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Ten years ago, I did what many only dreamed of at the time: I left my three-hour Bay Area commute behind, moved to Portland, Oregon, and started working remotely. I didnt make the change because I hated my job. I made it because I wanted my life back. I was fortunate because my company at the time, Upwork, allowed me to retain my role and work from wherever Id be happiest. This was long before the pandemic drove more distributed work. That decision by my employer unlocked more focus, energy, and meaningful contributions from me than any promotion would have. Since then, Ive seen remote models that thrive, and ones that fail. And when they’re being undone I can tell you: Remote work is not the problem. The problem is leaders who dont know how to lead, especially without looking over someones shoulder. ‘Return to office’ is the new fear-based management strategy Lets cut through the corporate euphemisms. When companies walk back remote policies, its rarely about restoring culture or collaboration. Its about control. And increasingly, that control is driven by fear. Some leaders are reacting to investor pressure. Theres still a persistent, and mostly unproven, belief that in-person work leads to better performance. Others are trying to justify sunk costs in empty corporate real estate. For companies sitting on long-term leases, an empty office isnt just a cultural liability; its a financial embarrassment. I saw this dynamic play out years ago when IBM issued a return-to-office (RTO) mandate. I responded with an open letter to IBMs remote workers. Thousands of reactions showed that people want to work, deliver results, and be trusted. Instead, what they were getting was a policy that constrained their daily existence. That same story is playing out again now. In the past year, Amazon began tracking employee badge swipes. Meta mandated three days a week in office. Google tied attendance to performance reviews. And Zoom, ironically, ordered employees within 50 miles of an office to return twice weekly. It is clear that many companies are retreating from flexibility and have yet to establish the optimal work model for both their teams and business results. The data is clear: remote work works, when done right The debate shouldnt be about whether remote work can be productive, since evidence shows it is. Gallup found that employees who have flexibility, working remotely three to four days a week, are the most engaged and productive overall. Microsoft research found that remote work improves productivity for individual tasks. That said, it can weaken cross-team collaboration if not actively managed. The fix? Not forcing everyone back, but designing systems that support connection and visibility. Great remote companies are designed, not defaulted What were seeing isnt a debate over location. Its a test of whether a company actually knows how to manage. The best distributed organizations dont wing it. They know that, just as great in-person teams require effort to build, so do great distributed ones. The companies winning today arent pro-remote or pro-office, theyre pro-empowerment. They trust people to do their best work and give them the clarity, flexibility, and infrastructure to succeed. Theyre intentional, from the tools they use to the way they communicate. They rely on clear documentation over hallway chatter, use platforms like Miro, Notion, Loom, and ChatGPT to support async work, and train managers on how to empower distributed teams. They also know that human connection matters. In-person offsites, optional coworking, and team rituals help prevent isolation. Most importantly, they invest in internal communications. In remote settings, comms arent a side function, they’re the glue. Without clear information, even the most talented teams lose direction. AI talent is pushing back on ‘return to office’ To attract and retain AI talent, companies will have to support remote work, as evidenced by the fact that AI-related roles are nearly three times more likely to offer remote work options compared to other tech jobs. As companies navigate AI-driven transformation, this competition for top AI talent will continue to pushback on remote work restrictions. LinkedIn research shows that in the U.S., the number of companies with a Head of AI position has tripled in the past five years, more than doubled in just the past two, and is expected to continue its rapid growth. The AI transformation may help foster further work model transformation. What employees can do when leadership isnt getting it right If your company is still finding its best approach to an effective geographical work model, you can help improve your situation from the inside by putting more of the practices in this article into place. Champion async communication, tools, and rituals that help your team communicate better and more intentionally. Doing so not only improves your experience, it increases your value as someone who knows how to operate in flexible environments. These skills are competitive advantages because companies cannot compete effectively without mastering them. That said, if your company is failing to support remote work, or actively pushing back on your attempts to foster it, see it for what it is: a red flag. It may be a sign of reactive leadership, misaligned priorities, or financial struggles. It might be time to quietly start looking elsewhere. Yes, the market is tough. But top talent still has options. Also, theres a reality that many leaders ignore: The best talent is often remote, and some roles are nearly impossible to fill locally. When you build with location flexibility in mind, you can hire the best person for the role, not just a person who lives within commuting distance. That gives you access to deeper talent pools and helps you stand out in competitive industries where recruiting is difficult. The next wave of fallout from return-to-office mandates is already unfolding At JPMorgan, employees reportedly petitioned against RTO requirements. I recently read that satisfaction scores in areas like internal mobility, work-life balance, and health and well-being dropped. And despite a 10% increase in mandated in-office days since early 2024, actual attendance only rose by 2%. The companies that understand that in-office mandates dont drive performance, trust their people, and design systems that support how they actually work, will keep the best talent, outperform peers, and shape the future of work. Everyone else will be left managing offices nobody wants to return to.
