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22nd June 2021
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THE HOT STORY
Messaging app changes management attitudes towards employees
An anonymous messaging app called Blind is encouraging a change in management attitudes towards staff at some of South Korea's biggest organizations. The app is increasingly popular among workers who want to air grievances – and Reuters notes several instances in recent weeks of companies changing course on salary decisions and other issues after criticism on Blind from employees. About 70% of Blind users come from organizations in South Korea, including American tech companies headquartered there, although the firm is based in the U.S. "When starting our service, we thought [it] would have more value when our HQ is in the United States – where the concept of freedom of speech is well established and valued," Blind co-founder Kyum Kim said of the deliberate decision to be based outside Korea.
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REMOTE WORKING
The workers pushing back on the return to the office
Employers are beginning to unveil their post-pandemic visions for work, but pushback movements from employees who are keen to retain their work-from-home privileges are bubbling up. Localized protests may be indicative of more widespread resistance among workers to revert to pre-pandemic patterns, reports Brian O’Connor for BBC Worklife.  Employees may well feel they've proved they can be productive at home – and that the reasons companies say they want them back in the office don't stack up. For example, Apple’s pre-pandemic policies discouraged remote work, and early in June, CEO Tim Cook sent out a company-wide memo telling staff they would be required back in the office by early September. But post-Covid-19, the tech company’s employees are challenging what they call “a disconnect between how the executive team thinks about remote/location-flexible work and the lived experiences of many of Apple’s employees.” Kimberly Merriman, professor of management at the Manning School of Business at University of Massachusetts, Lowell, observes:  “A few numbers really reach far. Companies should be concerned when any number of employees complain like that [the Apple case]. It can escalate and give an impression, even if it’s a small number of employees, that this is the tone of the organization.”
WORKFORCE
Retail workers quit roles at record rates
Retail workers, drained from the pandemic and empowered by a strengthening job market, are leaving jobs like never before. Some 649,000 retail workers put in their notice in April, the industry’s largest one-month exodus since the Labor Department began tracking such data more than 20 years ago, finding less-stressful roles in other industries, where their customer service skills are rewarded with higher wages and better benefits. “We’re seeing a wider understanding that these were never good jobs and they were never livable jobs,” said Rebecca Givan, a professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University. “In many cases, the pay is below a living wage and the hours are inconsistent and insufficient. If anything, the pandemic has made retail jobs even less sustainable than they already were.” It is too soon to tell, she added, whether the latest exodus reflects a long-term shift away from retail work. Some employees, for example, may return to the industry once child care is more readily available and other pandemic-related challenges ease, but others are turning to industries where workers are in high demand.
Fed chief notes 'sustained' economic improvement
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Monday that job growth should pick up in coming months and temporary inflation pressures should ease as the economy continues to recover from the effects of the pandemic. In testimony prepared for delivery to Congress, he said the economy has shown "sustained improvement," noting progress on vaccinations and vast stimulus efforts by Congress and the Fed. Mr. Powell said the lending programs “helped unlock more than $2tn of funding” that reduced job losses at businesses, nonprofits and local governments. The central bank leader also highlighted rising inflation pressures that he expects to lessen over time.
DIVERSITY
Employees claim companies aren't sticking to promises made on racial justice
A new survey from Benevity reveals that while nearly half of employees can remember their companies making commitments about racial justice following the murder of George Floyd, only 26% believe those commitments were completely fulfilled, compared to 61% of employees who can't say if their companies fulfilled their commitments. Over 70% of employees agreed that it’s important to have difficult conversations in the workplace about racial and social justice. More than half (69%) also said they would recommend their companies to others if addressing those issues is prioritized. Over a third of employees said they would quit if their workplace doesn’t do so. The corporate world has long struggled with a lack of diversity in its ranks, and a report compiled by the Alliance for Board Diversity and Deloitte recently showed that while the boards of Fortune 500 companies are improving in their diversity, that progress is still slow. These companies often tap the same pool of candidates, and of their newly appointed officials, white women greatly outnumbered people of color.
