Welcome to Bookmarks. This is Collective’s weekly newsletter about the world of work and place.
The year 2023 is off to a wild start. Layoffs, coupled with record employment has everyone confused. We’re also at the 3 year anniversary of the world of workplace getting turned upside down. With the world moving at an ever quicker pace, we’re launching our newsletter in the hopes of putting a workplace lens on current events. We truly believe there’s never been a more exciting time to be in workplace and we hope you all see that too.
We’ll be sending these weekly, so make sure we’re not going to your spam folder, and if you have feedback shoot us a note at hello@collectivewp.com. We’re real people that work in the world of work and place – so don’t be rude.
Oh and we suppose if you’re an awesome company within the world of WorkPlace and want to sponsor this newsletter, that’d be cool. Just shoot us a note at the link below. Now onto the work and place content!
Three Things You Should Know
From The Past Week In Work & Place
The Economy Isn’t Holding People Back from Switching Jobs
Job hopping is nothing new. Studies have shown that those who switch jobs are more likely to have higher levels of income over their careers than those who stay in their roles long term. Despite layoffs and some rocky economic conditions, a new LinkedIN study found that roughly 61% of the US labor force was considering switching jobs in 2023. How many will actually switch jobs has yet to be seen.
This also couples in an interesting way with the growing number of people starting their own businesses. In 2022 1.7 Million people filed paperwork to start their own businesses. That number trails only 2021 which saw 1.8 Million create their own companies.
Workplace leaders need to be aware of these trends if they’re trying to retain their critical team members. Even with economic conditions constantly changing, you will still need to work to retain your team.
In Landmark Ruling Court Says Shareholders Can Sue Ex-CHRO
At the end of January a Delaware court ruled that shareholders are able to sue McDonalds ex-chro for allowing a culture of sexual harassment to flourish. The suit states that the former chro allegedly allowed a “toxic culture” to flourish. Share holders aren’t suing the ex-ceo because they returned 105M to them. This ruling applies the duty of oversight to executives and not just the board of directors.
What does this have to do with workplace? With workplace leaders being elevated to the c-suite (and advising them) – we need to be ever more aware of our responsibilities and our liability. We have all been put in situations where we advised our leadership to do X and they decide to do Y. With the possibility of being held personally liable for safety, culture, and other workplace issues – we must find new ways to communicate the importance of these issues to the executive team. Our responsibility to the people who work at our companies has never been more important, and now more enforceable.
Disclaimer: We’re not lawyers. We hope you’ll discuss this with your lawyer or executives. At the very least, discuss it with each other.
What Business Leaders Can Do To Fix A Big Problem In The World of Work
In her recent article in Wired Sheela Subramanian of the Future Forum highlights the growing exodus of women from the US workforce. As highlighted in McKinsey’s Women In The Workplace study from 2022 a staggering 1 in 3 women is considering downshifting or leaving the workforce entirely. The ramifications of that kind of change can’t be understated.
Sheela goes onto highlight how flexibility of where people work but also in when they work could help alleviate this issue. She also highlights the risk that proximity bias plays in more flexible environments and how companies can combat that risk through changing the way they approach performance reviews. We highly recommend reading the entire article and it’s linked studies as well.
This trend matters to workplace teams as over 80% of HR management are women as of 2021, and women occupy 36.7% of CRE positions. We cannot afford to lose current and future leaders from our ranks when the number of women in FM, CRE, and office management has trended far lower than HR historically. By allowing greater flexibility we can help enable that change.
One Big Thing
“The past two years have proven that change is possible, as millions of people fundamentally reimagined how they work. But to make systemic change, leaders must redesign how they hire, evaluate, and promote women. And the time to change the system is now.” – Sheela Subramanian
Someone you should know
In The Collective World of Work And Place
Alma Lopez is a Mexican American designer, living in West Oakland. Originally hailing from Texas, Alma landed in the Bay Area studying Interior Architecture and Design at Academy of Art University. Her multifaceted career has span across working for notable design studios (O+A and Assembly) where she spent years designing small to large scale tech workspaces all over the world. Alma then co-founded the experience design studio, ADITIONS, where she focused on helping clients embrace the fast changing world of workplace. Over two years ADITIONS worked on pilot programs focused on iterative and experiential environments through custom FF&E solutions. In 2022 ADITIONS merged with CANOA, a startup building the first ever browser-based space planning tool with an embedded furniture marketplace. As the Head of Creative at CANOA, Alma is currently focused on bringing to market a diverse curation of brands, products and ready-to-use design templates that bias sustainable solutions and share carbon data. By doing so, she aims to create better access to healthier solutions for people and our planet.
Alma’s guiding principle in her work is bringing community and brands together through spatial experiences. Her recent community works include installations at: Milan Design Week, Temporarily Available, SF Coworking Pop Up, Nodi Rugs
In Her Own Words:
“Growing up in Texas and being 1st generation here has shaped me into who I am today. My parents are immigrants from Mexico. So culture and family were always a part of who I am. I lead with empathy and compassion and that has been a big part of my success. But it’s not to say my success didn’t come without persistence and grit. I think I tend to make things look easy. My intuition and drive have always steered me in the right direction and that came from trusting myself early on in life.
I’m grateful to be in a place of power where I can actually move the needle. I hope to be an inspiration and a part of the change this world needs. Understanding my gifts and sharing them with the world is my mission in life.”
A product we’re into right now
FlexIndex by Scoop
From Scoop: The Flex Index by Scoop is the world’s most robust source of company in-office requirements, from fully in-office to remote work and everything in between. The Flex Index represents ~4,000 companies, 25,000 office locations, and 100 million people.
What We Think: We were really excited to see this tool debut. Not just because we love transparency of information, but also because policies like this are changing so quickly that we need tools like this to make sense of the business landscape. Even LinkedIN has added a “remote / on-site / hybrid” option when you search for jobs. However, the FlexIndex goes a step further by allowing you to assess companies, industries, and other factors.
We were also happy to see that they added contact forms so that the information can be corrected by representatives from those companies and an option for companies to add themselves. By making this data open / transparent and not behind some paywall – we can all benefit from it.
One feature we think would be beneficial: adding the ability for employees at the company to verify how well the policy is being actualized. Like so many things in corporate life – policy vs implementation can be very different. Showing that this is truly the culture of the company would go a long way to helping employees using FlexIndex to assess potential roles.
That’s It For This WEek
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