Tag: Open Office

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News You Can Use: 1/29/2020


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  • 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).

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/goodbye-back-pain-this-office-chair-was-designed-by-a-trauma-surgeon-11579282420

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News You Can Use: 12/4/2019


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  • People hate open offices so much that they create ‘fourth walls’ for privacy

    Remember that time companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars on open-office layouts, only to discover that face-to-face interactions decrease by 70% in open-office plans? More fallout today: Ethan Bernstein, the Harvard researcher behind that finding, has taken to the Harvard Business Review to analyze why.

    He says that workers in open spaces quickly develop psychological fourth walls, the conceptual boundaries that protect their public solitude. For example, coworkers quickly learn that wearing headphones or appearing to work intently will stop interruptions. “Especially in open spaces, fourth-wall norms spread quickly,” writes Bernstein.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90430512/people-hate-open-offices-so-much-that-they-create-fourth-walls-for-privacy

  • How To Make 64 Pieces Of Content In A Day

    https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/how-to-create-64-pieces-of-content-in-a-day/

  • We Can Finally End The Myth Of The Lazy Millennial

    Hidden in this census data, BuzzFeed News found that 1.4 million American millennials (born 1981–1996) supported their parents in 2016, the most recent year for which data was available. That number was statistically indistinguishable from the number of boomers (born 1946–1964) supporting their adult children in the same year.

    “OK boomer” is not just a pithy retort; it’s totally valid. I’m giddy; maybe you are too. The same number of millennials financially support their parents as the number of boomers who support their grown children.

    All the headlines, and the jokes, all the (mis)representations about America’s deliciously hateable young adults, they’re f*****g fake, folks! A tale spread by a group of grumpy (and probably well-off) boomers that took on a life of its own, sapping a generation — their own children’s generation — of its dignity.

    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/venessawong/millennials-parents-stereotypes-boomers-data

  • The worst thing you can do for your college-bound teen is saddle them with student debt

    Don’t make a decision based on emotions. Parents are often so panicked about their children succeeding that it drives them to do whatever it takes to get them into their desired college, even if it means taking on gargantuan loans. But good decision-making involves a plan, not panic.

    Drop the dream. So many loans are the result of parents giving in to children who just have to go to their dream school.“The only dream school out there is the one that you can graduate from debt-free,” ONeal says.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/personal-finance/the-worst-thing-you-can-do-for-your-college-bound-teen-is-saddle-them-with-student-debt/2019/11/14/d0ef5e7a-06fb-11ea-b17d-8b867891d39d_story.html

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News You Can Use: 5/15/2019

  • Google walkout organizers demand company investigate HR department

    In a Medium post from the official walkout account, the employees released a series of demands. On the list: meeting previous demands made during the November walkout, having Alphabet CEO Larry Page address those demands, reversing alleged retaliation against organizers, and opening an investigation into the company’s “abysmal handling of employee complaints.”

    “Google seems to have lost its mooring, and trust between workers and the company is deeply broken,” the post reads. “As the company progresses from crisis to crisis, it is clear Google management is failing, along with HR.” The post demands that an investigation be conducted by a third party and that the results be released publicly.

    https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/8/18536996/google-walkout-organizers-hr-retaliation

  • New study shows human development is destroying the planet at an unprecedented rate

    In the most comprehensive effort undertaken to date, some 145 expert authors from 50 countries working with another 310 contributing authors spent the last three years compiling and assessing changes in global biodiversity over a 50-year period for a study conducted under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

    They found there are now 1 million species that are threatened with extinction; that more than one-third of the world’s land surface and 75% of all freshwater resources are devoted to crop or livestock production; that 60 billion tons of renewable and non-renewable resources are extracted globally every year; that land degradation has reduced the productivity of global land surface area by 23% and roughly $577 billion worth of crops are at risk from pollinator loss annually; and, finally, that up to 300 million people are at increased risk of floods and hurricanes because of the loss of coastal habitats.

    https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/new-study-shows-human-development-is-destroying-the-planet-at-an-unprecedented-rate/

  • We’re Running Out of Water
  • Slack’s head of workplace design thinks open floor plans “suuuck”

    At Slack we’ve done a lot of different things. We do have open offices—we’re actually making them smaller, the desk per square foot smaller, and swatches of open office much smaller. We also have a variety of privacy phone booth options, small quad and double rooms, and one-person rooms. Some of them are bookable, some are not bookable, so people can really drop in and book them.

    We also have the luxury of having a human right now. Her role is space and room planning, so if you need a space you can air a complaint. And we have a human being who has purview into all your rooms and spaces and is able to help you.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90341688/slacks-head-of-workplace-design-thinks-open-floor-plans-suuuck

  • Why AT&T Was Right About HBO. In a Word, We’re Talking … ‘Silos.’

    Now, consider the impact of silos on a startup. Whatever their cause, silos of all types — to my way of thinking — end up encouraging stagnation and stunting growth. When each department looks out for itself, employees come to fear outside opinions and new ideas because they threaten the security of the walled-off group.

    Silos are part of the reason Microsoft lagged behind when the world went mobile. They also played a part in some of Google’s big stumbles, such as the demise of Google Plus.

    Now, think again about startups: It’s not enough for a startup to grow; it has to be able to handle that growth. Silos tend to spring up when management fails to recognize that a company is no longer a handful of scrappy entrepreneurs but an increasingly large, successful organization. To ensure that growth doesn’t kill your startup, it’s important that you be proactive when it comes to breaking down these walls –before it becomes too late.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/333544

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News You Can Use: 1/30/2019

  • How Companies Secretly Boost Their Glassdoor Ratings

    In the Journal’s analysis, five-star ratings collectively made up 45% of reviews in the months where the number of reviews jumped, compared with 25% in the six months before and after. While it isn’t possible to determine from the data alone what caused each spike, a statistical test shows the likelihood that so many would skew positive by chance is highly improbable.

