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Spotify - Why paternity leave benefits everyone

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Spotify - Why paternity leave benefits everyone

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Rule-based versus feedback-based coaching for situational judgment tests

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Rule-based versus feedback-based coaching for situational judgment tests

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Rule-based versus feedback-based coaching for situational judgment tests

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Vocabulary How a 'beginners’ mindset' can help you learn anything

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Vocabulary How a 'beginners’ mindset' can help you learn anything

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How a 'beginners’ mindset' can help you learn anything - Vocabulary

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The 6 biggest lessons about work from 2021_Summary

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The 6 biggest lessons about work from 2021_Summary

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The 6 biggest lessons about work from 2021_Summary

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If there's one phrase we've heard constantly for the past two years, it's that work will never be the same again. On the cusp of 2022, who'd have ever imagined we'd still be figuring out what that means?

In 2021, we assumed we'd return to something a little more consistent, with more concrete answers than we had in 2020. We envisioned ourselves back in offices at least a few days a week, returning to meetings (albeit with more hand sanitiser). But, for much of the workforce, things haven't played out that way; if anything, 2021 showed us that what's going to be 'normal' in the world of work is a constantly moving target.

Even as the state of work and the wider world continues to evolve, we have put our finger on a few things - chiefly, themes that pervaded work throughout 2021, and will colour the next year, and perhaps even years to come.

The flexible-work genie is out of the bottle
It didn't take long for huge numbers of workers to figure out how much they liked remote work, and all the elements that come with it. But in 2020, changes to work set-ups felt reactive to the pandemic, and it was hard for employees to know which shifts would stick.

A year on, it doesn't matter what was supposed to be temporary. Workers are now living in a world with different workweek structures, asynchronous communication and permanent remote work - and now that they've sampled more flexibility, it's unlikely employers can revoke the changes the pandemic has put in motion (whatever their plans once were).

Many companies are now giving staff much more freedom to choose where they work. Other firms, such as Unilever in New Zealand, and even entire countries, such as Iceland, have been experimenting with four-day workweeks. More private businesses and nations are rolling out trial programmes; Spain is expected to launch its 32-hour workweek pilot in 2022.

This change and experimentation is good for the labour force. Many report better work-life balance in more flexible arrangements (though the global average workday has got longer during the pandemic), and swaths of workers have said they'll quit if employers call them back to the office permanently. Additionally, with more jobs open than there are job-hunters to fill them, workers currently have an outsized amount of leverage that can pressure companies to permanently keep these arrangements.

Of course, there is a possibility that some of these new work arrangements won't stick, particularly if the labour market tightens and employees have less voice than they do now. But an overwhelming number of companies have already committed to new work practices to accommodate worker desires - a signal that stuffing the genie back into the bottle is increasingly unlikely.

The Best of the Rest

Find more on the biggest moments of work this year with BBC Worklife's best stories of 2021, which are full of deep insights into the state of work now, and signals for the future.

Employers are changing to meet workers' desires - mostly
Perhaps the two loudest words of 2021: ' Great Resignation'.

The mass worker exodus and labour reshuffle has been most extensively documented in the US, where American workers continue to leave the workforce in record numbers each month. But similar trends are staring to emerge in the UK, where workers are increasingly reporting a desire to change jobs, or are taking the plunge. (Data on the phenomenon in other countries varies; for instance, in Australia, workers are swapping jobs more than quitting en masse.)

Across the world, these workers resigning, contemplating quitting or hopping into other positions has put pressure on employers to offer better perks to both attract and retain talent. And what workers want has changed: they report asking for more personalised benefits, access to mental-health services, childcare assistance, home-work stipends and general flexibility with their work arrangements. In the US, a call for better health plans and fertility benefits has grown, too.

Many companies have stepped up to meet these desires, and more have announced plans to. Over the summer, major companies including LinkedIn and Nike shut down entirely for mental-health days and weeks - an unprecedented move in a productivity-driven, capitalist society.

