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"Considered a classic horror film down to its spooky soundtrack..."
"The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits."
"...Halloween superstitions relies on the goodwill of the very same “spirits” whose presence the early Celts felt so keenly"

Miren Jimenez - BLENDED

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When Is Halloween 2023?

Halloween is celebrated each year on October 31. Halloween 2023 will take place on Tuesday, October 31.

Ancient History of Halloween

Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.

This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes.

When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

Did you know? One quarter of all the candy sold annually in the U.S. is purchased for Halloween.

By A.D. 43, the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the 400 years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of bobbing for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

All Saints' Day

On May 13, A.D. 609, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1.

By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In A.D. 1000, the church made November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It's widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church-sanctioned holiday.

All Souls' Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints' Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.

How Did Halloween Start in America?

The celebration of Halloween was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies.

As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included "play parties," which were public events held to celebrate the harvest. Neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other's fortunes, dance and sing.

Did you know? More people are buying costumes for their pets. Americans spent nearly $500 million on costumes for their pets in 2021-more than double what they spent in 2010.

Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of the 19th century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.

In the second half of the 19th century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing the Irish Potato Famine, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally.

History of Trick-or-Treating

Borrowing from European traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick-or-treat" tradition. Young women believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors.

In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, pranks and witchcraft. At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes.

Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything "frightening" or "grotesque" out of Halloween celebrations. Because of these efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century.

Halloween Parties

By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular but community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide Halloween parties as the featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, vandalism began to plague some celebrations in many communities during this time.

By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully limited vandalism and Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at the young. Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily accommodated.

Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats.

Thus, a new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country's second largest commercial holiday after Christmas.

Halloween Movies

Speaking of commercial success, scary Halloween movies have a long history of being box office hits. Classic Halloween movies include the "Halloween" franchise, based on the 1978 original film directed by John Carpenter and starring Donald Pleasance, Nick Castle, Jamie Lee Curtis and Tony Moran. In "Halloween," a young boy named Michael Myers murders his 17-year-old sister and is committed to jail, only to escape as a teen on Halloween night and seek out his old home, and a new target. A direct sequel to the original "Halloween" was released in 2018, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Nick Castle. A sequel to that, "Halloween Kills," was released in 2021; and a sequel to that, "Halloween Ends," was released in 2022.

Considered a classic horror film down to its spooky soundtrack, "Halloween" inspired other iconic "slasher films" like "Scream," "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Friday the 13." More family-friendly Halloween movies include "Hocus Pocus," "The Nightmare Before Christmas," "Beetlejuice" and "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

All Souls Day and Soul Cakes

The American Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating probably dates back to the early All Souls' Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called "soul cakes" in return for their promise to pray for the family's dead relatives.

The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as "going a-souling," was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food and money.

The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry.

On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits.

On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.

Black Cats and Ghosts on Halloween

Halloween has always been a holiday filled with mystery, magic and superstition. It began as a Celtic end-of-summer festival during which people felt especially close to deceased relatives and friends. For these friendly spirits, they set places at the dinner table, left treats on doorsteps and along the side of the road and lit candles to help loved ones find their way back to the spirit world.

Today's Halloween ghosts are often depicted as more fearsome and malevolent, and our customs and superstitions are scarier too. We avoid crossing paths with black cats, afraid that they might bring us bad luck. This idea has its roots in the Middle Ages, when many people believed that witches avoided detection by turning themselves into black cats.

We try not to walk under ladders for the same reason. This superstition may have come from the ancient Egyptians, who believed that triangles were sacred (it also may have something to do with the fact that walking under a leaning ladder tends to be fairly unsafe). And around Halloween, especially, we try to avoid breaking mirrors, stepping on cracks in the road or spilling salt.

Halloween Matchmaking and Lesser-Known Rituals

But what about the Halloween traditions and beliefs that today's trick-or-treaters have forgotten all about? Many of these obsolete rituals focused on the future instead of the past and the living instead of the dead.

In particular, many had to do with helping young women identify their future husbands and reassuring them that they would someday-with luck, by next Halloween-be married. In 18th-century Ireland, a matchmaking cook might bury a ring in her mashed potatoes on Halloween night, hoping to bring true love to the diner who found it.

In Scotland, fortune-tellers recommended that an eligible young woman name a hazelnut for each of her suitors and then toss the nuts into the fireplace. The nut that burned to ashes rather than popping or exploding, the story went, represented the girl's future husband. (In some versions of this legend, the opposite was true: The nut that burned away symbolized a love that would not last.)

Another tale had it that if a young woman ate a sugary concoction made out of walnuts, hazelnuts and nutmeg before bed on Halloween night she would dream about her future husband.

Young women tossed apple-peels over their shoulders, hoping that the peels would fall on the floor in the shape of their future husbands' initials; tried to learn about their futures by peering at egg yolks floating in a bowl of water and stood in front of mirrors in darkened rooms, holding candles and looking over their shoulders for their husbands' faces.

Other rituals were more competitive. At some Halloween parties, the first guest to find a burr on a chestnut-hunt would be the first to marry. At others, the first successful apple-bobber would be the first down the aisle.

Of course, whether we're asking for romantic advice or trying to avoid seven years of bad luck, each one of these Halloween superstitions relies on the goodwill of the very same "spirits" whose presence the early Celts felt so keenly.

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Halloween: Origins, Meaning & Traditions

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Halloween originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain and is now a worldwide event. Learn more about Halloween's origins, traditions, interesting facts, scary movies and more.

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https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/the-future-of-work-after-covid-19

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The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted labor markets globally during 2020. The short-term consequences were sudden and often severe: Millions of people were furloughed or lost jobs, and others rapidly adjusted to working from home as offices closed. Many other workers were deemed essential and continued to work in hospitals and grocery stores, on garbage trucks and in warehouses, yet under new protocols to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus.

This report on the future of work after COVID-19 is the first of three MGI reports that examine aspects of the postpandemic economy. The others look at the pandemic's long-term influence on consumption and the potential for a broad recovery led by enhanced productivity and innovation. Here, we assess the lasting impact of the pandemic on labor demand, the mix of occupations, and the workforce skills required in eight countries with diverse economic and labor market models: China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Together, these eight countries account for almost half the global population and 62 percent of GDP.

Before COVID-19, the largest disruptions to work involved new technologies and growing trade links. COVID-19 has, for the first time, elevated the importance of the physical dimension of work. In this research, we develop a novel way to quantify the proximity required in more than 800 occupations by grouping them into ten work arenas according to their proximity to coworkers and customers, the number of interpersonal interactions involved, and their on-site and indoor nature.

This offers a different view of work than traditional sector definitions. For instance, our medical care arena includes only caregiving roles requiring close interaction with patients, such as doctors and nurses. Hospital and medical office administrative staff fall into the computer-based office work arena, where more work can be done remotely. Lab technicians and pharmacists work in the indoor production work arena because those jobs require use of specialized equipment on-site but have little exposure to other people (Exhibit 1).

We find that jobs in work arenas with higher levels of physical proximity are likely to see greater transformation after the pandemic, triggering knock-on effects in other work arenas as business models shift in response.

