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20th May 2022
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THE HOT STORY
Meta tells staff to stop discussing abortion
A Meta executive has told staff that they are banned from discussing abortion on Workplace, an internal version of Facebook, citing “an increased risk” that the company is seen as a “hostile work environment.” The policy, which Meta introduced in 2019 but hasn’t until now been reported, prohibits workers from discussing “opinions or debates about abortion being right or wrong, availability or rights of abortion, and political, religious, and humanitarian views on the topic,” according to a section of the company’s internal 'Respectful Communication Policy' reviewed by The Verge. Meta’s VP of HR, Janelle Gale, said during an all-hands meeting with staff that abortion was “the most divisive and reported topic” by employees on Workplace. She said that “even if people are respectful, and they’re attempting to be respectful about their view on abortion, it can still leave people feeling like they’re being targeted based on their gender or religion . . . It’s the one unique topic that kind of trips that line on a protected class pretty much in every instance.” Some Meta employees have urged management to ditch the policy following a leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade. They contend that the prohibition is at odds with employees being allowed to talk “respectfully” about issues such as Black Lives Matter, immigration, and trans rights.
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WORKPLACE
Hybrid work is as important as financial benefits, study says
A poll of 2,000 office workers by flexible office provider IWG suggests hybrid working is as important as other financial benefits such as health insurance, and is beginning to gain parity with salary, pension and holiday as key factors when seeking employment. Half of those surveyed said they were not interested in jobs that did not offer some form of hybrid working. Meanwhile, a survey of 6,500 workers in 10 countries found that fewer than a fifth have returned to offices full-time. Those who have returned are typically back in for one or two days a week, according to technology firm Citrix. "Employees have seen the positive impact flexible work can have on everything from engagement and productivity to work-life balance, mental health and the environment," said Mark Sweeney of Citrix.
DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION
Wells Fargo accused of faking interviews
Former Wells Fargo wealth management executive Joe Bruno has accused the U.S. bank of scheduling fake interviews with black and female candidates for roles that were already filled in order to boost its diversity statistics. Mr Bruno claims he was fired after he blew the whistle to his bosses about the alleged fake interviews. He is one of seven current and former Wells Fargo employees who claim their bosses in the bank's wealth management unit instructed them to interview diverse candidates for positions that had already been filled. “To the extent that individual employees are engaging in the behavior as described by The New York Times, we do not tolerate it,” the bank’s spokesperson, Raschelle Burton, said.
LEGAL
Law firm accused of forcing out grieving lawyer
A senior lawyer says London law firm White & Case fired him after suffering from mental health issues precipitated by his wife’s death. Michael Wistow, former co-head of the firm’s EMEA tax practice, said the City operation of the U.S. company was a “toxic” place to work and has filed a suit at a London employment tribunal for disability discrimination. He said an episode of anxiety and depression during his wife’s battle with cancer, which his lawyers contend amounts to mental impairment, led to him being unfairly dismissed. Wistow said poor mental health triggered “a substantial adverse effect on my ability to carry out day to day activities,” but instead of being supported by his employer during this time, he endured a “toxic environment,” according to a statement. White & Case denies all of the allegations and said that Wistow was let go because of poor performance, and also he was pursuing a new legal business venture while on sick leave. The law firm argues that grief following the death of a loved one is not a disability under U.K. equality laws.
Sexual misconduct case rocks $47bn asset manager GoldenTree
Sexual misconduct allegations at New York asset manager GoldenTree have ignited a multimillion-dollar legal dispute that offers a revealing insight into the inner workings of the business, the FT reports.
HIRING
U.S. banks seek talent far beyond Wall Street
More than half (51%) of the new employees that banks and other financial services companies hired in 2021 are based in Orlando, Dallas, Austin, Tampa, Indianapolis, Nashville, Seattle, Charlotte, Atlanta and Miami, according to a study from global real estate management company JLL, which manages office buildings for many of the world's biggest lenders. "The drive to find talent is the big challenge," said Sanjay Rishi, the head of JLL's Americas works business. "They have to source it from not just the traditional cities they have sourced from, but also these tech cities like Austin."
REMUNERATION
Young workers talk wages to get salary hikes
Younger employees are discussing their pay with coworkers in the hopes of getting raises. Nearly 42% of Gen Z workers and 40% of millennials have shared details of their compensation with a colleague or other professional contact, according to a March study of 2,449 American adults conducted for Bankrate by YouGov. The comparable figure for Gen Xers is 31% and for Baby Boomers it is 19%. “Inflation right now is really increasing the urgency for younger workers to bring up the conversations,” said Bankrate’s Sarah Foster. “Thanks to the Great Resignation, for the first time in a lot of these younger workers’ lives, they have the leverage to seek out the pay that they want.”