Yet, there are still some holdouts who aren't necessarily recognising or answering new calls for different perks and working arrangements. Certain sectors, such as finance and consulting, are pushing to get back to pre-pandemic business as usual. Although some of these companies have made a few less-traditional moves during the pandemic - like Jeffries Financial Group giving its staff Peloton bikes and Goldman Sachs raising base pay packets for junior bankers - leaders in some businesses are already calling workers back to their desks.

The widening inequality gap among workers
For all the benefits many workers reaped in 2021, and the growth of their sway in the labour force, not all employees have come out on top. The pandemic has exposed - and created - more inequalities.

For frontline and service workers, the return-to-work in a still chaotic and uncertain world has not been optional, and many are bearing the brunt of customers acting out. Many of these employees are stretched incredibly thin, as businesses are understaffed amid labour shortages in industries like hospitality and transport that haven't fully recovered due to the pandemic.

We've also become keenly aware that access to efficient and comfortable remote work is not equal for all knowledge workers, as basic utilities like reliable high-speed internet is not a given for some employees, nor is space to work comfortably or quietly. Entry-level and younger workers in general are particularly squeezed for space - one of the reasons they're requesting a return to office, at least a few days a week.

Inequalities for women employees have also surfaced. As in 2020, this year, women disproportionately dropped out of the workforce; in the US, as late as September 2021, hundreds of thousands of women left jobs. Even though there are some signs women's employment is rebounding in certain sectors, growth hasn't been on par with men, and unemployment for black women trails white women - in the US, by almost double.

There are also fears that women who are able to get back into the workforce and resume their careers may fall behind male colleagues who consistently work in the office, due to presenteeism and proximity biases - potentially worsening the gender gap.

Surfacing inequalities is the first step to change, but it's unclear what can and will be addressed, both individually and systemically, especially when conditions are still evolving.

The heavy weight of increased poor work-life balance
Some workers have reported better work-life balance in the past year - primarily, due to remote and flexible work. But that's not universally the case.

Without commutes to take or office doors to walk out of, many workers are finding it harder to draw hard lines between personal and professional lives. They're reaching for their phones at all hours, answering messages in bed first-thing and sending off emails after their children go to bed. The pre-pandemic problem of presenteeism trumping productivity has found its way into the digital world. In many situations, it's unclear whether bosses truly expect online status lights to blink green all the time, or if the pressure is coming from workers themselves - but work days have lengthened, and disconnection feels impossible, no matter the source.

Unsurprisingly, burnout and unpaid overtime are rampant, especially among certain groups such as middle-managers and women. Many businesses are running on skeleton crews amid the labour shortage, which has put an immense amount of pressure on those who stayed amid the Great Resignation.

Although some companies are trying to address issues of work-life balance, and encouraging employees to step away from their phones, it's still culturally difficult for many to avoid overwork. So, if remote work sticks around as it seems it will, there's no guarantee workers will press the 'off' button.

We're far from perfecting hybrid
In 2021, we were supposed to kick off hybrid working in full force.

Employees and employers alike expected to gather in-person again in some form, and hit a new stride. Many companies even put money into redesigning their offices, in many cases eliminating banks of desks, and adding more collaborative spaces and isolation booths to cater to worker requests, now that the purpose of the office has changed.

Except we're not yet in a steady hybrid pattern. The return-to-office has been patchy; certain businesses have brought workers back part time, but these policies vary widely among countries, industries and employers, and haven't been consistent due to the continually fluctuating nature of the pandemic.

This poses challenges. First, many employees are still left in limbo without having a sense of how a hybrid set-up will - or won't - work for them. It's a kind of uncertainty that's weighed down workers, both emotionally and logistically, for nearly two years. Additionally, without hybrid in action, employers lack data they need to understand what's both successful and unsuccessful about their approaches.

As much as we continue to speculate about what will and won't work for hybrid, we're doing exactly that: speculating. Neither workers nor businesses have the real-life experience we need yet, which means the hybrid set-up we're touting as the future of the workplace is very much a work-in-progress.