The short- and potential long-term disruptions to these arenas from COVID-19 vary. During the pandemic, the virus most severely disturbed arenas with the highest overall physical proximity scores: medical care, personal care, on-site customer service, and leisure and travel. In the longer term, work arenas with higher physical proximity scores are also likely to be more unsettled, although proximity is not the only explanation. For example:

The on-site customer interaction arena includes frontline workers who interact with customers in retail stores, banks, and post offices, among other places. Work in this arena is defined by frequent interaction with strangers and requires on-site presence. Some work in this arena migrated to e-commerce and other digital transactions, a behavioral change that is likely to stick.

The leisure and travel arena is home to customer-facing workers in hotels, restaurants, airports, and entertainment venues. Workers in this arena interact daily with crowds of new people. COVID-19 forced most leisure venues to close in 2020 and airports and airlines to operate on a severely limited basis. In the longer term, the shift to remote work and related reduction in business travel, as well as automation of some occupations, such as food service roles, may curtail labor demand in this arena.

The computer-based office work arena includes offices of all sizes and administrative workspaces in hospitals, courts, and factories. Work in this arena requires only moderate physical proximity to others and a moderate number of human interactions. This is the largest arena in advanced economies, accounting for roughly one-third of employment. Nearly all potential remote work is within this arena.

The outdoor production and maintenance arena includes construction sites, farms, residential and commercial grounds, and other outdoor spaces. COVID-19 had little impact here as work in this arena requires low proximity and few interactions with others and takes place fully outdoors. This is the largest arena in China and India, accounting for 35 to 55 percent of their workforces.

The pandemic pushed companies and consumers to rapidly adopt new behaviors that are likely to stick, changing the trajectory of three groups of trends. We consequently see sharp discontinuity between their impact on labor markets before and after the pandemic.

Remote work and virtual meetings are likely to continue, albeit less intensely than at the pandemic's peak

Perhaps the most obvious impact of COVID-19 on the labor force is the dramatic increase in employees working remotely. To determine how extensively remote work might persist after the pandemic, we analyzed its potential across more than 2,000 tasks used in some 800 occupations in the eight focus countries. Considering only remote work that can be done without a loss of productivity, we find that about 20 to 25 percent of the workforces in advanced economies could work from home between three and five days a week. This represents four to five times more remote work than before the pandemic and could prompt a large change in the geography of work, as individuals and companies shift out of large cities into suburbs and small cities. We found that some work that technically can be done remotely is best done in person. Negotiations, critical business decisions, brainstorming sessions, providing sensitive feedback, and onboarding new employees are examples of activities that may lose some effectiveness when done remotely.

Some companies are already planning to shift to flexible workspaces after positive experiences with remote work during the pandemic, a move that will reduce the overall space they need and bring fewer workers into offices each day. A survey of 278 executives by McKinsey in August 2020 found that on average, they planned to reduce office space by 30 percent. Demand for restaurants and retail in downtown areas and for public transportation may decline as a result.

Remote work may also put a dent in business travel as its extensive use of videoconferencing during the pandemic has ushered in a new acceptance of virtual meetings and other aspects of work. While leisure travel and tourism are likely to rebound after the crisis, McKinsey's travel practice estimates that about 20 percent of business travel, the most lucrative segment for airlines, may not return. This would have significant knock-on effects on employment in commercial aerospace, airports, hospitality, and food service. E-commerce and other virtual transactions are booming.

Many consumers discovered the convenience of e-commerce and other online activities during the pandemic. In 2020, the share of e-commerce grew at two to five times the rate before COVID-19 (Exhibit 2). Roughly three-quarters of people using digital channels for the first time during the pandemic say they will continue using them when things return to "normal," according to McKinsey Consumer Pulse surveys conducted around the world.

Other kinds of virtual transactions such as telemedicine, online banking, and streaming entertainment have also taken off. Online doctor consultations through Practo, a telehealth company in India, grew more than tenfold between April and November 2020. These virtual practices may decline somewhat as economies reopen but are likely to continue well above levels seen before the pandemic.

This shift to digital transactions has propelled growth in delivery, transportation, and warehouse jobs. In China, e-commerce, delivery, and social media jobs grew by more than 5.1 million during the first half of 2020.

COVID-19 may propel faster adoption of automation and AI, especially in work arenas with high physical proximity

Two ways businesses historically have controlled cost and mitigated uncertainty during recessions are by adopting automation and redesigning work processes, which reduce the share of jobs involving mainly routine tasks. In our global survey of 800 senior executives in July 2020, two-thirds said they were stepping up investment in automation and AI either somewhat or significantly. Production figures for robotics in China exceeded prepandemic levels by June 2020.

Many companies deployed automation and AI in warehouses, grocery stores, call centers, and manufacturing plants to reduce workplace density and cope with surges in demand. The common feature of these automation use cases is their correlation with high scores on physical proximity, and our research finds the work arenas with high levels of human interaction are likely to see the greatest acceleration in adoption of automation and AI.

The trends accelerated by COVID-19 may spur greater changes in the mix of jobs within economies than we estimated before the pandemic.

We find that a markedly different mix of occupations may emerge after the pandemic across the eight economies. Compared to our pre-COVID-19 estimates, we expect the largest negative impact of the pandemic to fall on workers in food service and customer sales and service roles, as well as less-skilled office support roles. Jobs in warehousing and transportation may increase as a result of the growth in e-commerce and the delivery economy, but those increases are unlikely to offset the disruption of many low-wage jobs. In the United States, for instance, customer service and food service jobs could fall by 4.3 million, while transportation jobs could grow by nearly 800,000. Demand for workers in the healthcare and STEM occupations may grow more than before the pandemic, reflecting increased attention to health as populations age and incomes rise as well as the growing need for people who can create, deploy, and maintain new technologies (Exhibit 3).

Before the pandemic, net job losses were concentrated in middle-wage occupations in manufacturing and some office work, reflecting automation, and low- and high-wage jobs continued to grow. Nearly all low-wage workers who lost jobs could move into other low-wage occupations-for instance, a data entry worker could move into retail or home healthcare. Because of the pandemic's impact on low-wage jobs, we now estimate that almost all growth in labor demand will occur in high-wage jobs. Going forward, more than half of displaced low-wage workers may need to shift to occupations in higher wage brackets and requiring different skills to remain employed.

Given the expected concentration of job growth in high-wage occupations and declines in low-wage occupations, the scale and nature of workforce transitions required in the years ahead will be challenging, according to our research. Across the eight focus countries, more than 100 million workers, or 1 in 16, will need to find a different occupation by 2030 in our post-COVID-19 scenario, as shown in Exhibit 4. This is 12 percent more than we estimated before the pandemic, and up to 25 percent more in advanced economies (Exhibit 4).

Before the pandemic, we estimated that just 6 percent of workers would need to find jobs in higher wage occupations. In our post-COVID-19 research, we find not only that a larger share of workers will likely need to transition out of the bottom two wage brackets but also that roughly half of them overall will need new, more advanced skills to move to occupations one or even two wage brackets higher.

