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☆ Take a look at the gift that Apple gives employees after 10 years — a slab of aluminum along with a signed note from Tim Cook
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Sarah Jackson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

At Apple, staff who've stayed 10 years get a gift commemorating the rare milestone. Take a look at Apple's 10-year employee gift, a hefty slab of aluminum with a signed note from Tim Cook. At Apple, employees who've stayed at least 10 years get a square slab of aluminum, a polishing cloth, and a signed note from CEO Tim Cook, according to a recent video from YouTuber DongleBookPro showing an unboxing of the award. The gift is a hefty square hunk of aluminum with a huge stainless steel Apple logo on it. A note from Apple in the package says the gift is made from the same 6000 series aluminum that's used to make the company's products.

☆ See the 9-slide presentation that got General Catalyst to bet $5 million on a startup helping people with disabilities get accommodations at work
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Rebecca Torrence | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Managing requests for disability accommodations can be a tricky and time consuming process. Disclo grabbed $5 million in seed funding from General Catalyst in February using this pitch deck. In February, Atlanta-based Disclo raised $5 million in seed funding led by General Catalyst. Disclo provided Insider with the pitch deck it used to land $5 million from General Catalyst and other investors. Here's the deck Disclo used to get $5 million from General Catalyst.

☆ Please go home! Indian firm deploys software for work-life balance
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

The measure comes amid an increased focus on and research into the adverse effect of long working hours on the health and relationships of employees across the world. "The thought behind this is providing employees a good work-life balance so that they can spend time with their families and loved ones," Chief Executive Ajay Golani told Reuters partner ANI. The pop-up created a social media buzz recently when an employee, Tanvi Khandelwal, shared a picture of the warning on a company desktop. "They put this special reminder, which locks my desktop after business hours and issues a warning," Khandelwal shared on LinkedIn a week ago. Kritika Dubey, one of 40 people employed at the company, told ANI that the pop-up helped her leave on time and fulfil other responsibilities at home.

☆ Nina Montée Karp and Dr. Harvey Karp turned the $1,700 Snoo into the holy grail of parenting. But some say they overhyped the crib's abilities and created a nightmarish corporate culture.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Kate Taylor | Jake Swearingen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +31 min

Karp and Montée Karp built the hype into a parenting-media empire that put out three books and two instructional films in 10 years. Karp and Montée Karp met at a Hollywood party in the early '90s. Karp and Montée Karp promised her independence and flexibility to accommodate her two young children's day-care schedules and a 90-minute commute. Karp and Montée Karp insisted on being involved in minutiae that most top executives hand off. Karp and Montée Karp turned the Snoo into an award-winning holy grail of parenthood in just a few years.

☆ A husband-wife duo turned the $1,700 Snoo into the holy grail of parenting, but some say they run their company like a dysfunctional 'surveillance state'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Kate Taylor | Jake Swearingen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +31 min

☆ Companies are using layoffs to cut new-hire salaries and win back the power they held before the pandemic, some recruiters say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-12 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | Rebecca Knight | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Speculation on the 'real reason' tech companies are shedding workersSome on TikTok and Reddit have posited that the "real reason" tech companies are cutting jobs is to tamp down fat salaries bloated by the Great Resignation. Tech companies scrambled to meet demand and went on a hiring binge during the pandemic. At a time when wages were climbing at the fastest pace in decades across the board, tech companies were especially generous to new hires — and even existing employees. A year and a half ago, compensation was a "completely different ball game," a former recruiter at Google told Insider. Will tech companies then try to hire back their workers at lower salaries?

☆ 4 ways to re-engage employees who have checked out at work, according to an HR consultant
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Elle Hardy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

He recommends pulse surveys and scaling questions to help work through employee engagement issues. Encourage employees to write personal mission statementsI'm a big advocate of organizations getting employees to write personal mission statements. A personal mission statement defines an employee's values, who they are, and how they define success. When employees feel they have a clear purpose at work and believe their leaders set clear directions and expectations, companies' bottom lines benefit, too. In one case I worked with, incorporating personal mission statements into the hiring process helped the recruitment team find candidates who were aligned with company values and fully committed to their roles.

