Categories: Workplace

When Tragedy Strikes, How Can You Help?

Posted by: Bruce Weinstein on April 08

In light of the West Virginia coal mine tragedy, you may find yourself asking, "How can I help?" This question is especially hard to answer when misfortune hits close to...

Cellphones Cause Brain Tumors, Says New Report by International EMF Collaborative

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on August 26

The press release on a new report about cell phone safety: "Cellphones Cause Brain Tumors, Says New Report by International EMF Collaborative August 25, 2009. A new report, “Cellphones and...

What's the right corporate policy for Twitter, Facebook and blogs?

Posted by: Diane Brady on May 14

The Wall Street Journal has posted some ground rules for its employees on how to use Twitter. Among other things, it declares "Let our coverage speak for itself, and don't...

Motivating Employees in Tough Times

Posted by: Aili McConnon on April 13

As salaries and bonuses are getting slashed, not to mention widespread lay-offs, I am fascinated by creative ways managers are motivating their remaining troops without breaking the bank. One strategy...

Follow Your Favorite Executive

Posted by: Aili McConnon on March 24

Many people have steered clear of Twitter because they’re already being bombarded by too many emails they can’t read or respond to or they simply don’t care enough about the...

Thinking About the Four Day Work Week

Posted by: Jena McGregor on December 23

It's back. After making an earlier appearance when gas costs were at their peak, the four-day work week is making a repeat appearance thanks to the recession. The first time...

Holiday Parties at Lowest Level in 20 Years

Posted by: Jena McGregor on November 05

It's unlikely to be a very merry Christmas in corporate offices this year. The fallout of the financial crisis and the economic downturn is prompting companies to cut back...

Blackberrying in Bed

Posted by: Jena McGregor on September 18

The following study comes from my colleague, Aili McConnon, who admits that yes, she does take her Blackberry into the bedroom... Do you take your PDA to bed? Scarily, the...

The Workplace's Newest Weight Loss Trick: The Moving Office

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on September 17

The wellness police have some new surpises for us. Coming soon to an office near you: treadmills that double as workstations. Walking meetings. Conference rooms outfitted with exercise bikes...

Managing Calendar Overload

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on June 16

A story in this morning's Wall Street Journal about packed calendars ruling over executives got me thinking about overload-slayer and SAS Institute founder Jim Goodnight. SAS was a worker's...

Are You an Underearner?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on June 13

This week's story in the Wall Street Journal about the debtors' culture new answer--Debtors Anonymous--got me thinking about the underside of overspending: underearning. As if you needed another problem....

Why Work Sucks And How To Fix It

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on June 02

A year and a half ago, I wrote a cover story about a radical workplace experiment roiling Best Buy's headquarters in Minneapolis. Two guerrila HR types had secretly started...

The Bitter American Worker

Posted by: Diane Brady on May 29

I came across two interesting studies today that paint a pessimistic view of attitudes in the workplace. The first is a national survey from the Marlin Company showing that 75%...

The Death of the Business Trip?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on May 07

I am furiously reporting a story about what companies are doing to reduce business travel. Does anyone out there have a story to tell? Please comment here if you do!...

Workplace Democracy, Take 2

Posted by: Jena McGregor on April 21

Back in September, I wrote about an organization called WorldBlu, and a concept known as "workplace democracy." While that may sound like an oxymoron to anyone slaving away under the...

Tech-Fueled Productivity

Posted by: Jena McGregor on April 01

Looking for ways to be more productive? The Wall Street Journal had an interesting blog post recently on a study that says larger computer monitors can make you more productive....

Hands off My Tupperware!

Posted by: Jena McGregor on March 23

About 3:00 on Friday afternoon, a colleague in our office sent around an email with the subject line "I can't BELIEVE you took my mac and cheese." Inside: "Hope you...

Stress on Sundays....

Posted by: Jena McGregor on March 23

It's Sunday afternoon. Easter Sunday afternoon. And since I'm not terribly religious and don't have children to send on egg hunts, I'm not really celebrating. Thumbing through the Sunday paper,...

Weekend Hours

Posted by: Jena McGregor on March 19

“I want to thank you, Mr. Secretary, for working over the weekend,” President Bush was quoted as saying in the New York Times today to Treasury Secretary and former Goldman...

The Office's Fresh Perk: Fresh Fruit

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on March 11

It is 10 a.m. and the hunger crisis is on. Having skipped breakfast, I am all starvation and Knut Hamsun. Working on the 43rd floor, these riots for calories...

It's Super Tuesday, but No One at Work is Talking About It, Apparently

Posted by: Jena McGregor on February 05

It's Super Tuesday, and that means my inbox is filling up with studies on yet another national event (lost productivity during March Madness, online holiday shopping during work hours) and...

