Lead From Within: Levi’s CHRO Tracy Layney on Burnout, Empathy and Leading Through Crises

Tracy Layney’s first week as Chief HR Officer at Levi Strauss & Co was not the usual welcome tour.

It was March 2020. Stores were closing. Borders were shutting. A workforce of 20,000 people spread across 50 countries, was looking to her for guidance.

The initial focus was obvious: keep people physically safe. But within days, a second crisis was impossible to ignore.

That realization shaped her leadership from day one. Physical safety could be addressed with clear protocols. Protecting mental health would require something else entirely: openness, empathy, and a culture that gave people permission to say, “I’m not okay.”

Tracy didn’t start her career in HR. After studying English literature, she landed in organizational strategy consulting, work that married data with the human side of change. It taught her how to connect the dots between business goals and people’s experience at work.

Over time, that combination of “art and science” led her into senior HR roles at companies including Gap Inc., Shutterfly, and eventually Levi Strauss & Co. No matter the company, the focus was the same: helping people perform at their best while creating cultures strong enough to weather change.

A decade before her Levi’s chapter, Tracy faced a challenge that would change how she worked forever.

As SVP of HR for Old Navy, she was on a steep upward trajectory but the pace was punishing. “I had forgotten – maybe never learned – how to set boundaries at work,” she recalls. “You think you can just keep going, but eventually there are no more hours in the day and no more energy to give.”

She hit burnout. The real kind. “Every second of every day felt deeply painful because there was no reserve left.”

Tracy took a year away to recover. More importantly, she used that time to learn how to protect her energy and set limits. Those practices are still with her, and they’ve become part of the message she shares with every leader she mentors.

At Levi’s, Tracy made sure mental health wasn’t just a line in the benefits handbook. Senior leaders spoke openly about their own struggles. Mental health resource groups gave employees space to connect. Programs were reviewed for relevance and uptake, not just cost.

And HR was always the first to pilot new initiatives. “It sent a clear message,” she says. “If you’re caring for everyone else, you need to be cared for, too.”

The pandemic made this work urgent. Uncertainty, isolation, and constant change had taken their toll and those effects haven’t disappeared. “The problem hasn’t gone away,” she says. “If anything, it’s not getting better.”

Tracy believes the last few years have shown us the new normal: multiple disruptions, often at once. From economic shocks to political unrest to new ways of working, each adds pressure to people’s mental health.

Her guidance to leaders is clear:

• Remove low-value work so people can focus on what matters.
• Equip managers to have real, human conversations about wellbeing.
• Watch for the signs, in culture and workload – that people are stretched too thin.

Because thriving teams aren’t just good for morale – they’re essential for performance.

By 2030, Tracy sees HR leading an even broader remit: culture, crisis response, talent, wellbeing, and the integration of human and non-human colleagues. Whatever the title becomes, the mission stays the same:

“It’s about keeping the human at the center, even as we go through the most rapid disruption of our careers.”

In this episode of Lead from Within, Tracy opens up about her journey – from her first week at Levi’s amid a global crisis, to the year she stepped away to recover from burnout, to her vision for the future of work.

It’s a candid, practical, and deeply human conversation about what it takes to lead in disruptive times.

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube and hear the full story, in her own words.