Much has been said about the open office floor plan. The concept arose out of Silicon Valley and became a popular way to supposedly create “collaborative” work environments where innovation happens. Oh, and as an added bonus, companies saved a lot of money designing office spaces as open. I’m not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg- the realization that money could be saved this way, or that “collaboration” and therefore innovation would thrive in this type of design. But in many studies, including this one: The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration, it was found
We conducted a focus group about a year ago with a group of business leaders around the idea of organizational values and culture. In this focus group, we presented seven key values, based on research that defined organizational culture. The goal was to see what these professionals thought about these seven values in the context of a broader assessment product. And whether this values set could predict a company’s culture in order to match candidates to cultures that align with individual the candidates’ values. Often things like this come down to semantics, but one piece of feedback where there was
Immigration is a hot topic whether you have an opinion on it or not. And most people do. This isn’t a post to comment on to build or not build a wall, but to deal with the reality that immigration scrutiny is on the rise for businesses. Are you prepared as a business leader for what that means? One reality is that it is harder to get and keep visas for those who are not U.S. citizens. One proposed change being discussed to H1-B Visas is to limit them to only positions that have a minimum salary of $130,000 a
I’m pregnant. With our third child. We are beyond excited and joyful about this new life coming into existence. But when you have an 8-year-old and almost 5-year-old, you and your husband both have demanding yet rewarding careers, and you are what the doctors call old enough to be of “advanced maternal age,” you get some interesting comments when you tell people this news. Some of my favorites have been: “You know, they say women with three kids are the most stressed.” “Well, when did that happen?” (I’m not sure if they were asking about conception or the decision to
During my bout with the flu when my husband was proceeding to tell me about how busy his calendar was, he showed it to me on his phone later. He actually did this while we were in the emergency room while I was hooked up to an IV that was administering fluids and nausea drugs to me while I waited to be admitted. Hey, there is only so much you can talk about in the ER. I was somewhat out of it (go figure) but talking about his schedule for the week reminded me of some good habits we ought