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
News You Can Use: 1/29/2020
Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash
- Away C.E.O. Is Back, Just Weeks After Stepping Down
“Frankly, we let some inaccurate reporting influence the timeline of a transition plan that we had,” Ms. Korey said in an interview last week. With some time and perspective, she said, the company’s board members decided to reverse themselves. “All of us said, ‘It’s not right.’”
The members of Away’s board say they feel as if they fell victim to management by Twitter mob.
The company now says it disputes The Verge’s reporting and has hired Elizabeth M. Locke, the lawyer who successfully brought a defamation case against Rolling Stone magazine for a story about a supposed gang rape at the University of Virginia. It is unclear whether Away plans to bring a lawsuit.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/business/steph-korey-away.html
Who is Steph Korey?
- Worker burnout is real. Here’s how to spot it.
Burnout isn’t necessarily due to a heavy workload or long hours; hard workers can be happy workers in the right conditions. And occasional short-term burnout is normal for humans, a sign we need a break. But in the case of chronic, pervasive burnout, Beckstrand says, the primary cause is usually a “negative workplace culture” with deficiencies in six areas: purpose, opportunity, success, appreciation, well-being and connection. To combat employee burnout, says Beckstrand, employers should make a regular practice of acknowledging workers for their unique contributions as individuals, and helping them feel connected to a larger purpose.
But it’s not all on management to prevent burnout. Beckstrand recommends that workers take burnout as a sign to seek meaningful contact from supervisors and peers — not just to complain or vent, but to admit when they’re stuck, ask for input and seek a broader perspective on how their work supports the overall mission.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/01/16/worker-burnout-is-real-heres-how-spot-it/
- The changing nature of work is changing our workspaces too
But according to Macgadie, companies are becoming more sophisticated with how they think about that data. Rather than simply looking at real estate utilisation and the number of bodies that can be safely be squeezed into a certain square footage, they’re increasingly attempting to tie use of space to more tangible business outcomes and metrics.
“It’s becoming less about efficiency and more about effectiveness. It’s not about density, it’s about whether a space performing a certain task really well. If the output from that space can be quantified and is exceedingly high then that space is really effective,” Macgadie says.
https://digiday.com/media/office-space-changing-nature-work-quickly-changing-spaces-work/
- Goodbye, Back Pain? This Office Chair Was Designed by a Trauma Surgeon
Kneeling chairs emerged in the late-70s, claiming to reduce lower back pain. A few years later, everyone was taking conference calls on exercise balls, the bobbing blobs said to build core strength and zap calories. Various wobbly stools touted similar benefits.
Then we heard sitting was problematic, so we stood. Contrary evidence emerged: One 2017 study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, followed more than 7,300 workers for 12 years and discovered those who stood for long periods had a twofold increase in heart disease risk.
When Dr. Turner Osler transitioned from the operating room to an office job where he sat 60 hours a week conducting biostatistics research, the trendy chairs he tried left him achy and unsatisfied. So he decided to adapt the best parts of each for his own design, an active stool dubbed the QOR360 (from $350, qor360.com).
News You Can Use: 1/8/2020
Photo by Denys Argyriou on Unsplash
- The Old Internet Died And We Watched And Did Nothing
The internet of the 2010s will be defined by social media’s role in the 2016 election, the rise of extremism, and the fallout from privacy scandals like Cambridge Analytica. But there’s another, more minor theme to the decade: the gradual dismantling and dissolution of an older internet culture.
This purge comes in two forms: sites or services shutting down or transforming their business models. Despite the constant flurries of social startups (Vine! Snapchat! TikTok! Ello! Meerkat! Peach! Path! Yo!), when the dust was blown off the chisel, the 2010s revealed that the content you made — your photos, your writing, your texts, emails, and DMs — is almost exclusively in the hands of the biggest tech companies: Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, or Apple.
The rest? Who knows? I hate to tell you, but there’s a good chance it’s gone forever.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/how-we-killed-the-old-internet
- Alisha Marie, Jacques Slade, and Kati Morton on YouTube burnout
https://www.engadget.com/2019/12/27/youtube-burnout-generation/ - Brand warriors! Instagram gurus! Here are the most ridiculous job titles of 2019
Jobs platform Indeed analyzed one million postings to reveal which of the weirdest terms appeared in either the title or the description of a job over 12 months. The top five (“ninja,” “rockstar,” “genius,” “hero,” and “guru”) all retained their popularity from last year.
