Latest news with #hybridwork
Bloomberg
a day ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Societe Generale Asks Staff to Return to Office Four Days a Week
Save Societe Generale SA asked its employees who are on hybrid work schedules to return to the office four days a week, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg News. 'I would like to inform you of the executive committee's decision to harmonize rapidly our working from home policy within the group, on the basis of a maximum of one day per week,' Societe Generale Chief Executive Officer Slawomir Krupa wrote in the memo sent Thursday.
Forbes
3 days ago
- Forbes
Why 58% of Workers Use Time Blocking Daily
Calendar app on tablet computer time blocking or timeboxing As more workers look for ways to bring balance between productivity and wellbeing in their day-to-day lives, timeboxing or blocking off time in their calendar helps protect their focus time. According to the 2024 Owl Labs State of Hybrid Work report, 58% of hybrid workers use time blocking to be in control of their day and protect it from imposed meetings. In a workplace filled with constant notifications, blurred work-life boundaries, and shifting priorities, the ability to intentionally structure your time has become essential, not just for getting more done, but for protecting your well-being. Employees at all levels are finding that they are constantly checking their emails, responding to Slack messages, or switching tasks, leaving aside complex tasks that may be even more desirable, engaging, and satisfying, but require intense focus time. Owl Labs reports show that millennials, in particular, are blocking their calendars notably more than any other generation: 57% of millennials block their calendar, compared to 14% of Gen Z, 22% of Gen X, and 7% of baby boomers. On the other hand, 64% of full-time office workers timebox, compared to 28% of hybrid workers and 8% of full-time remote workers. It makes sense to me, as I started timeboxing when I was working in-office. Open spaces are great for collaboration for some people, but they are terrible for focus and deep work for others. It's nearly impossible to have uninterrupted time for yourself or to do what really matters to you. To enjoy your work and maintain productivity, quality, and well-being, you need to prioritize your 'me' time. Your calendar is your primary tool to navigate this demanding environment. Time blocking is the practice of dividing your day into chunks of focused time dedicated to specific tasks, allowing you to plan your day proactively. For example: It's like scheduling a meeting with yourself to do what you think is essential first. To me, it's like having a live to-do list. I like to use timeboxes of 45 minutes to allow for some buffer time and a quick break. By blocking time for specific tasks, you can: Many people try time blocking once and give up because they make it too rigid. The key is flexibility with structure. Here are four tips to get started: In my book Timebox, I highlight that time blocking isn't about achieving more but focusing on what truly matters, all while emphasizing clarity and self-care. The objective is to find a balance between productivity and wellbeing, not making sure you are using every single second available to work. Effective time management encompasses more than just tips and tools; it requires cultivating harmony between your external responsibilities and internal feelings. By prioritizing balance and being mindful of your self-talk, you can change time management from a battle against the clock into a collaborative effort with yourself. If you find yourself falling behind on a task, instead of thinking, 'I'm so disorganized,' try saying, 'I did my best with the time I had. Where can I improve next time?' and remind yourself of the progress you've made. When overwhelmed, consider asking, 'What's one thing I can do today, letting go of the rest?'.Self compassion involves not letting you off the hook, but rather intentionally scheduling the task for later. Remember, time management is not about doing everything you planned every day, but about doing what is more important for you so that at the end of the day, you feel satisfied. If you're feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, or trapped in a cycle of reaction, it could be the right moment to explore how you can incorporate time blocking like 58% of your colleagues are already doing.
