REMOTE WORK
Does hybrid make you healthier?
A new study reveals that hybrid workers are upping their exercise, getting improved sleep and eating better, too
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ONE OF THE main benefits pushed by hybrid workers and advocates comes in terms of wellness: let an employee work from home and they’ll arrive at a better work-life balance, ultimately leaving them healthier.
Well, turns out some new research is backing that up: remote workers are exercising more, sleeping better and eating healthier.
IWG Global surveyed 2,000 Canadian workers on their health habits, and it showed some impressive results in favour of hybrid work: more than 70 per cent cook and eat healthier meals; the extra sleep adds up to about 73 hours per year; one in four have decreased their alcohol consumption; and each week there’s about 40 more minutes of exercise on average.
“The most positive impact from remote work came on the sleep side,” one hybrid worker, a principal engineer with Untether AI Inc., told the Globe and Mail. “Waking up to an alarm every day, regardless of how well you slept, is not as effective as letting your body wake up when it’s had enough sleep.”
For IWG Global CEO Scott Dixon, it’s in large part the effect of eliminating the daily commute ― something he says also has major environmental benefits, making it a win-win in terms of health.
“Little has done more over the years to depress, stress and irritate workers than this daily back-and-forth, affecting people in otherwise fantastic careers, in exceptional cities and with great employers,” he wrote in a separate report looking at the emissions reductions from hybrid work. “It distances families, dilutes communities, contaminates the environment and wastes vast amounts of time and money.”
“There is no doubt that hybrid working has facilitated some major health benefits,” added Dr. Sara Kayat. “A balanced diet, physical activity and good quality sleep are the bedrocks of a healthy lifestyle, and this data suggests that each is more widespread due to the extra time afforded by a hybrid working model.” Kieran Delamont
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SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
Mandatory viewing
Flawed characters, dramatic cliffhangers and binge-watching fans worldwide. How Microsoft’s Trust Code has reset the bar for corporate training videos
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MOVE OVER SUCCESSION and Severance, there’s another binge-worthy workplace drama in town. And believe it or not, it comes in the form of a Microsoft workplace compliance training video series ― and it’s proven to be a massive hit.
“Trust Code, with its recurring characters and end-of-season cliffhangers, is redefining the genre,” said Dylan Tokar in the Wall Street Journal, writing about the superfans of the training module.
“Since launching in 2017, it has inspired watch parties, viral memes and t-shirts with [the lead actor’s] image. Trust Code, slated to run for only two or three years, is now headed into season seven. New employees aren’t required to watch older seasons, but the buzz about the show has spawned group binge-watching to catch up on early episodes.”
The show was created by Rachelle Tanner, an executive producer with Microsoft, who brought the idea to Microsoft.
“When I came to Microsoft, I was asked to reimagine our compliance learning programs, including our annual Standards of Business Conduct course,” she wrote on the Microsoft Life blog. “That’s when a crazy idea hit me. Could we make the course into a binge-worthy saga that would focus on getting employees hooked on the show and invested in the characters?”
The gambit worked. The show is loved within the Microsoft workforce and beyond, and other companies, like Facebook, have started experimenting with their own high-production value training videos, hoping to ape the success of Trust Code.
Interestingly, the success of Trust Code seems to buck where the $360-billion corporate training industry has been headed in recent years. Standard advice for employers has trended towards training modules that offer employees flexibility, hands-on learning and real-world experiences.
Those approaches may have lots to recommend them, but it doesn’t beat a great yarn. As Microsoft’s vice-chair and president Brad Smith puts it: “People love stories.” Kieran Delamont
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Terry Talks: Staying curious and the importance of continually asking questions
| Among the many leadership competencies and capabilities needed in an increasingly complex and interconnected (and yes, sometimes angry) world, is the ability to remain endlessly curious and insatiable when it comes to ongoing learning. When we ask questions, we can uncover challenges, increase our capacity for innovation and growth and ultimately produce better solutions and provide more value. | | | |
COMPENSATION
Pay versus purpose
Increasingly, employees say they want their work to matter. But why are job candidates willing to accept less pay for meaningful work?
