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☆ With layoffs looming, you could be offered a voluntary buyout—4 things to know before taking one
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Rebecca Picciotto | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

For example, after cutting 500 salaried positions in February, General Motors offered voluntary employee buyouts to the majority of its 58,000 U.S. white-collar workers. So far, about 5,000 have opted into the "Voluntary Separation Program", or VSP, the company's CFO Paul Jacobson announced on Tuesday. Buyouts can also be less voluntary and more "a precursor to layoffs," says Lindsay Witcher, a senior executive at recruiting firm Randstad RiseSmart. Regardless, these types of buyouts are less voluntary and usually mean that the employee's position is about to be eliminated. Whether the buyout is a warning sign of layoffs or purely a voluntary option, a second opinion can provide necessary clarity.

☆ Harvard expert shares her No. 1 'undesirable' trait CEOs see in employees: It's 'a huge red flag for me'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Ashton Jackson | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Of the many traits people bring to the workplace, one stands out as an absolute "trust breaker," according to a Harvard career expert. It's "taking credit for other people's ideas," says Heidi K. Gardner, a professional leadership advisor and distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School. And that inability to appreciate other people's contributions is a huge red flag for me." Teamwork is crucial for any company's success, and by extension, your own success, Gardner says. "If somebody takes credit for someone else's work or ideas, they are not trustworthy in that sense."

☆ Starbucks is probably 'the best first job in America,' former CEO says as Congress probes the chain's treatment of unions
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Aidan Pollard | Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Starbucks is "one of the best, if not the best, first job in America," former CEO Howard Schultz said. "Starbucks is probably one of the best, if not the best, first job in America." "It's unprecedented, and that's why Starbucks doesn't need a union," Schultz said. But Wednesday's hearing showed that some current and former Starbucks employees don't agree with that assessment. Jaysin Saxton, a former Starbucks barista who lost his job in August at a Starbucks in Augusta, Georgia, also spoke at the hearing.

☆ Employees Need Positive Feedback From Bosses. Without It, People Quit.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Molly Lipson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

A 2021 study by the global management-consulting firm McKinsey found that the top-two reasons people quit their jobs are because they don't feel valued by their company or their manager. And when employees feel happy and rewarded by their jobs, they are also more productive. How to really mean it when you give an employee praiseFor employees to really feel valued at work, it's important that they are recognized on a regular basis. While a simple acknowledgement of good work can be a powerful tool, Baumgartner told me that a simple "thank you" isn't sufficient to truly appreciate employees' work. Peer-to-peer recognition is also an important way employees can feel valued.

☆ The No. 1 thing women really want at work: 'It boils down to 2 words,' according to 800 executives
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Carolyn Childers | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Rising burnout rates, an ongoing childcare crisis and lingering effects of the pandemic have forced thousands of women to reevaluate their relationship with work. As the CEO and co-founder of Chief, a network focused on supporting and connecting women, I've seen how high-performing women have been affected by all these factors. There's a huge disconnect between what employers think women need versus what they really want, according our survey of more than 800 executive women. So what will really keep women from quitting? Offering the option of remote work, for example, doesn't guarantee that women who take advantage of it won't be passed over for stretch assignments or be left out of project conversations.

☆ 3 red flags that prove it might be time to quit your job: 'Go out and make your own growth'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-26 | by ( Gili Malinsky | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

In 2009, Amy Porterfield had a comfortable job as the director of content development at Anthony (Tony) Robbins Companies. The job introduced her to people building online businesses, and she yearned for the kind of daily freedom the gig afforded. Porterfield ultimately left her full-time job and experimented with various businesses, including selling and creating online courses. In 2019, she launched Digital Course Academy, teaching others how to start an online course business themselves. 'You feel invisible or undervalued'Similarly, if you feel like you're being undervalued and there's no way to remedy your higher ups' treatment, consider an exit strategy.