Forbes
5 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
A Silent Offboarding Crisis: How Knowledge Is Lost Before Resignations
Bhushan Parikh, Cofounder and Principal at Get Digital Velocity, LLC. When firms consider offboarding, they often think of letters of resignation, farewells and the formal transfer of information. However, the actual offboarding, where organizations begin to lose critical knowledge, often occurs long before and much more quietly. In hybrid and remote work arrangements that are now prevalent, employees can mentally check out weeks or months before they leave for good. This era of "silent offboarding" is dangerous—not because they're not being productive, but because their knowledge is departing quietly and undocumented. Silent offboarding occurs when an employee begins psychologically leaving their job, typically due to burnout, misalignment or the allure of new possibilities. It's subtle and isn't always evident in performance metrics, but it is real. Common indicators include: • Less documentation or knowledge sharing • Not working cross-functionally • Has nothing to say in meetings • Reduced activity when targeting team issues Even though these changes in behavior may appear subtle, they offer insight into the early stages of organizational knowledge decay. The true cost of brain drain lies in the loss of invisible capital: the unwritten, often unspoken knowledge that keeps systems and teams running smoothly. This includes undocumented custom code, hidden shortcuts and informal processes that aren't captured anywhere but are critical to operations. It also encompasses the reasoning behind major architectural, operational or client decisions—insights that rarely make it into official documentation. Relationships, too, suffer as the subtle dynamics between teams, partners or clients fade away. And finally, there's the history of workflows: the experiments, workarounds and accumulated lessons learned from navigating technical debt, which often leave with the people who lived through them. The traditional offboarding processes—handovers, documentation sprints or 'last-week downloads'—are often too little, too late. And by the time it's gone, this nuance has largely evaporated. First, it's due to remote and hybrid work. Since workers are not in one physical space, it's easier to emotionally check out without it being noticed immediately. Without those informal check-ins and hallway chats, you lose some of the natural pulse-taking you'd otherwise get to sense engagement. The "great resignation" and a competitive talent market also create shorter tenures, which results in more rapid knowledge turnover. And unfortunately, siloed and uncodified expertise still exists in many teams, often leaving them vulnerable to disastrous situations when key personnel leave. To reduce the consequences of silent offboarding, organizations should encourage positive knowledge continuity practices: • Foster a culture of always documenting. Seek to ensure employees document processes, decisions and learnings as a common hobby. Leverage knowledge pools with facilitation through collaborative tools like Google Docs. • Conduct routine "continuity conversations." Rather than waiting for exit interviews, have regular conversations about knowledge transfer and role clarity. Such discussions can expose areas where knowledge is missing and documentation is needed. • Use analytics to spot early demotivation. Utilize people analytics tools, such as Microsoft Viva or Visier, to identify early signs of disengagement, such as reduced collaboration and precipitous productivity declines. Timely interventions can be made through early detection. • Facilitate cross-pollination and knowledge sharing. Foster an environment where team members share their skills and knowledge to promote a collaborative and inclusive culture. That way, they can also ensure that necessary knowledge doesn't live only in one person's head but rather across the workforce. • Recognize and reward sharing knowledge. Praise those who go out of their way to share their expertise and train those in a position to share. Acknowledgment can induce more active knowledge-sharing behavior. Companies such as GitLab or Atlassian run on documentation as a fundamental part of their operations. Their remote-friendly culture fosters resilience, with all decisions being transparent and someone being accountable for every process. You can't rely on whoever shows up to the next virtual meeting to carry your institutional memory. Turnover of talent is inevitable, but loss of knowledge doesn't have to be. For organizations, silent offboarding is tantamount to a loss of manpower. As workforces become increasingly dispersed in the future and employees become more mobile than ever, retaining institutional memory is a significant business concern. Enterprises need to move away from reactive offboarding practices to proactive knowledge continuity plans. In doing so, they protect their intellectual property and promote a culture of openness and sharing. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
Fast Company
12-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
From messengers to meaning makers: 4 ways to transform middle managers into comms superstars
In today's always-on work environment, clear internal communication isn't a nice-to-have—it's a business imperative. Yet many organizations overlook the people most responsible for making it happen. Middle managers sit at the intersection of leadership and the front line, tasked with translating strategy into action. When they're equipped to deliver messages with clarity, context, and confidence, they can turn communication into a powerful driver of alignment, engagement, and trust. Many companies are finding that today's hybrid environments are not ideal for traditional cascade communication models, in which information flows top-down from leadership to managers to frontline employees. Today's employees are working across multiple time zones and using countless digital communication channels, resulting in more opportunities for message dilution, distortion, and deprioritization. According to Gallup, 74% of employees feel they're missing out on company news because the company's internal communication is not effective. And the impact of poor communication is costly. An Economist survey found that communication barriers in the workplace can lead to project delays or failures (44%), low morale (31%), missed performance goals (25%), and lost sales (18%). Caught in the 'middle' of today's challenges are middle managers, who are expected to bridge the communications gap between leadership and frontline workers while also managing both in-office and remote teams. The result? Messaging fatigue, professional burnout, and a perhaps unfair reputation as less-than-stellar communicators. In fact, 47% of internal communications specialists call out poor middle manager communication skills as a main barrier to success. And only 56% of employees say they fully trust their line managers as a source of information. Even so, middle managers play a crucial role as primary communicators, with 83% of employees saying that communication with their immediate supervisor is important. This represents a significant opportunity to invest in middle managers as effective communicators who drive employee engagement and connect the dots between high-level strategy and day-to-day realities. The key is offering the right support. 