Every October, we complete our forecasting and plan for the following year, and October 2024 was one of our more difficult planning seasons. Our business had been severely impacted by enterprise tech layoffs and the shifting dynamic of how those clients choose to engage with us. We were in the late stages of a long transition from a traditional staffing company to a services company. The news was telling us that AI was coming for content jobs. With all that in the mix, we still had to come up with a plan and budget for 2025 that would sustain our mission of creating good jobs.
So, how’s business going? There are many things to celebrate.
Our managed work practice continues to grow with our current client base, and we’re adding new clients, which has been exciting and tracks to our planning. Our operating principle is to deliver content that meets or exceeds our own high bar while creating a white-glove client experience, and this has resonated. Much of the work that we planned to sunset in June has been extended, which is a pleasant surprise.
We have been implementing responsible and impactful use of AI, with human discernment throughout the process, and are seeing interest in and benefits to the processes we have created. Our Insights (user research) practice has proven to have market demand and to be financially sustainable; we anticipate it to show continued growth. Focus on human-centered design is only going to be more critical in the age of AI.
But it hasn’t all been butterflies and roses. We lost, or had budgets reduced for, some long-term engagements, and the impact of that is so hard; the talented folks on those engagements must either be re-deployed, or if we can’t find another role for them, let go into a really tough job market.
As our business has shifted away from the traditional staffing model to services, our systems have had to adapt. We’re not quite large enough for major enterprise solutions, but not small enough that we can rely on manual work tracking solutions like spreadsheets. The team has been working to build our own tools and systems that meet our current needs, which themselves seem to be ever-changing, with internal stakeholders in different seats with different demands that evolve with the market. We have to build new tools while maintaining our existing methods to keep all the plates spinning—and this always comes with challenges.
Overall, it’s complicated! But I am incredibly optimistic about 2025 H2 and beyond. We are tracking very close to our revenue forecast and our budget for the year, we have been connecting our systems in ways they have never been connected, we’re still providing good jobs, and we are proving we can do that while being financially sustainable. As hard and as complicated as it gets around here, being able to come in each day and buy in to that mission keeps me going.
I’m interested to hear what your experience has been in the first half of 2025. Whether you work at Steyer or are just a casual Workings reader, reach out to me and let me know. I can be reached at tbatista@steyer.net.
Thanks,
Tony
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash