Category: Industry News

Posted on

News You Can Use: 3/18/2020


Photo by Kai Pilger on Unsplash

  • The Gig Economy Is a Public Health Risk

    While most of Silicon Valley’s white-collar workers are working from home and the masses are being asked to self-isolate, Uber and Lyft drivers, Grubhub and Seamless delivery drivers, and Instacart shoppers continue to work. After weeks of silence and rolling out policies designed to convince customers to continue using their platforms (“contactless deliveries!”), several companies including Uber, have just rolled out two-weeks of paid sick leave, but even these policies feel dystopian, their subtext being: Keep working until you get the deadly pandemic with an unknown death rate. Then you can self-isolate (without health insurance) and hope you don’t die.

    It’s easy to focus on the gig economy’s lackluster response during the pandemic, but this problem has been years in the making.

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v74qw9/the-gig-economy-is-a-public-health-risk-coronavirus-covid19

  • ‘Everyone is so worried about their job they’re not doing the work’: Confessions of an agency exec

    Do you think this will hurt agencies long-term?
    It is going to be another thing that will hurt them. My sense is that 2020 is going to be a really tough year for agencies. Everyone is nervous about their jobs. Working at an agency is like Lord of the Flies right now. Everyone is so worried about their job they’re not doing the work.

    So people were already scared about their jobs but they’re even more nervous now due to coronavirus?
    Yes. People [have been] so scared about their jobs that they’re willing to throw people under the bus to make sure they have a paycheck coming in every two weeks. It’s becoming a very caustic environment, which is affecting business as a whole because they are not performing at their best. Trust is lacking in leadership. People will want to defend themselves, their paycheck and their family. It’s a critical issue for the industry as a whole.

    https://digiday.com/marketing/everyone-worried-job-theyre-not-work-confessions-agency-exec/

  • Why fighting the coronavirus depends on you
  • Working Remotely Requires Cultural Change, Executives Say

    “The first step [to going remote] is understanding that not every physical process needs an equal virtual process. For example, not every in-person meeting translates to a virtual meeting,” he said.

    CIOs are primed to serve to lead the transition, he said.

    ”This is a giant opportunity for CIOs to make companies more efficient. If you can get a company to the point where people are equally effective when they’re working from home, you give your team members a lot more freedom and you create a lot more opportunities,” Mr. Sijbrandij said.

    “Making the jump from the cube to the home or working off site—there are cultural accelerators that come into play. There needs to be some mentoring and modeling and acceptance,” said Wayne Kurtzman, research director at International Data Corp.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/working-remotely-requires-cultural-change-executives-say-11584053615

  • How to help your remote workers feel involved

    In meetings, make sure that all participants are, well, participating. Some people, especially those who are not used to working remotely, may at first be uncomfortable in video conferences, and so they may hang back.

    Don’t force people to appear on camera if they don’t want to. While video meetings tend to work better when you feel as though you are talking to a real person, if a participant feels awkward being on camera (or is worried about how messy their house is), then they’re going to spend the meeting too distracted to pay full attention to the matters at hand.

    If you or your employees decide to hold a virtual get-together, Twitch gaming session, video watch party, or other social event, make sure everyone in the company is aware of it and invited. Of course, you can have separate events for teams within the company, but it’s not a good idea to further isolate employees whose jobs may not usually involve working with others.

    https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/13/21178312/remote-work-worker-videoconference-slack-chat-connected

Posted on

News You Can Use: 3/11/2020

  • How to work during a pandemic

    If these events, or others like them, are seriously affecting your productivity or the ability of your company to function, maybe you should think about that a bit. What are you unable to do — specifically? What’s stopping you — specifically?

    Do you rely too much on face-to-face communications and find yourself unable to explain concepts in writing? Has your team abandoned Slack for anything productive? Are your press releases and email pitches limp? When you’re forced to fall back from your strengths, you necessarily encounter your own weaknesses.

    This is an opportunity to take a good look at what you and your company are and aren’t good at when it comes to communication and productivity. In fact, it’s more than an opportunity — you’re going to be slapped in the face with these shortcomings whether you like it or not. Whether you make something out of it or not is up to you.

    https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/01/how-to-work-during-a-pandemic/

  • How To Succeed At Working From Home

    Get organized. Maintaining balance is one of the most difficult aspects of working at home, because the work is always right there staring you in the face, Hanna says. “To keep you on track (and not working too much or too little), organization will be key. Get organized by creating filing systems, schedules and to-do lists.”

    Have a set work space. Kanarek suggests you designate a specific place for a home office–and store all work-related files, reference materials and supplies there. Try not to make it near a bed or a TV, Spence adds. Taylor says that you should ensure that your office space emulates that of a true work environment.

    Plan your day. This will help you minimize your distractions and maximize your true productive times, Spence says. “For example, many people eat a small breakfast on their way to the office, but when at home, you may be tempted to have a bigger breakfast which may slow you down for your early morning meeting. Or you may normally get off at 5 pm, but the kids come home at 4 pm, so you may need a shorter lunch so you can get all of your work done.”

