When "Transformation" Becomes a Warning Sign: A Follow-Up on Corporate Culture and the True Cost of Cutting People

A little over a year ago, I wrote an open letter to PwC's new US Senior Partner after being one of 1,800 people laid off in what was then described as the firm's first formal layoffs since 2009. I wrote that letter with hope—hope that the painful lessons from that mass departure would lead to more empathetic leadership, that the remaining employees would be treated with the dignity and care they deserved, and that the firm would use this moment as an opportunity to rebuild a culture of trust rather than continue to erode it.

Instead, what followed was a masterclass in how not to lead a people-centered organization.

The Numbers Tell a Story

Since that October 2024 layoff, PwC has continued down a path that prioritizes short-term "transformation" over long-term cultural sustainability:

• May 2025: Another 1,500 employees were let go from audit and tax divisions, representing 2% of the 75,000-person US workforce

• November 2025: 150 more cuts in business services—marketing, HR, operations, IT, and communications—with US COO Tim Grady stating that "further resource actions" are expected

• Creative Department: The entire creative team was eliminated—approximately 40 people whose years of institutional knowledge and brand expertise were deemed expendable

  
  

In total, over 3,450 US employees have been let go in just over a year. Globally, PwC reduced its workforce by 5,600 in fiscal 2025, abandoning a 2021 pledge to hire 100,000 new employees by mid-2026.

But here's what troubles me most: This is only "about halfway" through a two-year "transformation journey" that began in 2022. More cuts are coming. The word "transformation" has been used so many times in internal communications that employees now recognize it as code for job insecurity.

When Leadership Chooses the Easy Path

David Wecal, a veteran creative director with over 25 years of experience with PwC, recently published an article on LinkedIn that resonated deeply with me. He describes a pivotal moment early in his tenure when he contemplated doing exactly what the current leadership has done—firing the entire internal creative staff to bring in his own people and external agencies. It would have been easy. It would have saved money in the short term. It would have let him "put his mark" on the organization.

But he received crucial advice from John O'Connor, then Vice Chairman of the firm: "Don't fire anyone. You will need them, and you'll need them on your side."

Wecal took that advice. He invested time in building relationships, earned trust through showing his team that he valued their expertise, and created what would eventually become an award-winning in-house creative group—one that was named In-house Agency of the Year just last year.

That team no longer exists. Decades of institutional knowledge, brand expertise, and relationship capital—gone in a series of Microsoft Teams calls.

Wecal writes something that every leader should internalize: "The people you save in a company will recognize you had a choice and power to, quite frankly, derail their lives. Trust and loyalty are earned, but once attained valuable."

The Ripple Effects Are Already Here

I want to be crystal clear about something: these decisions will have profound, measurable impacts on PwC's performance and culture. This isn't speculation—we've seen this play out countless times across industries.

When you eliminate entire departments, when you treat people as "resources" to be optimized, when you prioritize AI investments over humans, here's what happens:

The trust erosion: Current employees note that, the sad part, it isn't low performers being cut. It is anyone and everyone. When people see that performance doesn't matter, that years of service don't matter, that expertise doesn't matter—why would they invest their discretionary effort in the organization's success?

The knowledge drain: Marketing strategies, client relationships, creative processes, HR institutional knowledge—these don't live in company databases. They live in people's heads and in the relationships they've built over the years. When you eliminate those people, you eliminate that intelligence.

The survivor's burden: Those who remain aren't relieved—they're traumatized. They're watching colleagues with 20 to 30 years of service escorted out while simultaneously being told to do more with less. The mental health toll is real and lasting.

The client impact: Clients don't care about your "transformation journey." They care about consistent service, deep expertise, and relationships built over time. When the people who understand their business are gone, that continuity disappears.

AI Is Not a Culture Strategy

PwC invested nearly $1.5 billion in AI capabilities this year. That's a significant bet on technology as the solution to slowing revenue growth. But here's what they're missing: AI can augment human capability, but it cannot replace human judgment, creativity, empathy, or the nuanced understanding that comes from years of experience.

More importantly, AI cannot build trust with your clients or create psychological safety within your teams. Those require human leadership that genuinely values people.

I think about Tim Ryan, PwC's former US Chairman, who, during the COVID-19 pandemic, chose to hold onto his people when many other firms were laying off hundreds. The firm didn't just survive—it thrived. That's what people-first leadership looks like, and that's the kind of leadership that builds loyalty, inspires innovation, and drives sustainable success.

The Culture You Build Is the Future You Get

Here's what I've learned through my own journey—from being laid off by PwC to now serving as Chief Operations Officer at Hyphens and Spaces alongside my wife and business partner, Samira Abdul-Karim: You cannot build a thriving organization without genuinely caring about the people within it.

This isn't aspirational corporate speak. This is the hard truth that separates organizations that endure from those that merely exist quarter to quarter.

At Hyphens and Spaces, we work with a range of mission-driven organizations—from nonprofits and social cause initiatives to academia, healthcare, and clean energy sectors—where the connection between culture and impact is impossible to ignore. We've seen firsthand what happens when leadership teams prioritize culture alongside strategy:

• Employee engagement rises, which directly correlates with client satisfaction

• Innovation increases because people feel safe to take risks

• Retention improves, saving enormous costs in recruiting and training

• Business results follow because committed people deliver exceptional work

We help organizations conduct DEIA system assessments, develop HR strategies, create leadership development programs, and build cultures where equity isn't just a goal but a daily reality. This work isn't tangential to business success—it is business success.

