It’s a busy time of year with numerous holidays and year-end wrap-ups, so we are combining our November and December HR News Roundups into one issue. This issue features items on the crisis of trust in leaders, the “No-Fire Season,” mental health in small businesses, recruiting & more. Don’t miss our holiday items in the lighter side!
Most Employees Don’t Trust Their Leaders. Here’s What to Do About It
Ned Feuer and Maggie Mastrogiovanni, Harvard Business Review
“As it stands, many leaders are on shakier ground than they might think. Last year, Gartner surveyed more than 3,500 employees about trust at their organization and found that less than half (48%) trust their senior leaders. Because the overall environment isn’t likely to get less volatile anytime soon, we believe leaders will be facing this critical challenge for the foreseeable future: How can they make tough strategic decisions while also maintaining an engaged and trusting workforce?”
The Case for ‘a Deliberate Redesign of the People Leader Role’
Ginger Christ, HR Dive
The people leader role is in need of “a deliberate redesign,” according to research released Friday by global HR research and advisory firm McLean & Co.
In its current iteration, the demands of the people leader role, coupled with increasing complexity, evolving employee expectations and continuous change, are “pushing the role to an unsustainable point,” research found.
No-Fire Season Is Real — Here’s Why Smart Companies Observe It
Suzanne Lucas (aka “Evil HR Lady”), Inc.
It’s officially no-fire season — that is, unless someone commits an egregious act— you don’t terminate employees from the week before Thanksgiving until January.
That’s the rule from employment attorney Todd Stanton, and it’s a good one.
What’s the reason behind this rule? You may think that it’s just to be nice —nobody wants to lose their job around the holidays. And this is true. It is nice not to terminate people around the holidays. But it’s also arm of protection for your company.
Letting people go before Christmas is generally a no-no, by tradition and because it could increase the chance of a lawsuit.
Related: Holiday “No-Fire” Season? Yes … But Not Always
Report: Mental Health is Top Workplace Safety Concern for Small Business Employees
Jay Kumar, EHSLeaders
A new survey of more than 1,000 small business employees found that stress, burnout, and mental fatigue are their top workplace safety concerns, ahead of physical injury or environmental hazards. Pie Insurance’s 2025 Employee Voice on Workplace Safety Report is based on data gathered from an online survey conducted in July 2025 of 1,021 U.S. small business employees. According to the report:
-32% of employees cite mental health as their #1 safety concern, ahead of physical injury (20%) or environmental hazards (9%)
-43% say they feel pressure to work through fatigue, illness, or unsafe conditions to meet deadlines or quotas
-91% of employers are confident they can address mental health, but only 62% of employees agree
-Three in four employees say some form of mental health support would make a meaningful difference in their work and wellbeing
Related: Eliminating Mental Health Stigma at Work
Best of Recruiting 2025
Staff, HR Daily Advisor
2025 has been a year of shakeups and constant changes, especially for recruiters. The role of associates to executives continue to shift and expand, and the advent of AI has really challenged HR professionals to rethink how and why they hire. Luckily, HR Daily Advisor has been there every step of the way, keeping you up to date on the latest changes, and armed with the best strategies HR leaders and talent acquisition experts have to offer. Let’s take a look back at the best of recruiting 2025!
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Building a Crisis-Ready Culture That Protects Your Employees and Brand
Sujay Saha, HR Daily Advisor
Major natural disasters often devastate businesses or send them into a chaotic scramble mode. The results can be job losses or altered roles for employees, disruption for customers, and lengthy closures for repairs.
Such difficult circumstances raise the stakes considerably for how affected brands, their leaders, and human resources teams respond to the crisis. The response requires the proper balance of meeting customers’ needs and addressing the staff’s well-being.
HR News Roundup: Quick Takes
- 7 Things New Supervisors Should Do in Their First 6 Months on the Job
- Employers That Pay Biweekly May Have 27 Paydays in 2026. Are You Ready?
- An Employer’s Easy Guide to Reasonable Accommodation
- When an Employee Requests Leave from Work, It’s Easy to Respond with Cynicism. Next Time, Respond with Kindness
- How This Dump Manager Reveals the Secret of Happy, Engaged Employees
- How To Deal With Difficult People At Work: 4 Secrets From Experts
- Workers Say Pay Isn’t Keeping Up with Cost of Living
- Fear of AI-Driven Job Displacement Nearly Doubles in a Year: KPMG
- Athletes Who Win Know How to Manage Their Anger
- Unused PTO: A Red Flag that Employees Are About to Bolt?
- Leaders: Learn How to Conduct Good Meetings
- The Leadership Skills You Learn from Raising Kids
From the Lighter Side …
- First, we point you to a fun holiday blog we posted a few years ago that still holds up: Evaluating Santa’s dual roles as employer and employee. We really took him to task for some egregious employment practices. And don’t miss the fun video offering a peek into how professional Santas are trained at the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School in Michigan. The school has been training Santas since 1937! Here’s a wonderful vintage photo gallery from the same Santa School, shot by noted photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt that appeared In a 1961 Life Magazine. It’s well worth a look.
- And while on the topic of Santa, check out USPS Operation Santa, where you can read letters to Santa and help make a holiday wish come true. Also, be sure to bookmark the Norad Santa Tracker so you can follow his route.
- 30 Unique Ways Christmas Is Celebrated Around the World – This article says, “While Christmas is, at its core, a Christian holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, over the centuries different cultures have blended it with their own histories and values—and of course, consumerist tendencies.” From Krampus in Austria to Kentucky Fried Chicken dinners in Japan, this article looks at the many ways that 30 countries celebrate.
- When you ask a cardiac nurse to hang the garland.
- Americans buy 75 million cans a year, with 85 percent sold during the Thanksgiving to Christmas season. The New York Times shows how the canned cranberry jelly is made, from the farm to the factory. It’s a pretty colorful process!
- Reader’s Digest offers 55 New Year’s Resolutions You’ll Want to Keep. There’s some great, positive suggestions!
HR News – Blog posts you may have missed