Category:
E-Commerce
Republican-leaning economists tend to predict stronger economic growth when a Republican is president than Democrats doand because of this partisan optimism, their forecasts end up being less accurate. Im an economist, and my colleagues and I found this by analyzing nearly 40 years of responses to The Wall Street Journals Economic Forecasting Survey. Unlike most such surveys, the Journal publishes each forecasters name, allowing us to link their predictions to their political affiliations. The respondents were professional economists at major banks, consulting firms, and universities whose forecasts help guide financial markets and business decisions. Out of more than 300 economists in our sample, we could identify the political affiliations of 122. We did this by looking at the forecasters political donation records, voter registration data, and work histories with partisan groups. The pattern was striking: Republican forecasters systematically predicted higher gross domestic product growth when their party controlled the presidency, representing roughly 10% to 15% of average growth rates during our study period. When we examined forecast accuracy using real-time GDP data, Republican forecasters made larger errors when their preferred party held office. This suggests partisan optimism makes their professional judgment worse. What makes this finding particularly notable is its asymmetry. The partisan gap emerged specifically during Republican presidencies. Under Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, Republican and Democratic forecasters made virtually identical predictions. That wasnt the case when George W. Bush, and later Donald Trump, occupied the White House. Interestingly, this bias appears only in GDP forecasts. When we analyzed predictions for inflation, unemployment, and interest rates, we found no systematic differences between Republican and Democratic forecasters. That makes sense, because GDP forecasts are inherently more uncertain than other economic predictions. Professional forecasters tend to disagree more and make more mistakes when predicting GDP compared to inflation or unemployment rates. This creates opportunities for partisan ideologies to sneak in. We traced the bias to different views about the effectiveness of tax policies. Using Google Trends data to measure when tax cuts were in the news, we found Republican forecasters become systematically more optimistic precisely when tax policy discussions heat up. Why it matters Previous research has found that most people have a strong partisan bias when they make economic predictions. Our work is the first to show that professional economists can also succumb to such influencesdespite their training and market incentives to be accurate. Their errors can come at a high price. Financial markets, policymakers, and businesses rely on economists forecasts to make major decisions. When the Federal Reserve sets interest rates, when companies plan investments, and when investors allocate portfolios, they often reference these professional consensus forecasts. Our research challenges a common assumption in economics: Aggregating diverse expert forecasts eliminates individual biases and improves accuracy. This doesnt mean professional forecasters are incompetent or dishonest. These are highly trained economists with strong financial incentives for accuracy. Rather, our findings reveal how even experts with the best intentions can be unconsciously influenced by their own ideological beliefsespecially when dealing with inherently uncertain data. What still isnt known Several important questions remain unanswered. Its unclear how this bias might be reduced. Would making forecasters more aware of their political leanings help reduce the effect? Or would developing new forecasting methods that weight predictions based on historical accuracy during different political regimes improve consensus forecasts? Were also curious whether institutional factors matter. Might forecasters at institutions with explicit political diversity policies show less bias? How do international forecasters viewing the U.S. economy compare to domestic ones? Finally, our research focuses on U.S. forecasters during a period of increasing political polarization. Whether similar patterns emerge in other countries with different political systems, or during less polarized times, remains an open question. The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work. Aeimit Lakdawala is an associate professor of economics at Wake Forest University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Category:
E-Commerce
Weve all seen the AI-generated Jesus cradling the late conservative pundit Charlie Kirk in his arms and carrying him to the gates of heaven, right? According to a number of Facebook posts, everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Bob Dylan supposedly paused to honor Kirk after the right-wing activist and Turning Point USA founder’s assassination in Utah earlier this month, Rolling Stone reports. Of course, the tributes are just as fake as AI Jesus. One post, from a Facebook page titled US News, shows a distraught Springsteen laying flowers at a Kirk memorial. He took a deep breath, looked toward Kirks young daughters, and said through shaking words: Ive buried friends, Ive buried heroes . . . but watching children lose a father cuts deeper than any song Ive ever written, the caption reads. This never happened. Another post claims Bob Dylan performed outside Turning Point USA headquarters, surrounded by weeping crowds, candles, and flowers. Witnesses say he played a trembling acoustic version of ‘Blowin in the Wind’ before whispering, Give me back my brother, the caption reads. This never happened. Rolling Stone also identified a post alleging that Led Zeppelins Robert Plant stopped his Nashville show mid-set to dedicate a performance of God Bless America to Kirk. Again, never happened. None of the musicians depicted in these memes has commented publicly on Kirks death. The aftermath of his assassination has been a maelstrom of misinformation, much of it taking the form of AI-generated slop on platforms like X and Facebook. (Fast Company has reached out to Meta and X for comment.) How many MAGA grandmas are believing this and sharing it? wrote one Facebook commenter. So far I’ve seen the same thing from Bob Seger, John Fogerty, Rod Stewart, Metallica, and now Robert Plant, another added. Who’s next? Elvis Presley? For anyone willing to think longer than a split second, these posts are obviously fake. Yet with the internet drowning in slop and misinformationmuch of it far more convincing than Dylan performing at a vigilit has become second nature to question everything online. Even the official White House statement mourning Kirks death sparked conspiracy theories, with some users pointing to Donald Trumps left pinky as proof the scene was fabricated. These days, its AI until proven otherwise.
Category:
E-Commerce
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