The skill mix required among workers who need to shift occupations has changed. The share of time German workers spend using basic cognitive skills, for example, may shrink by 3.4 percentage points, while time spend using social and emotional skills will increase by 3.2 percentage points. In India, the share of total work hours expended using physical and manual skills will decline by 2.2 percentage points, while time devoted to technological skills will rise 3.3 percentage points. Workers in occupations in the lowest wage bracket use basic cognitive skills and physical and manual skills 68 percent of the time, while in the middle wage bracket, use of these skills occupies 48 percent of time spent. In the highest two brackets, those skills account for less than 20 percent of time spent. The most disadvantaged workers may have the biggest job transitions ahead, in part because of their disproportionate employment in the arenas most affected by COVID-19. In Europe and the United States, workers with less than a college degree, members of ethnic minority groups, and women are more likely to need to change occupations after COVID-19 than before. In the United States, people without a college degree are 1.3 times more likely to need to make transitions compared to those with a college degree, and Black and Hispanic workers are 1.1 times more likely to have to transition between occupations than white workers. In France, Germany, and Spain, the increase in job transitions required due to trends influenced by COVID-19 is 3.9 times higher for women than for men. Similarly, the need for occupational changes will hit younger workers more than older workers, and individuals not born in the European Union more than native-born workers.

The scale of workforce transitions set off by COVID-19's influence on labor trends increases the urgency for businesses and policymakers to take steps to support additional training and education programs for workers. Companies and governments exhibited extraordinary flexibility and adaptability in responding to the pandemic with purpose and innovation that they might also harness to retool the workforce in ways that point to a brighter future of work.

Businesses can start with a granular analysis of what work can be done remotely by focusing on the tasks involved rather than whole jobs. They can also play a larger role in retraining workers, as Walmart, Amazon, and IBM have done. Others have facilitated occupational shifts by focusing on the skills they need, rather than on academic degrees. Remote work also offers companies the opportunity to enrich their diversity by tapping workers who, for family and other reasons, were unable to relocate to the superstar cities where talent, capital, and opportunities concentrated before the pandemic.

Policymakers could support businesses by expanding and enhancing the digital infrastructure. Even in advanced economies, almost 20 percent of workers in rural households lack access to the internet. Governments could also consider extending benefits and protections to independent workers and to workers working to build their skills and knowledge mid-career.

Both businesses and policymakers could collaborate to support workers migrating between occupations. Under the Pact for Skills established in the European Union during the pandemic, companies and public authorities have dedicated €7 billion to enhancing the skills of some 700,000 automotive workers, while in the United States, Merck and other large companies have put up more than $100 million to burnish the skills of Black workers without a college education and create jobs that they can fill.

The reward of such efforts would be a more resilient, more talented, and better-paid workforce-and a more robust and equitable society.
Go behind the scenes and get more insights with "Where the jobs are: An inside look at our new Future of Work research" from our New at McKinsey blog.

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The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated existing future of work trends, with 25% more workers than previously estimated potentially needing to switch occupations.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/27/return-to-work-in-person-hybrid/

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As many office workers head back to the office - even as the delta variant spreads across the United States - employees are facing a bizarre new reality: They're still spending most of their time isolated and glued to their computers for Zoom meetings, email and Slack. (Mengxin Li for The Washington Post)

Nick Kneer was excited to go back to the office. After working from home for about a year and a half, Kneer had missed the camaraderie he had with his co-workers at the Ohio-based university library system where he works as a communications coordinator. He was counting down until he could mingle with students and staff again.

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But his excitement quickly faded after the reality of in-person work turned out to be far from what he expected.

Instead, to avoid contracting the delta varian t, he ended up locked in a "windowless, cinder block room" - his temporary office - attending most of his meetings via Zoom.

"It was definitely a bummer," he said.

As many office workers head back to the office - even as the delta variant spreads across the United States - employees are facing a bizarre new reality: They're still spending most of their time isolated and glued to their computers for Zoom meetings, email and Slack. With more companies implementing permanent hybrid working options - in which some employees work from home and others in the office - the virtual nature of work may far outlive the pandemic. And with it, so may the quirks of the new office environment.

"There's this weird tension," said Brian Kropp, chief of HR research for research firm Gartner. "We want everyone back in the office, but we still want everyone to do work by video."

Navigating the return to the office

The way people work in offices now doesn't look like how it did before the pandemic. And the technology that allowed many employees to work from home has followed them back into the office, from video conferencing to messaging services and collaborative work programs.

Zoom's latest earnings suggest that video conferencing continues to be in high demand despite offices reopening and employees working in-person. During the second quarter, the company reported that revenue rose 54 percent from a year earlier to $1.02 billion, though that's a slowdown compared to the 191 percent pop the company reported the previous quarter. Still, Zoom marked its first billion-dollar revenue quarter and had more than 504,000 customers using its service.

"Sales meetings have moved from conference rooms to Slack and to Zoom," Salesforce President and Chief Operating Officer Bret Taylor noted during a recent earnings call. Salesforce recently acquired Slack for $27.7 billion.

Google parent company Alphabet said during its recent earnings call its digital business tools product called Google Workspace, which includes Gmail, Google Docs, and video conferencing service Google Meet, "continues to show strong growth."

Emily Wagner, a classroom program manager for tutoring and test prep company Summit Educational Group in Newton, Mass., compared her back-to-work collaboration to prairie dog style of communicating. Occasionally she and her co-workers pop up from their office cubicles to talk to each other from across the room. But the majority of the time, she's at work Zooming her team, who come in on different days for safety.

Beyond the "weird" experience of it all, Wagner says the biggest issue is when two people at the office in earshot are on the same Zoom call. If both people have their microphones on, the ambient sound creates an echo on the call. The only real way to solve it is to make sure others nearby don't have their microphones on at the same time.

"It's an unmitigated nightmare," she said. "It made me so crazy the first time I had to deal with it. It was like, 'This is awful! Why are we doing this?'"

Four reasons you're tired of Zoom calls - and what to do about it

The dreaded video conferencing echo is a common complaint among workers who have been joining video calls from the office. One employee, who works at a public education system in Illinois and spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid conflicts with her employer, said she has the same problem on Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. The technology causes plenty of frustrations including spotty Internet in the office, where she is required to be five days a week, that sometimes can't handle the volume of people on video calls.

Working from the office feels "essentially the same" as what she was doing from home. The most socialization she gets at work is an occasional "hi" if she passes a colleague in the hallway, she said.

"They're still making sure people are social distancing and not all crowded into one conference room," she said of her employer, acknowledging that the procedure makes sense from a safety standpoint. She said it feels "100 percent ... pointless" to be in-person.

Some workers are in the office voluntarily. Harlan Crystal, co-founder and chief technology officer at mobile gaming company Pocket Gems, returned to his San Francisco office in May, about a month after the company opened its office for workers who wanted to voluntarily return. For him, going back to the office allowed him to get into a head space where he could better focus. It also helped him better separate his work life and home life.

But he says Pocket Gems's hybrid working environment has been "messy for sure." When teams have Zoom meetings, the few who are at the office convene in a conference room and join the meeting as a group via camera. As a result, people on the call have a hard time reading the emotions and reactions of the people joining from the conference room because their faces are too small, Crystal said. And if any remote employees share their screen on Zoom, in-office workers find the low-resolution images almost impossible to read, given that they're viewing the presentation via a projector in the room.

"It feels more like going to Starbucksand working there," he said. "You're going to a shared place, but most of the people you're working directly with aren't there with you."

The hybrid office is here to stay. The shift could be more disruptive than the move to all-remote work.

Gerry Martini, associate director of admissions for the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, said the lack of in-person interaction with his co-workers and prospective students makes him "dread" going to the office two days a week. On top of that, he commutes 40 minutes each way via subway, only to show up at work and do most of his interactions online. Meanwhile, the cafeteria and coffee shop in his building are closed, leaving little opportunity for him to have spur-of-the-moment conversations.

