Management Insights

Is Your Company Single-Friendly?

We have come a long way since senior executives, mostly men with stay-at-home wives, reluctantly caved against the pressure to offer work-life policies. Viewed as an unavoidable hassle, organizations started offering flexible work times, onsite daycares, and remote work arrangements to retain talented female workers with children.

Today, work-life policies are viewed as a strategic asset rather than a nuisance. Flexible work arrangements and parental leave are often accessible to men and women now that it is generally accepted that many men want to care for their children. In this positive trend, however, the focus is on employees who are married with children. This begs the question of what policies exist for single, childless employees. They too, surely, have a life outside of work that needs support.

How Workaholics Can Protect Their Health

The term workaholism is a reference to other addictions, as the behavior (working) is a compulsion that is difficult to control, while it has harmful consequences. Indeed, research shows that workaholics have poorer family relationships, well-being, and health. Before we jump to conclusions, however, it is important to unravel what precisely makes workaholism unhealthy.

How To Motivate Gen Z, A Generation That Wants More Life Than Work

Millennials (born in 1981 - 1995) now take up the largest share of the labor market, while Gen Z (born in 1996 - 2012) is gradually joining the workforce. Work-life balance is a key factor for Gen Z when choosing a job, and millennials value family life more highly than previous generations.

What does this mean for organizations? Should we brace ourselves for a workforce that views their job as a ‘nice to have’ pastime? Will employees do the bare minimum at work? Research suggests that the future is not so bleak.

Why It Pays Off To Be a Kind Leader

In many workplaces, masculine traits are celebrated and encouraged. The best leaders are thought to be strong, decisive, and agentic. When describing leaders, we are less likely to use feminine traits such as communion, communication, and kindness.

Yet kindness is often precisely what is needed at work. There is a clear business case for kind leadership. To find out how kindness drives results, I researched what kind leadership is, its return, and how we can practice it.