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Survey Results: Telecommuting Policies and Dress Codes

[For the beginning of the survey report, go here.] Telecommuting Formal telecommuting guidelines are in place and employees are required to sign a formal agreement for 23.8%. An allowance to cover employee expenses for setting up telecommuting at their home is provided by 33.1%, 40.3% reimburse telecommuting employees for monthly Internet connections, and 54.2% reimburse […]

Facing Setbacks? Adopt a Survivor’s Mind-Set

The 2007 book Lone Survivor tells the true story of a failed Navy SEAL mission in Afghanistan from the viewpoint of the only person who survived, Marcus Luttrell. The book—and later a film of the same title—recounts the details of a mission gone wrong and the battle for survival.

engagement

Keeping Employees Engaged Remotely

According to Tom Schin, founder of Build Better Culture, an organizational consulting firm and workplace culture expert, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to keeping employees engaged. It really depends on the organization, its culture, and its employees. But, he says, there are some options employers should consider for helping to keep employees engaged both on- and […]

Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory: A Sweet World with Sour Labor and Employment Practices

The close of 2023 treated us to Wonka, a prequel to the beloved childhood classic, shedding light on the origins of the iconic Chocolate Factory. Although Willy Wonka initially began his chocolate empire with good intentions, he inadvertently concocted a recipe for labor and employment violations. As employers aim to sweeten their practices in 2024, […]

E-Learning Out, Social Learning In at HP

In the 90s, we all went to e-learning, says River Software’s Randy Emelo, but today, it’s all about micro-learning—bite-sized chunks of learning, the shorter the better. You tear it apart, then talk about what you are doing—that’s social learning.

These Five Trends Will Rock Your Workplace in 2023: How to Prepare Now

After the past few years focusing on surviving the pandemic shift to remote work and navigating the fallout of the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements, followed by juggling crises in employee morale, “the Great Resignation,” and the “Quiet Quitting” phenomena, it’s unnerving to think about the next great crisis corporate leaders will need to navigate in […]

Latest U.S. Jobs Data Shows Labor Market Remains Tight

The U.S. economy, and the labor market in particular, has vexed experts and observers for months now. Despite doomsayers predicting imminent recessions and others pointing to widespread tech layoffs as a harbinger of a more general end to the Great Resignation (and despite months of aggressive central bank interest rate hikes), recent data illustrates just […]

Big Data Blasts Some Long-Held Beliefs

What myths are being exposed by big data? According to a recent article in The Economist, “number-crunching has uncovered some surprising correlations.” For example, Evolv, a company that works with big data, found that: Employees who, when filling out their online applications, used a browser that didn’t come standard on their computer (software they had […]

leadership

New Study Delivers 42 Years of Evidence That Leadership Development Pays Off

Criticism of leadership development programs often stems from the lack of hard data measuring how the programs affected leaders’ behavior and the company’s bottom line business metrics. In fact, less than 8% of CEOs ever see the business impact of their leadership development programs or the return on investment (ROI), according to a recent LinkedIn […]

retirement

TCJA Removes Some Disaster Damage from Safe Harbor 401(k) Hardship Eligibility

The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 enacted in February relaxed certain restrictions on hardship withdrawals from 401(k) and 403(b) retirement plans (see, New Federal Budget Relaxes Hardship Withdrawals for Retirement Plan Participants), starting in 2019. But defined contribution (DC) retirement plan sponsors also should be aware that, in contrast, the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs […]