As the year nears its end, leaders find themselves facing uncertainty on all fronts. Employees, too, are worried about job security, inflation, and managers tightening the grip around remote work. With our weekly newsletter on workplace trends, we hope to cut through the noise of news, stories, and opinions, with a list of the most relevant insights on the evolution of the workplace of the future.
Today’s episode will cover:
- Layoffs: CNN, Kraken, and Doordash make deep cuts
- The hidden costs and productivity dips associated with remote work
- Shift in values for Gen Z employees facing recession
- Declining trust in female leaders
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Layoffs
CNN begins layoffs amid economic uncertainty, cost-cutting pressures from parent company | CNN
Chris Licht, the CEO of the network, announced that a limited number of the network’s staff – mostly paid contributors – have been let go. “It’s incredibly hard to say goodbye to any one member of the CNN team, much less many” – his Wednesday memo read.
Crypto exchange Kraken cuts 1,100 jobs | TechCrunch
Amidst the “doom and gloom” attitude surrounding the crypto market, Kraken’s decision to trim its workforce is barely surprising. Last week, the company announced a wave of job cuts in a blog post.
DoorDash lays off 1,250 employees | CNBC
DoorDash is letting go of 1,250 workers, as the company focuses on cost-cutting. In 2021, DoorDash went public and hit a valuation peak at $81.1 billion. Despite that, Doordash struggled to bring in any profit and now has to reconsider its expenses, as the market shrinks.
Uber CEO Says Won’t Cut Jobs Despite Mounting Tech Layoffs | Bloomberg
When asked about any reductions in the upcoming months, Dara Khosrowshahi said the company is “in a good place”. The comment seems both surprising and reassuring in a landscape where Uber’s key rivals – Lyft and Doordash – have laid off some of their staff. At the same time. Uber will be more conservative in hiring decisions and investments.
Remote and hybrid work
The open questions of hybrid working | The Economist
Hybrid work has a lot of obvious benefits: it sets both those who dream of office and those who want to work remotely up for success. It expands flexibility, broadens the range of possible integrations, and supports running global operations without giving up in-person presence. At the same time, a lot of open questions about hybrid work are still unanswered.
Five Ways Hybrid Work Makes Good Teams Great | Forbes
For the last two and a half years, we have been running the largest remote work experiment to date. Paradoxically, it’s proven quite successful, as more companies discovered they can cut costs, expand talent pools, and keep employees happy just by letting them work from home. At the same time, executives saw not-so-obvious downsides to the new way of working and realized that the most productive teams of the future are hybrid.
Finance employees see the future of work as hybrid as major firms push for a return to the office | Fortune
Finance sector leaders, like the CEOs of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, have been vocal about their preference for in-person work over work-from-home arrangements. Employees, on the other hand, believe that the vuture of finance is hybrid. A Fortune article explores the ways the two camps can reconcile and reach a middle ground.
Is Remote Work to Blame for Lower Productivity? | SHRM
The evidence linking remote work and productivity has been conflicting since the beginning of the pandemic. Some studies show that working from home improves performance, while others seem to prove the opposite. This year, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported productivity dips for three consecutive quarters, making executives wonder: is remote work to blame?
Leadership and management
To Retain Your Best Employees, Invest in Your Best Managers | Harvard Business Review
We often think about leadership on an organization-wide scale, it really comes down to individual managers finding the right ways to motivate and inspire their teams. Knowing how to train the next generation of leaders can help companies improve performance within teams and boost engagement.
The trust crisis facing women leaders | BBC Worklife
In November, the Reykjavik Index for Leadership published its annual survey data. The findings reveal that, for the first time in the survey’s history, respondents across G7 show less trust in female leaders (48% compared to 52% in 2021).
It’s All That Young Job Seekers Are Asking For: Stability | New York Times
The job market might be is at its lowest but the fears of the recession make Gen Z employees change their priorities. Job-seeker confidence in finding a new position is declining and fresh graduates prefer a stable position over a prestigious one.
Actually, most people like their bosses | Quartz
The old adage goes “People leave bad bosses, not bad companies”. That’s why we tend to blame trends like quiet quitting on poor leadership choices. Yet, new studies show that most employees actually like their supervisors.
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