Business Trends

18% of the Workforce Could Retire Within 5 Years

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

I hesitated before posting this link.  The headline grabs your attention, no?  It got my attention for sure.  Maybe, just maybe there’s hope for our economy and jobs crisis from the demographics.  Then I read the following sentence:

For the purpose of the study, ADP assumed that the average retirement age was 61. Researchers concluded that in many industries, individuals will retire at 61 despite theories suggesting otherwise.

Not gonna happen.  Period.

via 18% of the workforce could retire within five years | LifeHealthPro.

How Unpaid Internships Cheapen Workers of All Ages – PBS

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

Interns have been used as a cheap labor force, thousands upon thousands of internships each year in the U.S. are illegal, which has gone global and is completely unregulated, and the system is indeed inefficient and unethical in a variety of ways.

We’re actually eating our young.

via Will Work for Free: How Unpaid Internships Cheapen Workers of All Ages | The Business Desk with Paul Solman | PBS NewsHour | PBS.

Amen.  You should get paid for work.  Never work for free.

What a Messy Desk Says About You – NYTimes.com

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

In the study by Dr. Vohs, disordered offices encouraged originality and a search for novelty. In the final portion of the study, adults were given the choice of adding a health “boost” to their lunchtime smoothie that was labeled either “new” or “classic.” The volunteers in the messy space were far more likely to choose the new one; those in the tidy office generally opted for the classic version.

“Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition,” Dr. Vohs and her co-authors conclude in the study, “which can produce fresh insights.”

My office is fine the way it is.  I know what is in every pile.  Now I have some evidence that the way I work is more creative.  STFU!

via What a Messy Desk Says About You – NYTimes.com.

Walking to Work Cuts Obesity, Diabetes Risk

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

Active modes of traveling to work, such as walking or biking, were associated with a lower likelihood of obesity and diabetes, U.K. researchers found.

Compared with using driving a car or taking a taxi, walking to work was associated with a 20% reduced risk of being obese and a 40% reduced risk of diabetes, according to Anthony Laverty, MSc, of the Imperial College London, and colleagues. Those who cycled to work had a 37% lower risk of obesity and a 50% lower risk of diabetes.

via Walking to Work Cuts Obesity, Diabetes Risk.

One of the downsides of working from home.  So I suppose having my office down the hall from my bedroom increases my risk of obesity and diabetes.

Great.  Pass the chocolate please.

Your Brand Follows the Work – Nilofer Merchant – HBR

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

Your Brand Is the Exhaust Fume of the Engine of Your Life – Nilofer Merchant – Harvard Business Review.

Focus on the work.  Your personal brand follows.  Don’t let the goofy title dissuade you from clicking the link and reading the post.  The author is thought provoking and absolutely spot on.

We talk about “reinventing your brand” when in reality the goal is to reinvent what you work on. We talk about the “brand called you” when we talk about being able to do more of the work you love to do. We talk about ways to “deliver on the impact equation” without asking first, “what is it you want to impact?” We are told by marketing gurus that “everyone now owns a media company!” — as if somehow this is, itself, the goal — rather than a means to an end. Marketing has become the default language — the lingua franca of the day — that we use to describe work, and it is distorting how we evaluate what matters.

What is it you care about? It takes courage to find and follow an individual path; finding our own path takes us off the path that others are following, in directions that can seem distinctly alone.