☆ Crypto is banned in China, but Binance employees and support volunteers tell people how to bypass the ban
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +18 min

The messages CNBC reviewed come from accounts identified as Binance employees or Binance-trained volunteers known as "Angels." Whatever the method, Binance's Chinese users take on a significant risk: In China, crypto exchanges have been outlawed since 2017, while crypto itself was outlawed in 2021. But Chinese customers have continued to seek ways to trade on Binance, which include using instructions provided by employees and volunteers. "'Binance does not offer a 'Binance Chinese Android app," a spokesperson said. In addition, hours after Binance responded to CNBC, messages apeared on Twitter suggesting that some customers' Binance debit cards had been frozen.

☆ Leaked document shows Amazon's flawed job-posting process led to 'over-hiring,' with one team listing 3 times more openings than approved for
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Amazon lacked internal oversight and governance in listing job posts, leading to over hiring, according to an internal document. That means the utility computing team had over 3-times more job postings than the headcount target at the time. The document points to Amazon's lack of standardization and governance for the gap between the job postings and open headcount. "This enabled over-hiring in certain cost centers and contributed to span of control and level ratio defects," the internal document said. This person said Amazon's lack of oversight in job postings and the related hiring process caused "over-hiring issues" and leaders trying to "squeeze people in where they could."

☆ YouTube Music contractors say their office is promoting anti-union messages on TVs ahead of the union election
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Thomas Maxwell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Contracting firm Cognizant is pushing back as contractors for YouTube Music begin union elections. In October, YouTube Music contractors announced their plans to unionize with the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), which represents more than 1,200 full-time Googlers and contractors doing work for the company through outsourcing firms. The YouTube Music contractors will hold a union election on Wednesday. Sam ReganCognizant required YouTube Music contractors to work from its Austin office starting February 6. YouTube Music contractors are voting to unionizeAfter the union election on Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board will hold a vote count on April 26 to determine whether a majority of YouTube Music workers voted in favor of collective bargaining.

☆ A new lawsuit alleges a Tucker Carlson producer mocked a Jewish Fox News employee for going to a 'Jew bakery' to 'see his people'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Grace Eliza Goodwin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A Fox News employee says that Tucker Carlson producers mocked Jewish employees. A new lawsuit alleges that one producer taunted a Jewish employee for going to a "Jew bakery" to "see his people." The suit details an encounter between one producer on Tucker Carlson Tonight and another employee, a Jewish man and producer on the same show. During the holiday season in 2022, the Jewish worker went to a Jewish bakery and brought a babka — which is a historically Jewish sweet bread — to the office, the lawsuit states. Then, whenever the Jewish employee would visit the bakery after that, the worker "loudly proclaimed to the [Tucker Carlson show] booking team that [the Jewish employee] went to the 'Jew bakery,' and that he had gone 'to see his people,'" the suit alleges.

☆ Georgia county said it was too costly to spend $10,000 a year on health cover for trans employees. It spent $1.2 million fighting it, lost, and has to pay anyway.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Joshua Zitser | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A Georgia county refused to change a health plan to cover a trans employee's surgeries, citing the cost. The county spent nearly $1.2 million in legal fees fighting it in court, and lost. Lange came out as a transgender woman to her colleagues in 2017, after working for the Houston County Sheriff's Office for more than a decade, legal documents show. Houston County spent $57,135 on a budget expert to make the case, per ProPublica. Houston County did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

☆ We run a senior-living center and are building a tiny home village so dozens of our employees can afford to live where they work
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Maggie and John Randolph are building affordable housing in their Southern New Hampshire community. Now, they are going beyond that and building affordable housing for the community. The cool thing is those tiny homes will allow us to go well beyond our staff needs — we'll be able to start to support the community. John and Maggie Randolph in front of one of their tiny homes. If we don't build affordable housing, we're going to lose a lot of high school graduates and college graduates.

