---
id: "action-use-attrition"
type: "action-item"
source_timestamps: ["§ What to Do Instead"]
tags: ["workforce-strategy", "retention"]
related: ["concept-anticipatory-ai-layoffs", "framework-effective-ai-implementation"]
speakers: ["Thomas H. Davenport", "Laks Srinivasan"]
action: "Use natural attrition and performance dismissals rather than large-scale layoffs to adjust headcount."
outcome: "Preservation of critical talent, maintenance of institutional knowledge, and protection of employee morale."
sources: ["execution"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-execution"
originDay: 8
articleStem: "hbr-foci-62-layoffs-ai-potential-not-performance"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/01/companies-are-laying-off-workers-because-of-ais-potential-not-its-performance"
sourceTitle: "Companies Are Laying Off Workers Because of AI’s Potential—Not Its Performance"
---
# Rely on Attrition Over Layoffs

**Action:** Manage workforce reductions incrementally through natural employee attrition or standard performance-based dismissals — not large-scale, preemptive, AI-justified layoffs.

**Why:** Preemptive AI layoffs risk eliminating crucial, hard-to-replace talent and damaging morale — the harms catalogued in [[claim-premature-layoffs-consequences]]. Attrition resizes the workforce without the reputational and cynicism costs of [[concept-performative-ai-layoffs]].

**Outcome:** Preservation of critical talent, maintenance of institutional knowledge, and protection of employee morale.

Step 2 of [[framework-effective-ai-implementation]]. Note that [[entity-klarna-d8]] used attrition-and-freeze resizing — the failure there was over-cutting service capacity, not the attrition mechanism itself.


## Related across articles
- [[concept-anticipatory-ai-layoffs]]
- [[question-workforce-reduction]]