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Employers who sense rising levels of anxiety and signs of disengagement or displeasure in their workplace now have survey data to explain the sources of that unsettling vibe. But those insights also suggest managers need to address the sources of that unhappiness to avoid losing employees to companies that are already doing so. That was the main lesson in a recent study by staff recruitment, management, and payroll software company Remote. It polled 2,000 full-time, desk-based U.S. workers about their perceptions of their workplaces. The overarching message participants sent was theyre worried about the economy, unsure about their career future, and searching for employers they can trust. As a result, many respondents said theyre looking for greater financial and job security, and simultaneously want more input and guidance from employersas well as increased flexibility in their work. Some of those expectations are directly linked to financial pressures many participants said they were under, as well as habits developed under pandemic-era remote working arrangements. Their own money concernsand the increased fears about the economys future that 80 percent of respondents expressedled nearly 20 percent of participants to say theyd already taken on a second job or side hustle. An additional 57 percent say theyre looking to do so, for the same reasons. Rising employee preoccupations with working a second job, along with their pandemic experiences of having worked from home, made flexibility a top priority for all but 11 percent of participants. About a third said their desire for fully remote employment was higher than it was a year ago, with 26 percent saying the same for hybrid. Around 60 percent of both groups said theyd take a pay cut to secure those arrangements, which tend to offer greater range in doing work and also facilitate juggling a side hustle. Interestingly, other replies in the Remote survey indicated that employers providing increased flexibility may help remedy another problem cited: worker complaints about insufficient communication and support.Polling data found just 17 percent of respondents said they were getting enough resources and support to feel stable and engaged on the job. Meanwhile, only 8 percent said their company regularly shares information on how the economy may impact their role or organization, with about a quarter describing those updates as vague. Over a third of participantsor 35 percentsaid they receive no feedback on that from bossesbut wish they did. Unexpectedly, however, 50 percent of people with hybrid arrangements and 46 percent of fully remote employees reported getting higher levels of that information and direction from managers. Meaning, with only 37 percent of in-office respondents feeling the same, organizations with distributed teams may lean more towards intentional, proactive communication, analysis of the findings said. What can employers do to respond to the studys results? Its authors offered the following steps that companies might take to provide workers the honesty, stability, and real investment in their well-being they need and reduce the risks of them seeking these qualities elsewhere instead. Talk about it. Regular, transparent updates help employees feel grounded. Rethink flexibility. Flexible policies have moved out of perk territory, and into the essential camp. Flexible working can be a lifeline for disengaged and anxious employees and for those with needs and responsibilities that dont fit into rigid structures. Invest in development. Clear career paths build security and loyalty. Support financial wellness. Educational resources can go a long way. Create space for dialogue. Especially when the conversations are hard. The findings serve as a reminder that people-first leadership isnt about guesswork, but listening, responding, and proactively creating environments where employees can maintain stability and productivity, even in uncertain times, instead, noted Remotes chief people officer, Barbara Matthews. By Bruce Crumley This article originally appeared on Fast Company‘s sister publication, Inc. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman isn’t shy about discussing the future of AI. As the CEO of a market leading company, his predictions carry plenty of weight, such as his worry that AI could make things go horribly wrong, or that AI agents will completely transform the workplace. Nor is billionaire Mark Cuban, who also sees vast changes to an AI-dominated workplace. Altman’s recent remarks to finance executives at a Federal Reserve conference on large banks and capital requirements included his belief that entire job categories will be eaten up by AI. He said customer service is all but completely ready for an AI takeover right now, as reported by the Guardian newspaper. “Thats a category where I just say, you know what, when you call customer support, youre on target and AI, and thats fine, he said. When a user calls a hotline now, AI answers, and its like a super-smart, capable person, Altman explained, adding that theres no phone tree, theres no transfers. It can do everything that any customer support agent at that company could do. It does not make mistakes. Its very quick. You call once, the thing just happens, its done. You may have already encountered an AI customer service system, or at the very least spoken briefly to one before being forwarded to a person with the info youre seeking. And anecdotally, if Altmans promise