Blind is an app that provides an anonymous forum and community for verified employees to discuss issues. Users on Blind are grouped by topics, company and their broader industry. The app verifies that the registered users actually work in the company through their work email and it keeps user identities untraceable through patented technology.

We’ve all been conditioned to accept being paid every two weeks or longer. While many Americans faced financial hardships during the pandemic, corporations held onto their wages and earned interest on it. By waiting weeks before workers are paid, your company earns interest on your money. This doesn’t seem very fair. There has to be a better system.

Looking into this matter, I spoke with Jeanniey Walden, Chief Innovation and Marketing Officer at DailyPay. Walden says that the two-week pay cycle is based on an antiquated financial system dating back to around 70 years ago. With all our technology, it's irrational to keep doing what we’ve been doing for decades. Her company, DailyPay, made it their goal to envision a better, fairer way to pay people.

Employers now possess the software prowess to provide their workers with the financial wellness they deserve, and can alter the way pay periods work. It's not a cash advance, nor are there any catches. DailyPay is precisely what their name says: a worker can track the pay they’ve accrued, and gain access to it when you want it. The future of work is largely tech-driven, and people can now immediately gain access to their hard earned money without having to wait weeks or longer.

The General Assembly of the National Association of Bonded Warehouses, AC, unanimously re-elected Julio Fernando Smithers Jiménez as its president for the period 2020-2022, who highlighted among his priorities for this new management the participation of ANAFAC in the construction of the new cargo terminal of the Felipe Ángeles International Airport, in addition to strengthening sanitary measures for the prevention of Covid-19 in the facilities of its members, with the aim of maintaining the flow of foreign trade.

"For us it is very important to continue helping with the Mexican government as facilitators, to make the flow of merchandise at an international level agile and in this way collaborate with this important part for our country that is the commercial relationship with the world."

Two Young Black Entrepreneurs Started An EdTech School To Help Underserved Groups Pivot Into Fast-Growing, Well-Paying Tech Jobs

A tornado knocking out your building, followed by the Covid-19 outbreak is not a good way to start a business. Despite some early challenges, Joshua Mundy and Quawn Clark founded Pivot Technology School, a fast-growing Tennessee-based EdTech startup. Isaac Y. Addae, an assistant professor at Tennessee State University, joined the duo as Chief Strategy Officer.

The tech training school is a “Black-owned, fully remote technology education hub that supports minorities interested in technology careers.” Its mission is to “empower minority students with in-demand technical skills, in an industry that historically lacks racial diversity, and build a 100 million dollar business.” The company trains “minorities to get into tech roles and are working with corporate partners to upskill their talent.”

"There are less than 3% of minorities that have tech careers and we want to change that paradigm and create pipelines of highly trained talent to these organizations. We want to expose as many adults as possible to coding and data analytics,” said Mundy.

Clark said about the team’s ambitious goals, "Our mission is to create and grow incentive-aligned avenues that empower a highly diverse demographic to break into the technology industry.”

Based in Nashville, it strives to empower an underserved, diverse demographic by providing industry-leading training in high-demand technology skills. Pivot offers cybersecurity, data analytics, web development, full-stack engineering and other coursework, in a 20-week, virtual, boot-camp-style program.

The tech-teaching company has a unique business plan. The EdTech startup seeks out corporate partners that want and need to upskill their current workforce to gain the knowledge and tools to succeed in this new era of rapid change and innovation. The business taps into the Great Resignation trend and war-for-talent, tight job market, as empathetic employers recognize they need to continually train their employees and offer them the ability to grow within the organization; otherwise, they’ll lose their best and brightest talent.

Corporations that are interested in upskilling and retraining employees and offer diversity and inclusion in the workplace turn to Pivot. The school has partnerships with Shipt, a division of Target, and Amazon. Shipt sponsored around 32 individuals who participated in a 20-week program, where they will learn core competencies—ranging from backend development to data analytics.

Belgium Is The Latest Country To Join The Four-Day Workweek

To enhance the quality of the lives of Belgium workers, the European country previously announced that thousands of federal civil servants will no longer have to answer calls or emails from their bosses outside of working hours. Around 65,000 government workers earned “the right to disconnect," in hopes of leading a better work-life balance.

Now, in another employee-empowerment policy, workers in Belgium will be entitled to a four-day workweek.

In addition to Belgium, here are other countries that are piloting a four-day workweek: Scotland, Spain, Japan, Iceland—and maybe the U.S.