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IT’S THE AGE-OLD tradeoff when it comes to a job: do you do it for the pay or for the purpose?
But what’s obscured by that question is a real explanation of what’s going on ― that is, why do purpose-driven jobs so often seem to pay less than others?
New research is trying to get to the bottom of that and argues that pay disparity is often baked in at the negotiating table. In a new paper, titled Pay Suppression in Social Impact Contexts: How Framing Work Around the Greater Good Inhibits Job Candidate Compensation Demands, its authors noted that the data points to the candidates themselves.
“Past research suggests that when organizations communicate the benefits of their work for human welfare ― that is, use a social impact framing for work ― job candidates are willing to accept lower wages because they expect the work to be personally meaningful,” they wrote.
But the authors look at it from the other way: what if it's the candidates themselves not pushing for more?
“This explanation overlooks a less socially desirable mechanism by which social impact framing leads to lower compensation demands: the perception among job candidates that requesting higher pay will breach organizational expectations to value work for its intrinsic (rather than extrinsic) rewards, or constitute a motivational norm violation,” they wrote.
In other words, summarizes Bloomberg writer Matthew Boyle, “jobseekers applying to firms that tout their do-gooder status refrain from negotiating for higher salaries, but not solely because they’ll trade pay for purpose…they’re also scared of [committing] a cultural faux-pas.”
A candidate for a purpose-driven job may not want to ask for more money, said Boyle, lest their potential employer question their motivations, but in the process they give that employer a chance to gain the upper hand in negotiation.
That could be an important insight for both sides of the negotiation, as purpose-driven work is all the rage these days. The more companies tout their own “purpose,” the harder it might feel to negotiate a fairer salary for yourself.
If you’re a jobseeker anywhere near the non-profit or social organization world, it’s probably a smart thing to keep in mind next time you’re asking for a raise. Kieran Delamont
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PRODUCTIVITY
More for four
The benefits of the four-day workweek are touted far and wide. But can it work outside of a white-collar setting?
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ONE OF THE more common things for critics and detractors of the four-day workweek proposal to suggest is that it is, essentially, only available to a specific subset of the workforce: office-based white-collar workers.
“Dreaming of a four-day work week?” asked a recent Globe and Mail headline. “Only the white collars will realize its benefits.”
The argument is that, while the benefits of a four-day workweek may have a plethora of evidence behind it, practically it only benefits certain components of the workforce.
“The biggest beneficiaries are those workers who already have significant control over their time,” wrote Todd Hirsch in the Globe piece. “These tend to be higher-paid knowledge workers ― ones with paid sick leave, flex days, paid vacations and other time-related benefits.”
A recent New York Magazine article crunched the data to look at this angle. It found that in the American context, most workers are paid hourly and not by salary ― meaning a conventionally implemented four-day workweek likely causes them to lose out on hours.
“While optimizing the percentage of work hours in which an employee is actually productive delivers more paid time off for the salaried worker, it leaves the hourly laborer with both less pay and a more unpredictable schedule,” commented Eric Levitz.
The economic elite seem to be aware of this. At Davos, earlier this year, the Dutch minister of social affairs Karien van Gennip said of the four-day workweek: “This is very much a discussion for the upper class.”
But could a bit of creativity ― and willingness on the part of the employer to make up the difference ― be all that is required to adapt the four-day week to blue-collar workers? Some say it can work.
Roofing Contractor magazine highlighted the experience of a roofing joint manufacturing company in Toronto called Situra, which instituted a four-day week in 2021. The company chose to rotate employees working four days across a five-day week, without deducting pay or lengthening the workdays. Contrary to common assumptions about the four-day week in a blue-collar context, productivity improved.
“I think [employees] are really happy with having that extra day, they look forward to it, it’s like having a little vacation every week,” said Klara Pronerova, Situra’s workforce operations officer. “(Production) hasn’t been behind once, they haven’t stalled, they just get their things done by Thursday.” Kieran Delamont
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