What did we get right—and wrong—during COVID-19?

It’s hard to believe we’re a year into the COVID-19 pandemic—it’s been a year that’s changed every aspect of work and life as we know it.

The worldwide health crisis has forced changes to nearly every workplace strategy, but one of the most significant, undoubtedly, has been how employers imagine and craft their benefits. Benefits have always been a vital tool for employers—especially when it comes to attracting and retaining talent—but in a pandemic that jeopardized health and safety, benefits became more important than ever. Wellness, mental health, caregiving support and more have rightfully been in the spotlight to help employees through what many describe as the most stressful time of their career. READ MORE

Board Priorities Have Shifted for 2021 and Beyond

Organizations were forced to adapt to the conditions of 2020 and many of the changes made are likely to continue into the future based on new priorities.

For larger companies, these changes begin with their board of directors who are being prompted to address financial and social pressures, a reimagined workplace, evolving regulatory demands and increased scrutiny on environmental, social and governance (ESG) activities. READ MORE

Orbital Assembly Corp. hits $1M fundraising goal, aims to have luxury space hotel open in 2027

Orbital Assembly Corp., a California-based startup that wants to pioneer construction and infrastructure in outer space, has hit its $1 million fundraising goal and aims to open an operational luxury hotel in orbit in 2027.

The enterprise bills itself as the “world’s first large-scale space construction company” and wants to produce everything from space tourism to fuel depots, telecommunications satellites and solar power stations “in low Earth orbit and beyond.” READ MORE

Here are the ins and outs of the new SEC disclosure rules

For the first time in more than 30 years, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has modified its disclosure rules, requiring that public companies provide a far greater window into their human capital management than ever before.

Previously, organizations only had to disclose their number of employees. Now, they must divulge human capital metrics considered to be material to an understanding of the company’s business. They include employee attraction, development, retention, diversity and inclusion, engagement, employee satisfaction, and health and safety. READ MORE

4 Best Practices To Successfully Manage Your Sales Pipeline

Without a strategic sales pipeline, your business is doomed to fail. If you haven’t defined the steps that make up your sales life cycle, you can’t possibly tell the difference between prospects who need more information and prospects who are ready to buy.

Even worse, you can waste your time and energy on people who aren’t a good fit for your organization or burn bridges with prospects who would have bought had you talked with them at the right time.  READ MORE

What CEOs Can Learn From The Way Startups Navigate Disruption

CEOs entered 2020 riding an economic high, completely unaware of the disruption ahead. Long-term plans were in motion, processes were firmly in place, and the biggest problem they faced was attracting talent amid a historically low unemployment rate.

Then March happened. In many ways, CEOs are still reeling from the initial shock of Covid-19's disruption and the ensuing scramble to get employees and processes working remotely. For most of us, any semblance of normalcy went out the window in early March — a month that feels like it still hasn't ended. READ MORE

Here’s why your SaaS startup should buy, not build

When I launched my startup, I was in the driving seat every minute of every day. Early on, when it was just me, my co-founders, and a stack of pizza boxes, I had ownership of every decision that got made.

It was hard to imagine taking a less hands-on approach, or delegating important decisions to others — but as the company grew I learned, as every boss must, that sharing power was the only way to succeed.  READ MORE

Yellen Favors Higher Company Tax, Signals Capital Gains Worth a Look

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said President Joe Biden favors boosting taxes on companies, and signaled openness to considering raising rates on capital gains, while steering clear of a wealth levy.

“A wealth tax has been discussed but is not something President Biden” favors, Yellen said at a virtual conference on Monday hosted by the New York Times. She said such a tax would have significant implementation problems. READ MORE

Elon Musk moved to Texas and embraced celebrity. Can Tesla run on Autopilot?

Elon Musk says he is stretched too thin.