☆ A company-wide Zoom meeting versus individual calls: Insiders reveal how multi-billion-dollar startups Clari and Workato slashed jobs.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( April Joyner | Stephanie Palazzolo | Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Unicorns Clari and Workato are among the latest startups to cut jobs. Workato laid off 10 percent of its workforce, and Clari had its second round of cuts in a year. Clari's layoffs caught the startup's staffers off guard, according to one employee Insider spoke to. Though the layoffs were unexpected, the former Workato employee said, they appreciated the way the company delivered the news. The former Clari employee Insider spoke with said that the spate of layoffs had prompted them to reconsider their dedication to the tech industry.

☆ EV startup Vinfast to cut U.S. jobs amid restructuring
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Phuong Nguyen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The Vietnamese company, a subsidiary of conglomerate Vingroup JSC (VIC.HM), has been moving to expand in the United States, where it hopes to compete with existing automakers. A VinFast spokesperson said headcount would not shrink in Vietnam where most of the company's staff, including its factory and engineering operations, are located. It was not immediately clear how many jobs would be affected by the U.S. restructuring. VinFast said it had hired about 150 people in the United States, many in sales, support and distribution roles as part of a model that bypasses traditional dealerships. VinFast vehicles are not eligible for the $7,500 tax credit in the United States because they are not built in North America.

☆ 80% of workers who quit in the ‘great resignation’ have regrets, according to a new survey
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Ashton Jackson | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

The "Great Regret" is the latest workplace trend to sweep the nation, with the majority of professionals who quit their jobs last year wishing they could get a do-over, according to a new survey. Now, 8 out of 10 professionals who left their jobs regret their decision, a new Paychex study finds. Paychex surveyed 825 employees who quit during the "great resignation" and 354 employers to analyze the impact of the quitting spree and gauge employees' job satisfaction. They found that mental health, work-life balance, workplace relationships and the chance to get rehired all suffered as a result. "Despite satisfaction with mental health and work-life balance influencing many resignations, only about half of respondents from our survey said they are satisfied with their mental health (54%) and work-life balance (43%) in their new workplace.

☆ For one energy company, digital transformation was the catalyst for positive social impact
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Sponsor Post | Created Insider Studios With Lenovo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Gas distributor SGN uses Lenovo's suite of products to help vulnerable customers out in the field. This human-centered approach honors Lenovo's commitment to innovation, while ensuring that SGN makes a positive social impact. The gas distributor uses Lenovo's whole ecosystem of products, including its moto g31 smartphones and ThinkPad X13 devices, to access digital resources to help vulnerable customers in the field. In turn, using Lenovo's products helps SGN to have a positive impact. Using a variety of Lenovo equipment plus Microsoft Teams software has enabled the company to achieve excellence when it comes to digital transformation.

☆ Sheetz drops policy against employees with 'obvious missing, broken or badly discolored teeth' after Insider reporting
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

"Effective immediately, the policy is discontinued," an executive told Insider. The rule stated that "applicants with obvious missing, broken, or badly discolored teeth (unrelated to a disability) are not qualified for employment with Sheetz." "Our culture at Sheetz has always been centered on respect and putting our employees, customers and communities first," Doliveira told Insider. Pennsylvania-based Sheetz has better benefits than many rival retailers, such as 12 weeks of maternity leave and reimbursement for college tuition, employees told Insider. That made the company's policy "weirdly over the top for them," one former employee told Insider.