Flying blind for the foreseeable future
We know by now that we likely won't find stability in both work and broader life for a while. As new Covid-19 variants emerge, making solid plans for the future is impossible - if not almost laughable.

For instance, changing circumstances have forced the hand of companies including Google, who once had concrete plans to bring workers back in, to reverse course and announce new directives entirely. Additionally, even if life stabilises a bit more, we're still in the throes of implementing brand-new policies, like remote- and hybrid work, that are essentially experiments whose effects and ultimate outcome is still unknown.

Looking forward to 2022, it seems the one constant will be change, whether that's with big company policies, or day-to-day minutiae. We're a long way from figuring out 'normal' - but hopefully we'll have more answers than questions soon.

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The 6 biggest lessons about work from 2021

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If there's one phrase we've heard constantly for the past two years, it's that work will never be the same again. On the cusp of 2022, who'd have ever imagined we'd still be figuring out what that means? In 2021, we assumed we'd return to something a little more consistent, with more concrete answers than we had in 2020.

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Tom Vanderbilt's fascination with the process of life-long learning began with his daughter's hobbies: piano, soccer, Tae Kwon Do. He wanted to encourage her new pursuits, and accompanied her to the lessons or tournaments. As she exercised her mind, he would answer emails, play with his phone or stare into space until his daughter had finished.

He soon recognised the hypocrisy of the situation. "I was impressing upon her the importance of having a broad education in all these different skills," he says. "But she might have easily asked me, 'Well, why don't you do all these things then?'"

Starting with chess lessons, he decided to spend a year pursuing a range of new skills himself. He learnt to sing, draw, juggle and surf. At no point did he hope to fully master the abilities or to show off his prowess with an extraordinary feat, such as winning American Idol.

"As adults, we instantly put pressure on ourselves with goals," he says. "We feel like we don't have the luxury to engage in learning for learning's sake." Instead, he wanted to revel in the pleasure of the process.

Vanderbilt details his journey in his January 2021 book Beginners, which combines his own personal revelations with the cutting-edge science of skill acquisition. Keen to find out more, we discussed the myths of adult learning, and the substantial benefits that the "beginner's mindset" can bring to our lives.

How to learn well

Beginning the project in his late 40s, Vanderbilt knew that he would struggle to match the learning abilities of children like his daughter. Children are especially good at picking up patterns implicitly - understanding that certain actions will lead to certain kinds of events, without any explanation or description of what they are doing. After the age of 12, however, we lose some of that capacity to absorb new information.

Young children are wired to learn - but that doesn't mean adults can't (Credit: Alamy)

We shouldn't be too pessimistic about our own abilities, though. While adults may not absorb new skills as readily as a child, we still have " neuroplasticity " - the ability for the brain to rewire itself in response to new challenges. In his year of learning, Vanderbilt met many people, long past middle age, who were still exercising that "superpower".

What's more, Vanderbilt's research revealed some basic principles of good learning that anyone can use to make our learning more effective. The first may seem obvious but is easily forgotten: we need to learn from our mistakes. So, rather than just mindlessly repeating the same actions over and over, we need to be more focused and analytical, thinking about what we did right and what we did wrong. (Psychologists call this " deliberate practice ".) Vanderbilt noted this with chess playing. You could put in the hours with hundreds of online games, but that was not going to be as effective as studying the strategies of professionals or discussing the reasons for your losses with a chess teacher.

A second principle is more counter-intuitive: we need to make sure that our practice is varied. When juggling, for example, it helped to switch the objects, or to change how high you throw them; he tried it sitting down, and while walking. As one scientist told Vanderbilt, this is " repetition without repetition " and it forces the brain's learned patterns to become more flexible, allowing you to cope with the unpredictable difficulties - such as a mistake in one of your earlier movements that could lead you to lose control.