"I look forward to going back on campus when I can do actual campus things," Martini said. "It's the people that make the experience. That sort of thing is not happening."

Martini said he believes he and his colleagues were sent back to work mostly for economic reasons.

"There's a perception we should go back because it's good for the city versus what's good for the employee," he said.

Matt, a web developer at a university in New Jersey who spoke on the condition of not using his last name, said going back to the office to be on Zoom makes it hard to tell who is available or tied up. Before the pandemic, it was clear when people were busy in a meeting, as they'd all be together in one room. He hasn't quite figured out the best way to solve the problem yet.

"When everyone is doing Zoom from their desk, it's impossible to tell who is in a meeting," he said, adding that co-workers have walked in on his meetings from his desk. "It's very weird."

Workers say employees going back to the office need to be prepared for a few things: They need to have a good set of noise canceling headphones or ear buds, and be prepared for in-person isolation.

For Kneer, the strange feeling of working from the office to do the same thing he does at home could be simplified down to the humor of his lunch situation. He takes lunch items from his fridge at home to take to work. Then he brings the items he took to make his lunch back home and puts them in his own fridge.

"It's surreal," Kneer said.

Updated September 27, 2021

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Workers are putting on pants to return to the office only to be on Zoom all day

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Nick Kneer was excited to go back to the office. After working from home for about a year and a half, Kneer had missed the camaraderie he had with his co-workers at the Ohio-based university library system where he works as a communications coordinator.

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"taken up residence" and "Uncertainty hangs in the air."
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63245112

"Angélique Huguin is part of a group of activists affiliated with the anti-nuclear movement Sortir du nucléaire, who have taken up residence near the Cigéo nuclear research laboratory in northeastern France."
"Germany is a key player here. It had planned to decommission all of its nuclear power plants by the end of 2022, yet has decided to extend the operation of two plants to at least April 2023. Uncertainty hangs in the air."

By Sofía Arcos, Blended.

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Decisions around the future of nuclear energy are urgently needed in Europe.

Russian supplies of natural gas have been disrupted amidst the war in Ukraine, energy prices have soared to emergency levels.

Meanwhile, some countries are suffering a lingering hangover from the Covid-19 pandemic. In France, half of the country's nuclear power plants are currently not operating.

The main reasons are corrosion, planned maintenance, and delayed maintenance due to pandemic-linked staffing issues, explains Phuc Vinh Nguyen, who researches European energy policy at the Jacques Delors Energy Center in France.

Mr Nguyen warns that across the EU the energy price crisis will probably last until at least 2024.

In this situation, some see the use of nuclear reactors as a way to decouple from Russian natural gas.

At Leibstadt, Switzerland's largest and youngest nuclear power plant, half of the uranium supply currently comes from Russia. There, as elsewhere, there's a scramble to source more uranium from outside the Russian sphere of influence.

Fabian Lüscher, who heads the nuclear energy section at the Swiss Energy Foundation (SES), says that Europe's ageing nuclear fleet is not adapted to deal with contemporary terrorist attacks and cyberattacks. "You even have to think of those very unlikely possibilities when planning risky infrastructure," Mr Lüscher argues.

And then, of course, there's the problem of nuclear waste.

Angélique Huguin is part of a group of activists affiliated with the anti-nuclear movement Sortir du nucléaire, who have taken up residence near the Cigéo nuclear research laboratory in northeastern France.

The activists share a home in the charming commune of Bure, amidst stone houses with bright blue shutters.

Ms Huguin argues that it is irresponsible to leave the problem of nuclear waste for future generations. And she believes that the nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima are "evidence that you have to stop" supporting nuclear power.

While countries like France and Hungary are continuing to bet on nuclear power, Austria and Luxembourg are opposed. Others, like Belgium and Switzerland, are more ambivalent.

The countries' fortunes are interlinked, as they often transact energy supply with each other. And, of course, risks of nuclear accidents extend across borders.

Germany is a key player here. It had planned to decommission all of its nuclear power plants by the end of 2022, yet has decided to extend the operation of two plants to at least April 2023. Uncertainty hangs in the air.

People supporting the transition away from nuclear argue that this is an opportunity to ramp up wind and solar energy, which is much cheaper and less risky than nuclear.

Others argue that some share of nuclear energy is necessary for a stable power supply, during fluctuations in solar and wind energy.

Further complicating Europe's energy picture, politically driven misinformation has clouded the debate. Across the continent, energy discussions quickly turn ideological, linked to political affiliations and cultural attachments.

And tough choices need to be made because of limited financial resources. Uncertainty around the phasing out of nuclear in Switzerland is limiting investment in renewables there, according to Mr Lüscher.

Meanwhile, "new-build nuclear power plants in Europe are the most expensive way to create electricity", he says.

It is hugely expensive to build and decommission a nuclear plant. Then there is the cost of managing the nuclear waste.

One transitional step is to limit energy use, and France plans to reduce this by 10% over two years.

"The reduction in energy consumption must be part of the long term... it is not a matter of principle or ideology. It is about the ecological transition. Our sovereignty is at stake. It is about our purchasing power," she said.

This may not be a comfort to those struggling with energy bills. And as winter comes, energy use is expected to peak across the continent.

Mr Nguyen believes that this is a landmark moment not only to shape future energy infrastructure, but also to embed behavioural changes. "We can build a narrative where sufficiency measures are part of the solution."

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Europe faces tough decisions over nuclear power

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Decisions around the future of nuclear energy are urgently needed in Europe. Russian supplies of natural gas have been disrupted amidst the war in Ukraine, energy prices have soared to emergency levels. Meanwhile, some countries are suffering a lingering hangover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

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How to train your dog to behave in public

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How to train your dog to behave in public

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"A well-behaved dog that walks nicely to heel and sits politely to greet people is a positive pleasure"

"Training both puppies and adult dogs does require time, persistence, and patience"

"For both young and old, be sure to use reward-based training methods"

By Vicky

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Medium

General

Introduction

Does it matter what people think about your dog's behavior?

You should care, because when out in public your dog is an ambassador for canine-kind. If he behaves badly by lunging at strangers, jumping up, or barking, this is unpleasant and intimidating for others. However, a well-behaved dog that walks nicely to heel and sits politely to greet people is a positive pleasure.

A dog that behaves in public means you can relax and enjoy walks, rather than be on edge all the time in anticipation of problems. Remember, the dog and his behavior are your responsibility, both in moral terms and in the eyes of the law. Should your dog jump up at a senior citizen, knocking them over so that they fracture a hip, then you could well be liable for their surgical expenses.

Top

Defining Tasks

To behave well in public means having the dog under control at all times, both on and off the leash. This skill doesn't happen by magic but by putting in the time with regular obedience training. Even a basic command such as "Sit", along with walking to heel, equip the dog with a great grounding so that he is able to meet and greet strangers without showing you up.

Training both puppies and adult dogs does require time, persistence, and patience. For the puppies, the world is a big exciting place full of new sights, sounds, and smells, so distraction is rife. For the adult dog, they may have deeply ingrained bad habits that need to be replaced with new good behavior.

