In this episode of Frequency, Jenni Field and Chuck Gose work through a week of rising costs, shrinking headcounts, and a rare bit of good news for PR, before landing on why "restructuring" has become the most trusted-sounding word companies use to say the least.
They open with the strange things people post online, including a genuinely dark one: an employee who posted a photo of a deceased family member inside their company's internal app, then kept re-posting it after it was removed. Where's the line on employee-generated content, and what does that moment say about people needing somewhere to grieve?
Then the stories. US employer healthcare costs are set to rise 9.2% to 11.1% in 2027, the steepest jump since 2003 and up 76% over the past decade. Employers have quietly cut GLP-1 coverage from 72% to 60% in a single year, the benefit people want most, while Business Group on Health's Ellen Kelsay calls it an "existential reckoning." Chuck's take is blunt: rising costs don't force you to pass them to employees, especially in a year of record profits. Jenni brings the UK view, where the NHS changes the maths but private cover is getting the same GLP-1 scrutiny.
Next, the Challenger numbers. August brought 52,000-plus announced job cuts, up 58% from July, led by consumer products and food (Tyson alone was nearly a third of its sector). But year-to-date cuts are down 41%, hiring announcements are up 725%, and AI has dropped to the fourth-most-cited reason after five months on top. The pair dig into why "restructuring," the vaguest word on the list, is the one everyone reaches for.
That runs straight into Uber, cutting roughly 3,300 jobs (about 10%) to remove "managers who manage managers," while pushing remote work to near zero and hybrid staff back three days a week. Revenue has tripled in five years, so this is a profitable company choosing lean. Chuck reads a threat in the "smarter and leaner" framing; Jenni argues faster decisions come from fixing process, not cutting people. Both land on the same word: greed.
They close the news with Lindsay Bennett's "new communications playbook." Same job title, different job: media relations in 2022, AI visibility and GEO in 2026. Earned media now has two audiences, the human today and the AI tomorrow. PR is "cool again," so the question is whether internal comms gets the same moment or watches external comms take the budget.
Chuck's freq-out closes the show: a reflection on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and the drive home from Atlanta with three strangers when the skies were empty.
Timestamps- 00:00 — Welcome, and the strangest things people post (including a dark internal-app story)
- 03:34 — US healthcare costs and the quiet GLP-1 pullback
- 09:03 — August job cuts up 58% (and why AI isn't the villain)
- 15:20 — Uber's 3,300 cuts and the RTO bundle
- 20:11 — The new comms playbook: AI, GEO, and "PR is cool again"
- 25:20 — Freq-out: Chuck on 9/11, 25 years on
- 33:09 — Wrap-up
- Employers brace for a record rise in healthcare costs: https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/employers-brace-for-record-rise-in-healthcare-costs-9304042/
- Challenger report: August job cuts up 58%, consumer products and food lead: https://www.challengergray.com/blog/challenger-report-august-job-cuts-up-58-consumer-products-food-lead/
- Uber to cut more than 3,000 jobs in a major restructuring: https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/uber-to-cut-more-than-3k-jobs-in-massive-restructuring-7560948/
- The New Communications Playbook: AI, GEO and the Corporate Creator (Lindsay Bennett): https://mediatrainedhq.substack.com/p/the-new-communications-playbook-ai