Even more intriguingly, Vanderbilt discovered that we often learn best when we know that we will have to teach others the same skill. It's not clear why this is, but that expectation seems to increase people's interest and curiosity, which primes the brain's attention and helps ensure that it lays down stronger memory traces. (Vanderbilt had lots of opportunities to teach what he had learnt, since he often included his daughter in his projects.) So, whatever you are personally trying to master, consider sharing that skill with someone you know. And while you may find it helpful to observe true experts executing a skill, Vanderbilt found that it can also be useful to watch other novices, since you can more easily analyse what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong.

With this knowledge, Vanderbilt made good progress with each of the skills that he set out to learn. Singing, he says, offered one of the biggest hurdles, emotionally. "It was this process of opening oneself up to a stranger in the most raw way," he says. When he had overcome those nerves, however, it also proved to be the most rewarding. "It is the thing I probably took to the most, because it has such an inherent pleasure and makes you feel so good." He eventually became a member of New York's Britpop Choir.

If you are inspired to take up a new pastime yourself, Vanderbilt advises starting out with something that is easy to integrate into your existing lifestyle. You may be surprised by the speed of your progress, he says. "A lot of people get hung up on the idea that this is just a massive time investment - that there's no end of the road - and that's very daunting to them." He found that his drawing, for example, had improved significantly in the time that it would normally take to binge-watch a TV boxset.

The why factor

You may still wonder why you should make the effort, when you could be vegging out on your sofa.

Tom Vanderbilt says improving his drawing required less investment of time than he had imagined (Credit: Tom Vanderbilt)

But Vanderbilt points out that there are many general benefits to embracing any new skill - including some long-term brain changes that could offset some of the mental decline that often comes with ageing. Vanderbilt points to one study of adults - aged 58 to 86 - who pursed a handful of courses in subjects like Spanish, music, composition and painting. After a few months, they had not only made good progress in the individual skills, but also showed a pronounced improvement on more general cognitive tests - matching the performance of adults who were 30 years younger.

Intriguingly, the benefits here seemed to come from trying out multiple skills, rather than focusing exclusively on one particular expertise. As Vanderbilt writes in his book: "Rather than grinding out a marathon, you are putting your brain through a variety of high-intensity interval workouts. Each time you begin to learn that new skill, you're reshaping. You're training your brain again to be more efficient." We tend to see the 'dilettante' as someone who is superficial and lacks dedication. But it seems that the jack of all trades - the perpetual beginner - may have a sharper brain than the master of one single ability.

The lifelong pursuit of many different interests may even increase your creativity. As David Epstein also noted in his book Range, Nobel laureates were many times more likely to have enjoyed artistic pursuits such as music, dance, visual art or creative writing than other scientists.

As you set about learning a new skill, there will be frustrations and moments of failure - but these may in fact be the most important experiences of the whole process. After years of experience in journalism, Vanderbilt says that the new challenges were a welcome change to his "professional complacency". "It sort of opened my mind and brought me back to this sense of not knowing," he says. This was especially true for the skills - such as drawing - that already felt somewhat familiar. "The learning of the thing itself was often different from what I imagined. My expectations were constantly being upset."

Abundant research has shown that intellectual humility - the capacity to recognise the limits of our knowledge - can powerfully improve our thinking and decision making. And that capacity to reconsider our preconceptions and open our minds to new ways of thinking may be increasingly important in today's rapidly changing world. Whether we are learning for pleasure or attempting to boost our professional skills, we could all do well to cultivate that "beginners' mindset", where nothing is certain, and there is everything to learn.
Tom Vanderbilt's book David Robson is the is author of The Intelligence Trap: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things (Hodder & Stoughton/WW Norton) - out now in paperback. He is @d_a_robson on Twitter. Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning (Atlantic Books/Knopf) was published in January.

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How a 'beginners' mindset' can help you learn anything

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Tom Vanderbilt's fascination with the process of life-long learning began with his daughter's hobbies: piano, soccer, Tae Kwon Do. He wanted to encourage her new pursuits, and accompanied her to the lessons or tournaments. As she exercised her mind, he would answer emails, play with his phone or stare into space until his daughter had finished.