For both young and old, be sure to use reward-based training methods. This rewards the dog's good behavior, which sets them on the path to thinking about what they need to do to please you and earn a reward. Old-fashioned methods based on dominating the dog are outdated because they use intimidation and punishment to cow the dog into obeying. Not a happy scenario!

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Getting Started

Basic obedience training requires little other than:

A collar and leash to restrain the dog

Bite-sized tasty treats to use as a reward

A bag that clips onto your belt, in which to keep the treats handy

Time, patience, and consistency

Train your dog a couple of times a day for 10 to 15 minutes. You can also incorporate training into your walks, such as getting the dog to sit curbside. However, be sure to make training fun and always end on a high with a command the dog knows and can do well. This helps build self-confidence and enthusiasm for the next session.

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The Sit on Command Method

By Amy Caldwell

Published: 10/06/2017, edited: 01/08/2021

More articles by Amy Caldwell

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How to Train Your Dog to Behave in Public

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Medium difficulty icon Medium General training category icon General Introduction Does it matter what people think about your dog's behavior? You should care, because when out in public your dog is an ambassador for canine-kind. If he behaves badly by lunging at strangers, jumping up, or barking, this is unpleasant and intimidating for others.

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How limitless green energy would change the world

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How limitless green energy would change the world

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Green energy's success depends on people's willingness to adopt the technology in the first place.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), electricity demand is set to grow by 40-60% in some regions in the next 10 years.
Current electricity generation – primarily by fossil fuels – is the single biggest contributor to climate change, responsible for 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Green energy may be limitless, but certainly not limitless without cost. From the enormous capital outlay required to build renewable power plants – or convert existing ones – to the marketing investments needed to incentivise its use to the emissions-emitting extraction processes needed for new infrastructure, free green energy comes at a high price.

By Joseba Saez. Blended

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What would we do with an abundant, cheap, inexhaustible supply of renewables?

Perhaps the desalination of seawater, suddenly cost-efficient, would relieve Earth's water shortages. Rubbish might be recycled on a massive scale, allowing for the extraction of precious trace elements such as rare earth metals, while carbon dioxide (CO2) could be vacuumed out of the atmosphere to slow climate change. People could live comfortably in Earth's polar regions or travel far and wide in battery-powered vehicles. Goods and services that require electricity might become cheaper, even free. Our emissions footprint could soon be undetectable.

While exciting to contemplate, this sustainable world would be incredibly costly. It would also hinge on a wide range of political, economic and technological factors to ever make it a reality.

Green energy's success depends on people's willingness to adopt the technology in the first place - renewable alternatives would have to promise more convenience, speed, savings and security than the oil, coal and gas on which we've grown so reliant. Lawmakers would also need to combat legislative gridlock to ensure that sustainable energy policies could be implemented. The facilities that combust this green energy - be it solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, or even nuclear fusion or some undiscovered technology - would need to be built and maintained as the planet continued to warm and resources dwindle.

And assuming these obstacles could be overcome, how could limitless green energy change our own consumption, innovation, our economy, public policy and the environment? And what factors might make this hypothetical planet temporarily worse off?

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), electricity demand is set to grow by 40-60% in some regions in the next 10 years. Researchers predict that mounting prosperity in both the developed and the developing world will continue to drive increased consumer demand for key resources up to at least 2040. At the same time, constraints in energy, water and other natural resources will bring about new and difficult-to-manage instabilities.

Current electricity generation - primarily by fossil fuels - is the single biggest contributor to climate change, responsible for 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Green energy could thus represent a radical deviation from business-as-usual, promising a path towards zero-carbon emissions and international energy independence. Without the concerted efforts of policymakers, investors and citizens, however, limitless green energy could also lead to a world of increased waste and shortages.

"Green energy may be limitless, but certainly not limitless without cost," says Victor B Flatt, professor of environmental law and head of the Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Legal Center at the University of Houston. From the enormous capital outlay required to build renewable power plants - or convert existing ones - to the marketing investments needed to incentivise its use to the emissions-emitting extraction processes needed for new infrastructure, free green energy comes at a high price.

There are no perfect answers. What will be required in the years ahead is a diverse and flexible mix of energy solutions - what Bill Gates calls a "Swiss army knife of energy tools."

Carbon-free energy certainly promises tantalising benefits: total electrification of transport, emissions-free heating and cooling systems to power our homes and businesses, greener fertiliser for our farmlands. If we can manage to produce it, we might also need to use supplementary sources of fusion power. Developing efficient and sustainable methods of burning biomass, and converting methane from crops and sewage, would help to increase our green fuel supply, but we would also need to reduce our total energy and explore ways to turn climate policy into concrete, enforceable action.

As parts of the world begin to wean off fossil fuels, our current fuel supply would become cheaper and cheaper, says Flatt. Oil-rich countries, eager to sell their last barrels to developing nations, would drive the price down further, slowly eliminating liquid-fuel economies. "If green energy is more competitive than fossil fuels, people will move in that direction," says Flatt. "But real-world constraints will start to take over."
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Traditional power plants will play a smaller role as decarbonisation objectives and national mandates require their reduced use. Simultaneously, a robust infrastructure of variable renewables plants will become absolutely crucial. These plants will need to be built over a large geographical area in order to ensure minimal power interruption - if it's a grey, windless day in Dublin, electricity might need to be channeled from as far away as Oslo, for example. This boom in manufacturing will likely lead to stable, long-term job creation - a net positive - but could also mean temporary job losses in other sectors, such as coal.

Another formidable constraint is that green energy is notoriously unreliable. Hydropower requires enough rain to propel a constant supply of flowing water and can wreak havoc on native aquatic species and their ecosystems. Solar photovoltaic panels need clear skies and sunshine to harness photons of light required to generate electricity.

Variable renewables are power generators that depend on the availability of intermittent resources; they therefore require complementary technologies to ensure that the balance between supply and demand is maintained at all times - even during seasonal changes or worst-case scenarios. Limitless green energy would almost certainly give rise to innovative methods to use and store energy cheaply and efficiently, but creating a permanent surplus of power may not be economical at scale.

"There will be times when we will have more energy than we actually need in particular places," says Richard Green, professor of sustainable energy business at Imperial College Business School in London. "Finding ways to use that extra energy at those times is a great idea, but not predictable enough for people to plan their lives around." As such, traditional modes of power could still be needed in limited supply, so that if we are short of green electricity there's a stopgap measure.

Increasing shares of variable renewable energy mean that power systems will likely become more flexible. Of course, demand needs to be flexible as well. "Either people are paying a subscription - a bit like a phone plan where you get free energy up to a certain amount," explains Green, "or it's a pay-as-you go model." Uber's surge pricing might look comparatively generous. "The price would have to go through the roof part of the year, whenever there is a shortage of wind or sunlight."

The question of green energy demand won't be limited to households, of course, but would extend to businesses and corporations, particularly tech companies - some of the biggest consumers of electricity. Data centres at leading tech giants such as Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft already require dozens of terawatt hours (a unit equal to one billion kilo-watt hours of electricity) a year to keep their servers cool. As the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning exacts more computing power, that figure will only increase. Private investments could further accelerate new technologies and change the economics for large companies to deploy them.

