How Silicon Valley’s Russia crackdown proves its power – and its threat

Less than a day after Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine, the head of security at Meta (formerly Facebook) announced the company would no longer accept ad money from Russian state media outlets like Russia Today and Sputnik. Twitter said it would pause all ads from both Russia and Ukraine. And the next day, 26 February, YouTube quietly shared that it had begun blocking a handful of Kremlin-run media outlets from monetizing and running ads on their channels too. READ MORE

How Shadow Boards Bridge Generational Divides

A shadow board is a group of young, nonexecutive employees tapped to work with the executive board on strategic initiatives. It’s designed to introduce a company’s (typically middle-aged) leadership team to new perspectives and insights, thereby helping to drive strategy. The shadow board might contribute to initiatives as significant as developing a new marketing plan, redesigning a business model, or updating key processes in the organization’s value chain. It can also shift corporate culture in two ways: Board members can gain access to new perspectives and younger employees can experience the inner workings of a board and share what they learn with their peers. READ MORE

Want to Build a High-Performance Team? Start with Trust.

Right from the start, we thought if we could create the category of B2B ecommerce, Ariba could be a rocket ship. But, one quarter, early on, some big deals got delayed, and our team started getting anxious. Instead of working together to come up with solutions, everyone started pulling in different directions. To me, this pressure situation was a clear symptom of a lack of trust, and I knew we needed to do something about it. READ MORE

This key unemployment measure hasn't been this low since 1970

America's jobs recovery didn't lose steam in the new year with a key measure of jobless claims dropping to its lowest level since March 1970, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

Continuing claims for unemployment benefits, which count people who have filed for jobless aid for at least two weeks in a row, dropped to just below 1.5 million in the week ending February 12, adjusted for seasonal swings, marking the lowest level since the week of March 14, 1970. It was also a lower level than economists had predicted. READ MORE

US facing worst worker shortage since WW2

The U.S. economy is facing the worst labor shortage in close to a century, according to new research, raising the prospect of prolonged higher-than-usual inflation.  

In an analyst note to clients, Goldman Sachs economists, led by Jan Hatzius, estimated that there is a shortage of 4.6 million workers in the U.S. – the most since the World War II period. That number takes into account the total number of available jobs, of which there is a near-record, and the size of the labor force. READ MORE

The recovery was stronger than we thought last year. Here's why it didn't feel that way

The economic recovery was stronger than initially thought in the fourth quarter of last year, new data from the Commerce Department showed Thursday. But for many Americans it didn't feel that way.

US gross domestic product -- the broadest measure of economic activity -- grew at an annualized pace of 7% between October and December, just above the 6.9% that was first reported in January and in line with economists' expectations. READ MORE

The race for talent: Now job offers can come within days

When it comes to hiring, companies are moving fast.

With millions of open jobs and not enough workers to fill them, employers are struggling to attract and retain employees. At the end of 2021, there were 10.9 million job openings, according to the most recent data from the Labor Department.

One way companies are addressing the problem is by streamlining the hiring process to bring talent in faster. READ MORE

How Leaders Should Think About Employee Benefits

As the seismic shifts caused by the Great Resignation continue to reverberate across the workforce, employees everywhere are looking to make a change motivated primarily by companies offering better compensation, including benefits.

Record numbers of workers left their jobs in 2021. And, as the year came to a close, Ceridian’s annual Pulse of Talent report found that as many as one in four workers were still actively seeking new jobs. READ MORE