A Message from Our CEO – October 2025

“A ship in harbor is safe — but that’s not what ships are built for.”
— John A. Shedd

With today’s job market swooning in uncertainty, employees are taking this opportunity to hug their jobs. How sweet.

The word hug comes from the Old Norse hugga — to comfort. It has biological and evolutionary roots, likely in the primate need for warmth, safety, and bonding. In the workplace, that instinct to hug is for survival not comfort. 

Workers are holding tight to roles they don’t love because the headlines whisper recession, government shutdown, and inflation. 

Too bad for them, jobs don’t hug you back.

For leaders, this presents a subtle crisis. You won’t see resignations; you’ll see something quieter — the slow retreat of enthusiasm. You’ll get attendance, not energy. Compliance, not creativity. This is a workforce that is hanging tight but not fully engaged. They’re suffocating from the hugging. What they really need is a dose of your leadership oxygen to drive organizational innovation. 

Leaders need employees willing to stop clinging — to move, stretch, and challenge themselves: Fully engaged where curiosity is rewarded, mistakes are learning fuel, and “I’m thinking of trying something new” isn’t a threat but a sign of life.

Leaders who recognize this moment have a choice. You can feed the fear by tightening control — or you can invite trust by loosening the grip. Encourage rotation. Celebrate reinvention. Tell your people that professional security doesn’t come from clinging; it comes from capability.

Hugs aren’t meant to last forever. Hold your people close enough to support them, then let them stretch, explore, and maybe even stumble a bit. You’ll earn more loyalty that way than with a lifetime of job-hugging platitudes.

And if all this sounds too soft, remember: culture still eats strategy for breakfast — and then hugs it till it can’t breathe.So yes, give your team the warmth, the reassurance, the hugga they crave. But make sure it comes with a little space to breathe.

Because the job market may be uncertain, but you are better off leading with hope than fear. 

Now go ahead — open your arms. The future’s waiting for leaders that hug back. 

Hugs. Hope. Harmony.

—Warren