Latest news with #workculture
CBS News
8 hours ago
- Business
- CBS News
Dressing for success or betrayal? The dividing line between dress codes, remote work, and employers
So many things are changing in the workplace, especially as more and more employers pull workers back into the office. One of the big challenges, which is becoming a generational sticking point, is the dress codes. Mainly, the younger generation doesn't like it. We knew it was coming; the return to the office was forecasted by employers three years ago. "Here we are, in the middle of 2025, and there's a huge push to get everybody back to the office at least three days, and even more pushing for five days per week," said human resources and employment attorney Zach Bombatch. Bombatch said it can be financially tough for those who have grown accustomed to working from home in casual clothing. "Especially if they haven't shopped for a full wardrobe or updated their wardrobe in the last five years," he said. "They're going to all of a sudden spend a lot of money on new dress clothes or clothes that they need or want to wear to work." Bombatch also said he has noticed that the push isn't just in the office, but that there are employers mandating what people wear even when they're working remotely. He said that there is a method to the madness. "We don't want clients or customers to get the feeling that if you're dressed more casually, you're not taking your work as seriously," he explained. He said that attire speaks, and expecting people to still dress neatly and clean sends a professional message. For some, the dress code can get specific. "[It can] prohibit sleeveless clothing for everybody, too revealing clothing, things like that," he said. "That's just really a decorum factor. It's not meant to necessarily go after anybody. It's just to make sure that everybody is comfortable." However, he did say that most dress codes, when it comes to working with clients, simply state to meet with your boss and make sure your attire is acceptable for work, but it can be a fine line. "The more rigid these policies, the more challenging it can be to retain talent," Bombatch said. "I think that the younger generations are not keen to show up to work in business professional attire." Bombatch said some employees are feeling betrayed because they were hired to work casually and remotely, but now are being pulled into the office and having to dress better. That can be a breaking point.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Senior X executive concedes 48-hour window for Twitter staff to decide future was ‘not ideal'
Giving Twitter staff just 48 hours to decide whether or not to accept an offer of severance contained in an email from the company's then new owner Elon Musk without knowing what the final terms would be was 'not ideal', a senior HR executive with the company conceded. Lauren Wegman, senior director of people experience at what is now called X , told the Labour Court the company was 'three to four months' away from becoming insolvent and had to move quickly. In the November 2022 Fork In the Road email, Mr Musk said staff needed to tick a box in order to sign up to a new 'hardcore' work culture at the firm or they would be deemed to have resigned their positions with the company and receive three month's pay as severance. The company is appealing awards totalling €550,131 by the Workplace Relations Commission to a former senior manager at its Dublin office, Gary Rooney, who did not tick the box and was subsequently held by Twitter to have resigned. READ MORE On Wednesday, the Labour Court heard Mr Rooney, whose severance package under the terms of the 'offer' was a little more than €20,000, had received gross pay, including share bonuses related to the company share price, of €334,114,84 during 2022. The WRC held that the time frame set out in the Musk email involved could not be considered 'reasonable notice' to allow an employee to make an informed decision on the email's contents. During Wednesday's proceedings, Ms Wegman acknowledged in response to questioning by Padraic Lyons for Mr Rooney that the lack of detail relating to severance package was 'not ideal' but that providing more comprehensive information at the time 'was not possible'. This, she said, was because the company 'three to four months' away from becoming insolvent and had to move quickly. Mr Lyons contested this, saying official company's messaging for the first two quarters of 2022 had suggested it was profitable. Ms Wegman said a variety of factors contributed to a declining financial position. When it was put to her that the time frame and options presented to employees in Mr Musk's email, including that inaction was taken to be decision to resign, had been 'arbitrary and irrational', Ms Wegman said 'it would have been nice to have a 'no' box but that wasn't part of the design'. Despite that, she said, a majority of employees had clicked the box indicating they wished to continue to working with the company ahead of the deadline and she believed the choice set out had been both reasonable and clear. While some of the way things had been done had not been 'ideal', she said, there was 'a lot of context' and it had been 'a very extraordinary time'. The process had not been 'very easy', she said, for the employer which was left with many 'gaps in terms of critical skills' and had been challenging for a HR department that had lost roughly half of its staff in the preceding weeks during which an initial round of cost cutting was implemented by the new owner. She rejected the suggestion the email represented an ultimatum to the company's roughly 4,000 remaining employees but Mr Lyons said it was 'the very definition of an ultimatum'. He put it to her it was completely unreasonable that Mr Rooney had been given 46 hours, less the time he was asleep 'to deal with this bombshell'. She said she had responded within that time frame. Responding to the suggestion Mr Rooney did not know what he might be signing up to in terms of increased workload, expectation or hours, she said his company record suggested he was a high performer. She considered herself a high performer too, she said, and had not, as a consequence, believed she had anything to fear.