PSYCHOLOGY
A bad commute can set the tone for the day
New research quantifies the cost of commuting on performance. The data show that a difficult morning commute precipitates ill-effects felt down the line throughout the day. “Commuting, especially if it’s not well-planned and predictable, raises stress levels,” said study co-author Pino Audia, a professor of management and organizations at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. The researchers meanwhile found that walking or cycling to work could make a worker more productive.
CULTURE
The death of ‘forced fun’ in the office
BBC Worklife reports on how a complete overhaul of office culture has effectively ended the ‘forced fun’ of the pre-pandemic era, including mandatory monthly birthday celebrations, afterhours drinks and outings to obstacle courses.  Participation out of obligation creates a “corporate cult,” according to Paul Lopushinsky, founder of Vancouver, British Columbia-based consultancy Playficient, “where it’s almost indoctrination. You end up with fake smiles. ‘Oh yeah, of course, it’s great here, I just love these activities.’ It’s a culture of harmony with a lot of disharmony just below the surface.” Nevertheless, a new kind of work fun is increasingly important. Events that people actually want to attend are a helpful way to facilitate team bonding, and to give those who’d prefer to remain mostly remote a good reason to re-join their colleagues. Smart companies are working to identify the types of ‘fun’ workers actually like: the things they’ll show up for because they want to, not because their arm is twisted. 
WORKFORCE
Weekly jobless claims rise for third straight week
New applications for unemployment benefits rose for the third week in a row, amid separate signs that the U.S. labor market remains unusually tight. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, increased by 21,000 to a seasonally adjusted 218,000 last week from the previous week’s revised level of 197,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Despite the recent rise, claims remain historically low with last week’s figure matching the 2019 average ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic. The four-week average for claims, which smooths out volatility in the weekly figures, rose to 199,500 from the previous week’s revised 191,250, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average reached 170,500 last month, its lowest point on records dating back to 1967. Continuing claims, a proxy for the total number of people receiving payments from state unemployment programs, declined to 1.3m for the week ended May 7th from the previous week’s level—the lowest level since December 1969.  “With labor shortages still a persistent problem, we don’t expect layoffs will be widespread, although job losses in the tech sector appear to be increasing,” said lead U.S. economist Nancy Vanden Houten at Oxford Economics. ”Recent layoff announcement merit watching for a shift in business hiring decisions,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.
INTERNATIONAL
Banks ordered to pull staff out of the City
The European Central Bank (ECB) has told eight unnamed banks to shift staff out of London, saying it has identified 56 groups of traders who should be doing their jobs from within the EU following an investigation into whether the institutions are seeking to dodge post-Brexit rules. An ECB exercise known as “desk mapping” found that the banks, which all have headquarters outside the EU, haven’t boosted sufficient local capabilities to manage their business in the region, people familiar with the process said, adding that part of the reason for the staff shortfall is a reluctance among senior executives to move from London to cities including Dublin, Frankfurt and Paris. The ECB’s review included U.S. lenders such as Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, and also Barclays, HSBC and UBS, the people said. It is noted that the number of professionals leaving the City post-Brexit has been much smaller than initially predicted. EY estimates that around 7,000 roles have moved since 2016, far fewer than the 200,000 job losses that were forecast before the Brexit vote. 
French court upholds charge against Lafarge
An appeals court in France has confirmed a charge of complicity in crimes against humanity against French cement group Lafarge - now part of the Swiss building materials conglomerate Holcim - over alleged payoffs to ISIL (ISIS) and other armed groups during the war in Syria. The court’s decision paves the way for an eventual trial, and rights activists hope the case will serve as a precedent for the prosecution of multinational companies accused of ignoring “terrorist” operations in return for continuing to operate in conflict zones. The appeals court sided with prosecutors who said Lafarge had “financed, via its subsidiaries, Islamic State [ISIL] operations with several millions of euros in full awareness of its activities.”
Tesla wants China staff to stay in factory bubble until mid-June
Electric car maker Tesla wants to keep workers at its Shanghai factory in a so-called ‘closed loop’ system until mid-June, according to people familiar with the matter. The plan to retain a system whereby staff are ferried to and from work and tested for Covid-19 regularly comes even as Chinese authorities move to ease wider lockdown restrictions in the city. Thousands of Tesla staff have been sleeping on the floor of the company's plant south of Shanghai working 12-hour shifts, six days a week, to boost production after a weeks-long pause because of lockdown.
 


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