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/08/16/how-to-succeed-at-working-from-home/#4e4e7cad281d

  • Stop Managing Your Remote Workers As If They Work Onsite
  • Personal Essay: Coronavirus Lockdown Is A ‘Living Hell’

    The younger generations, born after 1995 and in the 2000s, have good impressions about the Chinese system, putting the nation before all because they have been living in an era of prosperity and have yet to experience adversity.

    The things that happened during this outbreak have greatly surprised those kids. For example, a young man scolded others on Weibo in the early days of the outbreak. He accused them of spreading rumors and argued that if we don’t trust the government, there is nothing we can trust. Later, he said, when a member of his family was infected with the coronavirus but was unable to get treatment in the overcrowded hospital, he cursed and called for help.

    When Li Wenliang, one of the doctors who first reported a mysterious SARS-like illness, died of the disease himself, a student commented on the Internet: “It was just the virus that killed him, so we should focus on the epidemics.” But then the student’s dormitory was appropriated for quarantine patients — and he was shocked and dismayed.

    https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/03/809965742/personal-essay-from-wuhan-living-in-hell

  • Working From Home Because of Coronavirus? These Are Your Tech Fixes

    I cannot possibly be productive without my second, third or 53rd monitor.

    Obvious solution: Buy a monitor for home. Check out The Wirecutter’s suggestions. I bought a $150 Asus monitor nearly five years ago and we’re still very happy together. Dongle alert #2: You’ll likely need one to hook up to a newer USB-C laptop.

    Not-as-obvious solution: Use an iPad. Sure, it’s a smaller display, but I find it great for putting up a messaging window or an important website I frequently need—especially since it’s a wireless connection. If you have a Mac running the latest MacOS Catalina and an iPad with iOS 13 you have a feature called Sidecar. This allows you to wirelessly use your iPad as your Mac’s second monitor. Fire up the Sidecar app on your Mac and it’s real easy to set up. (Detailed instructions from Apple found here.)

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/working-from-home-because-of-coronavirus-these-are-your-tech-fixes-11583326423

Posted on

News You Can Use: 3/4/2020


Photo by Ani Kolleshi on Unsplash

  • How IBM, Goldman Sachs, PwC and others are responding to the coronavirus threat to the global workplace

    As concerns grow over the spread of the new coronavirus, which causes a respiratory illness called covid-19, other companies stepped up their precautions.

    Goldman Sachs said it has restricted business travel to South Korea, as well as to the Lombardy and Veneto regions of Italy, and asked that nonessential business travel to other parts of Italy and Asia be postponed. In addition to mainland China, “all employees who have traveled to South Korea or the impacted regions in Italy, or who have been in close contact with individuals who have been to these areas, are required to remain out of the office for at least 14 days,” the company said.

    PwC is asking employees to defer or cancel trips to Japan and is encouraging them to use the company’s $1,000 annual backup child-care benefit in case of school or day care closures.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/02/28/workplace-coronavirus-work-from-home/

  • As coronavirus outbreak continues, ad companies restrict travel and encourage remote work

    With the fear of contracting coronavirus on the rise, agencies are taking precautions to restrict travel to the affected areas and encouraging employees to work remotely and use video conferencing as needed rather than risk traveling. The agency holding companies say that work for clients is still getting done but much of that is now happening remotely as needed rather than traveling for meetings.

    Earlier this week, Omnicom shuttered its London office for 48 hours after a potential scare with the virus. Since then, the holding company updated its travel guidance postponing travel to China, Japan, Hong Kong, Iran, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, or Northern Italy until further notice. Employees returning from those places have also been asked not to return to the Omnicom offices for 14 days.

    https://digiday.com/marketing/coronavirus-outbreak-continues-holding-companies-restrict-travel-encourage-remote-work/

  • Q&A on Coronavirus – COVID-19 with WHO’s Dr Maria Van Kerkhove
  • Why Curbing Travel Is No Cure-All for the Coronavirus

    Consider Italy, which abruptly canceled flights to and from China when it emerged as an early European Union virus hot spot. The government’s decision was second-guessed, since travelers from China could still fly to other EU countries and enter Italy from there — without a passport check — depriving authorities of the ability to track arrivals or do spot medical checks at airports. And travel curbs can create a false sense of security, distracting countries from other crucual steps to fight an epidemic. Catherine Worsnop, an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland who has studied the effects of restrictions on people’s movement in past outbreaks, says such steps can merely delay an epidemic for a few weeks, at considerable economic and societal cost. Plus, the fear of trade and travel limits can lead governments to “intentionally conceal outbreaks to avoid economic and political harm,” Worsnop wrote in a 2019 study.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/why-curbing-travel-is-no-cure-all-for-the-coronavirus/2020/02/28/bb38416c-5a7c-11ea-8efd-0f904bdd8057_story.html

Posted on

News You Can Use: 2/26/2020


Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

  • Why Developing Self-Awareness Is Key to Managing Your Time

    The key to time management is self-awareness. But don’t just take my word for it: As Erich C. Dierdorff notes at HBR, awareness, along with arrangement and adaptation, are the skills that “separate time management success from failure.” Research shows that “people struggled the most with awareness and adaptation skills where assessment scores were, on average, 24 percent lower than for arrangement skills.”