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As we head into 2022, Worklife is running our best, most insightful and most essential stories from 2021. When you're done with this article, check out our full list of the year's top stories.
When the pandemic began, Melissa Villareal was teaching history to middle schoolers at a private school in a wealthy California neighborhood. It was a job and a field she loved. Now, just over a year later, she's left teaching entirely, to work in industrial design at a large beauty company.

People like Villareal are leaving their jobs - or thinking about it - in droves. A Microsoft survey of more than 30,000 global workers showed that 41% of workers were considering quitting or changing professions this year, and a study from HR software company Personio of workers in the UK and Ireland showed 38% of those surveyed planned to quit in the next six months to a year. In the US alone, April saw more than four million people quit their jobs, according to a summary from the Department of Labor - the biggest spike on record.

There are a number of reasons people are seeking a change, in what some economists have dubbed the 'Great Resignation'. For some workers, the pandemic precipitated a shift in priorities, encouraging them to pursue a 'dream job', or transition to being a stay-at-home parent. But for many, many others, the decision to leave came as a result of the way their employer treated them during the pandemic.

That was the case for Villareal, who found herself back in the classroom after only a short closure. (In the US, private schools, governed by different rules, were able to return to in-person learning much sooner than public schools.) Villareal was uncomfortable about her safety, and saw her stress and workload spike when she was juggling both in-person and remote learners concurrently. She felt her concerns weren't being addressed, or even heard.

Ultimately, Villareal decided she'd rather quit and start over in a totally new industry than remain in a job where she felt she was being under-valued and unheard. It was a tough choice, she says, because "there's guilt as a teacher. You don't want to leave the students". Still, Villareal continues, "it became so clear that this isn't about my health, the health of the kids or the mental wellbeing of anybody. It's a business and it's about money. The pandemic ripped that veil from my eyes."

Workers are opting to leave unsupportive employers and transition to jobs in which they feel like they have better resources and are more cared for (Credit: Getty Images)

A predictable response
Foremost, workers are taking decisions to leave based on how their employers treated them - or didn't treat them - during the pandemic. Ultimately, workers stayed at companies that offered support, and darted from those that didn't.

Workers who, pre-pandemic, may already been teetering on the edge of quitting companies with existing poor company culture saw themselves pushed to a breaking point. That's because, as evidenced by a recent Stanford study, many of these companies with bad environments doubled-down on decisions that didn't support workers, such as layoffs (while, conversely, companies that had good culture tended to treat employees well). This drove out already disgruntled workers who survived the layoffs, but could plainly see they were working in unsupportive environments.

And although workers have always cared about the environments in which they work, the pandemic added an entirely new dimension: an increased willingness to act, says Alison Omens, chief strategy officer of JUST Capital, the research firm that collected much of the data for the study.

" Our data over the years has always shown that the thing people care about most is how companies treat their employees," says Omens. That's measured by multiple metrics, she adds, including wages, benefits and security, opportunities for advancement, safety and commitment to equity.

In the wake of the pandemic, "the intensity has increased in terms of that expectation; people are expecting more from companies. The early days of the pandemic reminded us that people are not machines", says Omens. "If you're worried about your kids, about your health, financial insecurity and covering your bills, and all the things that come with being human, you're less likely to be productive. And we were all worried about those things."

Workers expected their employers to make moves to help alleviate, or at least acknowledge, those concerns - and companies that failed to do so have suffered. The Personio study also showed that more than half of the respondents who were planning to quit wanted to do so because of a reduction in benefits, a worsening work-life balance or a toxic workplace culture.

"For almost everyone," says Ross Seychell, chief people officer at Personio, "the pandemic put an acute focus on... how has this company I've given a lot to handled me or my health or happiness during this time?" Seychell says many workers considering that question are finding a lack of satisfying answers. "I'm hearing it a lot: 'I'm going to go somewhere I'm valued'."
An across-the-board exodus
The mass departure is happening at all levels of work, and is especially evident in service and retail jobs.

"Many of the stories have tended to focus on white collar jobs, but the biggest trends are really around traditionally low-wage roles and essential workers," says Omens. "That's a really interesting element of this."

