All Features
Susanne Tedrick
No single person, no matter how intelligent or experienced, can understand everything there is to know about a given job. Questions will come up, and when they do, the individual—whether a software developer, project manager, sales engineer, or any other title—needs to have a handle on the specific…
Martine Haas
One thing is clear about the future of work: Hybrid work arrangements are becoming the norm for many organizations. And no matter the industry, the concerns involve the same five “C” challenges: communication, coordination, connection, creativity, and culture. If you’re struggling to manage a…
Yosef Ayzencot
Starting a business is a costly investment. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, more than half of businesses fail within the first five years of opening. Adding to this pressure were the nationwide staffing challenges during the “Great Resignation” and then the “Great Reshuffle.” This…
Gleb Tsipursky
The monumental battle over remote work is heating up this summer as more traditionalist business leaders demand that their employees come to the office much or all of the time. Yet what these traditionalist executives are failing to realize is that the drama, stress, and tensions caused by their…
Christian Terwiesch
As labor becomes more costly and emerges as a major bottleneck for many manufacturing and service industries, improving labor productivity is an obvious priority. Whether it’s the preparation time it takes for a restaurant worker to cook a meal, the time for an autoworker to install a component,…
Dawn Bailey
According to a survey of a broad cross-section of CEOs, the Foundation for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award noted that “deploying strategy is three times more difficult than developing strategy. If deployment is so challenging, the questions [should be], Are you making progress? How do…
Julie Winkle Giulioni
Despite recent high-profile examples of rescinded offers, it’s still a seller’s employment market with two jobs for every unemployed American. And even as inflation rages and economic contraction looms, employee retention remains a pressing issue. In fact, a study of 87 percent of human resources…
Gartner
Seventy-six percent of human resource leaders feel that hybrid work challenges employees’ connection to organizational culture, according to a recent survey by Gartner. A February 2022 Gartner poll of more than 200 HR leaders reveals the most challenging aspect of setting their hybrid strategy is…
Claudine Mangen
Work has become an around-the-clock activity, courtesy of the pandemic and technology that makes us reachable anytime, anywhere. Throw in expectations to deliver fast and create faster, and it becomes hard to take a step back.
Not surprising, many of us are feeling burned out. Burnout—which often…
Huw Thomas
In what has been called the “biggest moment for workers’ rights in a quarter of a century,” the International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted a safe and healthy work environment as one of its five fundamental principles and rights at work for all at its June 2022 international conference. This is…
Gleb Tsipursky
Imagine you’re driving along the highway and you see an electric sign that reads, “79 traffic deaths this year.” Would this make you less likely to crash your car shortly after seeing the sign? Perhaps you think it would have no effect?
Neither are true. According to a recent peer-reviewed study…
Alixandra Barasch
If you’ve ever played Wordle, learned a new language on Duolingo, or worked out with Peloton, you may be familiar with daily app notifications that nudge you to keep at it—or risk breaking a streak of consecutive efforts. Do you or don’t you heed the clarion call?
If you do, you’re in good company…
ISO
Standards are not for just the minority of businesses with thousands of employees. According to the World Bank, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) make up more than 90 percent of all companies and account for up to 70 percent of total employment. In developing countries, small…
Roxanne Oclarino
In an ideal world, a project economy would empower people with the skills and capabilities needed to turn ideas into reality. In that world organizations would deliver tremendous value to exceed stakeholders’ expectations by successfully completing projects. Yet research shows that only 35 percent…
Edmund Andrews
Even if the pandemic abates enough for a return to normal, all evidence indicates that a substantial share of Americans will continue to work from home, relying on videoconferencing to team up.
Yet, while the ease of gathering virtually has made the shift to widespread remote work possible, a new…
Megan Wallin-Kerth
Many industries are embracing apprentice and trade programs in efforts to create a strong and reliable workforce for the future—and the manufacturing field is no exception. The BASF apprenticeship program began as a way for young professionals to find success through practical on-the-job training.…
Jeff Dewar
This is the first installment of a five-part series.
In May, Quality Digest editor in chief Dirk Dusharme and I attended ASQ’s 2022 World Conference on Quality and Improvement (WCQI) in Anaheim, California. It was the first in-person conference since Covid hit the world, and attendance was just…
Kath Lockett
‘Firefighters are heroes.” We hear it all the time, from children, the media, and young people looking for a rewarding career. It’s probably something you’ve said or thought yourself at one time or another. These brave men and women put their own safety on the line every day to protect their…
Aarin B. Clemons, Lindsey Brickle
Many manufacturers have struggled for years to hire qualified workers. The outlook is for more of the same. With an aging workforce, emerging new technologies requiring more skilled talent, and the continuing decline of trades education in high schools and community colleges, an estimated 2.1…
George Siedel
There is no shortage of books critical of business schools. The titles leave little doubt about how much disdain the authors have for the schools meant to prepare future leaders in business. Consider books like Shut Down the Business School: What’s Wrong with Management Education (Pluto Press, 2018…
Gleb Tsipursky
The pandemic has made organizations aware of the need for a new C-suite leader, the CHO, or chief health officer. This has been driven by recognizing the importance of employee health for engagement, productivity, and risk management, along with lowering healthcare insurance costs. At the same time…
Jorge Gonzalez Henrichsen
In April 2022, China's manufacturing output fell to its lowest level in two years, according to official data. The figures were the latest sign of economic pain as Beijing maintains its uncompromising zero-Covid response.
Dozens of cities, including Shenzhen and Shanghai, have been partially or…
Ruth Castel-Branco, Hannah Dawson
Narrative frames are fundamental to unifying ideologies. They frame what is possible and impossible, which ideas can be accepted, and which must be rejected. In her book, Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics (Zed Books, 2018), storyteller and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola examines the framing…
Susan Robertson
A debate you frequently hear in business circles is whether working online or in-person is more creative. The short answer? Both. Or neither. It’s solely dependent on how the meeting is structured and managed.
When it comes to creativity, a recent study found that online interactions result in…
Angie Basiouny
Walter Orthmann has worked for the same textile manufacturer in Brazil for more than 84 years, setting the Guinness World Record last month for longest career at a single company.
It’s a remarkable stretch, considering American workers now spend a median of 4.1 years with their employers,…