☆ Britain to shake up private pensions with value for money test
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Huw Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Britain said on Monday it will launch a public consultation on new rules requiring higher disclosure standards from private pensions schemes to give savers better value for money and prevent providers from "gaming the system". Pensions minister Laura Trott said the shake-up of private pensions will also include reform of the charge cap on a company's "default" defined contribution (DC) pension schemes that employees are offered or auto-enrolled in. DC pension schemes' performance is tied to swings in stock and bond markets. "Being in an underperforming pension scheme can lead to someone missing out on thousands of pounds." They would have to provide comparisons with at least three other schemes to prevent providers from choosing underperforming schemes for comparison purposes.

☆ Layoffs at Google, Microsoft, Salesforce Teaching Tech Employees a Harsh Lesson
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-29 | by ( Avery Hartmans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Tech workers are using all sorts of emotional phrases to describe the layoff wave that has gripped the industry and become the talk of the business world. "I'm shocked and hurt and still processing," Katie Olaskiewicz, a former human-truths strategist at Google, wrote on LinkedIn last week shortly after 12,000 Google employees were let go. Over the past two weeks, a total of 40,000 employees have been laid off from Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, a nightmare come true for tech workers. The tech layoffs have been starkly different from Wall Street, which has in recent months instituted its own rounds of job cuts. Wall Street realitiesIn many ways, tech workers are waking up to a reality that their peers in other high-flying industries have always known.

☆ Walmart will increase minimum wage for all employees to $14 per hour
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Ben Tobin | Dominick Reuter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Walmart will raise the minimum wage for store employees to $14 an hour in March, a source tells Insider. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer's current minimum wage is $12 per hour, set in 2021. The current minimum wage is $12 an hour. The company posted a memo Tuesday saying that wages would increase and the average US employee's pay would be $17.50 per hour. A company spokesperson confirmed to the Wall Street Journal and CNBC Tuesday that the minimum wage would increase, and that store employees will make between $14 an hour and $19 an hour starting in March.

☆ Sheetz is reviewing its controversial 'smile policy' that prohibits employees from having 'missing, broken, or badly discolored teeth'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The policy says Sheetz cannot hire people with "missing, broken, or badly discolored teeth." Like all retail workers, employees at Sheetz are expected to show up on time and provide pleasant customer service. Sheetz, based in Pennsylvania, operates gas stations and convenience stores in the eastern US. Associated PressSheetz's 'smile policy' targets its mostly working-class store staff, employees sayThree former employees told Insider they believe that employment decisions are made based on what applicants' teeth look like. Some employees refer to the rule as the "smile policy."

☆ Amazon warns employees not to share confidential information with ChatGPT after seeing cases where its answer 'closely matches existing material' from inside the company
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

An Amazon lawyer warned employees about sharing confidential company information with ChatGPT. Others wondered if they were even allowed to use the AI tool for work. She warned employees not to provide ChatGPT with "any Amazon confidential information (including Amazon code you are working on)," according to a screenshot of the message seen by Insider. Overall, Amazon employees in the Slack channel were excited about the potential of ChatGPT, and wondered if Amazon was working on a competing product. For Amazon employees, data privacy seems to be the least of their concerns.

A trade group for venture-capital employees has collected salaries data for the industry. The data sheds light on how much people are getting paid across talent, investor relations, and PR. But what few know is that, behind the scenes, many roles at VC firms play a hand in a startup's growth journey. In recent years, the vital function of platform employees has led firms to grow those teams, and pay them handsomely. The report, now in its sixth year, shares data from 601 survey respondents, including 351 members located in the US.

☆ Former top FBI counterintelligence agent Charles McGonigal charged with violating Russia sanctions
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Dan Mangan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

That other person later became an FBI source in a criminal probe of foreign political lobbying, which McGonigal was supervising, authorities said. The former top FBI agent in New York for counterintelligence was arrested with an ex-Russian diplomat and charged with violating U.S. sanctions on Russia after he left the FBI by trying to help the oligarch Oleg Deripaska get off the sanctions list, federal prosecutors said Monday. McGonigal and Shestakov, 69, who also was arrested Saturday evening, are due to appear in court in Manhattan later Monday. McGonigal previously had investigated Deripaska, who made his fortune in Russia's aluminum industry, while at the FBI. McGonigal agreed to help, and told an FBI supervisor who worked for him that he wanted to recruit the Deripaska employee, the indictment says.

