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A wave of IT outages swept across the globe Friday morning, sending airports, airlines, banks and other institutions into a screeching halt as some Microsoft-based computers ceased to work.
CrowdStrike -- an American cybersecurity technology firm that provides cloud workload protection, threat intelligence and cyberattack response services -- said the outage, which sparked chaos for many, was not a cyberattack. Instead, there was an issue with software and a fix had been deployed. READ MORE
John Deere says it will no longer sponsor “social or cultural awareness” events, becoming the latest major US company to distance itself from diversity and inclusion measures after being targeted by conservative backlash.
In a statement posted Tuesday to social media platform X, the farm equipment maker also said it would audit all training materials “to ensure the absence of socially-motivated messages” in compliance with federal and local laws. It did not specify what those messages would include. READ MORE
An online retailer recently underwent an AI transformation after it realized it no longer needed to employ an expensive local workforce to provide customer support. They split their customer support between AI bots serving as the first tier of support and an offshore team to which AI could escalate calls, functioning as a second tier of support. Its operational costs dropped precipitously, but so did the quality of service and sales.
This is just one example of the trendiest conversation in every boardroom, event and trade conference. More than anything, executives want to know when they can finally replace employees who require benefits, vacations, mental health programs, promotions and professional development and replace them with an army of AI bots. And we need to talk about this. READ MORE
With thousands of American businesses mandating back-to-office protocols, some rogue managers are apparently stretching their authority and going against company policy.
These rebellious managers are allowing staff to split their time between working from home and reporting to their workplace — even though their companies are now requiring in-person work. READ MORE
A new winner has been crowned as the best state in America for business, but it is no stranger to the top spot.
The annual rankings conducted by CNBC scored all 50 states on a range of 10 categories, including infrastructure, workforce and economy, and determined these are the five best states for business in the U.S. READ MORE
European regulators have charged Elon Musk’s X with breaching its sweeping Digital Services Act, accusing the platform of misleading its users among other violations. READ MORE
If you can't beat them, join them.
That will be the epitaph on the gravestone of return-to-office mandates. And to me, anyway, it's nothing short of ironic that the push to bring employees back to the office is going to go out with a whimper instead of a bang.
It's also fascinating to me that in the end, the productivity argument never really mattered. READ MORE
President Biden is pushing for significant changes to make big corporations pay more taxes and quadruple the tax on stock buybacks, which benefit wealthy investors and CEOs with low-tax payouts. He wants to raise the corporate tax rate to 28% and the corporate minimum tax to 21%. READ MORE
In the post-pandemic world of work, employee and employer expectations for where work gets done continue to evolve. In an effort to provide clarity around the business value of in-office versus hybrid work arrangements, Stanford University professor and work-from-home expert Nick Bloom led a research project at one company that yielded insightful results—particularly around the impact of hybrid work on employee retention. READ MORE
A car rental service in Charlotte, North Carolina has replaced its agents with virtual staffers on a monitor on video chat software. If a customer wishes to speak to a manager, they walk into an office and sit at a desk, upon which sits a computer monitor that also has a virtual staffer on a monitor on a video chat. This is the latest frontier in what appears to be a growing trend of virtual employees working at in-person offices. READ MORE
In the fast-moving consumer goods sector, “moments of truth” represent the key points where consumers interact with a product, and their thoughts and opinions about it are formed. Ensuring that a consumer forms a favorable opinion at each moment of truth is key to the brand’s success in the market. It can also determine whether an existing customer leaves or remains loyal to your brand. READ MORE
Work culture is constantly evolving in the corporate world, with many companies rolling out updates to their policies that they believe will bring out the best in their employees.
While some policy changes are welcomed with open arms in the workplace, others can spark controversy such as policies that lay out ground rules surrounding remote work or hiring and firing practices. READ MORE
As chatter of the first US presidential debate hit workplaces across the country, executives a got a stark reminder about what happens when a contentious election cycle invades their offices.
Once considered taboo, talking politics at the water cooler is now quite common: Three in five US workers have discussed politics with coworkers over the last year, according to a report published by Glassdoor Inc. last November. While the office has long been seen as a place where Republicans and Democrats set aside their differences to accomplish shared goals, that ideal is fading. READ MORE
Remi never intended to secretly outsource her job. It sort of just happened.
After graduating from college in 2019 with a degree in education, the Gen Zer found work at a Chicago publishing company. She did not love it. Most of her colleagues were decades older than her, and their struggles to use basic software forced her to become a one-woman IT operation. The work itself was uninspiring and relentless: On most days she juggled presentation slides, managed spreadsheets and databases, and formatted page layouts. READ MORE
Seven months after declaring that advertisers pulling their ads from his social-media platform X could “go f— yourself,” Elon Musk took a more congenial tone onstage at the advertising industry’s most important annual festival.
Musk joined Mark Read, chief executive of ad giant WPP, in a session Wednesday at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France, a five-day event that draws thousands of the industry’s chief marketing officers, tech leaders, creative workers and others from around the world. READ MORE
The year was 1999. Steve Jobs had recently returned to lead Apple. Intel was the dominant force in semiconductors. And a little-known chipmaker named Nvidia made its debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
It took less than three years for Nvidia Corp. to ascend into the S&P 500 — replacing the disgraced oil-trading conglomerate Enron, no less. READ MORE
Nvidia, long known in the niche gaming community for its graphics chips, is now the most valuable public company in the world.
Shares of the chipmaker climbed 3.6% on Tuesday, lifting the company’s market cap to $3.34 trillion, surpassing Microsoft, which is now valued at $3.32 trillion. Earlier this month, Nvidia hit $3 trillion for the first time, and passed Apple. READ MORE
A wave of large bankruptcies is about to hit the US economy — and that could spark job losses for a growing number of Americans, according to Wall Street forecaster Danielle DiMartino Booth.
The QI Research CEO pointed to the climb in corporate bankruptcies over the past year, a sign that businesses are struggling under higher interest rates and tighter financial conditions. Corporate bankruptcies rose 88% through April this year, according to data from S&P Global. READ MORE
Regulators once accused Elon Musk of fraud over a possible buyout that never happened. Now they are positioned to make similar allegations over one that did.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has been investigating Musk’s late disclosure of his purchases of Twitter stock before he took over the company. Excerpts of Musk’s testimony provided to the SEC, which came to light last month through a separate lawsuit, suggest Musk and his adviser brushed off compliance with a rule that required him to reveal his ownership once it passed 5% of Twitter’s shares. READ MORE
The traditional five-day workweek focusing on being "in the office" is undergoing a significant shift, and we’re yet to see what system of work for knowledge workers will prevail. But one work pattern that is emerging is the idea of a “gentle Friday.” This gentle Friday is an unspoken agreement among colleagues to just…not expect too much from a Friday.
Bruce Daisley, a Sunday Times bestselling author, host of the award-winning podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat, and expert on workplace trends, discusses Friday’s new identity and what combination of factors might have led us there. READ MORE