Tag Archives: Workplace

World Economic Forum: Top Stories – Feb 3, 2023

World Economic Forum (February 3, 2023) – This week’s top stories include:

  • 0:15 This AI robot is revolutionizing farming – The robot can identify weeds and crops at rate of 20 plants a second. The robot then delivers either weedkiller or fertilizer directly to individual plants to an accuracy of within 1mm. It can treat up to 500,000 plants per hour. The robot was invented by US firm Verdant Robotics.
  • 1:24 This company cancelled all internal meetings – In January, e-commerce platform Shopify cancelled all regular meetings with 3 people or more and imposed a 2-week window before staff could schedule anything new. It also permanently banned meetings on Wednesdays and limited large meetings to a strict window on Thursdays. More organizations are trying a ‘meeting reset’, from Dropbox to Asana and Zapier. But why – and could your organization try it too?
  • 3:00 How to build a thriving workplace – Businesses often ask staff why they resign. So why not ask why they’re joining or staying? “Why would you wait until people have already committed to walk out the door to say, ‘If only I had a time machine, I would go back to the past and convince you to stay’? What I would much rather see employers do are entry interviews and stay interviews. Entry interview is just asking the same questions you would normally pose at exit at the beginning of the employment relationship: Why are you here? What are you hoping to learn? Right. What are some of the best projects you’ve worked on? Tell me about the worst boss you’ve ever had so we can try to emulate the good and avoid the bad.”
  • 5:22 ChatGPT is already being used for scientific research – ChatGPT launched to the public in November 2022. It gives in-depth, natural language answers to prompts, based on what it has learned from a huge database of books and articles. People have been using ChatGPT to perform an impressive range of tasks, from writing university-level essays to debugging code and filling in job applications. It has written fake scientific reports that have fooled scientists and has even been used to write a children’s book.

The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.

Opinion: India’s Economy, Workplace Surveillance, Infant Genome Screening

A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, the forces that stand to transform India’s economy over the next decade (11:06), how surveilling workers could enhance productivity (21:07), and full-genome screening for newborn babies is now on the cards.

Telework: Large Exodus Of Workers From North To South Italy (Video)

In Italy, more than 100,000 people working in the north have returned to their native villages in the south because of the Covid-19 pandemic. They are continuing to work for their employers based in the north, but remotely. As a result, large northern cities are losing their workforces. Milan, an important business hub, has lost more than 12,000 inhabitants since February 2020. Meanwhile, towns in the south are benefitting from the arrival of these young remote working professionals, in a north-south exodus previously unheard of in Italy. Our correspondents report from Sicily.

The Future Of Work: ‘Is Working From Home A Long-Term Trend?’ (Video)

The white-collar world has been forced by Covid-19 into a “work from home” experiment, and the results are in. It turns out we can be just as productive at home, if not more so, and many don’t want to go back to the office — at least not full time. So what will happen to the office? Will we see workers coming in only when they have to? And if so, what does that mean to the multibillion- dollar commercial real estate industry?

Future Of Work: ‘Virtual-Reality Headsets’ May Be The Next ‘Office’ (Video)

With a virtual-reality headset and a virtual meeting platform like Spatial, you can meet up and collaborate with your colleagues as if you were in a real office space. WSJ’s Joanna Stern transformed into a holographic avatar and got in a virtual elevator to test it out.

Photo illustration: Adam Falk

Future Of Work: The New ‘Flexible’ Workplace

AZURE MAGAZINE (SEPT 7, 2020): The future of work. In a year where the rhythms of daily life have been upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, the workplace has migrated from the office to the living room, kitchen table and – if the Zoom camera is off – even our beds.

But as Canada and countries around the world cautiously move towards re-opening their economies, a gradual, socially distanced return to the office beckons. So how should it all look?

When it comes to the office evolution, Teknion is ahead of the curve. Harnessing decades of innovation, the design-driven manufacturer’s flexible portfolio of workplace solutions is optimally positioned to create spaces that ensure employee safety while fostering learning, community and wellness.

Website

Health & Business: “The Office Redesign Is Just Beginning” (WSJ Video)

Plexiglass dividers and floor decals might not be permanent, but the pandemic will bring lasting change to offices. Experts from the architecture and real-estate industries share how they are getting back to work and what offices will look like in the future.

Photo: Cesare Salerno for The Wall Street Journal

2020 Innovation: “Remote-Only Organizations”: Is This The Future Of Work?

From a Stanford Engineering article (April 8, 2020):

Stanford Engineering Remote-Only Organizations April 8 2020Companies that structure themselves as location-independent have developed norms and practices that bridge the emotional and logistical distances. The same is true for their workers. For such companies, remote-only work can reduce costs, expand the talent pool and boost productivity. By contrast, being forced by a crisis to work remotely is likely to be disruptive and frustrating. It may be better than shutting down, but it will likely lead to a big drop in productivity.

In the span of a single month, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced companies and organizations of all types to have almost all of their employees work remotely from home.

Has the future of work, the all-remote workforce and even the virtual organization, arrived in full force? Though online technologies have made remote work increasingly common, most companies and organizations are still run out of brick-and-mortar facilities. Now they are scrambling to stand up virtual workspaces overnight.

Read full article

The Aging Workplace: Baby Boomers Are Fastest Growing Segment Of Labor Force (GlassDoor)

From a GlassDoor.com online posting:

Baby Boomers fastest growing workforce“Senior citizens today are healthier, more engaged, and working longer than past generations,” says Chamberlain. “A ‘gray wave’ of senior citizens will be impacting the workforce in coming years, both in the United States and the United Kingdom.”

Mature employees and job seekers bring a vast skillset and tremendous experience to open jobs, combined with a strong professional network that rivals any social-media-savvy Gen Zer. And despite the preconceptions of older workers, reports show they are just as open to learning and development as their young peers.

Move over, Gen Z and Millennials. The Baby Boomer generation, those born between 1944 and 1964, are the fastest-growing segment of the labor force in the U.S. and they are catching the eye of recruiters in every industry.

Read report: https://www.glassdoor.com/research/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/11/Job_Trends_2020-Glassdoor_FINAL.pdf

According to Glassdoor’s Chief Economist Dr. Andrew Chamberlain in the newly released “Job & Hiring Trends 2020” report, the 65+ demographic is working longer than past generations and shows no signs of retiring for good.

To read more: https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/baby-boomers-becoming-the-fastest-growing-workforce/