HUMAN CAPITAL ADVISOR BRIEFING · ISSUE 1 · JANUARY 2026
A monthly briefing for consultants and transformation advisers on what's happening in your clients' sectors, plus the Human Capital Intelligence to take into the room. Built on Deltabase data covering 5,500+ companies and 11M employee reviews.
Welcome to the first Human Capital Advisor Briefing. January set the tone for 2026: another round of Big Tech cuts, banks pressing on with multi-year restructures, and UK retailers warning about a tough year ahead. At Davos, PwC's CEO Survey found only one in eight CEOs said AI was both cutting costs and growing revenue. That gap is where your next engagement comes from, and below is the people data to help you open the conversation.
Phil Spratt, CEO & Co-Founder, Deltabase
What happened: On 28 January, Amazon confirmed 16,000 job cuts worldwide, its second round in three months after 14,000 in October. The aim is to remove layers, reduce bureaucracy and expand its use of AI tools. Reuters reported the wider plan targets around 30,000 corporate roles.
The Deltabase lens: Employees already saw the problem Amazon is trying to fix. Agility & Bureaucracy sentiment fell from −25.1% in 2024 to −34.9% in 2025, and Career Progression from −22.3% to −30.9%.
Client angle: Delayering is spreading well beyond Big Tech. Clients planning similar moves need to know where bureaucracy really bites before they cut. Sentiment data shows you that before the first workshop.
What happened: Bloomberg reported on 13 January that Citigroup was preparing to cut around 1,000 more jobs. This is part of the restructure announced in January 2024, which targets around 20,000 roles by 2026 alongside faster AI adoption.
The Deltabase lens: Citi's overall sentiment improved from −5.7% to −3.2% in 2025, but some topics went backwards. Career Progression fell from −29.4% to −47.3% and Empowered from −51.1% to −58.9%. Agility & Bureaucracy is still at −79.4%.
Client angle: A late-stage restructure can look settled at headline level while it erodes the people the bank wants to keep. Topic-level data shows this to transformation sponsors early.
What happened: In trading updates on 8 January, Tesco reported 3.2% underlying UK sales growth and its highest market share in a decade, and M&S food sales rose 5.6%. Next beat expectations but warned that growth will slow. CEO Simon Wolfson pointed to rising costs, more regulation and job displacement from automation and AI. All of this comes as the Employment Rights Act timetable starts in April.
The Deltabase lens: Retail employee sentiment improved across the board in 2025. Nine of the ten retailers in the Deltabase Top 100 moved up, including Next (−20.9% to −11.7%) and M&S (−5.9% to −2.5%).
Client angle: Retailers start 2026 with improving workforce goodwill and rising cost pressure. Advice on efficiency and the workforce model needs to protect the gains rather than undo them.
9 of 10: retailers in the Deltabase Top 100 that improved employee sentiment in 2025. Only 3 of 9 Big Tech companies did.
| Sector | Median NSS 2024 | Median NSS 2025 | Companies improving |
|---|---|---|---|
| Technology | +12.4% | +10.1% | 3 of 9 |
| Banking | −0.7% | +0.2% | 4 of 6 |
| Retail | −4.2% | −1.6% | 9 of 10 |
Source: Deltabase Culture data, Employee Net Sentiment Score (−100% to +100%), calendar years 2024 and 2025. Deltabase Top 100 companies with Culture data. Technology: Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, Arm. Banking: JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group. Retail: Walmart, Costco, Target, Home Depot, Kroger, Tesco, Sainsbury's, M&S, Next, John Lewis & Partners.
Two US banking giants, both investing heavily in AI, with very different starting points. JPMorgan held steady at +4.9% in 2024 and +4.8% in 2025. Citi is closing the gap but is still in negative territory at −3.2%. For anyone advising a bank on transformation, the comparison is useful. Stability gives you room to change, while a restructure that's still running has to win back trust as it goes.
Walk into every pitch with the people data already in hand. Advisers use Deltabase to benchmark culture, talent and workforce trends for any client or target in minutes. See how it works →
Sources: Reuters via The National (28 January 2026); Bloomberg via Zacks/Finviz (13 January 2026); Reuters via Cyprus Mail (8 January 2026); Reuters/Dawn coverage of WEF Davos 2026, including PwC CEO Survey findings; Deltabase Culture data.