Tony Case
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Articles by Tony Case
Ghost Jobs Are Haunting Our Job Searches
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.
The Boss Gets the Title. You Get the Work.
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.
Think Before You Speak (or Type)
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.
Visibility Isn’t the Problem. Bad Bosses Are.
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 Intelligent Workplace Is Here. Is That Good for Workers?
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?
The Big Promotion Is Becoming a Scam
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%.
Is This Job a Scam?
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.
The Accidental HR Manager
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.
What Great Players Do Under Pressure
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.
My Boss Is the Reason I’m in Therapy
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.
AI Anxiety Is a Management Problem
Like you most likely, I’ve been skeptical about some of the more breathless claims AI will destroy jobs. But bosses would be unwise to dismiss the anxiety such claims are creating. A new survey of 1,000 U.S. adults from the Sylvia Brafman Mental Health Center offers a striking picture of what’s happening inside workplaces.
The Talent Shortage Excuse Is Wearing Thin
For years, employers have described one of their biggest workforce challenges as a shortage of talent. But those in charge of recruiting help may want to reconsider the diagnosis. The problem isn’t always that qualified workers are unavailable. Increasingly, it’s that the jobs employers are trying to fill don’t line up with what experienced workers are willing to accept. That distinction matters. Recruiting teams can invest in better technology, widen candidate pools and accelerate hiring.
The Career Ladder Isn’t Enough Anymore
Two new workplace studies caught my attention because, taken together, they tell us something important about where younger workforce careers are headed. In one report, LinkedIn finds that Gen Z is gaining real influence at work, but 7 in 10 say they feel disconnected from people who could help them professionally. Nearly two-thirds say nobody has shown them how to build professional relationships.
No, Older Workers Aren’t Behind on AI
Maybe older workers don’t have a technology problem. Maybe employers have an age problem. That’s the uncomfortable conclusion suggested by new research on older Americans, work and AI. The Longevity Workforce Outlook from CWI Works and Ipsos finds that 76% of Americans believe people assume older employees are less comfortable with new technology. Among adults 55+, 4 in 5 say that stereotype exists. But the stereotype doesn’t square with the workers themselves.
Closing the Talent Gap
Intuit is rolling out a new education initiative aimed at one of the accounting industry’s most pressing problems: not enough qualified graduates to fill the seats left by a retiring workforce. The Accounting Futures Program, part of Intuit’s broader Career Pipeline Initiative, is heading to college campuses nationwide this school year, bringing free curriculum, QuickBooks credentials, and mentorship from practicing accountants directly into the classroom. The timing matters.
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like ... Christmas?
Summer’s not over yet, but here we go, talking about Christmas already—a topic I happen to know . To help businesses plan ahead, those eager little elves over at the UK’s Christmas Tree World have revealed everything businesses need to know about decorating the office for the festive season—including when to start.
Why Your Compliance Training Is Failing
When it comes to implementing company policy, there’s a big difference between what leaders expect and actual employee readiness. People managers may be overestimating how well compliance training prepares employees for difficult workplace decisions. New research from Go1 found that 96% of HR and L&D leaders are confident trained employees can apply compliance policies in real-world situations.
Proving What Works in Workplace Mental Health
Workplace mental health has long been viewed primarily as a benefits or wellness issue. A new initiative from the nonprofit Project Healthy Minds aims to treat it as a core business concern—and establish stronger evidence about which employer interventions actually work. The Project Healthy Minds Workforce Lab brings together major companies, scholars and business leaders to conduct research at the intersection of public health, economics and organizational performance.
When PTO Doesn’t Mean Unplugging
Paid time off is supposed to provide a break from work. For many employees, it no longer does. With Labor Day looming, a NumberBarn survey of 1,134 employed Americans found that 62% checked or answered work communications during their most recent vacation, while 32% secretly worked without telling their travel companions. Only 23% said they always returned feeling genuinely refreshed. AI is adding another layer of anxiety.