Fast Company
a day ago
- Business
- Fast Company
We have to stop working like it's 1999
When I started my career in an ad agency in the mid-'90s, the environment was surprisingly similar to what's portrayed in the drama Mad Men. While the typewriters were being replaced by word processors and phone calls came directly to our desks, we were reporting to the office every day, huddling up by the water cooler, and making sure we looked busy when management walked by. Decisions were made in meetings, and important information was stored in the file cabinets. Work culture was also startlingly the same. Yes, we—Gen X—benefited from the efforts of our predecessors to reform sexist, racist, and unsafe work environments. But our awareness as to how well these reforms were working was largely limited to our own experience. Meanwhile, the longstanding social contract between employers and employees was intact. Employers provide a paycheck, and employees feel grateful and loyal to their organizations. Case closed. The generations behind us have a remarkable advantage: social media. The unspoken rules demanding we protect our organization's reputation and keep our salaries a secret have been demolished. Now, in a few clicks, you can see unfiltered reviews of the work experience and pay scales at thousands of companies. And, since employees are no longer constrained by geographic boundaries, they have more choices than ever. The extensive research into what Millennials and Gen Z want at work has revealed the following requirements: • Work that is meaningful and aligned with their values • The opportunity to learn, grow, and advance (quickly!) • Flexibility and a clear boundary between work and life • Managers who proactively support and develop them • Compensation that accounts for the high cost of housing Gen Z has exactly zero tolerance for the status quo that Gen X experienced. They are not willing to be absorbed into the corporate machinery because they fundamentally don't trust it. Nor should they. Many, if not most, organizations are clinging to the 'good old days,' assuming that they still have the upper hand and treating employees as infinitely replaceable. Take, for example, the imperious post-COVID return-to-work mandates. While there is mounting evidence that hybrid work is at least as or more productive than fully in-office, a significant number of big brands are enforcing RTO. The CEOs of these organizations, including places like Amazon, AT&T, and JP Morgan, have 'put their foot down' about flexible work. Ironically, their organizations are now expending a lot of energy taking attendance rather than focusing on their core work. It's neither easy nor comfortable when things change in ways you neither expected nor like (take it from a woman whose first telephone was a rotary dial), but it's also reality. If you want to attract and retain top talent, you have to create work environments that enable them to thrive. You can either wait for it to be a talent crisis or start reconsidering your work environment now. Start by asking yourself a few questions: • If I were 25, would I want to work for my organization? • What about it supports me as a person? • What about it supports me as a professional? • Will I be able to do my best work here and be rewarded for it? • Is it clear how I'll be able to advance? • Will I be able to succeed while still maintaining a healthy boundary between work and my personal life? • What 'nonsense' might I encounter that makes my job harder than it needs to be, e.g., meeting madness, document scavenger hunts, etc.? If you don't like the results of your self-examination, it's time to throw away the old playbook and management models and start over. Incremental change is not sufficient to get you where Gen Z demands that you be.