    I particularly appreciated the action words used by Dierdorff: “assessment: and “adaption.”

    “This evidence suggests that awareness and adaptation are not only rarer skills, but are more difficult to develop naturally without direct interventions,” writes Dierdorff. “Additionally, awareness skills were the primary driver of how well people avoided procrastination, and adaptation skills were the primary driver of how well they prioritized activities.”

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/346512

  • A time management coach’s surprising advice for the overly organized

    Saying “no” by either not accepting commitments in the first place or by eliminating commitments that are currently on your plate is your most powerful organizational tool. It’s the equivalent of decluttering your closet before you attempt to hang everything up. By reducing the overall number of items, you make it easier to organize.

    When you “declutter” from a time management perspective, you’re not only giving yourself less to fit into each day but also more time to keep the whole system maintained.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90466063/a-time-management-coachs-surprising-advice-for-the-overly-organized

  • Time Management Tips
  • How to Stay Motivated When Things Get Tough and Stressful

    Stress comes in four primary flavors. It’s important to identify and understand which one you are feeling. First, there’s time stress. Time stress occurs when you worry about time or a lack of time. Impending deadlines often cause time stress. As a time-strapped leader, you’re no stranger to this type of stress, also called anticipatory stress. When you are concerned about an upcoming presentation or board meeting, you’re suffering from anticipatory stress. Remember Murphy’s Law? If anything can go wrong, it will.

    The third type of stress, called situational stress, occurs when you feel you aren’t in control. As a leader, you may experience situational stress when your status drops or you suffer reputational damage. The final type of stress is called encounter stress. It occurs when your interactions with others cause you to feel uneasy. When you interact with a toxic co-worker, you may experience encounter stress.

    It’s also important to understand whether you’re suffering from burnout or stress. Burnout occurs when stress continues for a long time. When you’re suffering from burnout, you feel tired and drained. Your immune system is affected, and you are more likely to get sick. You also feel helpless and lose motivation. Stress is less extensive. When you experience stress, you feel that too much is being demanded of you and you may experience physical effects like muscle tension and headaches, but you don’t feel empty and detached like you do when you’re experiencing burnout.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/337858

  • Embracing the broken: The gift of not chasing perfection

    As I get older and more experienced, the adage of life being about the journey resonates with me. I am in motion and flight, but I am not pursuing a figurative or literal destination.

    The question, particularly for those of us who spend a lot of time online, is how do you resist the perpetual treadmill that society and your inner saboteur (Thanks, Cody!) try to push on you to be perfect?

    You say no.

    As a person, as an entrepreneur, an employee, a visionary, you put your foot down.

    https://www.the-future-of-commerce.com/2020/02/21/stop-chasing-perfection/

Posted on

News You Can Use: 2/19/2020


Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash

  • How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation

    I never thought the system was equitable. I knew it was winnable for only a small few. I just believed I could continue to optimize myself to become one of them. And it’s taken me years to understand the true ramifications of that mindset. I’d worked hard in college, but as an old millennial, the expectations for labor were tempered. We liked to say we worked hard, played hard — and there were clear boundaries around each of those activities. Grad school, then, is where I learned to work like a millennial, which is to say, all the time. My new watchword was “Everything that’s good is bad, everything that’s bad is good”: Things that should’ve felt good (leisure, not working) felt bad because I felt guilty for not working; things that should’ve felt “bad” (working all the time) felt good because I was doing what I thought I should and needed to be doing in order to succeed.

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/millennials-burnout-generation-debt-work

  • How to demonstrate 3 important soft skills during an interview

    “When I’m assessing new talent, I want to see how the individual can create ease in a room, connect quickly with peers, and demonstrate capability,” she says. “All of that is done through soft skills of conversation starting, putting people at ease, creating an environment that leads to productivity. It means waiting for your interviewer to finish their sentences before starting, being introspective about the answer, and connecting with them as a person.”

    “Though interviews can be rehearsed, a good conversation is one of the strongest indicators that a candidate has the soft skills needed to excel in a given position,” says Essenfeld.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90463823/how-to-demonstrate-3-important-soft-skills-during-an-interview

  • How to use skepticism
  • Why every workday needs to be fun (and how to have it)

    Of course, back in the days of clients who overpaid, of overhead that was used to fund more overhead, and of computers that cost $5,000 and can’t be found on eBay for $5, there were a whole lot more people doing the same work that a whole lot fewer people do today. This is where I (and the science) argue that a layer of fat in the workplace, in all its iterations, is a good thing. It acts as insulation from burnout, anxiety, stress, and everything else these poor young people experience every day as they die a slow death while making a living.

    From a practical standpoint, this is not about installing a climbing wall in the conference room or setting up a keg near the coffee maker. We’re talking minutes of investment, not mountains of money. And it must come from the top: Fun and productivity are not an oxymoron but a generous paradox. CEOs, especially boomer CEOs, may have forgotten how much fun they used to have at work and how that fun helped develop them as leaders.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90460615/why-every-workday-needs-to-be-fun-and-how-to-have-it