If Companies Really Want To Attract Candidates, Offer Them Five-Hour Workdays

Companies concerned about the Great Resignation and trying to find, attract, recruit and retain talent should first do one thing: ask the candidate what they want. It sounds simple, but this doesn’t happen. Businesses offer a take-it-or-leave-it package. Instead of customizing a total salary and benefits plan, they offer a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all policy.

The pandemic has made us think differently. While we want to be paid well, there is more to the picture. Here are some of the things that management should take into consideration when they are interviewing applicants. If businesses are serious about getting the best talent, they need to think outside of the box and become creative. A good place to start is by offering a four or five-hour workday.

The Four Or Five-Hour Workday

There is no reason why a person has to work for eight hours a day. It's an outdated construct from the past. During the last two years of the pandemic, people have worked remotely and spent considerably more than eight hours a day working. They also put in late nights and weekends. Partly this was done, as there wasn’t much else to do during Covid-19 lockdowns. Also, there was the prevalent fear of losing your job.

It became crystal clear that pre-pandemic workers were judged by face time in the office. Now, at home, the metric is output and production. It's more important what a person does than how many hours logged in at the office or on the computer.

Since output and productivity is paramount, why is it necessary to put in eight hours? If you are able to get your work assignments accomplished and exceed expectations within five hours, wouldn’t it be fair to call it a day? Businesses have no qualms about making you work late hours if a project needs to get done. If you're ordered to put in the extra hours, it's only fair to clock out when you finish your work, and the work product is exemplary.

A four or five-hour workday would be seen as an employee benefit. It doesn't have to be for everyone. For those interested, the tradeoff is that they will have to get in on time, work diligently without any internet shopping searches and remain dedicatedly focused. If you are able to produce what is expected or exceed expectations, you’re out by around 2 p.m. or 3 p.m.

Flexible Staggered Hours

A record number of women left the workforce due to school closures and the lack of affordable childcare. A big issue during the pandemic was that many working mothers felt the pressure to leave their jobs to take care of their children. It was particularly challenging as public schools closed and the kids had to endure irritating online video classes that necessitated parental help. A flexible and staggered work schedule would smooth out these types of problems.

To accommodate working parents, particularly mothers who usually bear the brunt of childcare, wouldn’t it be reasonable to offer flexible, staggered hours? Let’s say there are dual-working parents with demanding jobs. One of the parents could start their day at about 10:00 a.m. after dropping the kids off at school. At the end of the workday, at about 3 p.m. or 4 p.m., the partner would leave to pick their child up from daycare or preschool.

There’s An Uplifting Movement To Teach CEOs And Executives To

Empathetically Treat Workers Humanely

After nearly two years of enduring a brutal pandemic, we’re having to cope with Omicron surging. Despite the overhang of gloom, we see people striving to make this world a better place.

Pre-pandemic it was a standard and accepted practice to have dictatorial CEOs, executives and middle managers rule with an iron fist without any concerns about the mental health and wellbeing of their workers.

The virus outbreak has made many leaders rethink the way they manage their staff. In a war-for-talent and Great Resignation era, they finally realized it's imperative to display empathy and enact employee-centric policies and procedures to empower their workforce. From a practical standpoint, taking great care of workers is one of the best ways to attract, recruit and retain people.

A leader in this new humanistic approach towards managing people is the Potential Project. The global organization has a bold mission to vastly improve the lives of workers by training and teaching leadership how to effectively and humanely run their companies.

The Potential Project, a Danish based consulting firm, has a global roster of top companies advises an impressive roste of corporate clients including Cisco, IKEA, Microsoft, Unilever, Pfizer, Disney and Accenture.

The organization educates C-suite executives to keep employees feeling happy and engaged. Potential Project calls for a modern day model for leadership, focused on making work more “human-centric” by prioritizing compassion and reducing busyness and creating a more human work world.

Jacqueline Carter, is the director of North America at Potential Project and author of the forthcoming book “Compassionate Leadership: How to do Hard Things in a Human Way.” She is involved with leadership development, change management, consulting, and research along with her colleagues around the world.

The management consulting firm has helped over 550,000 individuals at more than 600 clients to adopt new ways of working and leading. Potential Project delivers solutions globally in 28 countries in 17 languages, in-person and digitally.

Carter points to Satya Nadella, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, and CHRO Kathleen Hogan as examples of progressive leadership. She says that the tech giant exemplifies what new leadership really looks like—the ability to combine a drive for high performance with a drive for high care for employees.

In an interview on Yahoo news, Carter said about Nadella, I think he's humble and he’s really committed to being able to support the development of people. She highlights that the tech CEO possesses two attributes that are the cornerstone of leadership. The first is having a growth mindset. This mindset means you are willing to let go of things that don’t work and switch gears to try different ways of innovating.