The chief executive of both electric car manufacturer Tesla and rocket company SpaceX bounces nearly daily on his private jet between locations - traveling to his longtime home in southern California, Tesla's plant in the Bay Area, the site of a new factory in Austin, Texas and SpaceX's launch facility on that state's Gulf Coast. READ MORE

Performance Management: Six Best Practices In The New Normal

Performance management is a key business process that ensures well-coordinated individual and team efforts conjoin into organizational goals.

HR and personal management strategies have undergone a paradigm shift, gravitating more toward becoming a strategic business partner and creating and managing employee value and motivation within the organization. A successful management process of channeling employee value, focus and engagement has a well-designed and relevant performance management system at its core. READ MORE

Equity Compensation Plans and Alternatives for Family Businesses

To provide long-term incentives to top employees and align their interests with their employers, many businesses offer some kind of equity compensation. However, when a business is owned by a family, the decision to provide equity to a third party becomes more difficult. This article discusses what alternatives are available to family businesses regarding equity (or equity-ish) compensation. READ MORE

Which States Are Taxing Forgiven PPP Loans?

The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is providing an important lifeline to help keep millions of small businesses open and their workers employed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many borrowers will have these loans forgiven; eligibility for forgiveness requires using the loan for qualifying purposes (like payroll costs, mortgage interest payments, rent, and utilities) within a specified amount of time. Ordinarily, a forgiven loan qualifies as income. However, Congress chose to exempt forgiven PPP loans from federal income taxation. Many states, however, remain on track to tax them by either treating forgiven loans as taxable income, denying the deduction for expenses paid for using forgiven loans, or both. The map and table below show states’ tax treatment of forgiven PPP loans. READ MORE

The tech industry is looking to replace the smartphone — and everybody is waiting to see what Apple comes up with

In 2007, Apple unveiled the iPhone.

Apple didn’t invent the smartphone — companies like Palm and Blackberry had been selling them for years. But the iPhone introduced a totally new way to interact with computers. The always-on internet connectivity, finger-friendly touch screen, and interface based around clickable app icons all seem commonplace now. But at the time, the whole package felt revolutionary. READ MORE

Johns Hopkins Doctor Predicts Covid ‘Will Be Mostly Gone By April’

A Johns Hopkins doctor believes that Covid-19 will be “mostly gone” two months from now.

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Dr. Marty Makary — a surgeon and a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health — argues that there are actually many more than the 28 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the U.S., possibly as much as 6.5 times more than that number. Between that group, and the roughly 15 percent of the country which has already received one dose of the vaccine, Makary argues that much of the nation is already protected from the virus. READ MORE

Citi made a $500 million mistake. Here's how that would play out for regular people

Citigroup lost a court battle Tuesday to claw back $504 million it mistakenly wired to Revlon's lenders in August. But don't get your hopes up that you could keep a chunk of change accidentally placed in your bank account.

A federal judge ruled that the wire transfers made by Citi (C), who was acting as Revlon's loan agent, were "final and complete transactions, not subject to revocation." However, in most instances of mistakenly receiving wired transfers, that's not the case. In fact, you would have to pay the money back — or face criminal charges. READ MORE

Theranos founder doubles down on effort to keep CEO lifestyle out of upcoming trial

Attorneys representing embattled Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes have fired back again in an attempt to prevent prosecutors from detailing the one-time billionaire’s “wealth, spending, and lifestyle” as they try to prove a motive for her alleged fraud, court papers show.

The defense team’s late Tuesday filing is the latest back-and-forth over the matter, which was first introduced by Holmes’ attorneys in a November 2020 motion, and argues that the government is hoping to “invite a referendum on startup and corporate culture,” the document states. READ MORE

Sales Competition Isn’t About the Reward, It’s About the Experience

Today, many organizations still believe that money is the only motivation. One would think that a higher compensation would produce better results, but research shows the link between motivation, compensation, and performance is much more complex than most organizations realize. Money is often correlated with the idea of status and power — but often, people are motivated more by the power than the actual money. READ MORE