☆ Pay in tech is dropping fast as firms like Microsoft, Snap and more use layoffs and a looming recession to wrest power from workers
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Kali Hays | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Pay is getting lower, stock grants smaller and offers, if they come at all, are take it or leave it. In November, Snap employees heard some frank talk from CEO Evan Spiegel on his plans for compensation after enacting a mass layoff a couple of months before. "In general, we've noticed a decrease in pay across the entire tech industry," said Zuhayeer Musa, founder of Levels.fyi, a platform that collects data on tech compensation. Aalap Shah, a managing director at Pearl Meyer who advises tech companies, said he's been expecting such a retreat on pay. An estimated 200,000 tech employees have been laid off since last year, according to Layoffs.fyi, which compiles data on hiring in tech and is not part of Levels.fyi.

☆ Microsoft is telling some managers to embrace 'good attrition,' using massive layoffs to push underperforming employees out the door quicker
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Ashley Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Microsoft plans to lay off 10,000 employees over the next three months. Ahead of the layoffs, some managers were asked to identify employees for performance-based exits. Some managers were asked to identify employees for exits who would otherwise be put on performance coaching. Now, if HR agrees the employee has concerning performance, they'll consider laying off the employee without performance coaching, according to this person. Are you a Microsoft employee or do you have insight to share?

☆ Laid-off tech workers are posting about their job losses on LinkedIn and Twitter. Here's how and why to share layoff stories.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Alexandra York | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Tech behemoths like Meta, Stripe, and Twitter have also laid off workers in the last few months. A career coach and two former Meta employees explain how to move forward and share the news. The news comes after a string of high-profile tech layoffs at behemoths like Amazon, Twitter, Meta, and Stripe. Now, employees who were affected have started posting their layoff stories, send-offs, and gratitude on social platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter. Niki Woodall, a former product leadership recruiter at Meta, also posted a public announcement after losing her job this week.

☆ Laid-off Twitter workers have been forced to drop their class-action lawsuit demanding more severance pay
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The five laid-off workers had signed arbitration agreements agreeing not to bring suits against Twitter. "Twitter provided signed copies of the agreements, and they are all clear and straightforward," Donato wrote in the order. Since Elon Musk took ownership of the company in late October, Twitter has laid off thousands of workers. Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney representing the laid-off Twitter workers, did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside of regular working hours. She said that she had already filed 500 individual arbitration demands, with more to come.

☆ Accusations of a bro culture cloud Tiger Global's fundraising efforts after a $10 million settlement
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-14 | by ( Rebecca Ungarino | Dakin Campbell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Investors have learned of a $10 million settlement Tiger Global made to a former female employee. Investors don't really need another reason to shy away from Tiger Global Management after a year of terrible performance. The employee who settled with Tiger alleged that Tiger fostered a type of bro culture, led by men who prevented women executives from getting equal opportunities inside the firm. "Prioritizing these values in our day-to-day interactions inside and outside of Tiger Global has been the glue that has underpinned our success for the past 21 years. We remain committed to driving continuous improvement across Tiger Global as we look towards the future."

☆ Before accepting 'manager' in your title, make sure it's not just a way for your company to avoid paying you overtime
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A new study finds that firms may be using fake managerial titles to get out of paying employees overtime. Workers with a manager title, who make over a certain amount weekly, are exempt from overtime. Firms gave many more workers who make that cut-off wage manager titles, according to the study. They found that, during that time, there was a 485% increase in managerial titles for workers just over that overtime threshold. In essence, firms give workers title bumps without tacking on new duties — or higher pay.

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