LEGAL
U.S. urged to prosecute 'egregious onboard conduct' by air passengers
Airlines for America, a group representing major U.S. airlines including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and others, along with major sector unions, has written to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland urging the Justice Department to prosecute the growing number of disruptive and violent air passengers. The letter said the “incidents pose a safety and security threat to our passengers and employees, and we respectfully request the [Justice Department] commit to the full and public prosecution of onboard acts of violence,” adding that the airlines and unions hope the Justice Department “will commit to taking action, along with coordination with the [Federal Aviation Administration], to ensure that egregious onboard conduct is fully and criminally prosecuted, sending a strong public message of deterrence, safety and security.”
HEALTH & SAFETY
Bumble to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break
Bumble, the dating app where women are in charge of making the first move, has temporarily closed all of its offices this week to combat workplace stress. Its 700 staff worldwide have been told to switch off and focus on themselves. Bumble has had a busier year than most firms, with a stock market debut, and rapid growth in user numbers. Senior executive Clare O'Connor revealed on Twitter that founder Whitney Wolfe Herd had made the move "having correctly intuited our collective burnout." Ms Wolfe Herd became the youngest woman, at 31, to take a company public in the U.S. when she oversaw Bumble's stock market debut in February.
CULTURE
Mets seek to improve workplace culture
The New York Mets have dismissed two senior employees and will overhaul their legal and human resources departments on the recommendation of an independent review following claims of sexual misconduct against former manager Mickey Callaway. Law firm WilmerHale was hired in March to review the organization’s culture. Callaway was fired in October 2019 for the team’s on-field performance, and was banned by Major League Baseball through at least 2022 in May following allegations of inappropriate behavior toward several women who work in sports media, including from his time with the Mets. Steven Cohen, who bought the team in the last off-season, has now detailed “changes we are going to make to ensure that our community and culture will always be safe, respectful and inclusive.” He also said that David Cohen – no relation and a longtime legal counsel to Mets ownership - and Holly Lindvall, the team's head of human resources, were to leave. Steven Cohen said the two would remain in place during a transition period.
How to deal with an abusive work situation
Naomi Shragai, a business consultant and psychotherapist, advises that it is sometimes easier to leave a toxic workplace than recover from its damaging long-term effects.
INTERNATIONAL
Saudi Arabia has improved its Global Labor Resilience
The 2021 Global Labor Resilience Index (GLRI), compiled by public policy and strategy advisory firm Whiteshield Partners in partnership with the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School and the Institute for the Future of Work, indicates a dramatic improvement in Saudi Arabia's overall ranking, reports Arab News. The GLRI identifies the countries that are best placed to cope with labor market disruptions and those which can turn such challenges into opportunities. Saudi Arabia is placed 62nd in this year's list, and has moved up the ranking by 27 places since 2016 and improved its position by 13 places compared with last year.  “Being the Arab world's leading economy and maintaining economic stability have laid the foundation for improvement,” Tom Flynn, a senior manager at Whiteshield Partners, said. Switzerland is the most resilient labor market in the world, according to the GLRI, followed by Germany and The Netherlands. A new framework was used to measure resilience this year, meaning that the U.S. (ranked 14th) and the U.K. (12th) no longer feature in the top 10.
Labor law architect says rules mustn’t impede growth
Tito Mboweni, South Africa’s current finance minister and the architect of many of the country’s labor laws, says it may be time to review them to ensure they aren’t impeding economic growth. He has said that when he served as the first post-apartheid labor minister from 1994 to 1998 “we made a number of mistakes that need to be attended to . . . To what extent are some of the labor policies we put in place acting as binding constraints?” [and] How do we make sure that our labor laws don’t impinge on the ability of small and medium enterprises to function effectively?”  Bloomberg notes that South Africa’s labor laws have been both praised and criticized for protecting workers rights and discouraging hiring in a country where a third of the labor force is unemployed - in part because of their rigidity.
OTHER
SCOTUS backs college athletes in NCAA compensation fight
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) may not bar payments to student-athletes. The decision, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, clears the way for colleges to provide more school-related perks to students like computers, musical instruments and internships; it did not directly touch on the issue of whether athletes may earn money for the use of their names, images and likenesses, but some legal experts say the case could be a prelude to challenges aimed more broadly at compensation restrictions on college athletes.

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