Future of Work
Workplace trends and hybrid work
Why do companies care which days you work from home?
Executive Take
Picking your own remote days sounds flexible but it scatters teams and empties offices on Mondays and Fridays. Bank of America just admitted that unstructured hybrid work doesn't actually create collaboration.
3 min read
Why so many workers are turning down promotions
Executive Take
Your promotion pipeline is quietly breaking because people don't trust what management actually costs them. Fix middle manager burnout and boundaries first, or your best performers will stay put on purpose.
3 min read
Why ‘career cushioning’ is booming
Executive Take
Employees now treat job security as something they must build themselves, not something employers provide. If your people are quietly preparing exits, perks won't fix it, only real trust and transparency about AI's impact on roles will.
3 min read
The surprising reason AI layoffs hurt worker productivity
Executive Take
Cutting jobs to fund or justify AI does not pay off financially and it wrecks the trust you need for AI to actually work. Leaders who protect job security while rolling out AI will see better returns than those who don't.
3 min read
A new Fed analysis shows a surprising shift in who's struggling to find work
Executive Take
Job security no longer predicts who gets rehired fastest. Steady, experienced workers in AI-exposed roles are now the ones struggling most to land new jobs.
3 min read
Welcome to the reinvention economy: Americans are pivoting careers, upskilling, and starting over
Executive Take
Workers aren't waiting for companies to retrain them, they're doing it on their own time and dime. That should worry leaders who think their upskilling programs are keeping pace with employee anxiety.
3 min read
Nissan's in-factory AI cameras track how factory workers bend, walk, and build cars
Executive Take
Worker-monitoring AI is spreading beyond productivity tracking into physical safety and injury prevention. Companies that frame this as coaching, not surveillance, will get worker buy-in faster and avoid the trust backlash others face.
3 min read
Large firms to be net job losers, small businesses to drive employment: Nandan Nilekani
Executive Take
Big companies planning AI-led headcount cuts should expect job creation to shift toward smaller firms, not new large-employer categories. HR leaders need workforce plans built around this split, not around one national jobs story.
3 min read
DoorDash is paying people to load its delivery robots. It points to a shortcoming of automation
Executive Take
The economics only work if DoorDash can shift the loading cost onto contractors rather than paying restaurant staff or absorbing it itself, which is the real automation play here not the robot, but who bears the labor cost around it.
3 min read
Businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees made 92% of May hires
Executive Take
Large-employer hiring is shrinking relative to headcount even as small firms absorb a growing share of new roles, so talent strategy built around big-brand recruiting pipelines is increasingly out of step with where actual hiring volume sits.
3 min read
Remote work, flexibility influence whether women apply for a job more than men
Executive Take
Blanket return-to-office mandates will disproportionately shrink the applicant pool of women, and pairing that with McKinsey's finding that remote women get less sponsorship means employers need flexible policies plus deliberate sponsorship programs, not one or the other.
3 min read
The after-hours advantage: Why your life outside of work matters
Executive Take
Leaders who treat after-hours availability as a proxy for commitment are optimizing for the wrong signal: the research cited here suggests detachment builds exactly the judgment and originality that AI can't replicate, so "always-on" cultures may be quietly eroding the human edge companies say they want.
3 min read
American workers are more disillusioned with AI the more they use it
Executive Take
Rising AI literacy is producing more skepticism, not less, which means the standard "just explain it better" communication playbook won't fix trust gaps leaders need to address job-loss fears directly, especially when AI shows up in layoff announcements.
3 min read
Is AI really a job killer? Some employers say they’re actually hiring more
Executive Take
Leaders should stop treating "AI vs. jobs" as binary and instead redesign entry-level roles now, since that's where task reassignment and rising candidate bars are already concrete and measurable.
3 min read
Gen Z women are having an entrepreneurship boom
Executive Take
Employers competing for Gen Z talent, especially working mothers, should treat rising exit-to-entrepreneurship as a retention warning sign tied directly to childcare costs and inflexible schedules, not a niche trend to note in passing.
3 min read
How AI is expanding what people do at work
Executive Take
Job descriptions are becoming less predictive of actual work performed, so HR leaders should shift from rigid role definitions toward skills- and task-based workforce planning.
3 min read
Introducing the OpenAI Economic Research Exchange
Executive Take
OpenAI is positioning itself to shape the data and narrative around AI's labor-market effects before regulators and unions set the terms, so HR and policy leaders should track whose research gets funded and how findings are used in public debate.
3 min read
GenAI Success Metrics: Look Beyond Reduced Workload
Executive Take
Leaders measuring GenAI ROI purely by headcount reduction or hours saved will misjudge the technology's value; the real signal is whether communication becomes more decision-grade and escalations drop, which requires role-specific tracking rather than blanket productivity metrics.
3 min read
Uber cuts 10% customer service jobs as AI becomes latest driver of tech layoffs
Executive Take
Uber is using AI adoption as explicit cover for both headcount reduction and a return-to-office push, signaling that support functions will keep shrinking as AI absorbs routine service work.
3 min read
Modeling an AI jobs transition
Executive Take
Leaders should use this occupation-level framework to audit their own workforce composition against the four exposure categories rather than treating AI's jobs impact as a single, uniform threat or opportunity.
3 min read
Building expertise in the age of AI: Who trains the next generation?
Executive Take
Leaders who let AI hollow out entry-level roles without redesigning how juniors build judgment will face a mid-career expertise gap in five to ten years; the fix requires restructuring roles now, not adding a training course later.
3 min read
Agents, robots, and us: How AI reshapes work and skills in Latin America
Executive Take
Leaders should prioritize redesigning workflows around human-AI collaboration rather than wholesale reskilling, since core competencies persist but application methods change.
3 min read
The human advantage in an AI economy
Executive Take
Leaders who treat AI rollout as purely an IT investment will underperform peers who pair it with deliberate workforce cognitive capacity and skills investment.
3 min read
AI’s next big mission is rewiring your workplace
Executive Take
Leaders who frame AI strategy as workforce redesign rather than cost-cutting will build lasting competitive advantage; those chasing headcount reduction alone are optimizing for a shrinking business, not a growing one.
3 min read
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