The 9-to-5 Is Quietly Breaking Apart
The most telling finding in Monster’s report on microshifting isn’t that employees are breaking their workdays into smaller, non-contiguous blocks. It’s that more than half of us doing it have kept our bosses in the dark. Workers say microshifting works, with about 4 in 5 reporting that they’re more productive than on a traditional schedule more than 90% microshifting at least weekly. Yet around a third cite a lack of managerial trust or support as the trend’s biggest drawback.
The People Person vs. the Robots
So, I think we can all put away those fears by now that AI is coming for everyone’s job. It’s been pretty established at this point that what the machines are coming for are tasks. They’re coming for boilerplate, paperwork and all the routine corporate sludge we’ve somehow mistaken for productive work. And it can have them.
Your Job May Not Be as Safe as You Think
Like you, I’ve always assumed dangerous workplaces had to do with construction or factory jobs, fighting fires or rescuing trapped mountain climbers. But a new analysis proves that risk doesn’t always wear a hard hat. Conboy Law Injury & Medical Malpractice Lawyers examined five years of fatal-injury data covering 32 office-based, professional and indoor occupations. Among those jobs, it was actually CEOs who had the highest annual fatality rate—5.7 deaths per 100,000 workers.
Sorry, TikTok. The lifeguard is working.
The workplace may be the last place in America where teenagers are expected to go six consecutive minutes without checking their phones. As CNBC reports, 17-year-old lifeguard Ronin Segrest finds six- or seven-hour phoneless shifts “an adjustment,” always left to wonder “who was texting me or what I was missing out on.” I wonder if the swimmers were wondering whether he was missing them. More employers are banning phones during teen work shifts.
Benefits Are Getting Pricier—and Harder to Defend
If employers thought benefits costs might finally settle down, the latest numbers offer a blunt reality check: They haven’t. Gallagher’s 2026 Benefits Benchmarks Report, based on responses from 3,717 U.S. organizations, shows employers squeezed between rising costs, growing complexity and employees who expect their benefits to deliver real value. The statistic that jumped out at me: 36% of employers reported health plan premium increases of 10% or more at their most recent renewal.
When Mental Health Benefits Aren’t Enough
Employers spent years telling workers to take care of their mental health. Employees listened and requests for mental health leave are on the rise. So, now what? Clinical psychologist Dr. Jennifer Prohaska believes employers left their benefits strategy half-finished. Companies invested in EAPs, accommodations and leave—resources that respond after employees begin struggling. Far less attention went toward helping people develop the psychological skills needed before stress becomes a crisis.
We’re Afraid AI Will Change Who We Are
The workplace debate over AI has focused largely on a familiar question: Will AI replace people? But a new study suggests many workers are wrestling with a different and more personal concern: they’re worried about losing confidence in the abilities that make them valuable at work.
AI Is Speeding Up Tasks, Just Not Work
Companies may be investing heavily in AI to make employees more productive, but a study suggests that technology can sometimes create as much friction as it removes. According to Ace Workflow’s State of Work report, companies lose an estimated 26% of their working time to recoverable waste. The analysis covered 680 processes at 128 companies across 10 industry groups. At six companies, researchers examined 187 processes accounting for 2,546 hours of work each week.
For Gen X, the Retirement Picture is Dark
If you’re like me (a person of, as they so quaintly put it, “a certain age”), just read through some current financial data about Gen X and it’s enough to make you want to put on a B-52s or Go-Gos record and mentally transport yourself back to the 80s, before life got quite so sucky. Zety’s Gen X Financial Outlook Report paints a particularly bleak picture for my generation’s retirement plans.
Are AI Skills Worth More Than an MBA?
Like you most likely, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be “AI-ready.” A new PwC study just gave us some hard numbers to chew on. PwC surveyed more than 1,000 financial services executives, and the findings confirm something many of us have suspected: AI fluency isn’t a nice-to-have anymore but is quickly becoming the currency of career advancement.
A Widening Workplace Divide
I keep coming back to a big contrast in two new Glassdoor reports. Employee confidence in the future of their companies has fallen to a record low. At the same time, Glassdoor has identified 50 CEOs who continue to earn exceptional trust from the people they lead. At first glance, the findings seem to point in opposite directions. But I think they tell the same story: In an uncertain workplace, leadership is becoming more consequential, not less.
