Each week I’m going to provide a round up of what I consider to be important and interesting articles on the future of work (not authored by me). These will include a variety of sources and topics ranging from workplace practices to robots and automation to leadership and everything in between. There’s a lot of information out there so I’m hoping that these weekly round ups will help make life a bit easier for you by giving you just the good stuff. Let’s get into it!

5 key trends that will influence HR and talent management in 2017

This article by Sylvia Vorhauser-Smith, the senior vice president in Research at PageUp, goes through the top 5 key trends that she is predicting will make an impact in HR and talent management in 2017. The trends include the redefinition of work will continue to evolve, an acceleration in personalising the employee experience, an explosion of real-time continuous feedback, the rise of people analytics and digital HR and a focus on wellbeing as a driver of performance and engagement.

The common theme that lies in all five of the key trends is technology. Technology is allowing employees to work from home, remotely, part time, and many other ways that are causing the redefinition of work. Employee experience will be able to be more personalized due to technology as opportunities and training will be specific to the individual. Technology will allow supervisors, managers and other leaders to provide real-time feedback instead of annual or quarterly reviews.

Here’s Why You Should Leave Work and Go On Vacation–Right Now

At this time of year a lot of employees admit they have already checked out of work mentally. A survey done in the UK by a human resources analytics firm shows that 54% of employees have checked out of work by December 16.

This article by Susie Poppick gives advice on how to ask for time off as well as showing some graphs and statistics from the survey done in the UK. If you are ready to check out of work, look to this article for advice and reasons why you should take time off.

These Are the Top 5 Workplace Trends We’ll See in 2017

What trends will you see in the workplace in 2017? Look to this article for the answers from Andrew Chamberlain, the chief economist of Glassdoor. The trends Chamberlain says to look out for are a transformation in HR, a rise in automation but not a loss of human jobs, a decline in nontraditional benefits, a narrowing of the wage gap, and a deceleration in the gig economy growth.

Chamberlain advises employers and workers to “invest in skills and technology now while times are still good”.

Employee Engagement In The Workplace – Curing The Epidemic Of Disengaged Workers [INFOGRAPHIC]

Disengaged employees are a common problem in the workplace, but there are ways to fix the issue. This article and Infographic by Ankur Shah lays out the main reasons why employees become disengaged and ways employers can avoid this problem.

According to the Infographic 70% of employees are disengaged (either partially or completely). Disengaged employees tend to participate in activities such as internet surfing, using their phone to look at social media, and/or socializing with coworkers. So what can employers do to minimize disengagement? The article explains that employees just want a stable environment, respect, challenging work, decent compensation and flexibility. Employees want to work hard and they want to be engaged, but if their employers are not providing the things that they want/need the employee is going to distract themselves with activities that allow them to escape what they perceive as a negative atmosphere.

6 Ideas to Cultivate Workplace Culture

One of the most important things for a company to create is a workplace culture. In a well created workplace culture employees thrive and know what is expected of them and in turn the company as a whole runs more effectively. It gives companies direction, purpose and a positive working atmosphere.

In this article Anand Srivastava provides 6 ways to develop a positive workplace culture. First of all, it is important to “remove organizational hierarchies” and create a more fluid, open and transparent form of leadership. Another important aspect is for leaders to listen to their employees, through one on one talks, surveys, and company wide meetings. According to Srivastava company culture is one thing entrepreneurs and business leaders cannot ignore.

My new book, The Employee Experience Advantage (Wiley, March 2017) analyzes over 250 global organizations to understand how to create a place where people genuinely want to show up to work. Subscribe to the newsletter here.

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