Linked: Making Work Safe for Mental Illness
We’ve been talking about making the workplace “safe” for a number of years now. First, there were the obvious, physical safety issues, and then the focus on sexual harassment, then on to bullying, and diversity. It’s important. You simply don’t get the best results from employees who don’t feel safe.
And yet, in a time when there is an increasing number of employees dealing with mental health issues, we also need to consider what we do to make sure they feel safe as well, for the same reasons. People who don’t feel safe, will not speak up, will not bring their best work to the table, and might just be looking for a safer work environment.… Read More
Linked: App-based freedoms and the relentless battle for cybersecurity
Dr. Morris makes an important point about the necessity for security as we continue to move into a world where the information in an app will decide whether we can enter a stadium, or board a plane. How secure is that information?… Read More
Linked: How GPT-3 and Artificial Intelligence Will Destroy the Internet
This thing is, I think all that noise will end up taking us back somewhere we’ve been before, and maybe shouldn’t have left, when a website with a blog wasn’t “content” but represented the thoughts and opinions of real people, who you could get to know and interact with. After all, the best way to get authentic information is to get it from authentic people, right? … Read More
Linked: Employer initiatives to increase staff wellbeing found to be ineffective
You do see the problem here, right? As an employee, great that there’s a webinar planned on stress management, but if I now have to work an hour later that day in order to attend the webinar, it’s not helping. Lots of HR departments are making tools available, but managers are still expecting the same amount of work, with the same crazy deadlines and expectations, from a likely short-staffed team, so who has time to use them?
So they don’t help. Not because they aren’t helpful, but because you’ve made self-care and wellbeing yet another thing for your employees to do.
Employee burnout does not exist solely because your employees haven’t figured out how to meditate. It’s systemic to our way of doing business. Unless that changes, we’re just rearranging deck chairs.… Read More
In Praise of Your Team’s Quiet, Steady Worker – R.I.P. Charlie Watts
That’s what Charlie Watts meant to me, the reminder that no matter how much flash you’ve got, someone needs to play the drums and be the steady backbeat that keeps the song going. Without it, you’re just making noise. We’d do well to remember that.
Rest in Peace Charlie.… Read More
Linked: Workers Left Behind By the “Great Resignation”
This raises some interesting questions about wealth distribution among many other things. What does happen in service jobs, to the people left behind without other options?
From reading these stories, it’s clear that there is not always an appreciation for people who don’t leave, just an expectation that they will be taking advantage of more by employers, and treated worse by customers.
This makes me consider a couple of things:… Read More
Linked: Wanted: Disgruntled Employees to Deploy Ransomware
Look, it makes sense at any time, but right now with companies varying sets of rules around a pandemic, forcing employees back to an office, mandating a vaccine if they do, closing offices, etc. there is bound to be at least one person who just isn’t very happy with whatever stance the company has taken.
Would the vast majority of them stoop to purposefully installing ransomware on the corporate network? Probably not, but the hacker doesn’t need the majority, they need 1. Just one person to be so angry, and also unethical, and they are in.… Read More