AI Is Creating More Work Than It Eliminates
One statistic in EY’s latest Entrepreneur Ecosystem Barometer initially may seem counterintuitive: 88% of the entrepreneurs surveyed expect to expand their workforces over the next year, even as they integrate AI more deeply into their businesses. But after speaking with Anna Horndahl, EY Americas Entrepreneur Of The Year Director, I came away with a different interpretation. Entrepreneurs are not hiring despite AI.
Why Transformation Doesn’t Stick
I don’t know about you, but I’ve become skeptical of the way organizations talk about “transformation.” The word suggests lasting change, yet many initiatives disappear beneath the obligations and pressure around routine, daily tasks, or so it seems. New research from Dayforce makes that case precisely.
Your Job Hunt Is Now Your Second Job
Nearly half of workers have changed jobs or plan to within six months, according to the latest data. My first thought: That’s a lot of people eyeing the exits. My second: Can you blame them? More than half of us search for jobs every day, according to the latest FlexJobs survey. Thirty-seven percent do it multiple times a day.
Mind That Tweet
Think your personal social media account has nothing to do with work? A RiseGuide survey of 3,000 adults found that about 1 in 6 Gen Z and millennial employees has reported a colleague to HR over an online post. Nearly a quarter of Gen Z respondents said a co-worker’s posts had caused them to question that person’s professionalism.
When Your Employee Says the Workplace Is Breaking Her, Listen
The most disturbing part of the allegations surrounding former Neiman Marcus lawyer Erin Borg isn’t that she was eventually diagnosed with brain cancer. It’s what she says happened long before that diagnosis: the workplace was already breaking her. According to an exclusive New York Post story based on Borg’s court filing, she faced an “unsustainable” workload, went 11 straight months without taking a workday off, and repeatedly complained about a colleague’s alleged hostility and sexism.
Is This Man Too Old for You to Hire?
Pedro Pascal didn’t break out as a major star until his 40s. Missy Elliott is still a cultural force in her 50s. Christopher Nolan, also in his 50s, is one of the most powerful directors in Hollywood. Nobody looks at any of them and thinks: What could this person possibly contribute at this stage of life?
Is the Work Dress Code on Its Last Legs?
Apparently, the latest workplace controversy isn’t AI, RTO mandates or whether anybody is actually working on Fridays. It’s men’s knees. Once largely confined to the beach, the backyard and the UPS driver, shorts are now making a bid for the office. It’s a far cry from a few years back, when I recall having to dress down a younger male subordinate—and feeling quite justified about it—for daring to wear cargo shorts and sandals to work. The nerve.
AI Is Smart. It Still Can’t Do These Jobs.
Most conversations about AI and work focus on what happens at a desk. Which emails can it write? Which reports can it summarize? How many administrative jobs can it swallow? But AI has a much harder time when the workplace is a burning building. Resume Now’s Superhuman Skills Ranking analyzed O*NET data for 894 occupations, looking at six abilities: stamina, strength, reaction time, spatial orientation, multitasking and the ability to detect problems before they escalate.
Building a Better Agency
Kate Wolff founded LA’s Lupine Creative in February 2020, just before the pandemic upended the advertising business. The indy agency has since built a client roster that includes HBO and Max, Spotify, Google, LG and FX, combining experiential, social and cultural marketing to help brands enter conversations in ways that feel relevant rather than forced. That outward focus on culture is also central to how Wolff runs the company.
Why GLP-1s Should Be an Employee Benefit
The debate over whether employers should cover costly GLP-1 medications often focuses on pharmacy spending. New research suggests the calculation may also need to include productivity. A National Bureau of Economic Research study linked GLP-1 use to a 17% reduction in sick days. Although the study was observational rather than a randomized trial, its design offers reasonable confidence that treatment contributed to the improvement.
