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!
How 4 Retailers Became “Best Places to Work”
Four companies in the retail industry were just put on a list of the best places to work by Glassdoor. The companies are HEB, Costco, Trader Joe’s and QuikTrip. This article, written by Zeynep Ton and Sarah Kalloch, explores one of the main categories they were scored on and why these four companies excel at it.
The category this article focused on is culture. So what are these four companies doing that earned them a place on this list? One example is HEB’s annual tradition of giving employees raises and then “challenges them to earn it with innovative ideas”. Costco understands the importance of hiring “good people” and empowering their people to “take ownership of their work”.
QuikTrip gives employees the ability to go above and beyond for the customers and they encourage employees to “never be satisfied”. Trader Joe’s gives their employees a voice and knows it is vital to keep employees engaged in their work.
Now, French Employees Don’t Have to Answer Emails After Office Hours
There is a new law in France dealing with what to do with after-hours emails for companies with more than 50 employees. Technology has been shown to “cause burnout, sleeplessness and relationship problems for many” as it allows people to remain connected at all times.
This law will require employers in France to work with employees to find a better work-life balance by negotiating “less intrusion of work into their private lives”. If a company and its employees cannot find a way to comply with this law specifically, they have to come up with guidelines of their own that will help employees know when they are able to disconnect from work on a daily basis.
According to this article, at this time companies will not be penalized for not coming up with guidelines for the employees.
6 Tips for Managing Millennials
With Millennials making up “the largest generation in the U.S. labor force” it is vital for companies to understand how to manage this generation. This article by Sujan Patel gives six tips for managing millennials.
One of the first tips he gives is understanding that millennials have things to share with co-workers who are from other generations. They tend to have a lot of experience in technology and they can possibly help with employee engagement with the strengths they bring to the table.
Another tip Patel gave was for managers to understand what makes millennials tick in order to know what motivates them. Millennials are not motivated by the typical workplace “perks”. Instead they look for purpose, opportunities to move up and the ability to make a difference in the world.
Millennials need a different type of management style and in order for companies to be successful they must make the needed updates or they will be left behind.
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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