In some ways, the consequences of the increases to come in remote working and hybrid work arrangements on a more permanent basis read almost like the children’s favorite, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. That is because if less workers are working regularly in offices, then organizations — the government included — will need less office space. And if there is less demand for office space, rents will go down. And if rents go down, that is good news for the renting organization (including the government), because they will be spending less on offices — with rent really only…

Offices and the Need for Office Space Will Dramatically Change in the New Post-pandemic World of Work

For this management professor and consultant, one of the more fascinating aspects of the move to the “next normal” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic will be the changing nature of the office, both in function and in form. Certainly, during the course of the pandemic, employers and landlords were forced to largely improvise to make buildings “safer” for workers (instituting measures such as one-way walkways, eliminating desk and chairs for social distancing, providing lots of hand sanitizer, etc.). …

Here’s why working from home can be bad for your career — and what companies can do about the issue

Certainly, managing remote workers — whether they are 100% WFH (work from home) or partially remote — is a different kind of management in practice, as one has to manage less based on observation and more based on performance — which is not a bad thing overall! However, one of the very real, and very important, issues that all organizations, private and public alike, will have to deal with as work increasingly shifts to a remote or hybrid format is a new form of discrimination — that being against remote workers.

One of the very real fears — and a…

How Should Remote Workers Be Selected and Evaluated?

Moving forward, it will not be enough — for any of us — to make managerial decisions, whether on the micro level for individual employees and their supervisors or on the macro level for organizations and government agencies, to have just the kind of anecdotal, largely self-reported data that we have had to date regarding remote work. For everything from employee productivity and engagement to organizational outcomes to the costs and savings associated with working from home, there should be a real push — both by companies, large and small alike, and by government agencies, both as employers and as…

Certainly, one of the most critical issues involved with remote working — and one that most assuredly keeps CIO’s (Chief Information Officers) and other information technology executives in the private and public sectors up late at night worried about — is the whole issue of data security. And when talking about a governmental entity, the information security issues and concerns rise to a whole new level of complexity and importance over that found in most private sector environments. …

Will workers be more productive working from home? That today is literally foremost among the biggest unknowns for managers everywhere, with really no easy or confirmable answer to that question at this point in time. Research into the productivity question during the pandemic has seemed to indicate that despite us being shifted to working from home abruptly and that the shift brought on an “imperfect experiment “ in working remotely, overall, workers in the United States at least seem to be able to be as productive, if not moreso, in the remote/WFH (work from home) environment as in the traditional…

Introduction

There is no more important factor in a company’s reputation than the perception that it is an ethical company. And that perception — both from an individual consumer’s perception and across wider society — can be changed in an instant. One bad customer interaction. One bad social media post. One indictment of an executive. One exposé on the evening news about a questionable company practice. These days, a company’s reputation when it comes to the ethics of its people, its practices, its standing — is literally on the line each and every day.

Companies can do a great deal to…

New research on Consumers’ Perceptions of America’s Most Visible Companies on their potential for growth

Introduction

In this day and age, perception is everything. Whether we are talking about entertainment, the media, politics, or yes, marketing, how the public perceives you and what you are offering is the most important thing today. You can be viewed as a “hot” commodity — as an entertainer, a politician, a social influencer, or a company and its brands. On the flip side, you can be looked upon as something less than “hot” — a “has been” or even a “never was.” …