Companies walk tightrope after Roe is overturned | Future of office work could include "vertical yacht" | Pandemic boosted use of fractional chief marketing officers
Companies are carefully approaching a response to the Supreme Court's overturn of Roe v. Wade, with some avoiding public statements and others -- such as Amazon, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs -- announcing financial support for travel and medical expenses incurred by employees.
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Remote-work trends that have taken hold during the pandemic are likely to last a long time and might become permanent in some sectors, as office occupancy remains less than half the pre-pandemic high. A podcast explores whether remote work has improved or degraded American life and how office work will take shape, including the possibility that offices will have hotel-like amenities or become a "vertical yacht."
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Katie Urtnowski, vice president of people and culture at CNY Group, explains how companies can use a "Mental Health Toolbox" to create a psychologically and emotionally safe workplace. "By being deliberate about how you create a sense of inclusivity, you are shaping company culture to support positive mental health," Urtnowski writes.
To avoid mistrust and workers leaving, be open with employees about the possibility of salary freezes as inflation rises. "Although these conversations are often difficult, employers must be sensitive to employee concerns and work toward ways to remediate inflation fears, even if they don't have the budget to raise salaries," says Tanya Jansen, co-founder of Beqom.
Increasingly gray areas between personal and professional life can lead to high stress and greater risk of burnout, and while focus has heightened on employees who go through excessive stress, burnout among executives still carries a stigma, Samantha Johnson writes. Leaders frequently promote employees' mental health but fail to address their own, Johnson writes.
Yesterday wore me out. I edited my briefs early in the morning and was on the show floor by 8 a.m. for a media briefing. The rest of the day was a blur of sessions, meetings and perusing the show floor. When I left the conference, I ran back to my hotel to freshen up and then met up with my team for a long, wonderful dinner of crawdad beignets, blackened catfish and a carrot cake at Superior Seafood and Oyster Bar. We wrapped up the night at The Spotty Cat Music Club for some jazz and a nightcap.
I was yawning when I got back to my hotel around midnight, but I felt great. The day was long but productive -- the kind that energizes me for the work I do. I spent my day talking to educators, students and solutions providers about what’s happening in schools. Every conversation was different and I had to be on when I was moving from one to another. At one booth, I was talking to students about their entrepreneurship club. At the next booth, I was talking to a STEM teacher about robotics. At another one, I was talking to a vendor about assessment and data.
I loved it.
Days like that get me fired up. Daniel Todd talks about that in today’s Leadership & Development story. Todd says, “Employees deeply immersed in their work achieve great things without realizing how many hours have passed.” It’s true. That work flow is almost intoxicating. It carries me through the day and fuels me with fresh energy -- seriously! -- for every meeting and interaction.
We need that. It's not about emotion. It's about tapping that thing deep in us that rights us -- focuses us -- and enables us to do our best work.
Are your workers deeply immersed in their work? Are they bringing enthusiasm to their activities and tasks? Let me know! And if you enjoy this brief, tell others so they can benefit also.
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