HUMAN CAPITAL PULSE: TECHNOLOGY · ISSUE 8 · AUGUST 2026
A monthly Human Capital benchmark for HR and People leaders in Technology: the sector's talking points and how culture, workforce and talent compare across your peers, built on Deltabase data covering 5,500+ companies and 11M employee reviews.
Editor's note
August's flexibility debate came with a hard edge. TikTok told most US staff to return five days a week, Apple trimmed its Siri and Vision Pro teams, and Layoffs.fyi showed 2026 tech cuts already past the whole of 2025. Attendance rules and restructures both test how much autonomy people feel they have. This issue benchmarks Empowered sentiment, the Culture Framework's autonomy measure, across ten Technology leaders.
Leroy Hall, Deltabase
The month in three
1. TikTok orders US staff back five days a week
What happened: TikTok expects most US workers in the office five days a week from September, Business Insider reported, via KRON4. Some hybrid teams currently work remotely one day a week, and many San Francisco AI start-ups already require full-time attendance.
The Deltabase lens: Culture: Five-day attendance need not sink sentiment. Amazon, which From Day One notes has kept a five-day policy since 2025, improved its Work-Life Balance NSS from −35.3% to −33.2% in 2025 (18,337 reviews) and Empowered from −4.6% to +3.5%, though both trail IBM (+40.9% and −3.6%).
So what: Measure Work-Life Balance and Empowered sentiment before and after any attendance change, so the debate runs on evidence.
2. Apple cuts more than 200 Siri and Vision Pro roles
What happened: Apple is cutting more than 200 positions, about 100 on Vision Pro and about 100 across Siri and Intelligent Systems Experience, as it refocuses on newer AI efforts and devices, TechCrunch reported, citing Bloomberg. Apple said it "will create new roles as part of this change".
The Deltabase lens: Turnover: The cuts are small against Apple's hiring. It added 49,366 people in January–July 2026, up 128.9% on a year earlier, while average monthly turnover eased from 1.10% to 1.05%. Talent: 9.7% of its workforce lists AI skills.
So what: Targeted cuts amid heavy hiring call for clear internal mobility, so affected specialists can see the new roles first.
3. 2026 tech layoffs pass last year's total
What happened: Layoffs.fyi counted 125,759 tech employees laid off across 264 companies by 6 August, already above 122,606 for all of 2025, IBTimes UK reported. Google's 52 Washington state cuts included software engineering managers, UX designers and senior product managers; it called them a team-level reorganisation.
The Deltabase lens: Workforce: Alphabet's Tech function carries more managers than its peers: 14.2% of its Tech profiles sit at Manager level, against 7.2% at Meta, 2.2% at Microsoft and 1.6% at IBM.
So what: Manager layers are where reorganisations land first. Know your span-of-control picture against peers before someone else draws it for you.
Stat of the month
+30.4%: Arm's Empowered NSS in 2025, up from −8.3% and the highest of ten Technology Top 100 companies, as the sector median rose from −7.6% to −6.3%.
| Company | Culture: Empowered NSS, 2025 (2024) | Turnover: avg monthly, Jan–Jul 2026 (2025) | Talent: % with change management skills |
|---|
| Arm Holdings | +30.4% (−8.3%) | 0.53% (0.58%) | 3.2% |
| Amazon | +3.5% (−4.6%) | 1.35% (1.49%) | 1.5% |
| Alphabet (Google) | +0.7% (−2.9%) | 0.65% (0.80%) | 2.8% |
| IBM | −3.6% (−14.8%) | 0.65% (0.91%) | 6.3% |
| Microsoft | −9.1% (−16.3%) | 1.56% (1.63%) | 6.7% |
| Apple | −34.4% (−29.6%) | 1.05% (1.10%) | 2.0% |
Source: Deltabase Culture data, Employee Net Sentiment Score (−100% to +100%), 2024–2025; sector median across Microsoft, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta Platforms, IBM, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP and Arm Holdings. Deltabase Employee Turnover data, average monthly turnover January–July 2026 (January–July 2025 in brackets). Deltabase Talent data.
Spotlight: Apple vs Alphabet
Two consumer-tech giants with different pain points. On Culture, Alphabet (Google) scored +14.8% overall in 2025 (7,280 reviews) against +7.8% at Apple (3,916 reviews), and −20.3% on Work-Life Balance against −42.5%. Google's weak spot is Agility & Bureaucracy, at −83.1% against −53.4% at Apple. On Talent, Alphabet's bench is deeper in data and AI: 23.5% list AI skills, 14.5% machine learning and 23.4% Python, against 9.7%, 7.1% and 14.6% at Apple. On Workforce, Alphabet's turnover averaged 0.65% a month in January–July 2026 against 1.05% at Apple, with median tenure of 4.6 years against 4.1.
For your People team
- Baseline Empowered and Work-Life Balance sentiment before changing attendance rules, then re-check after six months.
- Open new roles to affected staff first when cutting specialist teams during a hiring push.
- Benchmark manager share by function against named peers ahead of any reorganisation.
See how your Human Capital compares with your Technology peers. Book a 30-minute benchmark walkthrough across culture, workforce and talent. Book a walkthrough →
Sources: KRON4 via Yahoo Finance, citing Business Insider (11 August 2026); From Day One (11 August 2026); TechCrunch, citing Bloomberg (21 August 2026); IBTimes UK, citing Layoffs.fyi (8 August 2026); Deltabase Culture data; Deltabase Workforce data; Deltabase Talent data; Deltabase Employee Turnover data.