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Bosses Spend More Personal Time on Social Media Than Subordinates
Walk by any employee’s work station on a given day and you may see that person quickly closing a Facebook or Twitter page from his or her computer desktop. No one wants to get caught tweeting or posting Instagram pictures when they’re supposed to be working. But studies indicate that four out of five employees now use social media for personal use during working hours. A Norwegian study, however, shows that managers and executives, while critical of employees’ social media use at work, spend more time using social media during office hours than do their subordinates.
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Observation Skills May be Key Ingredient to Creativity
University of Amsterdam researchers explored whether there could be a link between various aspects of mindfulness and aspects of creative thinking.
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Job Insecurity: It’s Not Just the Economy, Stupid
The economic instability that has swept the globe over the last six years has largely snuffed people’s confidence in their job security. And that wariness does nothing to improve organizations’ financial success. A 2008 study showed that job insecurity erodes commitment and performance, not to mention health. The pessimism in the workforce could therefore create a vicious cycle of lackluster economic growth; as workers worry about getting pink slips, their productivity declines and profits drop. And as profits drop, workers fret even more about their jobs.
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Does Your Sexual Orientation Shape Your Career Plans?
Lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals gained some new strides against discrimination this week when President Barack Obama announced plans to bar federal contractors from hiring or firing employees based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. But despite job protections, marriage equality laws and other protections that members of the LGB community are garnering, many of them believe their sexual identities will at some point encumber their careers, research indicates. And that expectation may have at least some degree of influence on their actual career choices.
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Stand Up for Better Meetings
In the wake of recent studies showing the health consequences of prolonged sitting, many professionals have begun standing at their work stations, and even in meetings. New research shows that eschewing a chair has a profound effect on group productivity. Standing during meetings boosts the excitement around creative group processes and reduces people's tendency to defend their turf, according to the study. Behavioral researchers Andrew Knight and Markus Bauer of Washington University wanted to explore the group dynamics that arose in meetings without chairs. They designed an experiment in which participants work in teams for 30 minutes to develop and record a university recruitment video.
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Workplace Ostracism More Distressing Than Harassment
Being ignored, excluded, or overlooked at work inflicts more damage on our physical and mental health than does being harassed, a new study shows. Canadian researchers found that while most people consider workplace ostracism more benign than harassment, such exclusion is actually more likely to spur job dissatisfaction, health problems, and resignations. Led by Jane O’Reilly of University of Ottawa, the research team theorized that ostracism is a more common experience at work than is harassment, and wanted to see how employees perceive those conditions. They conducted an online survey of US workers from an array of industries.
