(MENAFN- The Arabian Post)

By K Raveendran

The narrative circulating among professionals in high-performing technology firms is increasingly marked by anxiety. Reports of employees receiving lay-off notifications at 3 a.m. are emblematic of a culture in which even top-paid staff feel tethered to the abyss of“you may not be here tomorrow”. The juxtaposition of lucrative compensation and precarious job security is no longer paradoxical; for many in these organisations, it is the lived reality. As firms pursue leaner models, executives frame layoffs and restructuring as cultural resets or strategic re-alignments, but for employees the outcome feels more like an existential threat to stability and identity.

At the heart of the issue is the experimentation with an operating model in which constant readiness, extreme performance and night-end deadlines are the norm-and“excess capacity” of any kind is treated as disposable. One employee at a leading e-commerce firm reportedly received a lay-off notice at 3 a.m., evidence of the abruptness and unpredictability that now characterises employment in sectors once thought immune to such volatility. This sense of working under constant pressure - late nights, increasing workload for the already willing - mines at both the professional and personal life of workers. The impression that every high-paid staffer is at risk of an unceremonious exit has become institutionalised.

Companies such as Amazon have publicly declared their prioritisation of“culture” over simply cost-cutting or technology automation. The CEO stated layoffs were about making the organisation“lean, flat and fast-moving”, not about immediate financial crisis or artificial intelligence-driven job elimination. Critics argue that such framing masks deeper economic imperatives. The optics of culture-driven change suggest a veneer of mission, but for workers the effect is no less real: the removal of layers, the intensification of speed, the message that no role is safe.

The consequences of this shift in culture extend beyond individual job loss. Research shows that when layoffs become routine or even anticipated, organisational culture shifts from collaboration to survival. Employees begin to prioritise optics over innovation, personal relationships over team building, and risk avoidance over experimentation. They adapt to a state of heightened alertness: sleep struggles, anxiety, and lower engagement follow from this environment of uncertainty. Data reveals that in organisations undergoing layoffs or where lay-off rumours persist, engagement rates drop notably-well-beyond the direct impact on those dismissed. The psychological contract-between worker and employer-erodes when loyalty is no longer rewarded with security.

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This is especially relevant for professionals whose roles are highly compensated and thus implicitly more secure. In earlier decades, a high-salary tech job implied a buffer-as compensation rose, job loss became less likely. Today that buffer appears to be evaporating. Titles and pay no longer guarantee safety. For many, the only hedge is to remain ultra-visible, ultra-productive, and ultra-adaptable. The danger is that this mindset becomes self-perpetuating: those who stay are given more work, more deadlines, and more breadth of responsibility, reinforcing the idea that the job is conditional on levels of output that might be unsustainable in the longer term.

This also raises broader questions for the sector. If the operating paradigm is ever-motion, ever-stretch, then the workers carry the cost of adapting to perpetual reorganisation. The companies, in framing these moves as“cultural resets” or“lean performance models”, are arguing that agility and competitiveness in the digital economy warrant these shifts. Yet the human cost of that competitiveness is evident in deteriorating trust, increasing turnover intentions among surviving staff, and the erosion of psychological safety-a factor strongly correlated with innovation and creative thinking. Without a sense of safety, staff work not from curiosity, but from survival.

In turn, the broader implication is that talent strategies in Big Tech may increasingly resemble short-term performance-based models rather than long-term career trajectories. For professionals who once believed they had entered a culture that valued longevity, mentorship, and deep skills development, the message now is that fit is transient-what you do now and how you adapt now matters more than what you built over time. This shift can inhibit the development of deeper domain expertise, hamper professional growth and prompt questionings: is the job worth the trade-offs? For workers experiencing 3 a.m. lay-off notifications or being loaded with ever-growing workload, the answer may increasingly be no.

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The risk this presents to companies lies in morale and talent attrition. Organisations may succeed in trimming costs and speeding decision-making, but they may also erode the very innovation culture they claim to preserve. If people are always looking over their shoulder, authenticity and risk-taking can vanish. The long-term dividend of a workforce that feels resilient, valued and safe may be undermined by the short-term gains of a leaner structure. For employees, coping strategies will increasingly involve outside options, less emotional attachment to employer brand and greater proactivity in career management.

The tech industry is thus facing a paradox: in the name of agility and efficiency it is creating conditions that are fundamentally obstructive to the kind of deep, creative, risk-bearing work that once defined it. Professionals are now forced to operate in environments where stability is myth, burn-rate is cultural, and exit is just one unexpected email away. This transformation demands a reassessment of the employee-employer compact, and raises urgent questions about sustainable work practices in a sector that continues to do more with fewer, often at the expense of the individuals who deliver. (IPA Service )

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