“Rockstar” nabbed the top spot, boasting a 31% year-over-year increase and a whopping 209% lift since the company started ranking in 2015. “Genius” had a 26% year-over-year lift but rose 416% over the four years. The news was not so positive for ninjas or gurus whose popularity declined by 9% and 15% respectively.
According to Indeed’s analysis, wacky job titles are now more prevalent outside of tech hubs like Silicon Valley. Now you’re much more likely to locate rockstars in Arkansas, geniuses in Oklahoma, and ninjas in Hawaii. Vermont takes the crown away from New York for having the largest number of hero job openings this year.
- Here is why you should swear at work, according to science
On a personal level, people who swear often lie less frequently, have higher levels of integrity and emotional intelligence, possess a larger vocabulary and are linked with having higher IQs. Cursing conveys feelings and opinions not captured by everyday language so people are able to glean more about the other party from conversations and end up making stronger connections leading to greater trust. Choosing the appropriate kind of word (mild or strong) demonstrates that you understand the mentality of the person that you’re speaking to so they’re more inclined to believe you.
In the workplace, cursing can actually help you get ahead. Research indicates cursing increases the effectiveness and persuasiveness of an argument. The most cohesive and productive teams in sectors like manufacturing and IT joke with each other using lots of profanity and trust each other more for it. For sales, swearing can translate into more wins when both sides do it, 18% more to be exact, based on analysis from Gong of more than 73,000 of its sales calls.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90442773/here-is-why-you-should-swear-at-work-according-to-science
News You Can Use: 7/24/2019
Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash
- Amazon Offers Sellers a Leg Up, With a Catch
Amazon.com Inc. is offering independent merchants on its platform marketing support, product reviews and prominent display. The catch? Amazon gains the right to purchase a merchant’s brand at any time for a fixed price, often $10,000.
The program—which allows brand rights to be bought for a fixed price on 60 days’ notice, according to a contract seen by The Wall Street Journal—is part of a push by Amazon to obtain a stable of exclusive brands for the platform. It is the first selling program that allows Amazon to obtain direct control over independent brands that sell on its website, according to merchants familiar with Amazon programs.
Also:
The contract sets the price at $10,000, but says designs, patents and trade secrets will remain with the seller after the sale. Sellers in the program may sell the same product elsewhere under a different brand name and keep rights to brands they haven’t entered in the Accelerator program.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-offers-sellers-a-leg-up-with-a-catch-11563452450
- Most of the Google Walkout Organizers Have Left the Company
The employee resignations highlight growing hostility between Google and its most outspoken employees, who have grown increasingly organized and strident in their demands for significant changes to Google’s approach to issues including sexual harassment claims, military contracts, censored search in China, and equitable treatment of contract workers, who now outnumber full-time employees. That tension presents a challenge to Google’s open company culture, which encouraged employees to debate and dissent on internal forums, but established strong social norms around secrecy. Google evangelized this culture, elements of which have been adopted by other Silicon Valley firms, and the company’s response to employee activism is being closely watched.
https://www.wired.com/story/most-google-walkout-organizers-left-company/
- The biggest threat to America? Americans.
- ‘The climate has changed’: Agencies are finding more young employees report burnout
Burnout among millennials has been a major talking point this year. At the same time, agency sources say there has been a cultural shift in the way the industry approaches mental health and burnout. Agencies have employed new policies, like no answering emails after 7 p.m. or no Slack on weekends, to combat the burnout. It makes sense to do so, as 32% of agency employees are worried about their mental health, per Digiday+ research.
“Fifteen years ago, [agencies] dismissed the idea of burnout,” said Jean Freeman, president and CEO of independent shop Zambezi. “The climate has changed, which is for the better, and now we’re paying attention to physical and mental health. If you pay attention to your staff, you can see it.”
- The 5G Health Hazard That Isn’t
According to experts on the biological effects of electromagnetic radiation, radio waves become safer at higher frequencies, not more dangerous. (Extremely high-frequency energies, such as X-rays, behave differently and do pose a health risk.)
In his research, Dr. Curry looked at studies on how radio waves affect tissues isolated in the lab, and misinterpreted the results as applying to cells deep inside the human body. His analysis failed to recognize the protective effect of human skin. At higher radio frequencies, the skin acts as a barrier, shielding the internal organs, including the brain, from exposure. Human skin blocks the even higher frequencies of sunlight.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/science/5g-cellphones-wireless-cancer.html