The irony of my experience isn't lost on me. I now spend my days helping organizations avoid the very mistakes that were made at PwC. I help leadership teams understand that "transformation" without empathy is just destruction with better branding.

What Organizations Need Right Now

If you're a leader reading this—whether you're at PwC or any other organization facing similar pressures—here's what I want you to understand:

Layoffs have a place in business strategy. Sometimes market conditions genuinely require difficult decisions. But the how matters as much as the what. The speed, the communication, the humanity (or lack thereof) in the process—these define your culture more than any value statement on your website.

When employees learn they're being laid off through cryptic Microsoft Teams invites marked "time sensitive," when access is cut off immediately in low-risk environments, when entire departments are eliminated without opportunity for transition or dignity—you're sending a message to everyone: people are disposable.

That message doesn't fade when the layoffs are done. It lingers. It shapes every interaction afterward. It determines whether people give you their best work or just enough to get by while they update their resumes.

A Different Path Forward

What if instead of "transformation" through elimination, we talked about transformation through investment in people?

What if we asked: How do we help our teams develop the skills they need for an AI-augmented future? How do we create pathways for people to move into areas of growth? How do we maintain institutional knowledge while evolving our capabilities?

These questions require more effort than mass layoffs. They require actual leadership—the kind that sees people as assets to develop rather than costs to eliminate.

This is the work Samira and I do every day at Hyphens and Spaces. We help organizations:

• Build cultures of belonging where diverse perspectives drive innovation

• Develop leadership capabilities that balance business results with human dignity

• Create systems and processes that support both efficiency and employee well-being

• Navigate change in ways that preserve trust and psychological safety

• Align values with practices so that organizational culture isn't just aspirational

We work with organizations that understand a fundamental truth: when you care about your employees, they care about your customers, and that's how you move the needle.

To My Former Colleagues

To the more than 3,450 people who've been let go from PwC in the past year—dozens of whom I know personally, worked alongside, and deeply respect:

Your contributions mattered. Your expertise was real. Your institutional knowledge was valuable. The fact that it wasn't valued by this particular leadership at this particular moment doesn't diminish its worth.

I hope you find organizations that recognize what you bring. I hope you land in places where culture isn't just a poster on the wall but a lived experience. I hope you find leaders who understand that you are not a "resource" to be "optimized"—you are a person whose skills, experience, and humanity deserve respect.

And to David Wecal's advice: stay close to the mothership if you can. Form teams. Keep taking the high road. Your expertise didn't disappear just because your badge access did.

To Current and Future PwC Leadership

I still hold hope—perhaps naively—that someone in leadership will recognize the path you're on and choose differently. Not because it's easy, but because it's right.

Culture is fragile. It takes years to build and moments to destroy. Every decision you make either deposits into or withdraws from the trust account you have with your people. Right now, that account is deeply overdrawn.

"Transformation" is only valuable if you're transforming into something better. From where I sit, watching this unfold, I don't see transformation. I see the systematic dismantling of the very relationships and institutional knowledge that made PwC successful in the first place.

You can't AI your way out of a culture crisis. You can't automate trust. You can't outsource loyalty.

The Choice Is Always Ours

Every organization reaches inflection points where leadership must choose between the easy path and the right path. The easy path optimizes for the next quarter's numbers. The right path invests in long-term sustainability, even when it's harder to measure or defend in a board presentation.

At Hyphens and Spaces, despite our own challenges in a difficult business environment, Samira and I have chosen to stay true to our values. We've chosen to demonstrate through our own actions what we encourage in our clients: that you can be both successful and humane, that profitability and people-first culture aren't opposing forces, and that the organizations that thrive over time are those that genuinely invest in their people.

We're not naive. We understand market pressures, economic uncertainty, and the realities of running a business. But we also understand something that seems to be lost in many boardrooms: the way you treat people during difficult times defines you far more than how you act when times are easy.

What Comes Next

This article isn't just about PwC. It's about a broader question facing organizations everywhere: What kind of company do you want to be?

Do you want to be the kind of organization people talk about with warmth and gratitude when they reflect on their careers? Or do you want to be the cautionary tale—the example of what happens when leadership loses sight of the fact that organizations are made up of human beings, not just "human resources"?

The layoffs will continue. The "transformation" will proceed. But the cost—measured in broken trust, lost expertise, damaged morale, and eroded culture—will far exceed whatever short-term savings appear on a spreadsheet.

I've watched this story unfold from both inside and outside. I've lived it personally. And I now work every day to help other organizations avoid writing the same painful chapter.

To leaders everywhere: your people are watching. They're watching how you handle difficult decisions. They're watching whether your values show up in your actions. They're watching whether you see them as human beings or line items on a budget.

What they see will determine not just whether they stay, but whether they give you their best while they're there.

Choose wisely.

Yusef Ramelize

Co-founder and Chief Operations Officer

www.hyphensandspaces.com

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About Hyphens and Spaces

Hyphens and Spaces partners with organizations committed to making a difference—from nonprofits and social cause organizations to academia, healthcare, clean energy, and beyond. Founded by Yusef Ramelize and Samira Abdul-Karim, we build workplace cultures where equity, belonging, and excellence intersect through comprehensive culture strategy, DEIA system assessments, HR consulting, and leadership development.

Our approach is different: We don't just audit culture—we help you build it. We don't just identify problems—we co-create sustainable solutions. And we don't just deliver reports—we partner with you to implement meaningful change that drives both people and business outcomes.

If your organization is ready to invest in culture as a strategic imperative rather than a compliance exercise, we'd be honored to talk with you.

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Because the organizations that thrive aren't just those with the best strategy—they're those with the strongest culture.