IN THE SEEMINGLY eternal debate over return-to-office versus work-from-home, a new study has injected a worrying new data point if you’re an office manager: 45 per cent of women would rather quit than be back in the office full-time.

That stat comes courtesy of The Prosperity Project, a registered charity that promotes the economic benefits of gender equality in the workplace. “This is very alarming data,” said Andrea Spender, CEO of The Prosperity Project. “Women don’t want to choose between work and family. But this poll is showing that they may have to if at least some of this flexibility does not continue.”

It adds to a growing chorus of voices calling for new flexible workplace policies to be put in place, as we come out of a pandemic that had a severe economic impact on Canadian women. Advocates of flexibility say that it better allows women to comfortably balance their careers and their families ― something that studies show is of top importance to many women and caregivers.

Plus, supporters say it’s good for the economy. “We need women’s full contribution and participation for Canada to prosper economically,” Andrea Gunraj, VP of public engagement at the Canadian Women’s Foundation, told the Toronto Star. “Employers must build a new model of work that is more inclusive, with continued equal opportunity for promotion and advancement.”

“Canada’s economic growth needs women contributing,” added The Prosperity Project’s founder Pamela Jeffery. “Enabling women to balance their careers and home responsibilities ― through hybrid home/office work and other adjustments, with equal opportunity for promotion and advancement ― is a critical priority.” Kieran Delamont

TECHNOLOGY

Never face the blank page again

Promising clean, serviceable text, AI-powered content writing tools are suddenly all the rage. But do they actually work?

WITH PRESS TIME looming for a newsletter entry on the usefulness of new AI-enabled writing tools for businesses, it was time to call in the artificial cavalry. “Give me some writing about the use of AI in business,” I asked it. And for fun added, “And make it a limerick.” A few seconds later, it spat out this:

There once was a business so green

Its use of AI made it quite keen

It saved on resources

And now it is sure

All because AI made it quite clean

Hey, not too bad for a robot.

The tool used to write this, OpenAI, is one of a growing number of AI-powered content creation tools that have gone viral in the last few weeks for their odd, often surreal, creations.

But there’s an upside in the business world, and AI writing is finding its place there. If you use Gmail, chances are you’ve seen AI in action, as your email client can now auto-complete many common professional phrases. And for high-volume marketing jobs like writing Amazon product descriptions, AI tools are seen as an improvement over tedious, low-paid gig labour.

Above all, they are time-savers for rote, simple writing tasks. (Not the clever, complex kind that newsletter writers do…) “Many copywriters are now using AI writers to create content because software can identify the best structure and vocabulary to use, which can be a time-consuming process for copywriters,” writes Yakup Özkardes-Cheung.

Might they actually replace writing jobs? Not quite yet, experts say. “AI assistants cannot do the same job as copywriters,” writes Shane Barker in Forbes. “Writing requires creativity and a deep understanding of context to create meaningful content. AI assistants are still fairly new, so they don’t yet have all these capabilities. AI-generated content may not always be grammatically or factually correct.” Kieran Delamont

WORKFORCE

No experience, no problem

As the employment landscape shifts, more companies are willing to hire workers without specific qualifications or relevant experience

WITH MANY BUSINESSES continuing to struggle to find workers in a tight job market, they’ve had to change their hiring expectations ― most notably by dropping once-firm experience requirements and opening up their pockets to fund on-the-job training instead, a new survey finds.

A sizeable 77 per cent of Canadian employers are now considering focusing more on soft interpersonal skills rather than hard qualifications, according to employment website Indeed. It’s good news for jobseekers who might be looking for a career change, as “the poll found employers are increasingly willing to hire based on skills such as communication and a willingness to learn rather than technical knowledge or education.”

“An aging population and rapidly growing economy has meant the pool of skilled workers that’s available is pretty low,” Indeed director Michelle Slater said. “Employers are having to be much more creative.”

And while that shift is coming about amid turbulent market conditions, it may actually be correcting a historic underinvestment issue within Canada’s private sector. Eight years ago, a study by Oxford Economics found that less than 40 per cent of Canadian businesses made significant investments in job training and were 13 per cent less likely to offer training in hard skills, which are often needed in tech, compared to American counterparts.

Add it all up, though, and workers looking for new opportunities, and those who are willing to learn, look to be the winners here.

“Canadian employers care more deeply about what the person can contribute to the team in terms of their attitudes versus what skills they have that they’re bringing into the role,” Slater said. “It means that individuals who might not have that hard skill on their resume could still have an opportunity to get the job of their dreams.” Kieran Delamont

TRAVEL & LEISURE

Pets in, parents out

Amid high gas prices, inflation and airport chaos, the popularity of camping is set to reach new heights this summer. But not everyone is invited

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