Internal CommunicationsJun 23, 2026, 9:50 AM94,307 read

Flatter, faster, freer: how we removed the layers that stood between you and the work

Colleagues, proud news from Internal Communications. To fund the next phase of Cognis, our AI workforce, the Company has completed a programme of reducing layers and removing bureaucracy, and the early numbers are extraordinary: revenue up 23 percent year over year, an 88 percent gross margin, and a structure 14 percent lighter than the one that earned them.

We want to be precise about the language, because precision is a value. We did not lose colleagues; we closed distances. A layer is not a person. It is the space a decision used to travel before it reached you, and roughly 350 of those distances have now been removed. We have also gracefully exited 22 markets, which we prefer to frame as concentrating our belonging.

To the colleagues who were a layer: thank you for the height. A second cold brew tap is confirmed in remaining pantries to mark the new flatness.

The layers are gone. The margin is the message.

122Like
28Love
2,057Hmm
6,391Saddened
8,124Angry

In the press

SynergyCorp applauded for a disciplined, agility-first restructuring — by cutting 14 percent of its people, exiting 22 countries, and reporting record margins in the same breath it called the departed colleagues "layers"

Glassdoor ★ 2.1Comparably: Culture A+

Discussion · 7 comments

Commenting on this announcement has been removed by Trust, Safety & Optics while the new organizational flatness settles. Your perspective remains a layer we value and has been retained for your records and ours.

Tyler Brennan · Associate, Rotational Leadership Program
this is exactly why I joined!! love how flat we are now, you can basically see the CEO from my pod (metaphorically). quick q does being a non-layer show up on the talent dashboard, would love a 'load-bearing' badge so people know i'm the kind of colleague you keep
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- Priya Anand · Program Manager II, Customer Outcomes
  Tyler, the people who got removed also thought they were load-bearing. Please do not ask for the badge.
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you reported a 23 percent jump and an 88 percent margin, then called 350 people the bureaucracy you removed to afford it. a layer is just what you call someone once you've decided the number reads better without them.
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- see also wiki/which-layer-was-i (page not found), wiki/the-22-countries (access denied), wiki/where-the-88-percent-came-from (your team)
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Trust, Safety & Optics · Trust, Safety & Optics
Commenting has been removed while the organizational flatness settles. Reflections remain visible to leadership and have been retained for your belonging record.
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For my own records: the post credits 'reducing layers' with funding both the margin and Cognis, then declines to call it a headcount reduction. Could someone confirm in writing whether the 350 removed 'layers' appear in the same severance line that the 23 percent revenue figure is measured against, and which layer I currently am? Citing the restructuring policy number would help.
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I ran one of the 22 markets we 'gracefully exited.' There were eleven of us. We found out we were a layer from a press release that called our exit a concentration of belonging. We are not feeling concentrated.
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- [removed by Trust, Safety & Optics]
Marguerite Foss · Principal Advisor, Office of the CEO (Ret. but Retained)
The 1987 memo is unambiguous: "A company is not its scaffolding; it is the height the scaffolding makes possible." Bertrand never loved the layers between him and the work. He loved the day they could finally be taken down. To be removed as a layer is not to be discarded. It is to have been, for a while, what held the rest of us up.
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- scaffolding gets paid until the building stands, marguerite. these layers got removed the week the margin came in.
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Greg Mancini · Director, Regional Operations
Great stuff team.
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