News You Can Use: 4/24/2019
- As China Hacked, U.S. Businesses Turned A Blind Eye
In dozens of interviews with U.S. government and business representatives, officials involved in commerce with China said hacking and theft were an open secret for almost two decades, allowed to quietly continue because U.S. companies had too much money at stake to make waves.
Wendy Cutler, who was a veteran negotiator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, says it wasn’t just that U.S. businesses were hesitant to come forward in specific cases. She says businesses didn’t want the trade office to take “any strong action.”
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/12/711779130/as-china-hacked-u-s-businesses-turned-a-blind-eye
- Alibaba founder defends overtime work culture as ‘huge blessing’
What is “996”?996 at a Chinese company means the workday starts at 9am, finishes at 9pm, with an extended 6 day week. The schedule is mandatory and there is no overtime pay or bonuses.
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“I personally think that being able to work 996 is a huge blessing,” he said in remarks posted on the company’s WeChat account. “Many companies and many people don’t have the opportunity to work 996,” Ma said. “If you don’t work 996 when you are young, when can you ever work 996?”
On Thursday, an opinion piece published in a state newspaper argued that 996 violated China’s Labor Law, which stipulates that average work hours cannot exceed 40 hours a week.
“Creating a corporate culture of ‘encouraged overtime’ will not only not help a business’ core competitiveness, it might inhibit and damage a company’s ability to innovate,” the unnamed author wrote in the People’s Daily.
- China Is Scoring Its Citizens. And Evicting The Poorest.
- A Microsoft exec shows how to handle an uproar at work without shutting it down
There are several things worth highlighting in the executive’s response. First, she acknowledges that the other woman’s feelings of frustration and disappointment are valid, and promises to set aside time for a one-on-one to discuss the woman’s experience of being denied promotions. In this way, her email models the advice from Daena Giardella, a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management, on how managers should handle sexual harassment claims. “Learn to take stories about sexual harassment in your organization seriously,” she wrote in a May 2018 piece for Quartz. “Be careful about snap assessments that a certain story or comment ‘is not a big deal,’ or not ‘worthy’ of being further investigated.”
Second, the executive declares that while she doesn’t want anyone to feel that it’s impossible to advance in this particular area, she knows that Microsoft has more work to do. And while she highlights the career resources and training programs that are underway in an effort to improve advancement opportunities at the company, she does not suggest that they will offer a silver-bullet solution.
Photo by Hanson Lu on Unsplash
News You Can Use: 3/13/2019
- If We’re Going to Break Up Big Tech, We Shouldn’t Forget Big Telecom
In recent years, telecom giants like Verizon have been repeatedly caught covertly spying on customers and selling your private location data to a long chain of dubious middlemen, often with little oversight. Giant ISPs often help scammers rip off their own customers, earning them the worst customer satisfaction ratings of any business sector in America.
Telecom presents a unique problem in tech. ISPs like Comcast and AT&T not only enjoy vast media and broadcast empires, but a clear monopoly over access to the internet itself thanks to limited broadband competition.
This domination of both the conduit and the content creates unique anti-competitive opportunities ISPs are starting to exploit in a variety of sneaky ways. For example, telecom giants convinced the FCC in 2017 to neuter itself at lobbyists’ behest, demolishing numerous widely popular consumer protections like net neutrality along the way.
- Philadelphia Bans ‘Cashless’ Stores Amid Growing Backlash
The new law, signed by Mayor Jim Kenney last week, takes effect on July 1 and could lead to fines of up to $2,000 on businesses that do not take cash.
But many transactions will be exempt, including those at parking lots and garages; businesses that sell goods through a membership model; rentals that require security deposits; online, telephone or mail-in transactions; and goods sold exclusively to employees.
The bill amends the city’s Fair Practices Ordinance, which is administered by the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations. Mike Dunn, a spokesman for the city, said on Thursday that the commission would have to set the penalties before the bill takes effect.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/business/cashless-stores-philadelphia.html
This is the same city that makes it ever more difficult to use cash for public transportation. Philly – if you are making laws like this, you have to eat your own dog food. - Taxing the rich
- Hip offices are part of our mental health crisis, here’s why
Even with all the mental health days and in-office lounges, many employees still feel an inability to disconnect from the office mindset, which makes them feel overworked and exhausted for prolonged periods. Job-induced anxiety is on the rise as technology blurs the lines between work and home life. The idea of work-life balance has all but disappeared.
According to a 2015 study put out by NAMI Massachusetts, one can attribute 64 percent of absenteeism from work because of poor mental health. And 81 percent of productivity loss occurs as a result of presenteeism, where people work when they’re sick (and should be resting).
https://www.fastcompany.com/90313990/why-cool-offices-do-nothing-to-mental-health
Photo by Master Wen on Unsplash
News You Can Use: 11/16/2016
- Workaholism Is the Threat That Masquerades as Dedication
The difference between working 40 hours per week and working, say 55 or more, shows up in the quality of the work. In the ‘80s, the Whitehall II study in Great Britain highlighted a drop in cognitive function for those working longer schedules. Teams that spend more hours at their desks but get progressively less effective aren’t benefiting the business.
- The working life is changing fast, companies need to catch up
Explaining that work “doesn’t really work today”, Katherine von Jan, MD of strategic innovation at Salesforce, highlighted the better experience that customers have over workers as a hint that things aren’t right.