of no mistakes proves true, then thats a huge sell for customer service departmentsand consumer satisfaction. (We all know how frustrating it can be calling these lines.) What an AI can offer under these circumstances is also clearly defined: customers probably call with a discrete set of common issues, and the AI can be trained on what to do. But the next industry Altman said was ripe for an AI takeover is more complex, requiring deep knowledge and empathy, and there are much higher stakes at play. According to the AI CEO, AI is already better than human doctors. It can, most of the time, surpass human physician skills, he argued, suggesting its a better diagnostician than most doctors in the world. But then he pointed out a very human truth: people still go to doctors, he said, and he added that he felt the same, maybe Im a dinosaur here, but I really do not want to, like, entrust my medical fate to ChatGPT with no human doctor in the loop. That at least aligns with warnings from medical experts who say that while AI may be useful for medical advice under some circumstances, like helping to make medical notes, its just too subject to misinformation errors to be trusted to give mental health advice or diagnoses, for example. In fact a group of therapists recently warned of the danger in doing so. Altman also told the bankers that hes worried near future AIs could be used by bad actors, perhaps based overseas, to attack the U.S. financial system. He cited the issue of AI voice clones as a direct risk. While hes not predicting AI will steal banking jobs here, he is essentially warning that the entire industry could be upended by AI, used the wrong way. You may think Altman is being unnecessarily doomy here. In this case, you may be more aligned with the thinking of billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban. Hes just suggested that in his expert mind, AI will become a baseline workplace skill inside five years. Essentially he thinks that like email or Excel, everyone, from fresh graduates to practiced entrepreneurs, will have to master AI to succeed at their tasks. in an interview with Fortune, Cuban predicted that thanks to the force multiplying effects AI can have, well see more people working for themselves thanks to the rise of AI assistants, possibly powered by agent AI tech, which can transform solo founders into full teams. And worse, if youre note already using AI to move faster or make smarter decisions, youre behind, he said. While framed more positively than Altmans statements, a closer look says Cuban is still predicting whole classes of jobs will disappear inside five years. Why would a startup CEO need a personal assistant, a coding expert or a marketing adviser if all those tasks could be done by next-gen AI? All of this, while interesting, could be dismissed as mere PR for the AI industry, but you should actually care about this expert advice. Altmans warnings could have you looking at what tasks you already feel comfortable outsourcing to an AI tool instead of a human worker. And then, taking Cubans advice, you should consider taking time to properly educate yourself about the promises and risks of AI technology, and also plan on upskilling or reskilling your existing staff. The potential efficiencies AI promises mean they could By Kit Eaton This article originally appeared on Fast Company‘s sister publication, Inc. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
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This fall, for the first time in four years, meat will be back on the menu at New York Citys legendary Eleven Madison Park restaurant. Its a notable about-face for chef Daniel Humm, who had famously eliminated all animal products from his menuand evangelized a new way forward for fine diningwhen the restaurant reemerged after the pandemic. Humm had something of an environmental awakening during Eleven Madison Parks pandemic closure. He realized, he said at the time, that he couldnt go back to business as usual. It was a calculus all sorts of businesses were making. Business as usual had gotten us into the pandemic mess in the first place, and when the world shut down to contain COVID, we saw glimpses of a possible different future: emissions dropped, smog cleared, animals rewilded our landscapes. For Eleven Madison Park, turning away from business as usual meant minding the planets resourceswhich meant no more animal products. Compared to plant-based foods, meat and dairy require more land, use more water, and produce more emissions. Daniel Humm [Photo: Celine Grouard for Fast Company] So Humm, whod earned a reputationand three Michelin starsfor his fine-dining cuisine, struck dishes like butter-poached lobster and lavender-roasted duck from his menu. The world didnt need them, he said. Instead, it needed innovation in the form of a $300-per-person vegan fine-dining menu. He was highlighting a truth: The current food system isnt sustainable. But it turned out Eleven Madison Parks plant-based makeover wasnt sustainable either, at least for its business. Private bookings, a key revenue stream, dropped. Wine sales, which are closely tied to meat sales, also plummeted. In announcing his reintroduction of meat, Humm explained to the New York Times that the plant-based change had essentially excluded guests. Calling a plant-based menu exclusionary is a fallacy, of course. Everyone can eat vegan food. Plant-based cuisines span cultures and date back centuries, and countless dishes around the world are accidentally