If corporations make the switch to carbon-neutral energy, however, they will also put indirect pressure on land already scarce from competing uses, urbanisation and industrial development, because more renewables plants will need to be built to satisfy demand. This, in turn, will put added stress on the planet: many renewable energy forms or their manufacturing processes emit greenhouse gases such as CO2 or methane into the air, because they rely on minerals (cobalt, lithium, and other rare-earth metals) that can currently only be extracted or built with the aid of fossil fuels. Extraction also has significant potential to irreparably destroy native animal and plant life habitats.

In other words, limitless green energy could actually be harmful to the environment in the short-term. Yet renewables ultimately have the power to reduce or reverse our carbon output and eliminate millions of deaths caused by pollution each year, making the decision to switch one of the most pressing issues of our time.

Fusion power, which generates electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions, is one green technology with incredible promise. This energy format would enable power sources we could turn on and off at will, and eliminate the spent fuel and proliferation concerns of nuclear fission. "Fusion is one pathway to clean forms of energy," says Joshua D Rhodes, a systems-level energy engineer at the University of Texas at Austin. "But thus far, no one has been able to create a fusion reaction that is self-sustaining" (one that produces an energy reaction which generates more energy than it consumes).

If cost is no longer a factor, unlimited green energy in the form of fusion might radically transform different sectors, including transportation, aviation, and manufacturing. The switch would also go a long way towards reducing carbon emissions and overall particulate matter. If we clean up supply chains, we might be able to move away from or eliminate energy sources that emit pollutants into the atmosphere.

"There are always going to be industries that will need a fossil-fuel like substance," says Rhodes, "but we don't have to dig them out of the ground: we can make a synthetic fuel." For operations that require a lot of energy in a confined space, liquid fuels with carbon in their makeup can be useful, because they keep systems stable. Long-haul flights, for example, currently need a fossil-fuel like substance. Rather than jet fuel, however, aircraft could run on methane derived from hydrogen and CO2, or ammonia made from hydrogen and atmospheric nitrogen, both of which could be created using green electricity. Given the sector's climate contribution - aviation is responsible for 2.5% of annual CO2 emissions - this change alone would be momentous.

Other green technologies such as carbon capture and storage will likely be necessary to achieve overall net zero emissions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "Electrification, hydrogen, bio-based feedstocks and substitution, and, in several cases, carbon dioxide capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), would lead to the deep emissions reductions required in energy-intensive industries to limit warming to 1.5C."

But the IPCC also notes that those options are limited by institutional, economic and technical constraints - meaning a huge fiscal policy push from government would becrucial. "To keep the global temperature rise to below 1.5C, the world needs to get to net-zero carbon emissions between 2050 and 2070," says Rhodes. "Clean energy is necessary, but not sufficient, to meet that goal."

Nations like Costa Rica and Norway have already met many of their ambitious climate targets; other countries lag far behind the 2050 net zero goals needed to keep global warming below the critical 1.5C threshold, set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Even in a world of limitless renewables, stabilising the global energy sector will remain out of reach unless individual countries can agree on comprehensive climate change legislation - and do so quickly. Tax credits for the purchase of low-emission cars and appliances, support for the construction of renewable fuel stations and other infrastructure and financial penalties for fossil fuel use could all accelerate the switch.

"The biggest barrier to green energy is not money or even technology; it's government policy," says Flatt. Energy policies can vary even within one nation's jurisdictions, meaning that progress is often slow. Consider that localities must agree to offshore and onshore renewables power sites before green energy demand increases. "Europe has already agreed to derive 20% of its power from offshore wind," says Flatt. "In the United States, however, with its multiple jurisdictions, any state can veto a power line. Getting lawmakers to agree on where power supplies - hydro dams and windmill farms - will be built is essential if we're to fully embrace a green economy."

Finally, a never-ending supply of renewables would not necessarily solve the world's equity problems in the short term. In some places, the ready availability of lighting, heating, refrigeration and transport is a luxury few can afford. Not everyone would have immediate access to green energy even if it were suddenly abundant, while those who do have access might waste it.

"When any commodity gets cheaper, there's a tendency for people to use more," says Green. Likewise, limitless green energy could lead to similarly poor design choices that would spur waste or even shortages during times of scarcity, even as parts of the world continue to do without. "Humans finding ways of dealing with shortages is what has typically driven progress," says Green.

The issue is less about overconsumption, which tends to describe exhaustion of a resource, than growth of consumption because the resource is abundant in the first place. There would be enough of the resource available overall, but this abundance may lead to new problems. This phenomenon has historically characterised other resource cost decreases: when we made food cheap and abundant by learning how to process and manufacture it at scale, we developed an obesity crisis. When we devised ways to produce cheap plastic, the oceans were suddenly choked with our single-use bags and bottles. Could a similar pattern emerge if we make green energy abundantly cheap?

Switching to renewable power worldwide could alleviate our climate change crisis, bringing about new forms of innovation and commerce in the process. That might free up time and labour to devote to leisure and other pursuits. But we need to remain realistic. "This solves some problems," says Flatt, "but it's not a Nirvana."

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How limitless green energy would change the world

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Limitless renewable energy would offer tantalising benefits: emissions-free heating, greener fertiliser and electric transport. But overcoming the obstacles will not be easy.

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Overwhelmed, peers. How to be an empathetic leader

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Overwhelmed, peers. How to be an empathetic leader

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"If not monitored, a leader may become emotionally overwhelmed trying to meet every employee’s wants"
"It helps develop teams that are tolerant of peers, which increases co-operation, decreases stress levels, and positively impacts employees’ creativity and problem solving."

By Alba Moreno. Blended

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The Globe and Mail and Morneau Shepell created the Employee Recommended Workplace Award to honour companies that put the health and total well-being of their employees first. Read about the 2019 winners of Registration for the 2020 Employee Recommended Workplace Award is now open. Take the pulse of your staff and register For more information about the award go to www.employeerecommended.com. You can also purchase the benchmark report that outlines findings from 2018 at this link here. Awareness at this link. the award at this link and Accountability watch a video from the winners here.
How important is empathy as an attribute for effective leadership?
Action
To answer this question, let's be clear on empathy in the context of leadership. The global Center for Creative Leadership suggests that it's a leader's ability to relate to employees' thoughts, emotions and experiences. The Center explains that nearly 50 per cent of managers in today's management pool are ineffective. One reason is a skills gap related to empathy.
Tips for enhancing leaders' empathy:
Empathy is an important micro skill for leaders. It enables them to be open and to understand what their employees are thinking. Empathetic leaders create the conditions for employees to share their thoughts, which can be helpful for their mental health. How a leader behaves toward their employees can have a positive or negative impact on their overall mental health. The employee-manager relationship is one of the most important for every employee; it directly impacts their experience in the workplace and their productivity.

Employees who don't feel safe or don't believe their manager cares about them can build up anxiety and worry about how their manager may react if they make a mistake or don't agree with them. And that can affect the quality of their work.

Having empathy for an employee has nothing to do with a leader's ability to be firm, fair and consistent. It's not a sign of weakness; it's a sign of strength, and evidence that an employee's well-being matters.

Organizations don't post notices saying that people don't matter. Instead, codes of conduct indicate that the way managers relate to their employees defines how they believe their managers care about them on a personal and professional level.