In fact, the American retail sector has seen more recent resignations than any other industry. Just fewer than 650,000 retail workers quit in the month of April alone, according to data from the Labor Department.

During the pandemic, many essential, often low-paid workers, burned out after employers treated them poorly - and they quit (Credit: Getty Images)

Throughout the pandemic, essential workers - often in lower paid positions - have borne the brunt of employers' decisions. Many were working longer hours on smaller staffs, in positions that required interaction with the public with little to no safety measures put in place by the company and, at least in the US, no guarantee of paid sick leave. It quickly burnt workers out.

Now, major retailers are scrambling to fill open positions, and finding it difficult to get enough new, willing workers in the door. Companies including Target and Best Buy have raised wages, while McDonald's and Amazon are offering hiring bonuses ranging from $200 to $1,000. Still, a survey by executive search firm Korn Ferry found that 94% of retailers are having trouble filling empty roles.

Part of the problem, says Omens, is that while financial incentives are a start, a major shift in priorities means it's not just about the money. Many retail and service workers are departing in favour of entry-level positions elsewhere - in warehouses or offices, for instance - that actually pay less, but offer more benefits, upward mobility and compassion. With employers across the board looking for new hires, many have found it's easy to find another job and make the transition.

"We ask people would they take a pay cut to work for a company that aligns with their values," she adds, "and across the board, people say yes."
A lasting change?
Could this Great Resignation bring about meaningful, long-term change to workplace culture and the way companies invest in their employees?

Omens believes the answer is yes. The change was happening before the pandemic, she says, with a "real increase in what people are looking for in terms of their expectations of CEOs and companies".

And the pandemic shifted that existing feeling into overdrive - even in the first few weeks. In late March 2020, billionaire entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban appeared on a CNBC special titled Markets in Turmoil, and warned companies not to force employees back to work too soon. "How companies respond to that very question is going to define their brand for decades," he said. "If you rushed in and somebody got sick, you were that company. If you didn't take care of your employees or stakeholders and put them first, you were that company." For many employees, cautioned Cuban, "that's going to be unforgiveable".

Now, says Seychell, that's proving true. For both people inside companies as well as those just entering the job market, how a company treated its people over the last year and a half will determine the course of the future.

It's become compulsory for companies to make serious investments in their employees' wages, opportunities, and overall wellbeing, if they weren't doing so already, says Seychell, if for no other reason than it's simply good for business.

"When there's a lot of people moving, that costs companies in terms of turnover and lost productivity," he says. "It takes six to nine months to onboard someone to be fully effective. Companies that lose a lot of their workforce are going to struggle with this over the next 12 to 16 months, and maybe much longer. Companies that don't invest in their people will fall behind."

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The Great Resignation: How employers drove workers to quit

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Since the pandemic, employees are leaving the workforce or switching jobs in droves. For many, employers have played a big part in why they're walking away.

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The latest insight and advice from BBC Worklife: careers, milestones, leadership, personal finance, economy, future of work, wellness, professional life abroad - everything you need to upgrade yourself.

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We all have bias -- especially the unconscious kind -- and it's preventing us from doing our best work. Gone unchecked, bias can make employees feel resentful, frustrated and silenced, and it can even lead to outright discrimination and harassment. Check out three key ways to reduce bias at work, according to Just Work cofounders Kim Scott and Trier Bryant.

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How to reduce bias in your workplace | Kim Scott and Trier Bryant

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Listen to this episode from TED Talks Daily on Spotify. We all have bias -- especially the unconscious kind -- and it's preventing us from doing our best work. Gone unchecked, bias can make employees feel resentful, frustrated and silenced, and it can even lead to outright discrimination and harassment.

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Given the choice between a job candidate with a perfect resume and one who has fought through difficulty, human resources executive Regina Hartley always gives the "Scrapper" a chance. As someone who grew up with adversity, Hartley knows that those who flourish in the darkest of spaces are empowered with the grit to persist in an ever-changing workplace.