Inflation has reduced the value of bonuses that weren't raised by $25.5 billion. That means scores of employees who count on their bonuses lost purchasing power. Here's a look at the potential impact of inflation on bonuses for individual employees and entire sectors. We calculated average bonuses by sector for both years, assuming that bonuses are equal to 11% of an employee's salary, a figure published by job-search platform Zippia. Using the CPI inflation calculator, we found the value of 2021 bonuses a year later to uncover how much employees getting the same size bonus in 2022 lost from inflation.

Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Bayada Home Health Care Inc did not violate federal wage law by docking salaried employees' paid time off, or PTO, when they did not work required weekly hours. The case marked the first time that a U.S. appeals court was asked whether paid time off counts as part of an employee's salary. The question is important because salaried workers can become eligible for overtime pay if employers make deductions from their wages. A group of Bayada employees, including nurses, physical therapists and social workers, sued the company in Scranton, Pennsylvania federal court in 2016. Circuit Court of Appeals, No.

☆ Tiger Woods's NDA battle with Erica Herman is dragging his obsession with privacy into the spotlight
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Jack Newsham | Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Tiger Woods's ex-girlfriend Erica Herman claims he evicted and abused her, but she has an NDA. Davis wasn't the first person asked to keep Tiger Woods's name out of his mouth, and according to a $30 million lawsuit filed earlier this month by Woods's ex-girlfriend Erica Herman, he wasn't the last. The battle over Herman's NDA is a window into Woods's longtime obsession with privacy. In October 2021, exhibits and transcripts were sealed in an unsuccessful case brought by the family of an employee at Tiger Woods's restaurant who died in a drunk driving incident. When Woods's image imploded in 2009, he used nondisclosure agreements to stanch the gush of details about his personal life into the media.

☆ Here's how much the typical worker makes at 19 retail companies, from Amazon to Walmart
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-04 | by ( Dominick Reuter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

SEC rules require publicly traded companies to disclose their workers' median annual pay. Here's what the median worker gets paid at 19 retail companies, from lowest to highest. Ever since Amazon set its minimum wage to $15 in 2018, more retailers have followed suit by offering starting wages worth more than double the national minimum wage of $7.25. Rules following the financial crisis of 2008 require public companies to calculate their median worker's annual salary in order to compare it to the CEO's compensation. Scroll through below to see where 19 of the largest companies rank, from lowest to highest annual pay.

☆ A self-proclaimed 'Airbnb Queen' who managed other people's properties is accused of stealing from homeowners then fleeing town
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Dan Latu | Aj Latrace | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Massey told Fox 23 that when she confronted Widell on the accounting "irregularities," Widell lashed out and responded "aggressively." A separate unnamed property owner told Fox 23 that he paid Widell $11,000 to stage his rental. Since then, seven of Widell's tenants told Fox 23 their water had been shut off and they risk losing electricity. "Honestly, the worst thing she has done is taken away everyone's peace of mind," one tenant, Traci Nunnelly, told Fox 23. After convincing landlords to switch to Airbnb, Neth said, she would then seek to manage their listings as a paid property manager.

☆ As the 4-day workweek gains traction, Congressman Mark Takano is reintroducing his proposal to make it law
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Takano is reintroducing his act to make the standard workweek just 32 hours long. Takano has reintroduced his 32 Hour Workweek Act, which would tweak the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to make the standard workweek 32 hours, instead of the 40 it's currently at. It's not the first time that Takano has pushed to make the working week shorter. "So a four-day work week is something that connects a lot of Americans." Last month, Maryland lawmakers introduced the Four-Day Workweek Act of 2023, which would reduce an employee's workweek to 32 hours without cutting their pay while giving employers a tax credit.

