A late April batch of links
Since the last batch of links went out, paying subscribers have read about how small gestures can turn into something bigger, received a short bonus newsletter with my Passover thoughts, and most recently entertained an update on my personal new year’s resolution. This coming weekend, we’ll discuss Ikigai, a Japanese term that loosely means finding and achieving your purpose.
For now, here’s a batch of links from this week that matched well the themes of this newsletter. Those themes are professional development, community building, and self care. I hope you enjoy.
This is how managers should plan for the Great Reentry. I thought this podcast episode did a nicer job than most of establishing the new guidelines about days in the City. Encourage people to expand to discover more than what they could find at home. Some of that work will take place outside of the office. Managers need to be ready to let people roam in and out at their own pace.
New York City Companies Prepare to Put Pay Ranges on Job Listings. I believe laws like these will make it that much harder for startups to compete. The salaries are lower than at enterprise companies, and the equity right now is far less appealing to make up for it. This is some spin:
Hari Prasad, founder and CEO of Yosi Health, a New York-based healthcare software company that employs four workers with plans to hire another 10 this year, said he looks forward to being able to compare salaries at the company’s competitors. He added there might be a potential upside to including salaries upfront: fewer surprises at the end of an interview process, when an applicant is typically told the pay.
“This is going to make the hiring process more efficient,” Mr. Prasad said.
Why permanent desks are (mostly) gone, replaced by ‘unassigned design’.
Tales from the Big Quit: I’m a man who became a VP at a menopause company. Work became more personal for some these past two years. An excerpt from a guest essay: “My wife’s health concerns were front and center, even more so because we spent 24/7 together. The undercurrents of comparative thinking that dominate life in an office faded into the background. What moved to the foreground were the mechanics of how to truly care for those who were right in front of me.”
Gas prices, inflation, make some want to work from home even as offices call workers back.
The Essentials: Managing Up. The topic is valuable, the examples within this podcast less so. I’ll write about this topic at some length in the coming months. There’s more to be said here than the podcasters covered. Managing up is a soft skill that propels your career forward far past being responsive to what your manager asks from you.
What if the future of work is exactly the same?
It’s not me, it’s your job description. Put this in the category of things that the hot job market has caused that should have been a standard in place before. “And here’s why not listing stringent and exclusionary job requirements matters even more today: Indeed found that 73% of employers said they are hiring more candidates from outside industries. And 78% said they are seeing more job seekers applying for jobs that vary from their past work experience.”
Feeling anxiety about returning to the office? Read these tips.
The end of sick days: has WFH made it harder to take time off? I like where this story goes in the second half, making it about managers having to get with the times and to let people know that they should slow down and take care of themselves when they’re not feeling well enough to work. This is an immensely predictable problem to have arisen and also an immensely solvable problem to address.
The Startups Seeking to Improve Pay Transparency for Creators.
4 people on how their company’s switch to work-from-anywhere spurred them to move around the world. Good to get some real voices to this phenomenon. Still, I’d preferred to have seen examples from four different companies rather than just the one.
What Americans Keep Getting Wrong About Exercise.
About 1 in 5 workers who quit their jobs during "Great Resignation" regret it, survey finds. We’ve been at this long enough that we’re starting to see the active results of people’s decisions. When I speak to those looking to make the leap, I always make sure to pepper into the conversation that “There’s no such thing as a perfect job.” But I acknowledge the tradeoffs involved and how the equation has changed for so many in a short period of time.