An empathetic leader understands what their employees want at an individual level. They accept that their employees come with a wide variety of differences and expectations. In a society evolving with respect to diversity and inclusion, empathy becomes a more critical micro skill for leaders.
Bill Howatt is the chief of research for work force productivity at the Conference Board of Canada, and a co-creator of the Employee Recommended Workplace Award.
People naturally have low or high levels of empathy for others. Some people are naturally empathetic. However, it is something that can be taught, and enhanced through practice. A leader committed to developing their empathy will know they're becoming more empathetic when they can stop focusing on what they think, slow down, and instead put themselves in their employees' shoes. They stop focusing on being right and replace it by being open to learning what an employee is thinking before making a decision.

It's possible to have too much empathy. If not monitored, a leader may become emotionally overwhelmed trying to meet every employee's wants. Leaders must make decisions, and even with the best intentions some employees may not be happy.

Each leader will ultimately determine how much effort they'll put forth with respect to being empathetic. The Wall Street Journal reports that 20 per cent of organizations are now sending managers to empathy training. This suggests that there's a growing interest in the importance of empathy by leaders to support employees' experience.

Leaders who focus on developing empathy increase their opportunity to have employees demonstrate increased loyalty. It helps develop teams that are tolerant of peers, which increases co-operation, decreases stress levels, and positively impacts employees' creativity and problem solving.

Be patient - Understand that whenever an employee has a difference between what they want and what they have they may become frustrated, short-tempered or emotional. Allow employees time to get their thoughts out; don't feel an immediate need to control a situation. Be open, seek to understand, and don't interrupt them. Practice patience.

Listen - Open your mind and focus on what employees are saying, not on what you're thinking, or your response. Seek to understand their facts and rationale before forming a conclusion. Slow down and learn why something is important to them before you agree or disagree.

Be mindful of your body language - Be aware that it's not only your words that employees pay attention to; it's also your facial expressions and body language. Have your body language align with your words and intentions. Checking your phone when someone is talking to you shows that you're not really interested or listening to them.

Encourage - Encourage quiet and introverted employees to share their thinking on work-related matters in ways that are non-threatening and that work for them, such as one-on-one meetings. Encourage all employees to share their thinking with you on regularly.

Learn - Learn what's important to employees by asking questions about their work, projects, culture and what defines their success.

You can find other stories like these at tgam.ca/workplaceaward.

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The Globe and Mail and Morneau Shepell created the Employee Recommended Workplace Award to honour companies that put the health and total well-being of their employees first. Read about the 2019 winners of Registration for the 2020 Employee Recommended Workplace Award is now open.

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"Work-life balance" & "Meet the deadlines" from: 6 Guaranteed Ways to Improve Work-Life Balance in 2022

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"Work-life balance" & "Meet the deadlines" from: 6 Guaranteed Ways to Improve Work-Life Balance in 2022

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"...ensuring a healthy work-life balance has many benefits for employees and employers alike..."
"You often fail to meet your deadlines"

By Laura

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And more!

So, let's jump right in.

What is Work-Life Balance?

Simply put, work-life balance means equally prioritizing your work and personal life.

Essentially, a good work-life balance allows you to create harmony between both areas of your life and promotes your physical, emotional, financial, and mental well-being.

That said, work-life balance doesn't necessarily mean dividing your time evenly between your work and your personal life.

Rather, a good work-life balance comes from having the capacity to complete your professional tasks and still have enough time and energy to spend on things that bring you joy, such as your family, friends, and hobbies.

Typically, there are several factors that lead to an unhealthy work-life balance, which include:

Too many responsibilities at work or at home

Long working hours

Changes in personal life, such as having children or having to take care of elderly parents

Increased expenses with the same salary

If you're unsure whether you have a healthy balance between your work and personal life, here are some of the signs that can help you spot a decline in your work-life balance:

Your work consumes most of your day, including the weekends

You don't get enough sleep

You don't have time to take care of your physical well-being (e.g. you don't exercise, cook homemade meals, or shower regularly)

Your friends and family complain that you don't spend enough time with them

You often fail to meet your deadlines

You often experience stress and anxiety

You can't stop thinking about your work

Your productivity has dropped

You don't have any hobbies

You check your email past your working hours

6 Ways to Improve Work-Life Balance

Do any of the above-mentioned signs hit too close to home? Worry not!

Here are 6 tried-and-tested ways to improve your work-life balance:

#1. Set a Realistic Schedule

Ideally, you want to spend 8 hours on work, 8 hours on your friends, family, and hobbies, and 8 hours sleeping each day.

As perfect as it sounds, however, this sort of schedule isn't feasible for most people. Life is unpredictable, and on some days you may have to spend more time with your family or, conversely, a weekend at work.

For this reason, it's important that you don't put too much pressure on yourself to perfectly stick to your schedule.

Instead, you should measure your work-life balance over the long haul. For example, one weekend spent at work won't affect your work-life balance, but if you spend most of your weekends working, it might take a toll on your family life.

As such, you want to set a realistic schedule based on your personal and professional responsibilities and goals.

So, let's say your personal goal is to learn to play the guitar.

Sure, it may sound like a good idea to spend an hour every weekday evening strumming the strings, yet chances are more important responsibilities might come up that may change your schedule. As a result, you might not be able to consistently work on your new skill.

Rather than allocating a specific time to work on your goals, you want to outline your goals in your weekly schedule (e.g. spend 5 hours in total per week on guitar) and work on them whenever you have the time and energy after you're finished with your daily responsibilities.

As long as you don't give in to procrastination, this makes it much easier to attain your personal and professional goals, as you don't have to follow each step in your daily schedule to a T.

#2. Prioritize Your Well-being

Your work is important, but if you don't keep your physical, emotional, and mental health in check, your productivity will suffer - and so will your work-life balance.

As such, it's crucial to first and foremost prioritize your overall health by building healthy daily habits, such as:

Spending at least 30 minutes getting fresh air and/or exercise to promote your physical well-being.

Fostering personal relationships to maintain your emotional well-being (let's be honest - no matter how busy you are, you can always spare a few minutes to call a friend).

Adopting a daily personal practice, such as meditation, mindfulness, gratitude, or journaling to support your mental well-being.

Prioritizing your health is key to improving your work-life balance, as it also helps you detach from your work outside of your working hours.

So, if you have a habit of checking your work emails on your commute, for example, consider using that time for something that supports your overall well-being, whether it's listening to music, meditating, or chatting with your friends.

#3. Learn to Say 'No'

'No' is a short, yet powerful word - and so, it's no surprise that many people have a hard time being firm in saying 'no' to their employers, family members, and other people.

While being a helpful colleague is great, moderation is key as people-pleasing behavior can negatively affect your career and health.

For example, you may agree to take on more projects than you physically can complete, which can lead you to unmet deadlines and expectations, little to no time for personal life, and burnout in the workplace.

As such, learning to say 'no' is vital to improving your work-life balance since it allows you to set boundaries and create harmony between your work and personal life.

Just think about it - if you set the right priorities at work and at home, learning to say 'no' to lower priority tasks will allow you to have more time for meaningful activities both at home and at work.

#4. Make Good Use of Your Breaks

Truth be told, people aren't designed to work non-stop, and you may be surprised to find out that working long hours doesn't increase your productivity.

In fact, according to research, the most productive employees have 17-minute breaks following every 52 minutes of work.

As such, to improve your work-life balance AND productivity, it's important that you take regular breaks while working.

Not to mention, you should use your breaks to the fullest instead of checking your emails or scrolling industry-related news.

