There are three signs you are ready for a promotion, according to career coach Sho Dewan: being consistently excellent in your role, helping others improve their performance, and being headhunted by recruiters. "Taking on interview requests doesn't necessarily mean you're planning to leave your current role," writes Dewan. "Instead, it can be an opportunity to assess your worth in the industry and gain valuable insights into what other organizations can offer."
Skilled headhunters contact candidates who are a good fit for a role based on their skills and experience and provide salary ranges upfront. Quality headhunters are easy to reach and professional, maintain good communication, and ensure they keep valuable candidates in their network.
There's a common belief that actually talking on the phone wastes time when email and texts are available, but consultant Marlene Chism busts those myths and outlines five ways to have an efficient and effective phone call by preparing for the conversation ahead of time, setting boundaries and being mindful of the other person's time. "The phone no longer works alone but works best in tandem with text and email," Chism writes.
Strong workplace friendships are good for employee morale and productivity, especially in today's remote and hybrid work environments, where people can feel isolated and alone. Many employers are taking steps, such as hosting events and creating office spaces that are warm and inviting, to help nurture friendships among their workers.
Employees hired for their personality traits, rather than technical skills, are becoming more common as companies seek to improve workplace morale and client relations. "Just because you're a personality hire doesn't mean you're bad at your job; it just means your personality got you the extra oomph to get it," says Daniel Bennett, founder of DX Creativ.
Technology leaders are increasingly moving toward borderless hiring, transcending traditional remote work models. Lower costs and a wider talent pool are two significant perks for companies, and the rise of remote and asynchronous work is spurring a surge in borderless hiring in the technology sector, according to a recent Gartner survey.
Economists and Federal Reserve officials are growing increasingly concerned about the US labor market. Unemployment is rising, indicating a potential end to the tight labor conditions seen during the pandemic recovery. And while hiring remains strong, there are fears that further softening could impact economic growth. "Any change in the outlook for the labor market could have significant implications for the direction of the economy and monetary policy," said Rubeela Farooqi, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics. "If there is one thing we know for sure, it is that conditions change very quickly."
The US should take a lesson from countries like Australia, Germany and Argentina by offering employees the right to disconnect, which could help reduce employee burnout. Employers can help employees disconnect by giving them paid mental health days, insisting they take their PTO and limit outside-of-office hours communication.
Project Natick, Microsoft's underwater data center experiment, has been officially terminated. The project showed a lower failure rate for underwater servers compared to those on land, partially because humans were not around to fuss with the machines. Although Microsoft has ended this initiative, other companies, especially in China, are starting similar underwater data center projects.
