News You Can Use: 11/20/2019


Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

  • Executives at Google are under investigation by the board for how they handled sexual harassment

    New York Times expose last October by noting that, at the time, 48 employees had been fired over the prior two years without severance and that 13 of those people were “senior managers or above.”

    Despite this, the on-going reports of sexual harassment have led to increased tensions with the company. 20,000 Google employees would go on to stage a walkout in response to the Times report on November 1st, 2018. Two of the organizers of that walkout, Claire Stapleton and Meredith Whittaker, later reported retaliation from Google earlier this year over that walkout. Stapleton announced in June that she had decided to leave the company entirely due to retaliation, while Whittaker left in July to focus on her work on AI ethics, saying “it’s clear Google isn’t a place where I can continue this work.”

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/6/20952402/google-alphabet-investigation-handling-sexual-harassment-executives-andy-rubin-david-drummond

  • How I learned to curb my tendency to work too much

    Ask yourself, what’s the real root of your need to impress others? What is this weight of responsibility you feel? Who are you afraid of letting down? Answering these questions might feel like a therapy session, but you can’t fix the problem until you know what the problem is. So take the time to dig deep and understand what is fueling your workaholic nature.

    For me, it took a series of micro-moments to break my workaholic ways. Getting married was number one. Then, when my wife got pregnant, I worked harder than ever before: I had the sense of needing to be more responsible, and to me, that meant needing to provide. That was my “why”—and recognizing it was the first step toward finding balance.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90425678/how-i-learned-to-curb-my-tendency-to-work-too-much

  • Why Mike Rowe Says It Can Be Scary to Follow Your Passion

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/video/341433
  • Microsoft Japan’s experiment with 3-day weekend boosts worker productivity by 40 percent

    Last August, Microsoft Japan carried out a “Working Reform Project” called the Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019. For one month last August, the company implemented a three-day weekend every week, giving 2,300 employees every Friday off during the month. This “special paid vacation” did not come at the expense of any other vacation time.

    And the results were pretty incredible!

    First off, the reductions. Employees took 25.4 percent fewer days off during the month, printed 58.7 percent fewer pages, and used 23.1 percent less electricity in the office (since it was closed an extra day). All of these saved the company quite a bit of money.

    Next, the increases. Productivity went up by a staggering 39.9 percent. That means even though the employees were at work for less time, more work was actually getting done.

    https://soranews24.com/2019/11/03/microsoft-japans-experiment-with-3-day-weekend-boosts-worker-productivity-by-40-percent/