While reviewing Michelle Obama’s remarks from last week’s Workplace Flexibility Conference one of her introductory comments stuck out for us. Speaking to the challenges of “balancing our responsibilities as employees, as breadwinners, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, husbands and wives” Obama noted: It’s an issue that many folks have struggled with for so many years, and [...]
Archive for the ‘Workplace trends’ Category
Cali & Jody…Yes They Can!
The ROWE movement hits Washington D.C.! Cali and Jody will be participating in The White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility scheduled for Wednesday, March 31 beginning at 1:15 and ending at 4:30 pm (EDT). That’s right! Cali and Jody will share the benefits of ROWE with lawmakers, other key figures, and First Lady Michelle Obama [...]
The Death of the NCAA Tourney Effect
Is it possible that March Madness isn’t so mad? Two years ago, when this blog was relatively new, we were all set to explode the myth that the NCAA men’s basketball tournament causes a sharp drop in productivity. Unfortunately (for our pride at least) we learned that Slate media critic Jack Shafer had already beaten [...]
BusinessWeek’s Top 10 Drivers of Change in 2010
The BusinessWeek Corporate Executive Board (CEB) just dropped some knowledge on its readers with their Top 10 Drivers of Change in 2010. The CEB isn’t afraid of business jargon, but once you translate away the nonsense, there are some great ideas in here. Increases in information requires more judgment from decision makers Executives have been [...]
Pitfalls of Utah’s Four-Day Workweek
We wrote this post, with hope, back on 12/27/2009. Following is the original post and an update…. In August 2008, the state of Utah experimented with a four-day workweek in an effort to save energy costs. Out of the state’s 24,000 executive branch employees, 17,000 moved to a 10-hours/day, four-day workweek. Early reports were good, [...]
Let the Workers (and their Computers) Work
Great piece from Slate‘s Farhad Manjoo about the tyranny of corporate computer control. If you’ve spent any time in corporate America, you know the IT drill: You’re blocked from Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc. You can’t use popular browsers like Firefox. You can’t share documents using Google docs, IM or other programs that foster collaboration. As [...]
Gen Y Wants Balance . . . Even in Sour Times
First, a shout out to Lisa Belkin of the New York Times who wrote about ROWE on her blog - the Motherlode. She highlights ROWE as a bright spot in an otherwise disturbing trend: The American Society of Human Resource Managers found that while the number of companies offering things like flextime, part-time and telecommuting schedules [...]
ROWE and H1N1
Like clockwork, it’s here again: Flu season and the ”what are we going to do?” workplace mentality. The Harvard School of Public Health recently sounded the alarm about the readiness of businesses to respond to an outbreak of the H1N1 virus: Only 33% believe they could sustain their business without severe operational problems if half their [...]
Eli Lilly No Longer a Top Company for Working Women?
For the past 14 years, Working Mother magazine has put Eli Lilly on their list of Top 100 Best Companies. One more year and they’ll be eligible to join the “Hall of Fame” which includes other pharmaceutical giants such as GlaxoSmithKline and Merck. But we wonder if their status is in jeopardy given the fallout [...]
Work-Life Balance and the Stock Market
For CEOs who’ve been otherwise resistant to treating employees more humanely, perhaps this headline will be the deciding factor: Announcing Work-Life Balance Programs Raises Stock Prices Professor Michelle Arthur of the University of New Mexico performed a statistical analysis on how the stock market reacted when Fortune 500 companies said they were adopting work-family initiatives. [...]
Modern Working Environment: Tools & Techniques for Virtual Managers
June 13, 12 p.m. CDT