    Well-known names with large spikes included messaging-app developer Slack Technologies Inc., professional-networking site LinkedIn, health insurer Anthem Inc., household-products maker Clorox Co. and Jack Daniel’s maker Brown-Forman Corp.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-manipulate-glassdoor-by-inflating-rankings-and-pressuring-employees-11548171977

  • It’s Now Clear None of the Supposed Benefits of Killing Net Neutrality Are Real

    In the months leading up to the FCC assault on net neutrality, big telecom and FCC boss Ajit Pai told anybody who’d listen that killing net neutrality would boost broadband industry investment, spark job creation, and drive broadband into underserved areas at an unprecedented rate.

    As it turns out, none of those promises were actually true.

    Despite the FCC voting to kill the popular consumer protections late last year, Comcast’s latest earnings report indicates that the cable giant’s capital expenditures (CAPEX) for 2018 actually decreased 3 percent. The revelation comes on the heels by similar statements by Verizon and Charter Spectrum that they’d also be seeing lower network investment numbers in 2018.

    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gyab5m/its-now-clear-none-of-the-supposed-benefits-of-killing-net-neutrality-are-real

  • The experience economy is coming
  • Everyone hates open offices. Here’s why they still exist

    For as long as these floor plans have been in vogue, studies have debunked their benefits. Researchers have shown that people in open offices take nearly two-thirds more sick leave and report greater unhappiness, more stress, and less productivity than those with more privacy. A 2018 study by Harvard Business School found that open offices reduce face-to-face interaction by about 70% and increase email and messaging by roughly 50%, shattering the notion that they make workers collaborative. (They’re even subtly sexist.) And yet, the open plan persists–too symbolically powerful (and cheap) for many companies to abandon.

    This is about saving money, not about work culture:

    Of course, one of the main reasons that business leaders default to open plans is simply that they’re inexpensive. According to commercial real estate association CoreNet Global, the average space allotted to individual employees globally fell from 225 square feet in 2010 to 176 square feet in 2013, and is projected to keep decreasing. This adds up to hundreds of millions of dollars–or more–in savings per year at the country’s largest companies, according to calculations from Erik Rood, an analyst in Google’s human resources department who examines corporate financials on his personal blog, Data Interview Qs.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90285582/everyone-hates-open-plan-offices-heres-why-they-still-exist

  • How to Declutter and Organize Your Personal Tech in a Few Simple Steps

    Pick somewhere in your home where your various wires will live, like a closet, cabinet or drawer. From there, categorize the wires and give them compartments. I separate my different types of wires — earbuds, phone chargers, miscellaneous USB cables and computer chargers — into Ziploc bags and label them with a label maker. All the bags live in a drawer in my TV stand.

    There are different approaches to organizing your power cables. Families with children could give each member a compartment. For example, put your son Joe’s iPhone charger, laptop charger and earbuds into one Ziploc bag and label it “Joe’s tech.”

    This step is a must. “If you don’t have a dedicated place for your items, then you’re wasting your time finding them,” said Keith Bartolomei, a professional organizer for Zen Habitat.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/technology/personaltech/declutter-organize-personal-tech-few-simple-steps.html

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News You Can Use: 11/21/2018

The Source: Getting Things Done

  • When Acquiring a Company, Don’t Forget About the People

    Goal setting is proven to have a positive impact; according to McKinsey, 91 percent of companies that have effective performance management systems say that employee goals are linked to business priorities. Goals have the power to encourage and motivate people, whether they’re employees, investors or the board of directors. Give your team challenging, yet achievable targets to help push them in the right direction and encourage them to continue performing even when they’re dealing with new people and initially unfamiliar technologies or processes.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/323050

  • 3 Warning Signs Your Mentor Is Not Helping You

    If your mentor doesn’t challenge you to tackle your weaknesses and overcome your fears, your mentor is satisfied with the status quo — which isn’t good enough for you! Building a company requires doing the stuff we love and the stuff we wish we could hire someone else to do. If your mentor is worth her salt, she will push you to grow into your weaknesses and throttle past the challenges that scare you.

    Takeaway: I’ve often heard mentors working with startups in our accelerator respond to questions with questions. Mentors don’t have to have all of the answers — but they do need to know how to ask the right questions. This requires a mentor to slow down, listen and focus on you and your startup.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/322375

  • Why Facebook and news orgs are sworn frenemies
  • That ‘Bad’ Interviewee You Just Talked to May Be the Perfect Match for Your Job Opening

    That afternoon, however, reality set in, in the form of close to ten disappointing phone calls.

    Picking up my phone once more, I made my final call — to the most unlikely candidate of the bunch. And, within two minutes, I was floored: This guy was quizzing me on my knowledge of our business space. Not only that, but he was also asking about my personal relationships with competitors. Huh?

    Calling around to other founders after the interview, I quickly uncovered a strong consensus based on those founders’ individual experiences: This candidate’s comments weren’t weird or unwelcome, they said. In fact, they considered the best salespeople to be the ones who quizzed them.

    https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/322897

  • I want to work in these cubicles of the future

    Rapt’s designers envisioned a concept in which everyone gets a private space to work when they want it. But there’s a catch: Each private cubicle sits on short legs, enabling small warehouse robots to scuttle around underneath them. Then, the robots can pick up the cubes and move them around the office based on what each person and team needs for the day. For instance, if you have a day of heads-down work, you’d get assigned a private cubicle so you can focus. If you have a day full of meetings, and you don’t need private space, your cube combines with other cubes to create a larger space in which to work with your colleagues. The robots shift the office in real time to make this happen.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90262512/i-want-to-work-in-these-cubicles-of-the-future

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