Noticing Notice Periods

Posted by: Jena McGregor on February 04

I became fascinated with global workplace differences when working on "The Right Perks" for our special Davos report on managing the global workforce. Attractive perks in Rio are hardly the...

Coming to a desk near you...The God Squad

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on November 23

If you see some rabbis tooling around Wall Street with their Torahs, don't be surprised. For a few years now, an organization called AISH New York has been offering the...

Working Remotely--or Remotely Working?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on November 21

In my attempt to be all webby--this from a woman who, after a year of toting around her PDA, realized she could access the web on it--I'm throwing out...

Cyber Monday, Productivity Killer?

Posted by: Jena McGregor on November 20

It's that time of year again. As happens during March Madness and fantasy baseball season, my inbox is filling up with studies bearing headlines intended to strike fear in the...

Hey, Guess What? This man is on vacation!

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on November 15

Meet fancy, big-time, argues-before-the-Supreme Court lawyer Robert Greene Sterne. (Happy, Happy Birthday to you, Rob!) Here he is last May in Acapulco at Water Ski Paradise, going in for...

Facebook Fatigue

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on October 31

A few months ago I found myself lunching in midtown Manhattan at the Mario Battali of Greek Food: Anthos (pass if you're an Atkinser, as a life without the...

Munchausen at Work

Posted by: Jena McGregor on October 25

There's a funny column in this month's Harvard Business Review I think many people will be able to relate to. Called "Munchausen at Work," it describes a phenomenon Georgia Tech...

A Wealth Transfer from Singletons to the Married and Parenting Class?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on October 17

In 2003, I wrote a BusinessWeek cover story called Unmarried America about how the U.S. was on the verge of becoming a nation of singletons. The story catalogued the...

Evil HR Lady--And Other Saucy HR Blogs

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on October 03

It used to be scant pickings when it came to HR blogs. The fare was heavy on overearnestness, HR Speak, and the true HR giveaway--saying so much while meaning...

My Cell Phone is Safe...Right?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on September 19

There is a disturbing and growing body of scientific evidence that points to health dangers associated with cell phones. The lastest comes from The French Interphone Study and the...

Why All the Focus on Jerks?

Posted by: Jena McGregor on September 11

Is anyone else surprised at all the attention given to the concept of the jerk-free workplace? Stanford professor Bob Sutton's book, The No Asshole Rule, has been on the best-seller...

Can A Workplace Be A Democracy?

Posted by: Jena McGregor on September 06

I had an interesting conversation yesterday wicth a woman named Traci Fenton, who heads up a "leadership and business design studio" called WorldBlu. I called up Fenton after reading a...

Unmotivated to be Back at Work?

Posted by: Jena McGregor on September 04

You're not alone. According to a recent study by Development Dimensions International (which, surely, will be happy to sell you consulting services about motivating your employees), nearly half of all...

The Writing Is On The Wall

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on August 08

There's lots of chatter now about transparency and collaboration. About trying to get us to work and think together in a power-of-us, socially-networked, Facebook-MySpace kind of way. We're told...

More on the So-Called Generation Gap

Posted by: Jena McGregor on August 07

I wrote a few weeks ago about how often I hear consultants go on and on about the generational divide at work. Judging by what you hear from workplace consultants...

The Other Office Chart

Posted by: Jena McGregor on July 31

Raise your hand if these statistics sound like the place you work. According to a new study by Katzenbach Partners released today, 65% of workers rely on one another, not...

Do you Tablet?

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on July 25

I just returned from a reporting trip to the vast metropolis that is Microsoft's Redmond headquarters. (Shuttle buses, valet parking, 25 cafeterias--you get the idea). One of my peak...

Generation Y: Similarities or Stereotype?

Posted by: Jena McGregor on July 03

Kudos to Mark Harbeke, the manager of content development at the Winning Workplaces site, for poking a few holes in all the consultant-fueled stereotypes around managing Generation Y. In his...

The Danger of Lingo and Jargon

Posted by: Jena McGregor on June 26

This week's Newsweek issue, which ambitiously tries to chronicle "What You Need to Know Now," has a piece on "the most relevant lingo in business today." While the four words...

We keep sharing passwords

Posted by: Diane Brady on June 14

Most of us, I think, aren't dumb enough to advertise our passwords on post-it notes around the computer (though it's tempting). But how many of you have actually shared passwords with a colleague? Quite a few, it turns out.

The Post Geographic Workforce = Less Cost, Less Global Warming

Posted by: Michelle Conlin on June 06

One of the most important corporate innovations is the structure of the workplace itself. More and more, work is becoming location agnostic, place independent. Note the swarms of espresso-addled laptop...