A late March batch of links

Since the last batch of links went out, paying subscribers received a reflection on what everyone has gotten wrong about hybrid work over the past year, and then a suggestion for what the best career advice is when asked by 20-somethings. This coming weekend, the column will cover generalists and specialists and how should be approaching that debate not as a debate.

Below, you’ll find a batch of links that cover the themes of this newsletter: professional development, community building, and self care.

Mars chief hits out at ‘nonsense’ attacks on corporate ESG.

The employees Mars calls associates “won’t stay with us if we don’t care about ESG or purpose or whatever we call it. So from my chair, I think it’s a nonsense conversation,” Weihrauch said. “We don’t believe that purpose and profit are enemies.”  

A Sandwich Shop, a Tent City and an American Crisis.

Doggie Mansions and Tiffany Bowls: Lifestyles of Rich and Famous Pets. My understanding is that one of the areas for consumers that has grown significantly over the past few years is regarding pet care and pet amenities. Some people are pulling back on what they spend on themselves to be able to pamper their pets.

Stop requiring college degrees for jobs that don’t need them.

That Plum Job Listing May Just Be a Ghost. I believe this to be true: “One-third of the managers who said they advertised jobs they weren’t trying to fill said they kept the listings up to placate overworked employees.”

Beyond ‘Where’s the beef?’ Older people, especially women, have economic power.

Gen Z are now ‘polyworking’ because holding down just one job doesn’t pay enough or give them the flexibility they want. Nothing here is all that surprising, but it does reinforce that people who have other means of revenue are more likely to quit and to pursue another dream instead. And, yes, there is a generation coming of age that is more prone to want to diversify their income streams fro the get-go. So do what you can as managers to keep them focused and happy.

COOL PEOPLE ACCIDENTALLY SAVED AMERICA’S FEET.

Dear Job Candidate, Please Do a Week's Worth of Work to Apply. Not only do I frown on this practice of exploitation, I suspect it’s not at all telling of how the candidates would perform in the respective role. Better would be to ask the candidates to lay out a 30-60-90 plan for what the role would look like an its inception in their hands. Get them thinking about the work they will offer, not filling in a template they can game.

Inside the weird, wonderful world of ‘Buy Nothing’ groups.

Google was beloved as an employer for years. Then it laid off thousands by email. It’s been interesting to watch how the company everyone used to cite as a place they aspired to be has turned into a company to be avoided, even chided. During boom times, it was popular to want the amenities that a Google could offer. These days, those seem to be either unavailable or totally unappealing in comparison to other amenities such as flexibility on when and where to work. Googlers didn’t like being summoned back to the office part-time.

What science can tell us about building great teams.

When You Come to a Fork in the Office Kitchen, Take It. This is exactly the kind of story I’d pitch to reporters. I am amazed that a reporter found. It had to come from seeing her own forks disappear, right?

Will the Ozempic Era Change How We Think About Being Fat and Being Thin?

Having dreams about work? Here’s how to know if it’s time to make a change.

“If the dream was particularly frustrating, for example, and that frustration is still sitting with you after the dream, that frustration exists somewhere in your real life,” she says. “If you feel the same kind of frustration when you think about work, that’s a big piece of the puzzle; your dream is showing you that work is frustrating.”