imply that a worker who gets pushed out for poor performance is solely at fault misses the responsibility that employers have to make good hires and that managers have to help those under their tutelage perform their best.

"It's 100% an attack on the employee that has to go then find a job. And what a shame that is," he said.

Sandra Sucher, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School who has studied layoffs, told BI that most terms for layoffs are designed to make an otherwise negative act appear more positive.

She said companies often use the term regrettable attrition for good workers they're sorry to see leave. So a term like nonregrettable attrition is a way of "sugarcoating" the fact that an employer is letting people go. Connecting it to attrition is meant, Sucher said, to imply that employers have a handle on the outflow. Yet, she said, attrition isn't always something companies can control.

"The point of attrition is that you're not managing it. It's something that, by and large, happens to you," she said.

'It's not going to soften the blow'

Rahbar, the attorney, said employers' choice of wording when it comes to culling workers isn't about protecting themselves legally. Instead, he said, it's mostly a public-relations dance and, ultimately, one that does little good.

"If you're an employee who is impacted by this, the language they're using to describe it is irrelevant. It's not going to soften the blow," Rahbar said.

Ravin Jesuthasan, a coauthor of the book "The Skills-Powered Organization" and the global leader for transformation services at the consulting firm Mercer, told BI that employers have been cutting jobs for more than a century when business falters.

"I don't know why there was a need to introduce new language," he said.

In some cases, the words aren't new; they're just redeployed, reassigned, or transitioned to a new role. In Champion's memo at Meta, she wrote that the company was "aiming to exit" an additional 5% of its workers who'd been around long enough to get a performance rating.

"'Exit' as in GTFO!" one X user posted.

Not all euphemisms might be as likely to whip up worker cynicism, of course. The practice of scoring workers based on various metrics and getting rid of the worst performers sometimes goes by the human-resources shorthand "rank and yank."

Corporatespeak can also be a handy way to add levity in uncertain times. One social media user wrote on X about what might happen when artificial intelligence shows up to make cutbacks, oblique language in tow.

"Humans will become 'Non-Regrettable Attrition' for AI," the person wrote.

Do you have something to share about job cuts or something else at work? Business Insider would like to hear from you. Email our workplace team from a nonwork device at thegrind@businessinsider.com with your story, or ask for one of our reporters' Signal numbers.

Read the original article on Business Insider
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The Ashton Jeanty Bears Smoke Just Got Even Thicker

The draft is three weeks away now. GM Ryan Poles and head coach Ben Johnson have pieced together an off-season that is earning widespread praise across the league. The question is whether they can stick the landing with their 1st round pick in the draft. Current projections have the top three picks likely being a mix of Cam Ward, Travis Hunter, and Abdul Carter. After that, it gets tricky. People in Chicago want to know where running back Ashton Jeanty will end once the dust settles.

Widespread belief has been that the Las Vegas Raiders are the heavy favorites to take him at 6th overall, with New Orleans at #9 also being a possibility. It makes sense. Las Vegas’ best option right now is a 33-year-old Raheem Mostert. New Orleans knows Alvin Kamara turns 30 in July. Both teams need to think about the future at that position. Both have head coaches who like to run the ball. One thing is clear. A source told SM that those around the league believe one thing is certain.

“He likely won’t get passed Chicago if he falls that far.”

Ashton Jeanty is a strong probability for the Bears.

Whispers from Halas Hall indicate they love the Boise State star. It isn’t hard to see why. He nearly broke Barry Sanders’ single-season rushing record in 2024, nearly winning the Heisman in the process. The guy carried his team to the college football playoffs. He’s built like a brick house with power, speed, contact balance, and vision. There aren’t any truly glaring weaknesses in his game. He’s earned comparisons to the likes of LaDainian Tomlinson and Marshawn Lynch. The Bears haven’t had a back of that caliber since Matt Forte.

Try to imagine what this offense could look like with Ashton Jeanty, Rome Odunze, D.J. Moore, and Cole Kmet all as options for quarterback Caleb Williams. Throw all of it into Johnson’s offense, and you can understand why some people around the league aren’t wild about the idea. They are quietly hoping Jeanty goes somewhere else. One thing is certain. If he gets past the Raiders, the noise will get loud in a hurry. It would mark the first time in 20 years the Bears have taken a running back in the 1st round.

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