WIRED
23-07-2025
- Business
- WIRED
Silicon Valley AI Startups Are Embracing China's Controversial ‘996' Work Schedule
Jul 23, 2025 5:30 AM In an industry once known for cushy perks, some founders are now asking staff to commit to a 72-hour weekly schedule. You're either in or you're out. Photo-Illustration:Would you like to work nearly double the standard 40-hour week? It's a question that many startups in the US are asking prospective employees—and to get the job, the answer needs to be an unequivocal yes. These companies are embracing an intense schedule, first popularized in mainland China, known as '996,' or 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week. In other words, it's a 72-hour work week. The 996 phenomenon in China gave rise to major protests and accusations of 'modern slavery,' with critics blaming the schedule for a spate of worker deaths. Despite the negative connotations overseas, US firms, many of them working on artificial intelligence, are adopting both the schedule and its nickname as they race to compete against each other—and with China. Adrian Kinnersley, a serial entrepreneur who runs both a staffing and recruitment company and an employment compliance startup, has been surprised by how many startups are going all-in on 996. 'It's becoming increasingly common,' he says. 'We have multiple clients where a prerequisite for screening candidates before they go for an interview is whether they are prepared to work 996.' At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, conversations about conditions for workers in the United States often centered around burnout and the need for increased flexibility. Even in the notoriously hard-charging tech sector, companies began emphasizing efforts to facilitate a balanced schedule. Now, the surge in interest in 996 demonstrates the pendulum has swung the other way. It echoes Elon Musk's 'extremely hardcore' ultimatum to X employees, which encouraged them to work punishing hours. Companies aren't having trouble finding willing employees, and some frame it as core to their work culture. Rilla, an AI startup that sells software designed for contractors (like plumbers) to record conversations with prospective clients and coach them on how to negotiate higher rates, says nearly all of its 80-person workforce adheres to the 996 schedule. 'There's a really strong and growing subculture of people, especially in my generation—Gen Z—who grew up listening to stories of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, entrepreneurs who dedicated their lives to building life-changing companies,' says Will Gao, the company's head of growth. 'Kobe Bryant dedicated all his waking hours to basketball, and I don't think there's a lot of people saying that Kobe Bryant shouldn't have worked as hard as he did.' Rilla is up front about its expectations. In current job listings, it explicitly states that workers are expected to log more than 70 hours a week, warning them not to join if they aren't 'excited' about the schedule. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are provided at the office every day—even on Saturdays. Amrita Bhasin, the CEO of AI logistics startup Sotira, says that it's common for Bay Area founders to adopt the schedule as they grow: 'The first two years of your startup, you kind of have to do 996,' she says. While Bhasin sees the demanding workload as essentially mandatory for company leaders, she doesn't think that rank-and-file employees should be expected to keep pace: 'I don't think it's fair to push it onto them.' Some founders pitch the schedule as an option for their most devoted employees, creating a two-tiered structure where only some employees are expected to work the extra hours. Ritchie Cartwright, founder of the San Francisco–based telehealth company Fella & Delilah, recently posted about a message he'd sent to employees on LinkedIn, outlining his efforts to shift some of his current staff to a 996 schedule. To entice workers to get on board, Fella & Delilah offered a 25 percent pay increase and a 100 percent increase in equity to willing participants. Just under 10 percent of the staff has signed up, the LinkedIn post claimed. (Cartwright did not respond to requests for comment.) In 2021, after years of increasing pushback from workers, the Chinese government cracked down on the widespread 996 practice, which was technically illegal but seldom enforced. While still commonplace in the tech sector, some companies have backed off, at least publicly. Globally, though, 996 appears to be on the rise. This summer, UK-based venture capitalist Harry Stebbings helped spur a lively debate over the trend's adoption when he argued that 996 might not be enough—and that truly ambitious startups might need to go even harder to keep up. 'The truth is, China's really doing '007' now—midnight to midnight, seven days a week, and they just have a rotational workforce,' he says. 'If you want to build a $100 million company, you can do it on five days a week. But if you want to build a $10 billion company, you have to work seven days a week.' Stebbings says US-based companies and their employees are currently far more enthusiastic about 996 than their European counterparts. 'People in Europe seem shocked when you ask them to work the weekend,' he explains. Adrian Kinnersley, the entrepreneur who runs a staffing and recruitment startup, has been alarmed by how many companies pushing 996 appear to be 'wildly noncompliant' with US labor laws. While many employees in the tech sector may be exempt from overtime pay, Kinnersley says he has seen some companies not even bothering to issue employee classifications. 'California is the epicenter of AI, and where a lot of the 996 culture is coming from, and it has the most employee-friendly employment law in the whole United States,' he says. 'There's almost a hysteria in the rush to create AI products, and a lot of very young, highly intelligent people, in their fervor, are forgetting all the risks they're creating, all the massive liabilities.' Despite his reservations, he doesn't think the work schedule is going way anytime soon in the United States. 'I just registered the domain he says.