The customer experience is at an all-time high, with ease of service from ordering to delivery of products and services – meaning our expectations are probably too high when we get into the office.
https://www.siliconrepublic.com/video/salesforce-future-of-work-inspirefest
The message is really good, but this poor woman is so awkward… - What It’s Like When a Coworker Tells You to Smile
It seems that when I walked about the campus, I had failed to smile at the people who would determine my status as faculty or reject. It also turned out that I did not dress appropriately; interrupted men when they were talking even if they paused for breath and it seemed to me they were done rambling on and on; spoke out about controversial issues like presidential campaigns, civil rights, lack of diversity in both employees and courses; and a host of other things I did that identified me as a “left-wing feminist.” I knew I had an EEOC case when the female faculty member assigned to be my “mentor” explained to me that “you have to dress to please the men” in order to get tenure.
- Robots and AI won’t cost you your job anytime soon
Robots function a lot like reptile brains. Technology hasn’t come far enough in biomimicry to create the right movements, expressions and thought patterns to bring AI to where it can work alone. Current AI technology, whether it’s an actual robot or just software, almost always need a human guide. At best, robots are relegated to one specific task that they can repeat multiple times.
- Why Do Millennials Hate Groceries?
Economists have found the same shift toward restaurant dining and away from old-fashioned grocers. Using Census data, the economist Mark J. Perry calculated that for the first time on record, Americans are spending more money at restaurants and bars than at grocery stores.
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But today’s shoppers are springing for options in a market that supermarkets once monopolized. Modern shoppers divide their shopping among superstores like Walmart, supermarkets like Giant, specialty shops for bread and coffee, and online shopping for all of the above. It is what industry analysts are calling “grocery channel fragmentation,” and nothing in this retail sector is growing faster than than the low-end. In a reflection of the slow recovery, dollar and convenience stores accounted four in five new food retailers that opened since 2013.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/millennials-groceries/506180/?utm_source=feed
Photo: Karsten Würth
News You Can Use: 10/12/2016
- Is Job Hopping Really Just A Basic Human Need?
The idea that you learn quickly at the beginning and your progress slows later on is what we call the learning curve, and it’s real. It’s also motivating at first; it feels great to know that your skills are growing so fast that you can see a difference from week to week. It can be much more frustrating to be stuck in a rut later on, feeling like you’re making incremental gains at best.
One thing that job switching provides is lots of opportunities to pull yourself up the steep part of the learning curve. It can actually be addicting to continually place yourself in situations that force you to rise to new challenges. You might like that experience so much that you find yourself job hopping over and over again as a result.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3063817/is-job-hopping-really-just-a-basic-human-need
- Here’s what makes IBM, McKinsey, and 12 other big companies some of the best places for moms to work
Working Mother magazine just identified the 100 best companies for working moms to honor those organizations that are setting the standard for work-life practices in the US.
To compile the list, which is now in its 31st year, Working Mother surveyed hundreds of companies with more than 400 questions about their paid time off and leave policies, workforce profile, benefits, women’s issues and advancement, flexibility policies, and company culture, among other things.
http://nordic.businessinsider.com/best-companies-for-working-moms-2016-9/
I actually wrote an article about IBM’s pro-mother position over at BabyCenter:
http://blogs.babycenter.com/mom_stories/03072016-would-you-take-your-baby-to-work/ - How to pull workers back from the brink of burnout
Unfortunately, simply working longer hours doesn’t lead to better work. As CNBC recently reported, a Stanford University study found that employee productivity falls off a cliff after 55 hours per week. After 20 years of working in Silicon Valley, I understand that this can be hard to accept. I didn’t accept it myself until recently, when, for the first time in my career, I took a position where I am not expected to be always-on. In fact, I’m encouraged to be off, and I’ve never been more productive. But I struggled with the shift. I pushed back hard. It took time for me to assimilate to this “new normal.”
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/25/how-to-pull-workers-back-from-the-brink-of-burnout/?ncid=rss
- How organizations enshrine collective stupidity and employees are rewarded for checking their brains at the office door (thanks for the suggestion KS)
At least $14 billion gets spent every year on leadership development in the US alone yet, according to researchers such as Jeffrey Pfeffer at Stanford, it has virtually no impact on improving the quality of leaders. In our own research, we found that most employees in knowledge-intensive firms didn’t need much leadership. People working at the coalface were self-motivated and often knew their jobs much better than their bosses did. Their superiors’ cack-handed attempts to be leaders were often seen as a pointless distraction from the real work. George, a manager in a high-tech engineering firm, told us he saw himself as a very ‘open’. When we asked his subordinates what he actually did, they told us that he provides breakfast in the morning and runs an annual beer-tasting.
https://aeon.co/essays/you-don-t-have-to-be-stupid-to-work-here-but-it-helps?preview=true
While this article had me shaking my head in agreement a few times, it is lacking in actual facts to back up the perception. But an excellent rant none the less. - Reality check: Philly’s cloud ambitions grind to a halt after transition
Outdated and overly complex IT procurement processes also impact the city’s ability to transform. Rather than trying to outline every possible requirement to squeeze into one enormous procurement for a completely new system, the city should look to more agile development, like its FastFWD program. FastFWD focused on problem-based procurement and tested applicability and feasibility before moving to wide-spread enterprise procurement. Finding more flexible funding options is the key for moving towards more flexible development and deployment models. Tech companies can be advocates for agile development and procurement by being realistic in their proposed solutions with measurable and attainable goals and timelines.
http://statescoop.com/reality-check-phillys-cloud-ambitions-grind-to-a-halt-after-transition
Photo: Noah Siliman