Don’t Hire a Former Employee Before Asking These Questions

Many employees are on the move, looking for that next opportunity. Perhaps they want a bigger challenge, more money, or believe they need to leave their current company to advance their career. But what if they leave your company and realize the new opportunity wasn’t as great as they thought, or they left years ago, gained new skills, and now want to come back? Should you hire them? READ MORE

These board-level solutions are crucial in the battle for talent

As the world continues to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and the simultaneous economic evolution taking place, the dynamic labor market presents a wide array of risks and opportunities for any corporation. Many companies are accelerating the sophistication of their workforce strategies in order to survive the Great Resignation.

This effort includes increased commitment to culture, equity, inclusion, social responsibility, and employee empowerment. READ MORE

My Family Is Trapped in the Metaverse

On a whim, I recently started rewatching Ready Player One, the Steven Spielberg adaptation of Ernest Cline’s seminal novel about a future in which virtual reality is the real world. In the opening scene, protagonist Wade Watts clambers around a ramshackle trailer park before placing a headset on his face. Everyone has largely abandoned the decrepit, rundown reality for the Oasis—a virtual world of limitless possibilities, where everyone can do, be, or look like pretty much anything they want. READ MORE

5 Questions Every Manager Needs to Ask Their Direct Reports

Sara, a departing employee, sat across from her company’s HR leader for an exit interview. As a marketing executive for a financial services company, she was resigning after five years to take a CMO role at a fintech startup.

When the HR director asked Sara, “Is there anything else we could have done to keep you here?” Sara paused. “Yes. I wish there had been conversations about my career goals and opportunities for growth,” she said. READ MORE

Meet the COVID-19 testing company behind one of Google’s most coveted perks

Last week, when many Americans were waiting in long lines and scouring drugstores for COVID-19 tests due to the spread of the omicron variant, some Googlers were casually testing daily from the comfort of their own home. The device they use, a $249 machine that churns out molecular test results in 20 minutes, comes from a San Diego-based company called Cue Health. The company has been painted as providing COVID-19 testing for the elite, but Clint Sever, one of the company’s cofounders and its chief product officer, says that the test was designed with accessibility in mind. READ MORE

How to conduct a ‘stay’ interview with your employees, and why you should

Although organizations have been obsessing over the “war for talent” for two decades, it is surprising how often they will end up losing valuable employees for avoidable reasons, such as not knowing they are disengaged and open to other opportunities. A familiar outcome of this cycle has employers trying to match or improve their competitor’s offer to retain the employee, only to realize it is too little, too late. Current concerns about the Great Resignation have no doubt increased managers’ fear of losing valuable employees in a tight talent market. READ MORE

How the US messed up its new 5G rollout: ‘It wasn’t our finest hour’

The Biden and Trump administrations had years of warnings. But the government failed this week to avoid a collision between U.S. telecom companies and airlines over the rollout of new 5G cellular networks.

That failure, rooted in longstanding disagreements over potential risk and a lack of cooperation by U.S. regulators, led to a last-minute scramble that threatened the cancellation of thousands of flights and raised tensions between two powerful industries. READ MORE

Stem the flow of employees leaving by asking this question

A record number of 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs in November while employers continue to scramble to lure talent to join their organizations. To combat turnover and attract new talent, leaders are implementing a myriad of benefits, including flexible work options, offering employee referral bonuses, and introducing additional merit increases. But for many who have quit and are looking for the next opportunity, they are looking beyond the free lunches and fitness reimbursements. This is actually the number-one question on their minds: Why should I work here? READ MORE

Why it’s sometimes harder to get a job you’re ‘overqualified’ for

The prevailing belief is this: Don’t hire overqualified workers. They’ll be bored. They’ll be dissatisfied. They’re flight risks.

But isn’t this for the candidate, not the company, to decide? Why are we comfortable believing there’s more satisfaction to be found in a job that consistently strains us past the limits of mental capacity, time, and stamina? Hasn’t the Great Resignation shown us that we can’t keep this pace? READ MORE