Nadella’s leadership is built upon his focus on empathy. He has the ability to see, feel and connect with others. He infused these two principles into the culture of Microsoft.

Carter says that this is what employees today are looking for. They want leaders to be able to make sure that they can make the tough decisions, drive the results, and also create an environment of flexibility, where workers feel cared for, connected and have a sense of belonging, meaning and purpose.

One of the ways to do this is by offering daily pulse checks to determine how the staff is feeling. It's just a simple question to all of their employees worldwide and to be able to find out, how are we doing today?

In A Big Win For Workers—New York City Will Make It Mandatory For Companies To Disclose Salaries On Job Advertisements

It feels like almost everyone is looking for a new job. There are about 11-million jobs available, and each month millions of Americans quit their positions in pursuit of better opportunities. One of the most important aspects of a new job is the compensation. Up until now, the overwhelming majority of companies conveniently left out the salary from their job advertisements.

Lost in the holiday season and the surge in Omicron, there was a piece of great news that went overlooked. Under a new law passed by the New York City Council—which will go into effect in April 2022 if not vetoed by January 14, 2022— employers in New York City will have to include the minimum and maximum starting salary for any "advertised job, promotion or transfer opportunity."

This will be a complete game changer, and bode well for both people searching for a new job and current employees. The piece of legislation pulls back the curtain on salaries, which has often been viewed as a deep dark hidden secret by corporate executives.

This unfair one-sided way of doing business is detrimental to the person seeking out a new job.

An applicant would be forced to interview with three to six plus people for up to six months. After the culmination of the arduous emotionally draining interview process, an offer could be made that is far below the expectations of the eager candidate.

The ordeal was a complete waste of time and energy for everyone involved in the hiring process. The experience looks bad on the company. The disheartened job hunter will surely share this horror story on social media and with friends which could make it harder for the company to recruit people in the future.

Even in this hot, tight job market, the interview process usually entails enduring some rude behaviors, cancellations of interviews at the last moment, lack of feedback, getting ghosted and receiving a lowball offer. When the new law comes into practice, things will be different.

A person will have the ability to see the salary range and make an informed decision to pursue the role or not. There would no longer be any guesswork or wishing that the money will be there at the end of the interview ordeal, as the job hunter will have the compensation range up front.

The bill, which passed with a 41 to 7 vote, states that employers who fail to list minimum and maximum salary ranges for New York City-based roles are engaging in discriminatory practices. This bill applies to advertisements for both private and public sector jobs, as well as promotions and transfer opportunities.

Council member, Helen Rosenthal, said of the new law, “Lack of salary transparency is discriminatory and anti-worker,” and “Every New Yorker should have the right to determine whether they will be able to support themselves and their family when they apply for a job. It is time to level the playing field, and restore some dignity to New Yorkers seeking employment.”

There are pay transparency laws already in California and Colorado, and it's likely with New York aboard, this will spread throughout the country.

In a fairly recent new law enacted by a number of states, it was ordered that businesses couldn’t ask a job hunter how much they earn and what was their salary history. Although it's not a law in all states, a significant number of companies based in locations that don’t have to abide by the ruling, voluntarily adhere to this ‘no questions about compensation will be asked’ policy.

There will be positive, and some unintended consequences resulting from this new rule.

It's Time For Job Seekers To Get Paid for Interviewing

We are in a hot job market. Businesses—ranging from mom-and-pop shops to mammoth global companies, such as Apple and Amazon—are desperately trying to find workers. Managers are also fearful of losing their best and brightest to their competitors.

You’d think in this war-for-talent environment, corporate leaders would bend over backward to attract and retain talent. Many empathetic companies have offered free college tuition payments, remote and hybrid work options, along with mental health days off, Zoom-free Fridays and other initiatives, in an effort to improve the working lives of employees.

There is one aspect that hasn’t changed with the times. Job hunters are still being treated shabbily. They are forced to endure a gauntlet of three to 10 interviews, spanning up to six months. In between meetings, there are gaps of communication and an absence of feedback, which makes applicants wonder what is going on.

Companies arrogantly feel that it is an acceptable practice to make applicants complete tasks. Employers assign work under the guise of seeking to learn if the applicant has the skills for the role.

The requirements range from coding a website, submitting ideas about how to solve a real-life issue that the firm is dealing with to asking a graphic artist to submit samples for the company’s new logo.

These and other undertakings require a significant amount of time and energy. You often hear complaints from candidates that say the company used their ideas without obtaining their permission, nor were they offered any acknowledgement of compensation.