Fast Company
23-07-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
I'm an HP exec: I believe employees should have the right to work multiple jobs
The controversy surrounding Soham Parekh, the software engineer accused of secretly holding multiple jobs, has sparked a predictable backlash against 'overemployment.' Parekh's methods—he reportedly misled multiple employers—were clearly unethical, but this shouldn't obscure a broader question: Is it time to rethink our antipathy toward employees holding multiple jobs? A double standard? Parekh's case notwithstanding, there's a deeper structural issue at play. Why should it be acceptable for some CEOs to hold leadership roles at multiple companies yet unacceptable for a talented marketer or software engineer to have multiple jobs? The world of work has fundamentally changed, and limiting people to one job is an outdated idea that doesn't benefit anyone. Startups have embraced fractional executives; CFOs, CMOs, and other senior positions going part time is now standard practice. However, large corporations continue to address similar needs exclusively through consulting arrangements. This highlights a significant gap in how organizations approach talent acquisition and utilization. This disparity provides valuable context for understanding why employees may resort to undisclosed secondary employment. By establishing clear policies and frameworks for multiple job arrangements, organizations could provide more transparent alternatives to the current trend of covert moonlighting. The gap between evolving work patterns and traditional corporate structures points to an opportunity for more adaptive talent management strategies. The inevitable shift Workers don't have it easy today. Fresh graduates worry about their job prospects as entry-level roles shift to AI. Warehouse workers face replacement by robots. Large corporations continue to outsource jobs to cheaper sources of labor. We need to tilt the scales back in favor of workers and create an environment where talented and productive people can make a better living. By removing the taboo of overemployment, we would create an environment where honesty is rewarded over secrecy. AI is only going to make performing multiple jobs (a lot) easier. We should get ahead of this trend and bring it out into the open instead of pretending it won't happen. How many other Soham Parekhs are out there today, perhaps working at your own company? We really have no idea, but there are likely to be more of them moving forward. Toward mutual benefit This isn't just about employee flexibility; it could be a win for employers who are struggling to retain talent amid strict return-to-office mandates (another antiquated idea). It would allow enterprises to become more agile, tapping into top-tier talent only when needed. Furthermore, this shift would encourage a focus on outcomes and productivity rather than just managing hours in the office. The root cause of overemployment isn't that it's unethical, it's that we're forcing it underground. The real scandal isn't workers maximizing their earning potential; it's employers clinging to the primitive concepts that they own their employees' entire productive capacity. Transparent overemployment could actually strengthen the job market. Imagine if companies had to compete not just on salary, but on being the kind of workplace that actually cares about the employee experience. While we can all acknowledge the shift in traditional corporate jobs isn't going to be easy or happen overnight, we must also accept that the current system punishes honesty and rewards deception. We've turned competent professionals into corporate double agents. This isn't sustainable, and it's certainly not efficient. The question isn't whether overemployment will continue, it's whether we'll legitimize it before the whole charade collapses under its own absurdity. The industrial age is dead, but we're still using its rule book. While AI copilots and agentic workflows obliterate the tedious grunt work that once consumed entire careers, we're clinging to antiquated notions of what constitutes a 'full-time' commitment. The math is brutal: If machines can handle the repetitive tasks that fill 40-hour weeks, why are we pretending humans still need to be chained to single desks?