So, here are some tips to ensure high-quality breaks that will leave you refreshed and energized:

Leave the office. Instead of staying in the office (or your room, if you work from home), go out for a walk. You can also grab lunch at a nearby restaurant or organize a short picnic with your colleagues.

Socialize. Talking to your colleagues or calling your friends can help you de-stress and boost your mood.

Have some 'me time.' Spend time doing whatever brings you joy and helps you relax, whether it's reading a book, drawing, or watching your favorite TV series. This works especially well for introverts, and even more so for those with jobs that require plenty of communication (e.g. customer service).

#5. Work From Home the Right Way

Maintaining a good work-life balance can be significantly harder when you're working from home - at the end of the day, your home is also your office, so you may find it hard to separate the two.

So, here are 3 effective tips that can help you create a healthy work-life balance while working remotely:

1. Define your working hours. If you have a flexible schedule as part of your remote job, make sure to set specific working hours. Ideally, you want to find out when you're most productive and do most of your tasks during that time. This will allow you to increase your productivity and avoid working until the late hours of the night.

2. Designate a working space. Working from bed can make it difficult to unplug from work. Luckily, you don't need a separate room to create a workspace - a desk is more than enough. If that's not possible, consider using separate Internet browsers for your work and personal activities to create a distinction between the two.

3. Have a morning routine. Although you may be tempted to work in your pajamas, it actually can have a negative impact on your mental well-being. As such, make sure to have a morning routine to help you get ready for work, such as brushing your teeth, taking a shower, eating breakfast, and dressing up for work.

#6. Speak Out

To improve your work-life balance, consider telling your employer about your needs. This way, you might find a solution that will work great both for you and your company.

If you have children, for example, try asking your employer for a flexible schedule, compressed workweek, or another option that would allow you to spend more time with your family and take care of your children.

If, however, responsibilities at home keep you from being productive at work, you might want to talk to your family about possible solutions.

For example, if you're trying to manage having a full-time job and taking care of an elderly parent, you may want to discuss the option of joining a program at an adult daycare center.

Alternatively, if you feel like your work-life balance is getting out of control, you may want to talk to a mental health provider to explore your options and learn to cope with your work and personal responsibilities healthily.

7 Benefits of Work-Life Balance

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance has several benefits to employees and employers alike, including:

Prevents burnout in the workplace. If you feel stressed and overwhelmed at work, you're at a higher risk of experiencing burnout in the workplace. As such, by helping you prioritize your health, set boundaries, and make time for yourself, a good work-life balance helps you avoid occupational burnout.

Promotes productivity. Improving your work-life balance enables you to attend to your personal needs, including sleep, nutrition, and socializing. As a result, it can improve your productivity and efficiency.

Boosts employee engagement. Studies show that employees are more engaged with their jobs in companies that support family-friendly policies and a healthy work-life balance.

Supports physical, emotional, and mental well-being. A healthy work-life balance helps you avoid overworking, manage your stress levels, and prioritize your health.

Helps to attract top talent. Most employees are looking for flexibility in the workplace, so offering them a good work-life balance can help you attract and retain top talent.

Improves personal and professional relationships. By enabling you to spend more time socializing with your family, friends, and colleagues, work-life balance allows you to build stronger relationships.

Increases employee retention. A healthy work-life balance can increase employee satisfaction, which in turn helps to retain employees.

Now that you know that a healthy work-life balance has many benefits for employers, including helping you attract and retain employees, you may be wondering how you can promote the work-life balance in your company.

So, here are some tips that can help you ensure that your employees have a good balance between their work responsibilities and personal life:

Conduct surveys on employee work-life balance to find out how your company could improve their work-life balance.

Encourage employees to speak up if they feel stressed and overloaded with work.

Remind your employees to take regular breaks.

Depending on your company policies, allow your employees to visit mental health providers under the same conditions as they would see other healthcare providers.

Provide stress and time management skills training for all employees.

7 Employee Benefits You Can Offer to Improve Work-Life Balance

In addition to the tips mentioned above, you might also want to offer your employees benefits that will improve their work-life balance, such as:

Flexibility. If possible, offer your employees flexible working arrangements, such as remote work, job sharing, compressed hours, and paid or unpaid leave. Ideally, you want all of your employees to individually choose what works best for them.

Workplace daycare. To accommodate employees that have children and promote their work-life balance, you might want to provide an on-site childcare facility. This way, your employees will be able to spend more time with their children without having to sacrifice their work hours.

Volunteering time off. Consider providing paid time off to employees that want to volunteer. Besides promoting a healthy work-life balance, volunteering can positively impact your employees' health and allow them to improve their soft skills, including empathy, patience, and teamwork.

Designated quiet space. Providing a designated quiet space for your employees allows them to take a moment to recharge, collect their thoughts, and relax from the bustling office without having to leave their workplace. To create a welcoming and relaxing atmosphere, offer comfortable seating, reading materials, and calm background music.

Gym facility. If you have the opportunity, provide an on-site gym for your employees to help them easily get their 30 minutes of daily exercise. Alternatively, you can provide your employees with membership discounts at a nearby gym, pool, or yoga studio.

Pet-friendly office. Allowing your employees to bring pets to work can help them reduce stress and improve their work-life balance.

Company outings. Socializing is a key component of a healthy work-life balance, so you may want to organize company outings for your employees to strengthen their social bonds. Ideally, you want to offer them an activity outside the office, such as go-kart racing, bowling, karaoke, board games, paintball, camping, or attending a painting class.

Conclusion

Congrats!

By now, you should be able to not only spot if your work-life balance is getting out of hand but also know exactly what to do to improve it.

And, for all the employers out there, now you know exactly how to promote a healthy work-life balance for your employees so that they're happy, healthy, and productive!

So, here's a quick recap of the key points we've mentioned in this article:

Work-life balance refers to the capability of equally prioritizing both your work and your personal life.

You may experience a decrease in work-life balance if you have too many responsibilities in one area of your life.

To improve your work-life balance, make sure to set a realistic schedule and boundaries, focus on your health, take regular breaks, and clearly communicate your needs.

Among other benefits, a healthy work-life balance improves your productivity, job engagement, overall health, and relationships.

As an employer, you can promote work-life balance by providing your employees with benefits, such as an on-site gym, company outings, designated quiet space, and flexible working arrangements.

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6 Guaranteed Ways to Improve Work-Life Balance in 2023

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And more! So, let's jump right in. Simply put, work-life balance means equally prioritizing your work and personal life. Essentially, a good work-life balance allows you to create harmony between both areas of your life and promotes your physical, emotional, financial, and mental well-being.

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Thanks a lot!

By Laura

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I still feel like death on Monday morning.

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I still feel like death on Monday morning.

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I don’t generally hate Mondays, but I do have to admit that it’s my least favorite day of the week. Going back to the 6 a.m. alarm, stumbling around while I try to wake up, yawning profusely; none of these things are fun to me. And before you tell me to get more sleep, let me please inform the audience that even after a full night of sleep I still feel like death on Monday morning.

Chances are you’ve also felt like that on a Monday. So while catching a quick nap at work would be amazing, it’s probably not going to happen. Instead, try one of these ten tips to make your Monday a touch more bearable
Laura SUtil, blended.

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Monday Sucks! Here are 10 Ways to Make it Suck Less

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Mondays are easily the worst day of the week! Luckily, there are plenty of ways you can start on the right foot. Caffeine also doesn’t hurt!