by Tom
An interesting take from the Economist on why we work so hard and a question about should we?
Our jobs have become prisons from which we don’t want to escape
Source: www.1843magazine.com
The last two paragraphs are the real meat of the story:
"I get hung up on as easily. The writing I could do as easily, just about. Building my career, away from our London headquarters, would not be so easy. As I explain this, a circularity threatens to overtake my point: to build my career is to make myself indispensable, demonstrating indispensability means burying myself in the work, and the upshot of successfully demonstrating my indispensability is the need to continue working tirelessly. Not only can I not do all that elsewhere; outside London, the obvious brilliance of a commitment to this course of action is underappreciated. It looks pointless – daft, even.
And I begin to understand the nature of the trouble I’m having communicating to my parents precisely why what I’m doing appeals to me. They are asking about a job. I am thinking about identity, community, purpose – the things that provide meaning and motivation. I am talking about my life."
by Tom
Want to rock team collaboration? Read here about how Google does it.
Google loves quantifying stuff. But when it comes to optimizing team collaboration, it turns out their secret sauce is an unwritten social code.
Source: blog.idonethis.com
Interestingly, what the found was the best ingredients for effective teams was equal participation and good sharing both within and outside the team.
by Tom
Remote Work: Jack’s journey Infographic by @Plan.io
Working Remotely – Jack’s Journey Out of the Office Employees regularly cite the option of working remotely as something they’d love. In fact, 80-90% of U.S. workers say they’d like to work fro
Source: plan.io
Lots of good statistics in this infographic about remote work. One I particularly liked was about the amount of extra sleep remote workers get.
by Tom
An average commuter loses the equivalent of 9 days a year
"Roughly a quarter of American commutes are less than 15 minutes one way. On the other hand, nearly 17 percent of us have commutes that are 45 minutes or longer. And the prevalence of these long commutes -- and of really, really long commutes -- is growing."
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
The author cites Census data showing 4.4% of the workforce worked primarily at home in 2014 but that actually includes the self-employed. Employee-only telework (at least half-time) has grown more than 100% since 2005 and currently accounts for 2.8% of the workforce. Our estimate is that another 20% to 30% of the workforce telecommutes less regularly. Those are the folks we need to convince to skip the commute more frequently.
by Tom
Excellent report from LinkedIn on why people change jobs. Culture and Work-Life Balance among the reasons.
Attract, recruit and empower attractive active job seekers with 2015 insights from one of the world’s largest studies of 10K+ recent job
switchers.
Source: business.linkedin.com
The bottom line: compensation, advancement, and particularly for women better work environment/culture (41%) and work-life balance (26%).