The next big meeting on your calendar might not have any other attendees-it might just be you. A growing number of high-performing leaders, including managers at Google and other Fortune 100 companies, are carving out protected "focus blocks" and treating them like mission-critical meetings. With constant pings, shallow tasks, and back-to-back calls, this might be the only way to produce strategic, high-value work. Google and Microsoft have even rolled out Focus Time features that automatically block off calendars to protect deep work.
If you were to join a team meeting at Parity on any given day, you might sense something unusual. One colleague may have just returned from a strength session. Another might be joining from an airport between competitions. Someone else might be analyzing sponsor data mere hours before competing in a world-class event. This is what it looks like to lead a company where a significant portion of the workforce comprises elite women athletes.
I was tired of making $15 per hour and having no benefits, no time off, and no future after 20 years of experience. I wanted kids someday and wanted the kids to be able to see a doctor before they were old enough to get a job themselves. Restaurants simply cannot provide that. COVID-19 just really drove it home how owners would VASTLY prefer their employees to all die than take a slight hit on profits.
In a post on X on Wednesday, the 27-year-old creator, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, told his 33.4 million followers that he hasn't been fully satisfied with the quality of his latest videos. "After some reflection, I just want to say I think some of our newer youtube videos haven't been as good as I wanted. I apologize," MrBeast wrote. "Ya boy is going to go into ultra grind mode and make the greatest content of my life in 2026. Promise," he added.
It's a season for warm messages and "thank yous." This is why Thanksgiving serves as a reminder of the power of genuine gratitude in learning and the workplace, as well. In today's world of remote teams, deadlines, and constant learning, employees can easily feel overwhelmed. A simple "I appreciate you" can make a big difference to your team, as it can change the mood of the day, create a sense of connection, and remind everyone that their work is important.
On September 11, a Marilyn Monroe impersonator sang a sultry rendition of "Happy Birthday" to an executive at the Virginia headquarters of the Society for Human Resource Management. The brief performance, which took place in a conference room with about 75 employees, came after remarks honoring the 24th anniversary of the 2001 terror attacks. Two former staffers who were present at the gathering, recordings of which were reviewed by Business Insider, said it was uncomfortable to see - and not just because it was sexually suggestive.
During those interviews, no one ever offered me a glass of water. Not the recruiter who greeted me. Not the other individuals who interviewed me. And no, not my future boss. I remember that at some point I had to use the bathroom. My future boss seemed annoyed that I asked where the ladies' room was. I scurried into the bathroom quickly, not wanting to be late for the next interview.
Let's start with a confession: I've never been fully authentic for a single day in my life. Neither have you. I don't mean this as an accusation. I see it as fact. The relentless cultural message telling us to "be ourselves" might be the cruelest advice we've ever collectively accepted. It promises liberation but brings anxiety. Because here's what nobody mentions when they sell you authenticity as the path to enlightenment: being your full, unfiltered self would make you unemployable, unfriendable
I think about hiring the same way. Like a stat sheet, a résumé might list someone's achievements, but it won't show how they adapt under pressure or support a team. Yet in the age of AI, companies often overlook that, prioritizing technical skills instead. According to a 2024 report from Microsoft and LinkedIn, 71% of employers said they would choose an AI-fluent candidate with less experience over someone more experienced but with limited AI knowledge.
This is a real escalation in the dispute with agency workers now joining picket lines due to the terrible way they have been treated by Job and Talent and Birmingham council. Birmingham council is spending a fortune it doesn't have on a dispute that could easily be resolved by agreeing a fair deal for workers. Unite does what it says on the trade union tin we are totally committed to fighting for the jobs, pay and conditions of all its members.
Early this year, Mark Zuckerberg made headlines by saying corporate culture needs more "masculine energy." This sentiment was echoed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's call for the military-an employer of 2.1 million Americans-to return to a "warrior ethos", promoting traditional masculine standards like aggression and athleticism. And yet, according to recent news reports, recruits at ICE (another workplace) are struggling to pass basic fitness tests, and Hegseth allegedly installed a makeup room at the Pentagon.
Every workplace seems to have one. A manager who goes silent for days, then suddenly reappears in the team chat the moment senior leadership checks in. They'll swoop in to take credit for the work they hadn't touched, and say, "Oh yes, we've been addressing that." This type of boss shows up when there's an audience, then vanishes as soon as the higher-ups leave. I've started calling them the performative manager, because that's exactly what they are.
Gen X'ers may be a bit uncomfortable if you openly blurt out how much you're making at the office-but it's less of a taboo for Gen Z, according to a new survey from Kickresume. The poll, which measured 1,850 anonymous employees worldwide, found only 31% of people say salary is openly discussed at their job-while 37% have rules against discussing pay.
The particular problem that I'm worried about is wokeness, because the reason why I think the great feminization thesis is important to talk about is because I see a lot of people walking around right now thinking that wokeness is over. They say the vibe shift is here. We don't need to worry about it anymore. But I'm saying that if it's the result of structural forces and demographic feminization, then we cannot be so complacent because wokeness is here to stay.
The one thing I really couldn't get purchase on from your essay is I never got a sense of whether there were female virtues at all from your piece. If you want to know what I like about women. No, that's not my question. You can ask me. In fact, I invite you to commission from me an entire essay on the subject. What I like about women. My freelance rates are very reasonable. What do you like about women, Helen?
When Greg Giczi retired in February, his company threw him a party. Giczi had spent 12 years as president and general manager of WNIT-TV, a public television station based in South Bend, Indiana. Public broadcasting isn't known for lavish budgets, so the party took place at the studio-a "big, open space with dramatic lighting," Giczi describes. There were appetizers, wine, and beer, as well as heartfelt speeches.
Everywhere I turn - podcasts, research calls, dinner conversations - people are talking about "toxic workplaces." The phrase has become ubiquitous; almost unavoidable. So I did what most researchers do when they're curious (or procrastinating): I Googled it. That led me to a chart showing the term's meteoric rise beginning in the early 2010s. The curve shoots upward like a fever.
Chairs have choices about how to organize meetings, help staff feel included or excluded, coach new assistant professors about participation norms, and assign people to committees. How chairs do these routine tasks can have powerful effects on how department members relate to one another and the quality of relationships that develop. Cumulatively, small moments of interaction have a profound influence on a department and its culture
I argued that when employers make the first move toward loyalty - by treating their staff with care, respect, and honesty - employees would naturally reciprocate. Even in our hyper-mercenary age, I wrote, many of us still long for a loyal employer - and if we knew we wouldn't get burned for it, we'd be eager to be loyal in return.
It started with coding. Generative AI's aptitude for writing code was the death knell for traditional software development, and companies wanted "vibe" coders. Big Tech execs have been praising the vibes this year: Sundar Pichai is vibe coding a web page, Mark Zuckerberg says AI is coming for mid-level engineering work, and Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski says he's become an amateur coder thanks to vibe coding. Startups are vibe-coding their way into existence.
I mean literal play. The kind that is open-ended, imaginative, and unconcerned with outcomes. In my decades as a play designer and educator, I've watched executives, engineers, and designers from companies like Google, Nike, and Lego light up when they are given permission to play again. Not because they suddenly "learned" to be creative-but because they remembered they already are.
Something odd happened on our team five years ago that I now witness in many workplaces across the nation. One of our team members (we'll call her Dina) turned in a project that was so poor, her supervisor met with her to offer some corrective feedback. Dina wouldn't have it. Her reaction stumped me. She called out her supervisor on his correction, claiming she'd been attacked. Then, she claimed her supervisor wasn't psychologically safe.
