The Future of Work

The New Yorker
Why Do We Work Too Much?5 min read · Aug 30th · In the modern office, stress has become a default metric for judging whether we are busy enough.
future of work
business
career
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we can’t redirect the future of work until we can control it in the present.
Parkinson’s Law,” and it opens with a famous pronouncement: “It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
The problem with the stress heuristic is that it doesn’t start reducing your workload until you already have too much to do
Vox
Why everybody’s hiring but nobody’s getting hired9 min read · Sep 20th · Everyone is hiring. So why is finding a job still impossible?
business
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are 8.4 million potential workers who are unemployed, but it also says there are a record 10.9 million jobs open.
Other jobs are undesirable — they offer bad pay or an unpredictable schedule, or just don’t feel worth it to unemployed workers, many of whom are rethinking their priorities.
Sometimes, what the software is scanning for doesn’t even make sense — as the Wall Street Journal recently noted, it will look for registered nurses who also know computer programming when really they just need data entry.
Harvard Business Review
Let’s Redefine “Productivity” for the Hybrid Era7 min read · Sep 9th · It’s time to expand the definition to include well-being, social connection, and collaboration
productivity
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The boundary between work and home has never been a clear line
Fast forward to March 4, 2020Hundreds of researchers from Microsoft, LinkedIn, and GitHub came together to form the largest research initiative in Microsoft’s history, now called the “New Future of Work.” Together, while figuring out how to work from home and struggling with childcare ourselves, we’ve conducted more than 50 research projects on remote work.
A New Definition of Productivityresearchers use two key types of data to approximate it: 1) self-reported worker data, or asking people if they feel productive, and 2) worker activity data, or counting the number of emails sent or lines of code written.
Corporate Rebels
Reinventing Bosch: A Radically New Way Of Working9 min read · Sep 8th · Many people feel stuck inside large, traditional, soul-sucking organizations. They know their company culture needs radical change, but feel as if they can't influence a damn thing. Luckily, several…
company culture
worklife improvements
Atlassian
Here's what a 4-day workweek is really like10 min read · Sep 23rd · We tracked hours worked, team performance, and well-being during our experiment. And the data doesn't lie.
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we maintained or improved on our key performance metrics and felt an improved sense of wellbeing. While the experience was positive overall, there were some logistical and emotional struggles.
imagine my surprise when I presented my team with the idea and they did not erupt in universal celebration in response.
Fast Company
It’s not the ‘Great Resignation’ but the ‘Great Reprioritization’5 min read · Sep 10th · Are workers really quitting en masse? Research from a Miami University professor surveying full-time workers says most are only “considering” leaving their jobs.
business
The Atlantic
Workism Is Making Americans Miserable~11 min read · From 2019 · For the college-educated elite, work has morphed into a religious identity—promising identity, transcendence, and community, but failing to deliver.
culture
work
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Blue-collar jobs produce tangible products, like coal, steel rods, and houses. The output of white-collar work—algorithms, consulting projects, programmatic advertising campaigns—is more shapeless and often quite invisible. It’s not glib to say that the whiter the collar, the more invisible the product.
Long hours don’t make anybody more productive or creative; they make people stressed, tired and bitter.
Forge
It’s Time to Replace Ambition with Adaptation9 min read · 2020-10-15 · The pandemic and climate crises make working ourselves to the bone in service of our own ambition seem a little silly. Let’s change that.
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Our individualized, highly specialized career ambition is no longer a suitable match for the world we’re living in.
the most important gift is reclaiming the adaptive capacity of our species.
Somewhere in there lies the sweet spot where our human capacity for adaptation itself becomes ambitious.
Corporate Rebels
Reinvent Your Organizational Culture. Here's How.5 min read · Jul 11th · The hardest thing to do is start. Writing a book, exercising, dieting… reinventing your work culture. But deep down you know it’s the right thing to do. There’s an internal nagging that won’t go away.…
company culture
business
warzel.substack.com
What If People Don’t Want 'A Career?'8 min read · Aug 30th · Just asking questions
career
career development
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Throughout the piece, she seems more interested in the optics surrounding work than the work itself.
She doesn’t frame his failings in terms of productivity but, instead, in terms of enthusiasm He was not bought in. This, for a class of bad manager, is the cardinal sin. Being ‘bought in’ is perhaps more important than the work itself.
This is where the career comes in. In this instance, the career is a device that businesses and managers can use as a motivation to get the deference and feigned enthusiasm that they want (and often feel they need) from employees
Atlassian
What is mindful leadership?7 min read · Sep 3rd · Mindful leadership requires consciously cultivating your ability to be present, open-minded, and compassionate when interacting with team members.
leadership
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When a new team member starts, Taylor sets up a meeting to get to know the person as an individual and a professional.
Many leaders feel they don’t have time to work on being mindful because their workload is too big and they have too many demands to deliver on
To be with whatever is happening in a responsive and resilient way.
Quartz
The four ways companies respond to doubt: Workplace trends, August 20211 min read · Aug 25th · A new theory about how organizations handle uncertainty reveals how four different responses shape a company's culture and ability to survive. Plus: Vaccine mandates, and netflix leaders on…
business
company culture
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1. Cling to existing beliefs, putting a fundamentalist-like faith in the way things have always been done; 2. Project a vision of the future that leaves no room for doubt or doubters; 3. Become cynical and stop investing in the organization entirely; or 4. Begin perpetually experimenting and updating their assumptions.
Fast Company
Best Workplaces for Innovators 2021Aug 4th · And when talent and innovation intersect with mission, they can help change the world.
innovation
Harvard Business Review
Let Your Top Performers Move Around the Company5 min read · Aug 20th · It’s a critical way to retain talent and upskill your workforce.
business
leadership
company culture
MIT Sloan Management Review
Overcoming Obstacles to Successful Culture Change3 min read · Jul 26th · Culture change starts with new actions, not with business leaders identifying or articulating a desired culture.
business
company culture
Fast Company
Science confirms it: Open offices are a nightmare3 min read · Jul 7th · Your open-plan workplace is making you sweat. Literally.
future of work
The Future of Work

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