Workwire

Fully committed to Workwire and my freelance journalism career as I am, I do get little nudges about 9-to-5s somewhat often, some of which I opt to pursue. I recently had that experience with a very large marketing research company you may have heard of. The outreach seemed sincere. I made it through two rounds of conversations, with a third being booked. I felt confident there might be something here. Then, the usually attentive head of HR, who’d orchestrated the whole process, vanished.

Corporate America has found a clever way to cut management costs: Make employees do the managing without paying them for it. A new study from Headway finds that 71% of workers have taken on managerial duties in the past year without a raise or promotion. And 78% say they’ve been assigned responsibilities that belong to someone more senior. We’ve given this phenomenon some attractive names: empowerment, leadership development, flatter organizations. But I have another name for it: exploitation.

A senior partner at McKinsey, in a LinkedIn back-and-forth with one of the authors of a new book on the glass cliff, called the concept “a very convenient way to always be a victim” and questioned whether it exists at all, Bloomberg reports. The glass cliff, if you haven’t heard of it, is the pattern whereby women leaders are more likely to be offered CEO jobs at struggling companies. The firm has since moved the partner out of his leadership role.

Employees are spending way too much time managing appearances. Would you believe 1 in 5 of us say we burn at least a quarter of our workday managing appearances?

The downside of technology and data collection. The next phase of AI at work may not live on your laptop. It may be all around you. A recent Fast Company custom content article sponsored by Cisco describes the rise of the “intelligent workplace,” offices where AI, sensors and connected devices can track how spaces are being used and automatically respond. Conference room getting crowded? The building can adjust the temperature. Some meeting spaces constantly full while others sit empty?

Employees may be redefining ambition. I’ve always thought a promotion was supposed to mean something. More responsibility, probably. More pressure, most definitely. But also more money. Otherwise, what exactly are we celebrating? Apparently, that assumption is becoming quaint. A new survey from Benedictine University finds that 68% of employed professionals have received a “dry promotion,” more work or a bigger title without a meaningful increase in pay. Among Gen Z workers, the number rises to 75%.

Fresh research finds widespread fears about fake roles and recruiting cons. Employers spend plenty of time worrying about whether job candidates are who they say they are. But more and more, candidates are asking the same question about employers. A new MyPerfectResume survey of 1,000 U.S. workers found that about 3 in 5 have encountered a job posting, recruiter or hiring message they believed was fraudulent, a scam or misleading.

Who at your company would handle a harassment complaint if one landed on their desk this morning? If you had to think about it, you’re not alone. A new survey of 1,000 small business owners and employees from HR services firm FrankCrum found that 39% of small businesses have no dedicated HR person at all. The work falls to the owner, gets split informally across whoever’s around, or quietly lands on the office manager. It’s not a staffing gap.

Jason Stacy has built a career helping people perform when the stakes are high. A mental and physical performance coach, he has worked with elite athletes—including tennis champion Aryna Sabalenka—as well as CEOs, founders and corporate leadership teams. His new book, The Pressure Code, brings lessons from those worlds together, exploring how energy, emotions and environment shape performance under pressure.

I’m all for therapy, having benefited from it myself. That said, I’m beginning to wonder whether corporate America has turned it into a very expensive workaround for problems employers should be fixing themselves. A new global survey from Modern Health makes that case rather forcefully. Among 2,000 full-time employees who have used or are using therapy, 71% linked their need for therapy or coaching to workplace stress.