Why remote work may render the 5-day workweek obsolete

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by Scott Dust

During the conventional 5-day week, most workers’ productivity levels gradually drop off as they move closer to the weekend, signaling the format may be outdated.

A little over one hundred years ago, a New England mill instituted the five-day workweek to accommodate Jewish and Christian day of rest observances. The masses followed suit. This five days on, two days off cadence still exists, but to put it simply, it is inefficient.

Employees run out of steam working eight or more hours a day for five days straight. My colleagues at Miami University and I recently conducted research illustrating this exact point. Across two different samples, we found that employee motivation and performance steadily decline across the five-day workweek. We are conditioned to work hard at the beginning of the week, but we lose focus as the weekend approaches.

Another problem is that thanks to technology, the eight-hour, “9-to-5” workday is a mirage. We think it exists, but it doesn’t. We are constantly checking in and refreshing our inboxes. And this extra time spent on work work hours either go unnoticed by employers or go unregulated by employees.

It’s time to get realistic about how people work in the 21st century. To the degree that we can acknowledge what is actually happening—and what is actually effective—we can begin to experiment with work hours in ways that simultaneously increase productivity and well-being.

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Why Leaders Keep Getting Better—Yet Their Reputations Keep Getting Worse

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By Kelly Goldsmith and Marshall Goldsmith

 

 

 

The bar is being raised, and the standards of evaluation for great leadership will only get higher.

Jim, a newly minted manager at a top technology company, asked us a fascinating question: “Do leaders today act more like bullies than leaders in the past?” 

He went on to elaborate, “It seems like every week I read stories in the press about bad leaders who intimidate people and engage in disrespectful behavior. Do you think that leaders are worse today than ever before?” 

Jim was very surprised at our response. 

We believe that the overwhelming majority of executives today are much better leaders than at any other time in our history. The leaders we coach are far more inclusive, caring and respectful than their historical predecessors. 

How can leaders be more inclusive, caring and respectful in the face of an increasing sea of negative comments about bullies and bad leadership?  Continue reading →

3 ways to create a good first impression at your new job

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by Art Markman

Starting a new job soon? Here’s what you need to do.

There is a lot of value in having a good first few weeks at a new job. For one, it’s hard for other people to really evaluate how you’re doing when you first start. It takes a while for new projects to get to a point where they yield results. But, there is evidence that when you have a favorable impression of someone, you evaluate their actions more favorably than when you have an unfavorable impression. This is called “the halo effect.”

It starts before you start 

You should be preparing for your first day on the job even before you get there. If you’re new to a company, you should be reading up on it. Ask your new boss for some information if they don’t provide it. Find out as much as you can about what your responsibilities are going to be.

You aren’t going to be ready to get actual work done before you start, because you won’t know exactly what you’re being asked to do. But the aim is to familiarize yourself with terms you might encounter at work and to have a set of questions you’d like to get answered as you get started. Once you begin the new job, information is going to come at you fast and furious, so the better prepared you are in advance, the easier it will be for you to handle the flood. Continue reading →

The one interview question that tells you if the candidate is right for the job

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BY ANNE MARIE SQUEO

The founder of Proof Point Communications observes that hiring is the hardest thing managers do because they need to both objectively assess and reflect their workplace while getting to the heart of what makes a candidate tick. Here’s what she’s learned about doing it right.

 

Hiring talent is the hardest thing a manager does. Period. I thought I’d cracked the code on this process about a decade ago by conducting multiple interviews, sharing a dinner with front runners, calling references not provided. And yet, my odds of success were about the same as roulette.

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Can Bad Managers Become Great Leaders?

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By   Amelia Haynes

The short answer is yes—if they take the right steps to curb counterproductive behavior.

Science confirms what many executives already know: that good leadership goes deeper than being smart, skilled and visionary.

The true influence of a great leader can be measured only by their impact on others. After all, a leader’s behavior directly affects the energy of their people: in one study, 59% of people said their leader has the largest influence on their personal energy. So the less constructive leaders’ behaviors are, the worse their organizations will perform.

What a leader does—and how they do it—has real consequences for their bottom line. And toxic bosses, research shows, can have wide-ranging negative effects on a business, leading to nearly $24 billion in healthcare costs and productivity lost.

Good leadership requires self-control, emotional energy and effort? The combination of job-related stress, and the energy and effort required for self-control results in what scientist’s call “chronic power stress”: the accumulated weight of responsibility for the success and failure of organizations and their people. Often, the more senior the role, the heavier this burden becomes. Continue reading →