Business
What California’s New Gig Work Law Gets Wrong About Gig Work (via Harvard Business Review)
It’s simpler to thing of employment as binary — gig worker vs. employee — but it oversimplifies the costs and benefits of different types of employment. For example, if a company offered certain benefits (e.g., worker training) but now has to pay more for the costs of having employees, those benefits become unsustainable.
Community Colleges Need to Evolve as Students’ Needs Do (via Harvard Business Review)
This post taught me about the challenges that community colleges face, as they have to be the most adaptable.
Can China Avoid a Growth Crisis? (via Harvard Business Review)
Although China has on the rise recently, some of its growth mimics what happened to Japan in the late 1990s. Their workforce is getting older and most of their revenue is domestic. To remain successful, they’ll likely need to adopt a global mindset like Switzerland has done.
Career
Should New Grads Take Any Job or Wait for the Right One? (via Harvard Business Review)
Somewhere in between… It’s unlikely you’ll get your dream job right away, but you can target employers who will help get you some experience while you’re paying the bills. Don’t underestimate the power of getting experience at “lesser” jobs — you’ll learn something regardless.
How to Get Ahead When Your Boss Doesn’t Have Influence (via Harvard Business Review)
- Develop independent relationships with senior leaders
- Find out who is in the know and replicate their processes
- Find ways to differentiate yourself
Reskilling Workers Is a Central Part of Corporate Social Responsibility (via Harvard Business Review)
With many jobs at risk because of automation, it’s essential to have a skilled workforce. Everyone benefits from having skilled people in the community, but companies don’t want to pay for it, putting the burden on the individual. I’ve experienced that argument personally — “we train them up and then they leave to put that knowledge to use somewhere else.” I’m for what this article suggests — it’s not about the individual, it’s about the collective (all boats rising).
Research: When Losing Out on a Big Opportunity Helps Your Career (via Harvard Business Review)
A near miss (where you didn’t win but came close to winning) and persevering can make it more likely for you to win in the future. In other words, never experiencing failure leaves you lacking in how to handle it when it inevitably happens.
Culture
What Happens When Teams Fight Burnout Together (via Harvard Business Review)
Wellness programs aren’t often enough; the root cause of the stress doesn’t go away. This study implemented social prescribing, a facilitated and supported way of working differently with healthy boundaries around work.
Why Reverse Mentoring Works and How to Do It Right (via Harvard Business Review)
This approach has junior employees mentoring senior ones, typically about how different generations can understand one another better and to share what’s important. I like the idea of shared, continual learning.
Leadership
4 Ways to Manage an Emotionally Needy Employee (via Harvard Business Review)
- Test the person’s awareness of their impact on the team
- Be direct about your emotional boundaries
- Treat needy people as if they are strong, not fragile
- Don’t allow gossip about a needy coworker
When Surprise is a Good Negotiation Tactic (via Harvard Business Review)
“…negotiators can also use surprise in more positive ways: to signal collaboration, generate creativity, destabilize negative patterns, and earn a positive reputation.” This post has several tips you can use — such as saying “yes, if” — when employing surprise.
Process
The Dangers of Categorical Thinking (via Harvard Business Review)
Humans use categories to make sense of the world, but sometimes these generalizations lead us to misleading ends. This article talks about different types of extrapolation — compression, amplification, discrimination, and fossilization — and how they can be problematic.
Where Companies Go Wrong with Learning and Development (via Harvard Business Review)
Training programs typically fail because we’re learning for the wrong reasons (ticking a box), at the wrong time, and the wrong things (not applicable to the job); then add that we quickly forget what we’ve learned. Instead, we can think 80/20 (learn 20% of the skills that are needed 80% of the time), apply learning to real-world situations, use guided learning, personalize the content, work in small chunks, and peer-learn.