Future-proofing performance management

‘Stability’ and ‘certainty’ are terms that are unheard of these days: organisations are battling with a runaway list of challenges: from agile working, artificial intelligence, Brexit trade rules, Covid lockdowns, to cybersecurity, hybrid work models and online business. All these are reshaping the fundamentals.

In stark contrast, performance management systems have often stood still, assuming that objectives once set are good until the next annual review. Yet today’s goals must rapidly respond to ever-changing needs: this has revealed many dysfunctions in traditional performance management systems.  READ MORE

More Americans are telling their boss to shove it

Quitting your job is hot this summer. More Americans quit in May than any other month on record going back to the beginning of the century, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For every 100 workers in hotels, restaurants, bars, and retailers, about five of them quit last month.

Low-wage workers aren’t the only ones eying the door. In May, more than 700,000 workers in the bureau’s mostly white-collar category of “professional and business services” left their job—the highest monthly number ever. Across all sectors and occupations, four in 10 employees now say they’ve considered peacing out of their current place of work. READ MORE

Worker shortage has sparked a rent-a-staffer boom in the food industry

Desperate to deliver their goods, New York Food suppliers are hiring mercenary truckers from Alabama — and they’re putting them up in hotels in the Bronx because they can’t find local drivers. 

It’s just the latest example of dire measures companies are being forced to take in response to a nationwide worker shortage that is plaguing the food industry. In addition to hiring workers from out of state and boarding them, businesses say they’re turning to middlemen to recruit them — a costly measure that’s also helping drive up prices for consumers, sources told The Post. READ MORE

How are women affected by the student loan crisis?

The student loan debt crisis continues to plague millions of Americans, with the average borrower holding a balance of $38,792. By and large, this means that many college graduates enter the workforce with a negative net worth while facing immense hurdles when it comes to buying a home, building wealth or achieving other financial goals.

But some Americans have taken a bigger hit when it comes to student loan debt. In fact, a recent analysis from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) shows that women hold approximately two-thirds of all student loan debt in the United States. Not only that, but Black women in particular graduate with more undergraduate debt than other women. READ MORE

Scrutiny mounts on Microsoft's surveillance technology

Microsoft is facing new pressure from investors over its development and sale of surveillance technologies to law enforcement and its efforts to shape the policies regulating their deployment.

Three separate shareholder proposals filed this week reviewed by The Hill are demanding Microsoft evaluate whether its business model aligns with the tech giant’s stated commitments to racial justice and human rights. READ MORE

What’s the latest on whether employers will require COVID vaccines?

The majority of employers will not require vaccination against COVID-19 as a condition to returning to the workplace—although consideration for requiring inoculation seems to be growing slightly. READ MORE

Global minimum tax rate could drive business away from US

President Biden and leaders of the G-7 group of nations will endorse a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15% on Friday, a policy that could ultimately drive business investment away from the U.S.

That's according to the Taxpayer Protection Alliance (TPA), a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., which argues that a higher global minimum rate would ultimately be "passed on to workers and consumers through reduced compensation and higher prices." READ MORE

Hybrid working is going to be tricky. Here's how to do it right

For some employees, working in the office Monday through Friday will be a thing of the past. As offices reopen, many are turning to a hybrid model that allows people to work in the office some days and at home for others.

While being able to work remotely offers more flexibility, there's going to be a learning curve, for both workers and their employers. READ MORE

Want to get workers vaccinated? Try these 6 strategies

The COVID-19 vaccines are finally readily available, and infection and death rates are on the decline.

But despite the good news, it’s not all rosy: Vaccination rates are waning, and many Americans are still reluctant to get the shot. Health officials warn that without more buy-in, herd immunity won’t happen and COVID-19 infection will continue to linger. Since the beginning of the vaccine rollout, employers have been viewed as vital in helping to encourage employees to get vaccinated. Now, perhaps, their role is more important than ever. READ MORE

Economies in these states are actually stronger than they were before Covid

America is not yet back to its pre-pandemic normal, but some states are already doing better economically than they were before Covid, according to the Back-to-Normal Index created by CNN and Moody's Analytics.

South Dakota, Florida, Rhode Island, Nebraska and Idaho are all thriving, operating at or above where their economies were in early March 2020 before the pandemic forced businesses to shutter and workers and students to stay home. READ MORE

Senate passes bill to boost US tech industry, counter rivals

The Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Tuesday that aims to boost U.S. semiconductor production and the development of artificial intelligence and other technology in the face of growing international competition, most notably from China.

