Mouna El Mansouri, Karoline Strauss and Doris Fay

We’ve all been there: after proactively trying to streamline a process at work, you feel mentally drained and less able to perform other tasks well. But did taking initiative to improve your job tasks actually make you worse at other activities by the end of the day? A new study of French workers found strong evidence that the more workers try to improve tasks, the worse their mental performance by closing time. This has implications for how companies can best support their teams so they have what they need to be proactive without becoming mentally fatigued.

Loujaina Abdelwahed

What do employees value most in their workplace—and how do those priorities evolve over time? In previous work, we have shown that culture and values consistently rank among the most important drivers of employee satisfaction, particularly for working parents, which highly contributes to employee retention. We have also shown that employee sentiment is far from static: employees are highly affected by changes in macroeconomic conditions.

Zach Mercurio

According to recent research, just 39% of employees strongly agreed that someone at work cares for them as a person. Additional research shows that 30% feel “invisible” and 27% feel “ignored.” It’s hard for people to care or be engaged at work if they don’t first feel cared for. Feeling seen is essential to fulfilling our fundamental need to matter—a prerequisite for motivation, well-being, and lasting engagement.

Jason Kitcat

The Department for Business and Trade's Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) team talk people, products and professions.

Tine Bieber

How a self-managed Dutch team is redefining humanitarian aid in Ukraine—faster, freer, and without bureaucracy. This is what purpose in action looks like.

Markus Reitzig and Kathrin Heiss

Flattening an organizational hierarchy tends to attract employees who thrive on autonomy, leading to a cultural shift.

Kelli Korducki

Your dev team hates Jira and will bend over backwards to get around using it. Big problem or smart solution?

Olusiji David Obadofin

Do you find that your team constantly misses deadlines and feels miserable in the process? It might be a workflow problem.

Jeffrey D. Camm and Lucy D’Agostino McGowan

Senior leaders are likely to be a consumer of statistics calculated by their direct reports to help them make informed decisions. While data are observed, the presenter decides which statistics are relevant in a particular context. Should the average of the data be presented? Should the standard deviation also be presented? The authors argue that there is one basic statistical issue in how we look at data—the use of percentages can be used in confusing ways to influence others. The confusion typically resides with the denominator. As leaders, we need to talk back to the data. One simple but enlightening question to ask is “What’s the denominator?”

Chantal Kapani

Tech firms like Duolingo, Klarna, and Shopify are going AI-first — boosting efficiency but cutting jobs. Is AI the future of work, or a threat to engineers?