We all know that the job market is incredibly challenging. Companies are having great difficulties finding people, and when they do, they’re subjected to spending hours going to meetings and running the risk of having their bosses find out and potentially losing their jobs. Given this fact pattern, shouldn't companies start paying candidates for their time?

Since this doesn’t already happen, you may feel that this doesn't make sense. Pre-pandemic, we all thought remote work or becoming a digital nomad at scale was impossible. Now, it's been a proven success, as the economy rebounded, the stock market hit record new highs and real estate prices went through the roof.

Consider this—if a company pays an applicant for each interview, even if it's a token amount, they’ll have skin in the game, especially if the firm has tens of thousands of employees, and interviews a significant number of people on a daily basis. All of a sudden, the CEO and C-suite will pay rapt attention to the interview process, as it's costing them money.

When an executive knows that candidates will be paid, the number of interviews will be scrutinized. The CFO will question the necessity of paying a candidate to go on nine interviews instead of wrapping up the process in one day with maybe two interviewers. When you multiply out all of the interviews they force an applicant to undergo, by the amount of interviews that take place on a weekly or monthly, the costs will be substantive.

In a belt-tightening measure, management will quickly issue an edict to slash down the number of interviews, whenever practical. This policy will push hiring managers, recruiters, human resources and talent acquisition professionals to pay rapt attention to how many interviews are really necessary.

Furthermore, hiring personnel will have to be taught how to render a decision on their own without relying upon a consensus from 10 other people—most of whom are loosely connected with the job.

What Leaders Need To Do About The Great Disengagement At Work

As a society, we are more disconnected from one another than ever before. The pandemic sent us home from work. After some adjustment time, we appreciated the benefits of not needing to commute, and having autonomy over our schedule. We weren’t prepared for the downside, feelings of loneliness and isolation.

Isolation

Even if you didn’t love your coworkers, you missed your work wife or husband, and the everyday camaraderie. Being cooped up in a cramped apartment with your children or operating out of a spare room in the house which was retrofitted as an office, you lost touch with the outside world.

We have been through two dreadful years worried about catching or spreading the disease. For many, our primary source of social interaction came from Zoom calls, the Amazon and DoorDash deliver people. Day after day, the ties of old friendships frayed, and we drifted apart from work colleagues and society.

The Gap Between Multi Billionaires And Workers

Millions of Americans were furloughed or fired during the pandemic. While that happened, the CEOs were lavishly paid. In an unanticipated set of events, the stock market cratered in early 2020 and then skyrocket higher setting all time record highs. Top executives and CEOs made fortunes.

The gap between the average worker and leadership was larger than ever before. Seeing Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos and others earn millions and billions of dollars, while you’re just trying to hang on, made people bitter and resentful. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that workers are having a tough time being engaged in their work.

Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is a term used to gauge how involved employees are with the company. It measures a worker’s drive, participation, motivation and commitment. Being engaged at work is critical for the success of the individual, business and customers. If a person loves what she does for a living, derives meaning and purpose in her daily responsibilities, she’ll do a great job. Her boss, peers, subordinates, and customers will appreciate her efforts and show their gratitude.

If you are happy and invested in the company, and know that you’re appreciated, people will notice. Customers and clients will sense that you care. Conversely, if you are dissatisfied and disgruntled, you’ll make everyone you interact with feel miserable.

According to a recent Gallup poll, only 33% of American workers are engaged in their jobs. Over 50% self-reported that they're "just showing up," and 17% describe themselves as "actively disengaged."

What Happens When You’re Disengaged

Disengaged workers lack real close connection to their job. They go through the motions. It's a less than nine-to-five attitude. They’ll likely talk badly about a manager behind their back, gossip, spread rumors and treat customers and clients rudely. There’s no interest in participating in company events and outings. This toxic attitude is like a cancer growing, destroying everything around it.

It is up to company leadership to ensure that people are engaged. They need to make sure that whether it's in the office or remotely, the employee feels comfortable, appreciated and happy. Leadership must outline a set of core values that instill a feeling of trust, respect, dignity, appreciation and career growth.

Psychological Safety

Offer psychological safety. This means that as part of the overall culture, it's okay to fail. If you make a mistake you won’t be publicly chastised or fired. This philosophy will enhance engagement as workers will feel that if they aren’t perfect, fail to meet a deadline or have trouble dealing with a task, that it's okay. The boss and company will understand and get you the help you need to do your job. This could entail offering the services of mentors, coaches, continual education, upskilling and training.