The 68-32 vote for the bill demonstrates how confronting China economically is an issue that unites both parties in Congress. That’s a rarity in an era of division as pressure grows on Democrats to change Senate rules to push past Republican opposition and gridlock. READ MORE

Three Crucial Considerations When Your Startup Is Growing Exponentially

2020 was an unusual year, to say the least, and not many companies can say they grew eight times last year — mine is one of them. While it felt like the wheels were going to come off on some days, we made it through.

Here are the top three things we learned: READ MORE

These countries have the highest and lowest corporate tax rates

Top economic officials from some of the world's wealthiest nations reached a broad agreement on Saturday to support a global minimum tax rate of at least 15% in order to crack down on multinational corporations that use low-tax countries to conceal their profits.

Finance leaders from the Group of 7 countries endorsed the global minimum tax rate, along with a proposal to make the world's biggest companies – including U.S.-based tech giants – pay taxes in countries where they conduct business but have no physical presence during a meeting in London. READ MORE

Where are all of the jobs? These sectors hired the most employees in May

Job creation missed expectations but still picked up steam in May as the economy added 559,000 new workers, driven largely by bars, restaurants and hotels re-hiring thousands of employees.

The Labor Department said in its Friday report that employers added 559,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 5.8%, missing Wall Street's expectations for a gain of about 650,000. Still, it marked a vast improvement from April, when the economy added a revised 278,000 jobs – much smaller than the 1 million forecast by Refinitiv economists.  READ MORE

Biden's minimum corporate tax rate plan could boomerang for US

The Biden administration’s proposal for a minimum corporate tax rate as part of its infrastructure plan could have unintended consequences, economists say. 

The plan would require corporations to pay a minimum 15% tax rate no matter what deductions they take, and is similar to the alternative minimum tax on individuals.  READ MORE

Big Tech reacts to G7 minimum tax rate deal: 'Significant first step '

Big Tech may face some of the most significant impact of a proposed 15% minimum corporate tax rate that finance ministers for the G7 nations meeting in London supported Saturday.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told reporters that companies that fall under the G7 deal "will include large, profitable firms," such as Amazon and Facebook.

"And those firms, I believe, will qualify by almost any definition," she added. READ MORE

Why A.I. Should Be Afraid of Us

Artificial intelligence is gradually catching up to ours. A.I. algorithms can now consistently beat us at chess, poker and multiplayer video games, generate images of human faces indistinguishable from real ones, write news articles (not this one!) and even love stories, and drive cars better than most teenagers do.

But A.I. isn’t perfect, yet, if Woebot is any indicator. Woebot, as Karen Brown wrote this week in Science Times, is an A.I.-powered smartphone app that aims to provide low-cost counseling, using dialogue to guide users through the basic techniques of cognitive-behavioral therapy. But many psychologists doubt whether an A.I. algorithm can ever express the kind of empathy required to make interpersonal therapy work. READ MORE

US ‘way below’ jobs potential

Art Laffer, a former economic adviser to Ronald Reagan, told "Mornings with Maria" on Thursday that he is "not optimistic about the Biden long-term jobs situation." 

"I don’t have really a lot of hope for the jobs market long-term in the U.S.," he added.

Laffer made the comments on Thursday, the day it was revealed weekly jobless claims fell to a pandemic low and private-payroll job growth surged past expectations.  READ MORE

There is not a ‘labor shortage’ crisis

Those of us who are a little older will remember that, within two years of the 2001 recession, there was much hand-wringing about the coming labor shortage, which was apparently obvious—except to those actually looking at the labor market. It never came.

More recently after the Great Recession, another set of hand-wringing was going on about a labor shortage, despite the fact that millions were still laid off. We stopped hearing that one even as hiring increased and the economy improved. There was no shortage. READ MORE

The jobs report that could upend Biden’s economic agenda

Businesses say they can’t find enough workers to hire. The pace of Americans moving off the unemployment rolls is slowing. And a top Federal Reserve official is warning that job trends in May might look “odd.”

All of that suggests that the next monthly U.S. employment report, which will be released Friday morning, may not show the robust growth that President Joe Biden needs to help pass his sweeping agenda. READ MORE