You Have Too Much to Do
Employee engagement is in freefall. Our workday may explain why. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 found that global engagement dropped to 20% last year, its lowest level since 2020. The estimated cost to businesses: $10 trillion in lost productivity. Resume Now’s survey of more than 1,000 U.S. workers puts the daily reality behind that number: Just 31% of us feel fully focused at work every day. 77% lose significant time to repetitive, low-value tasks.
The High Cost of a Tiny Mistake
A typo takes a second to fix. The anxiety it creates can last more than a week. That’s one of the more revealing findings from an Adobe Acrobat survey of 1,015 full-time U.S. employees. Eighty-two percent of workers said they had made a document-related mistake in the past year. Typos were the most common culprit, followed by formatting glitches. These are hardly career-ending offenses. Yet 84% of workers said a mistake made them hyper-vigilant.
Your Health Insurance Is Holding Your Career Hostage
Fresh data puts a number on something a lot of us already suspect: 1 in 4 employees in the U.S. (about 23 million people) are staying in jobs they want to leave because they’re afraid of losing their health insurance. That’s up 8 points since 2021. In other words, not a blip but a trend. Let’s call this what it is: job lock, and it’s quietly wrecking the labor market from the inside. The numbers aren’t pretty, according to data from the West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America.
Say Hello to Slowmaxxing
Just when you thought we had reached peak “maxxing,” along comes slowmaxxing. The wellness trend—doing everyday things more deliberately to conserve energy—has now entered the workplace. Employees are pacing tasks, blocking calendars and setting firmer boundaries to keep their jobs from draining every last volt from their batteries. And honestly, who can blame them? According to Owl Labs’ 2025 State of Hybrid Work report, 90% of employees are stressed out at work.
The New Talent Map
As the story goes, large coastal cities are steadily losing residents to the Sun Belt. But the reality, it turns out, is much more nuanced than that. Fresh data actually points to New York as the No. 1 talent magnet, with more than 62,000 people choosing it for a career transition. Other large metros—LA, DC, Philly, Chicago—also rank among top destinations, in addition to fast-growing Sun Belt hubs like DFW, Atlanta and Houston, according to a MyPerfectResume survey.
The Benefits Mirage
Bank of America just dropped its 2026 Workplace Benefits Report, and the headline seems like a picture-positive one: employee financial wellbeing just hit a four-year high, with 55% of those surveyed saying they feel good or excellent about their finances. Retirement confidence is up, emergency savings goals are getting hit more often, and credit card debt is down 11 points year-over-year.
Why Great Employees Quietly Drift Away
The traditional career path—pick a profession, stay for decades and retire with a gold watch—has largely vanished. In its place is a growing number of professionals quietly questioning whether the work that once defined them still does. The numbers suggest this isn’t a niche phenomenon. Four in five people 45+ say they want out of their current careers, yet only 6% have made a change.
The Real Gender Gap Is No Longer Just About Pay
Every few months, another survey reminds us that women value flexibility more than men. But the latest data finds that women rank remote work as the single most important factor in a new job. Men, meanwhile, prioritize something else altogether. In short: money. According to a survey by FlexJobs, women were also significantly more likely to value flexible schedules, work-life balance, meaningful work and feeling recognized—and more likely to report feeling stressed at work.
The New American Dream: Work Harder, Stay Broke
Remember when hard work was supposed to get you ahead? Apparently, that was another legacy benefit. A new survey from MyPerfectResume found that 62% of workers say putting in more effort hasn’t led to meaningful financial progress. Instead, they’re collecting side hustles, overtime shifts, credit card debt and postponed life plans like they’re Pokémon cards. Nearly three-quarters of workers have adopted some kind of financial survival strategy just to stay afloat. And as for saving for retirement?
AI for Me, But Not for Thee
Employers have apparently discovered a new hiring philosophy: AI is perfectly trustworthy—right up until a job candidate uses it. The latest data finds that 87% of hiring managers now use AI somewhere in the recruiting process, with resume screening topping the list. Yet 82% are wary of candidates using AI to write resumes, prepare for interviews or polish their applications. Translation: “Our algorithm is objective. Yours is cheating.” The irony is hard to miss.
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