Last spring, when Take Your Child to Work Day rolled around, it seemed like a cosmic joke: so many millions of people were wishing they could just kick their kids out of their (home) workplace, for once! Few, I suspect, thought we’d be awash in the same dark irony six months later, but there it […]
Work Life
Blogging and Blogging Like I’m Running Out of Time
I’m not about to compare myself to Alexander Hamilton. Frankly, all I know of banking can be summed up in two little words: “Overdrawn? Again?” But there’s a recurring line in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s depiction of that particular founding father that I can relate to: …writing and writing, like you’re running out of time! After all, […]
Women Are Bearing the Brunt of This
The global pandemic is hard on everyone. But it’s especially hard on women. The ill and dying, and those watching their loved ones suffer, are of course experiencing the worst of it (by many magnitudes). But I’m talking about those who don’t have the virus, and are simply trying to soldier on under dramatically new […]
Is Your Company a “Summer Soldier” or a Hero?
“These are the times that try men’s souls,” Thomas Paine famously (if sexistly) said. It was the middle of the American Revolution, and he meant “try” in the now-archaic sense of “test,” contrasting “summer soldiers and sunshine patriots” with real heroes willing to put their lives on the line. In 2020, a soul-trying year if […]
Don’t Expect the Office Life You Left Behind
In late February, just before the U.S. began shutting down, I took on a new project: helping a client develop employee communications relating to their upcoming move to an open-plan office. Not surprisingly, that project soon ground to a halt. By early April, a different client had hired me to research how to prepare their […]
In Unique Times, What Makes A Great Employer?
Pity Great Place to Work! For nearly two dozen years, the global consulting firm has been producing “best workplace lists” around the world, including the best known one here in the United States, Fortune’s annual “100 Best Places to Work.” As I have described in past posts, the entire process and approach got a makeover […]