☆ Ex-Amazon managers say they were pressured to cut successful workers to meet attrition goals — and faced retribution when they resisted
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Shana Lebowitz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +17 min

Former Amazon managers say they were pressured to cut successful workers to meet attrition goals. In anticipation of Amazon's performance-review period, he told Insider, he'd kept careful notes on what his employees were doing well and where they could improve. These people said leadership would place employees in Focus even if the managers of those employees said that the workers had met or exceeded expectations. A few weeks later, he said, his manager told him he was on Pivot and had the option to leave the company with severance, which he did. Amazon managers are required to submit their performance ratings for employees in an online tool, then discuss their rationale with managers above them, he said.

☆ Government employees have received gifts worth thousands, but the CIA destroys many of the items it receives
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-26 | by ( Aaron Mcdade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The State Department released a record of gifts given to government employees over the last several years. The gifts range from the minimum required value for reporting of $415 to over $10,000. The gifts span a wide variety, from furniture and books to valuable pens, jewelry, and clothing worth several thousand dollars. "When an agency receives foreign government gifts, there are several options for disposing of the gift permissibly," a CIA spokesperson told Fox Business. "When an employee receives a foreign government gift exceeding minimal value, the agency may make official use of the gift or may display it.

☆ From free meals to massages, here are 8 of the top perks enjoyed by Big Tech workers
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-26 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | Kate Duffy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The cost-cutting measures have caused some tech firms to cut back on employee perks. Here are some of the best office perks that employees have enjoyed in recent years. Big Tech companies such as Google and Meta have tried to cut costs by dropping perks and restricting work travel. From lavish lunches to on-site pampering, here are eight of the most indulgent company perks tech workers have received over the years. Google staff could enjoy on-site massagesGoogle is known for having on-site gyms and masseuses on some of its campuses.

☆ 'Quiet' is the workplace word of 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-25 | by ( Madison Hoff | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Bare Minimum Monday, another workplace buzzword of 2023, also relates to quiet quitting. Experts think those "quiet" trends and more are set to continue throughout 2023 and beyond. "Quiet hiring" is one of the "biggest workplace buzzwords" of 2023 per Insider's reporting. Emily Rose McRae of Gartner's HR Practice said per reporting from GMA that quiet hiring is a workplace trend in 2023 in part because of a shortage in talent. Other buzzwords of the year from Insider's reporting relate to quiet quitting even if they don't use the word quiet.

☆ Lowe's employee resigns after viral TikTok shows him screaming for help while retrieving a large box, family member says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Ben Tobin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A Lowe's employee resigned after a viral TikTok showed him struggling to retrieve a large box. Lowe's said it took "prompt action" following the TikTok video, but did not elaborate. "People are crazy and he was scared people would go to the store looking to harass him," the family member added. When Insider reported the viral TikTok earlier this month, a Lowe's spokesman said the company took "prompt action to address it." When the employee was retrieving the furniture, "it shifted and cut the machine off, which is what caused him to panic," the family member said.

☆ Private equity is finally stepping up its tech game. Here's who is leading the charge.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

What's the first thing that pops into your head when you hear the term "private equity?" PE firms do plenty of things quite well (and they are certainly compensated for their work), but their internal tech has never been a top priority. What I find most fascinating about the so-called "digitization" of PE isn't so much the actual tech but the culture. Click here to learn more about the 12 executives helping PE firms get up to speed on cutting-edge tech they can use to source and close deals. Silicon Valley Bank, which is the go-to bank for tech startups, is under pressure amid the market downturn, the Financial Times reported.

☆ AI is helping your company decide who to lay off
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Jacob Zinkula | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

HR leaders are planning to use AI to help them make layoff decisions this year. ChatGPT isn't among the AI tools being used for personnel decisions. It's unclear how many companies use AI tools when conducting performance reviews and promotions, but some employees say they're concerned about it. AI is being used for hiring and firing, but some experts have concernsFor many years, companies have used AI to process resumes, conduct interviews, and evaluate candidates. While some experts have argued AI tools could help reduce bias during the hiring process, others have raised concerns.

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