How to get performance reviews right

Imagine a workplace where performance reviews are anticipated with excitement, not dread. It's possible, and the key lies in a simple shift in perspective. “Only 20 percent of the respondents to our global survey who had no development conversations felt motivated by their company’s performance management,” says McKinsey’s Brooke Weddle in a McKinsey Talks Talent podcast episode. “But if you compare that to those who received ongoing feedback in development conversations, the number goes up to 77 percent who felt motivated by it.” Explore these insights to discover how to create a culture of continuous growth by reimagining performance ratings, setting inspiring goals, and recognizing contributions in meaningful ways. READ MORE

The Stock Market Is Doing Something It Has Done Only 2 Times Since 1985, and History Is Clear About What Happens Next

The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) is widely regarded as the best gauge for the entire U.S. stock market. The index has returned 27% year to date in one of its strongest performances of the 21st century. But warning signs are starting to appear.

In November, a Conference Board survey found that 56.4% of U.S. consumers expect the stock market to rise over the next year, the highest reading on record. That may sound like good news, but Morgan Stanley sees it as a contrarian indicator signaling irrational optimism at a time when valuations are stretched. READ MORE

Google Just Made a Breakthrough in Quantum Computing With Its New Chip

Google’s latest project marks a major milestone in quantum computing.

On Monday, the corporation unveiled a new chip, dubbed Willow, that could prove pivotal to the development and potential large-scale use of the field. One of the new tech’s neatest tricks is that it needs just five minutes to solve a problem that would take the world’s most powerful supercomputers 10 septillion, or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, years to complete, a report from Hartmut Neven, the founder and lead of Google’s Quantum AI division, says. That’s older than the universe, according to The New York Times. READ MORE

Small business optimism surges to highest level in three years

Trump’s win at the ballot box last month coincided with several signs of vitality and optimism, including above-trend economic growth, solid consumer spending and record-high stock prices.

Gross domestic product — defying predictions of a slowdown this year — grew at annual rates of 1.4% in the first quarter, 3% in Q2 and 2.8% in Q3, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. READ MORE

US labor market steadily cooling amid higher job openings, low layoffs

U.S. job openings increased solidly in October while layoffs dropped by the most in 1-1/2 years, suggesting the labor market continued to slow in an orderly fashion.

But the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report, from the Labor Department on Tuesday also showed employers hesitant to hire more workers. The historically low level of layoffs is anchoring the labor market and the broader economy through higher wages that are driving consumer spending. READ MORE

CEO turnover reaches record levels in 2024 as 'increasing complexity' drives execs to the exits

The end of the holiday weekend added two fresh examples of a historic shift on Wall Street: More CEOs than ever are heading for the exits. Over the past 24 hours, the leaders of chipmaker Intel (INTC) and auto giant Stellantis (STLA) have both announced their departures, bolstering the CEO turnover tally.

The leadership changes highlight the idiosyncrasies and challenges of each company — from a struggling auto lineup to a too-late computer chip turnaround. But they also reflect a broader trend across corporate America. READ MORE

The best and worst states for taxes in 2025

Not all state tax regimes are equal, with some states not collecting all of the major taxes, such as corporate income tax, individual income tax or sales tax. 

The Tax Foundation measured the states with most and least competitive taxes in 2025, by analyzing factors including corporate tax rank, individual income tax rank, sales tax rank, property tax rank and unemployment insurance tax rank to determine an overall score.  READ MORE

US labor market still boosting inflation, San Francisco Fed economists say

A tight U.S. labor market is still adding to inflationary pressures, though less so than it did in 2022 and 2023, according to research published on Monday by the San Francisco Federal Reserve.

"Declines in excess demand pushed inflation down almost three-quarters of a percentage point over the past two years," San Francisco Fed economists Regis Barnichon and Adam Hale Shapiro wrote in the regional Fed bank's latest Economic Letter. "However, elevated demand continued to contribute 0.3 to 0.4 percentage point to inflation as of September 2024." READ MORE

Think twice before ordering work-from-home employees to return to the office

Over the past few months, major corporations such as Disney, Apple, Starbucks and Amazon announced new policies mandating their employees to cut back on working from home and return to their offices for as much as five days a week. The moves were met with backlashes from employees who signed petitions, sent public letters to their CEOs, complained to the press and on social media, and even went on strike. READ MORE

Companies that force workers back to the office are missing the big picture

The Washington Post recently announced that all employees will soon be required to work from an office five days per week—and became the latest in a long line of employers to force workers to return to the office (RTO). 

Indeed, several companies have recently clamped down on remote work, insisting that employees return to the office five days a week, and CEOs across industries have been vocal critics of remote work.  READ MORE

How Trump's second White House term could impact the economy

It hasn't even been a week since Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 presidential election, and investors have high hopes for the president-elect's second term in the White House. All three major stock indexes and the price of bitcoin all hit record highs on Monday, and the dollar surged.

While some experts are predicting that Trump's second term will bring an economic boom to the U.S., others are warning that the president's agenda will have a varying impact depending on industries. READ MORE

Trump 'won fair and square': Business leaders from Mark Cuban to David Sacks react to election result

Top business leaders, investors, and philanthropists have been reacting to Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election.

Fox News called the race early Wednesday morning. A little under four hours later, projections from CNN and other news organizations put Trump over the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency.

Throughout the campaign, Silicon Valley has been divided on which candidate to back. READ MORE

Top 5 Workforce Priorities For Leaders In 2025

As organizations evolve and face new challenges, leaders and managers are preparing to tackle pressing workforce priorities that will shape the future of work. Based on our data and experience at EXCELR8, and supported by extensive research conducted by Gartner, these priorities reflect the most significant areas HR leaders (and all leaders in the organization) need to focus on to remain competitive, retain top talent, and drive business outcomes. Below are the top five workforce priorities leaders must incorporate into their strategic imperatives for 2025. We highlight the key trends that will influence human resources strategies moving forward. READ MORE

Smart RTO Policies Can Offer Flexibility and In-Person Benefits

Return-to-office mandates can definitely influence employees’ perceptions of their employers. A study this year from the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz School of Business reported that S&P 500 companies’ mandates caused “significant declines in employees’ ratings of overall job satisfaction, work-life balance, senior management, and corporate culture.”

Both employers and employees making the RTO transition should consider seeking more opportunities for learning substantive and “soft” skills and relationship-building, while offering some of the flexibility that remote work has allowed. READ MORE

Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

If you’ve recently been laid off and have started the arduous process of looking for a new job, you’ve probably seen them on networking platforms like LinkedIn: postings for roles that are 30 days old, maybe more, with suspiciously wide salary ranges. They usually have hundreds, or even thousands, of hopeful applicants vying for the same position, but if you do a quick cross-check and notice that the role isn’t posted on the company’s actual website — or any of their social media pages — you should probably stop drafting that cover letter, because it’s possible they’re not hiring at all.  READ MORE