Some corporate leaders and coaching professionals say that employees can be most effective at work if they aim for about 85% productivity instead of going for 100%, overstressing themselves and then burning out. Business author Greg McKeown says 85% is a sweet spot because trying to achieve 100% all the time is too draining, and exercise physiologist Steve Magness says realizing that a person's entire self-worth does not depend on one action can help a person to relax and be more likely to complete the task successfully.

Hiring hourly employees sometimes involves filling a large number of positions and at other times requires finding people with specific skills, according to a guide from HR and legal company Mitratech. The advice includes using multiple channels to reach a large number of candidates and leveraging employee referrals for roles that require higher skill levels.

A group of House lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill aimed at improving health care price transparency and reducing prescription drug costs. The Lower Costs, More Transparency Act would require health insurers, hospitals, imaging providers, laboratories and ambulatory surgical centers to publish machine-readable list of prices they charge patients, and require pharmacy benefit managers and insurers to disclose negotiated drug discounts and rebates, among other measures.

LaShana Lewis, chair of Opportunity@Work's STARs advisory council and CEO of L.M. Lewis Consulting, advocates for skilled technology workers to overcome the "paper ceiling" and get hired without college degrees. Workers Skilled Through Alternative Routes, or STARs, could succeed at scale if only given the opportunity by employers seeking to close the skills gap.

Accomplish more in your day by breaking big projects into a series of smaller tasks that can give you a sense of accomplishment, avoid multitasking and take interruptions into account when thinking about how long a project will take, writes psychologist Michael Wiederman. "Schedule and protect blocks of time set aside for specific deep work, and alter your surroundings to minimize distractions and interruptions," Wiederman advises.

Andrea Murphy, the director of the Office of Environmental Affairs and Sustainability at Panasonic North America, outlines how a global company like Panasonic aims to boost the role it plays in the circular economy. Panasonic is aware of the amount of emissions generated by the manufacture and use of its products -- and to the company's credit, they've even put an actual number on it. Murphy details what Panasonic is doing to reduce the environmental impact the company creates not just up and down its supply chain, but also once it's products are sold to customers.