plant-based. But the return of duck to Eleven Madison Park is just the latest sign that the plant-based worldand the publics desire for bold action for the climateis in retreat. As the ideological fervor for saving the planet dimsand proves less marketablebusinesses that once made a virtue out of their plant-based efforts are trying new tactics. [Photo: Sweetgreen] Sweetgreen’s steak and Impossible’s hybrid burger The same year that Eleven Madison Park went vegan, salad-chain Sweetgreen set a goal to be carbon neutral by 2027. Then last year it added steak to its menu. Beef is one of the worst climate offenders in terms of proteins, but its also a great way to expand your customer base and boost sales, according to CEO Jonathan Neman, who told investors last year that consumer surveys revealed a lot of fast casual customers [who] won’t go somewhere unless there is a meat option. (Even with the addition of steak, Sweetgreen is struggling: Same-store sales dropped 7.6% last quarter, and the company is projecting negative same-store sales for the full year.) Meanwhile, Impossible, one of the key players in the buzzy plant-based craze that saw a sales boom between 2017 and 2020, was once on a mission to eradicate meat entirely. Plant-based products are going to completely replace the animal-based products in the food world within the next 15 years, founder Patrick Brown told CNBC in 2020, announcing a deal with Starbucks to carry the Impossible breakfast sandwich. [Photo: Impossible Foods] Today, Impossible CEO Peter McGuinness appears to be reconsidering the brand’s position as a plant-based alternative. He recently told the Wall Street Journal that he may try to tempt flexitarians by creating a hybrid burger thats half real beef, half plant-based. Ethan Brown, CEO of Beyond (formerly Beyond Meat), still very much believes in the power and purpose of plant-based proteins, but even he has read the room and altered his businesss approach. Beyond once tried to compete with meat head-to-head, wanting its products right in supermarket meat cases. Now, its dropped Meat from its name and leaned into whole ingredients like lentils and fava beans. Proselytizing for plant-based diets has always been something of an uphill battle. A 2023 study found that putting a vegan label on a menu item made people less likely to order that dish than when it was unlabeled. For a while, though, it was a fight that many businesses were eager to take on, and thought they could win. They were confident that purpose and profit could exist side by side; they were passionate about leaving the planet better than they found it. And they were sure customers would follow suit. In 2019, Beyond had a much-hyped IPO, its stock surging 163% the day of its market debut. Overall plant-based meat sales hit $1.3 billion in 2020, up 46% from 2019. That was then. Today Beyonds shares have fallen from their high of $239 in 2019 to around $9. U.S. plant-based sales have been slumping, down about 7% on a per-pound metric since 2022. The whole game has gotten tougher, amid the rise of MAHAs obsession with natural foods and its praise of a carnivorous diet of beef and butter over plant-based proteins engineered in a lab. Even whole milk is back after an oat milk mania. [Photo: Beyond] The return of business as usual In general, climate-friendly behaviors have all taken a turn for the worse. Five years after the pandemic, weve returned to business as usual, and then some. The Trump administration has rolled back landmark climate wins within the Inflation Reduction Act, cut billions of dollars for clean energy, expended some of the worst-polluting coal power plants from toxic pollution limits, and so on. Its not surprising, then, that Eleven Madison Park chose this moment to reintroduce meat. It seemed unlikely from the start that the fine-dining establishment, with its reputation for consistent reinvention, would be vegan forever. Add on the harsh reviews it received for its plant-based dishes and a new reality in which having a purpose doesnt have the same (if any) marketing value, and the change seems inevitable. But Humm is still bringing his plant-based focus into this new future: Eleven Madison Park will offer two menus, one vegan and one with dishes where meat can be added on. Humm hopes this lets him reach even more people with his vegetable dishes, those for whom eating meat is so core to their identity that they wont even want to walk into a vegan restaurantlet alone spend $300 on a meal there. Still, its disappointing to see the concession. Where has Humms zeal for a new food system gone? He told the New York Times he was inspired by seeing a shepherd slaughter a goat in Greece, an action done with reverence, and for which nothing goes to waste. But thats not how the vast majority of people, let alone Americans, consume their meatand it wont ever be a replacement for our current food system. Globally, meat accounts for nearly 60% of the greenhouse gas emissions from food productiontwice that of plant-based foods. Climate experts have said that shifting people toward plant-based diets would significantly help mitigate climate change. Humm says Eleven Madison Park is now offering diners a choice. By doing so, hes made one, too: to relax his world-saving mission in order to expand his reach. Hes not alone. The retreat of conscious capitalismin plant-based dining and beyondhas left us in a liminal space, surrounded by companies that are half mission, half meat.
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