This is how we finally end the 40-hour, 5-day workweek

For many people, the biggest problem with work isn’t anything about the job itself; it’s how the timing constantly conflicts with everything else in life. We take for granted the “standard” five-day, 40-hour workweek, but the truth is, this structure was created less than 100 years ago to suit a much different reality.

In recent years, there has been a louder drum beat of support around reimagining the workweek to be four days instead of five. And as the four-day workweek has gained attention, some companies have found it to be a powerful recruitment and retention tool. READ MORE

Worried about losing your job to AI? Expert points to the actual threat

The widespread use of artificial intelligence tools has many workers concerned that the rapidly-evolving technology will eventually result in them losing their job, and one expert says that is a real concern — but not in the way some might expect.

The 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report recently released by Microsoft and LinkedIn found that 45% of knowledge workers worldwide say they are worried that AI will replace them, but Laurence Liew, director for AI Innovation at AI Singapore, says there is a more immediate threat. READ MORE

What we lose when we cut D and E from DEI

I am not a woke capitalist. I don’t believe that being good for good’s sake has an awful lot of value when speaking with investors, and that’s also true when talking about the lack of diversity in venture capital. 

However, I coauthored a book on diversity, equity, and inclusion in tech and VC. I care deeply about it and believe that despite all the pledges after #metoo and Black Lives Matter, the ecosystem has not done nearly enough. The numbers are flat or even down. That’s shameful and, bluntly, stupid.  READ MORE

Why we need fewer performance reviews—and more check-ins

Performance management, if you’re not familiar with the term, is the slightly Orwellian name given to the process involving goal-setting, annual or semiannual reviews and feedback, and performance ratings, and in its traditional form, it represents a kind of all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of our worst and most erroneous ideas about human performance. Goals must be set for people, because they are extrinsically motivated and otherwise probably won’t do much work. Performance reviews and ratings are needed because if people aren’t told where they stand and how to improve, they’ll never get any better—certainly not of their own volition. READ MORE

The four-day work week is here to stay at UK companies that tried it

One year after the conclusion of the world’s biggest trial of a four-day work week, a large majority of companies that took part were still allowing their employees to work a shorter week and more than half had made the change permanent.

For six months between June and December 2022, workers at 61 organizations in the United Kingdom worked 80% of their usual hours — for the same pay — in exchange for promising to deliver 100% of their usual work. READ MORE

Meet AdVon, the AI-Powered Content Monster Infecting the Media Industry

A few years back, a writer in a developing country started doing contract work for a company called AdVon Commerce, getting a few pennies per word to write online product reviews.

But the writer — who like other AdVon sources interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity — recalls that the gig's responsibilities soon shifted. Instead of writing, they were now tasked with polishing drafts generated using an AI system the company was developing, internally dubbed MEL. READ MORE

DEI is getting a new name. Can it dump the political baggage?

Last year, Eli Lilly’s annual shareholders letter referenced the acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion 48 times. This year, “DEI” is nowhere to be found.

In March, Starbucks got shareholder approval to replace “representation” goals with “talent” performance for executive bonus incentives. At Molson Coors, “People & Planet” metrics have displaced environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals, and the acronym DEI has disappeared altogether. READ MORE

Economics Was A Cause Of The Great Depression

Economics is a proud discipline. It has long seen itself as the premier social science and with the major natural sciences part of the core of the intellectual apparatus of modern society. It understands its methods as sound, serious, and extensive and its contribution to progress notable.

Economics has been particularly proud of its record in explaining the central negative event of economic history since the industrial revolution, the Great Depression of the 1930s. Its inquiries into monetary policy, the gold standard, and “regime uncertainty” (its own term) have explained the event with dedication. READ MORE

FTC is sued by business groups over its ban on noncompete agreements, which may delay enforcement

Less than 24 hours after the Federal Trade Commission issued a final rule this week banning employers from using noncompete agreements in the United States, the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable filed a lawsuit against the agency in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas.

Another lawsuit was filed in federal court in the Northern District of Texas by business tax services firm Ryan. READ MORE

Exclusive-ByteDance prefers TikTok shutdown in US if legal options fail, sources say

TikTok owner ByteDance would prefer to shut down its loss-making app rather than sell it if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the U.S., four sources said.

The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to ByteDance's overall operations, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely, said the sources close to the parent. READ MORE

Job trend 'resenteeism' has employees coasting through workdays and hanging on, rather than quitting

Similar to the viral sensation "quiet quitting" — when employees get the bare minimum done on the job due to burnout and feeling they're underappreciated — the latest career trend, "resenteeism," captures workers' tendency toward low productivity because they're resentful. 

They realize they have to stay at their current job because of financial obligations and responsibilities, but they're not ready to leave the position, for one reason or another. 

This unproductive mentality is affecting both small businesses and large companies across the country.  READ MORE

Masters, IBM enhancing fan experience with Hole Insights to track tournament shots in real time

Whether it’s your 10th time playing or your first, the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club is a daunting task for every golfer.

It’s the only major of the golfing season that’s continuously played at the same course, yet golfers sometimes take weeks off between tournaments just to prepare for it. And that preparation isn’t just dialing in the swing or working on nailing putts. READ MORE

Why Executives Can’t Get Comfortable With AI

Executives need to have an understanding of information technology in order to derive business value from it and to productively interact with IT professionals. Nevertheless, IT experts have long lamented many executives’ limited knowledge of IT’s underlying functionality. In turn, many executives have (often unconsciously) declined to develop such IT literacy, preferring instead to focus their time and attention on domain and business matters. READ MORE

Office redesigns should focus on enabling hybrid work arrangements, AI: study

Employees have positive views about returning to the office but expect it to look and feel differently than it did before the pandemic to accommodate hybrid arrangements as well as facilitating new artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, according to a new study by Cisco.

The Cisco Hybrid Work study – which surveyed 14,050 full-time employees and 3,800 employers from around the world in December 2023 and January 2024 – found that 72% of employees have positive feelings about returning to the office. However, only 47% of employees believe their work environments are equipped for the hybrid work era, pointing to a need for office spaces to be redesigned to better support the ways that employees want to work together. READ MORE

Former Google employee warns of ‘terrifying patterns’ in company’s AI algorithms

A former high-level Google employee said "terrifying patterns" were discovered in Google's core products and hypothesized how bias may have entered the Gemini artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.

Whenever there is a problem inside of a Google product, the company has a reporting system called "Go Bad" that can be utilized to document potentially harmful content, according to the source. READ MORE