4 WAYS TO EMPOWER MIDDLE MANAGERS AS COMMUNICATORS Here are four ways to empower middle managers to become 'meaning makers' for your organization: 1. Offer Training And Development Opportunities Communication doesn't come naturally to everyone, but it's a skill that can be developed. Support managers by offering different types of communications training, like workshops on effective messaging, courses on strategic planning, and guidance on how to tailor information to different audiences. By investing in their development, organizations can empower middle managers to be not only better communicators, but better leaders overall. One training success story is Cleveland Clinic, which faced a growing internal communications gap as it expanded to over 70,000 caregivers. As a solution, the clinic launched communication workshops, training managers to become message drivers, not just administrators. Managers learned skills like active listening, emotional intelligence, and message framing—including how to translate top-level strategy into day-to-day relevance for clinical staff. The model helped lead to a 33% increase in managers' confidence in their comms role and a 15% boost in team engagement. 2. Provide Clear Direction And Helpful Assets A study by Gallup reveals that only 30% of middle managers strongly agree that they understand what's expected of them at work. To be strong communicators, managers need to understand the full context and goals of communication efforts. Leaders can help by providing managers with messaging briefs and clear talking points for all comms efforts. Consider preparing a toolkit with assets they can leverage for their teams, including emails, social media posts, videos, FAQs, and more. In the case of Cleveland Clinic, middle managers received manager briefing templates aligned with organizational priorities, allowing messages to be shared consistently and concisely across teams. 3. Equip Them With The Right Tools And Technology Empowering middle managers with the latest comms technology can pay huge dividends. Many of today's platforms offer analytics dashboards with open/read rates, allowing managers to understand what's resonating with their team and what needs adjustment. There are tools that allow managers to share upwards feedback, push out real-time updates, conduct surveys, and more. For Unilever, investing in digital enablement paid huge dividends. Their internal communications process was slow, top-down, and overly formal—causing a disconnect between leadership and frontline teams. To solve this, they rolled out 'Unilever Connect,' a mobile-first internal comms platform where managers could share updates and celebrate wins, and employees could react, comment, and post updates. The platform included internal manager forums with best practices on communication techniques, tone, storytelling, and listening strategies—helping managers to find their authentic leadership voice. As a result, employee communications engagement rose 19%, and manager confidence in communicating strategy increased by 37%. 4. Create A Two-Way Feedback Loop Consider setting up regular check-ins with managers to talk openly about your company's comms efforts. By holding one-on-one meetings you can share context, close communication gaps, catch issues early, and shed light on your project's goals. You should also encourage managers to seek out feedback from their teams—a task that can be made easier by using modern comms platforms like the one embraced by Unilever. These types of tools make it easier for managers to curate team insights and deliver a 'boots on the ground' perspective to executives. Middle managers can be more than messengers—they can be meaning makers. With the right tools, training, and support, they can connect the dots between big-picture strategy and day-to-day work, turning communication into a catalyst for clarity, culture, and performance. When you invest in their ability to lead through communication, you're not just supporting them—you're unlocking a critical lever for company-wide success.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Primax-Tymphany Group Joins Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP) to Enhance Conferencing Technology
TAIPEI, June 12, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The Primax-Tymphany Group, a global leader in conferencing technology, is committed to delivering secure, flexible, and user-friendly conferencing products that meet the needs of modern workplaces. To strengthen its position in the evolving hybrid work environment, the group is joining the Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP). By joining MDEP, an Android-based platform designed to help manufacturers build innovative, secure, and manageable devices, Primax-Tymphany Group becomes part of a growing ecosystem committed to shaping the future of intelligent collaboration. This partnership empowers the group to expand its product lineup with advanced security features, centralized device management, and seamless Microsoft integration. "As global leaders, Primax brings decades of expertise in camera systems and interface technologies, while Tymphany is renowned for its world-class audio engineering," said Phil McPhee, Chief Product Officer at Tymphany. "MDEP's robust development architecture and streamlined tools align perfectly with our combined strengths across imaging, audio, & human-machine interface for smart device integration across the collaboration ecosystem." Microsoft also emphasized the importance of ODM partners in accelerating innovation. "Along with our new device partners, we are also expanding our collaboration with new ODMs" said Juha Kuosmanen, Head of MDEP. He further added: "ODM partners like Primax-Tymphany Group are vital to the MDEP ecosystem's success. Their expertise and innovative solutions allow us to continue delivering high-performance, secure devices that meet the needs of modern enterprises. Together, we are building a future-proof platform that is scalable, flexible, and ready for the next generation of digital transformation." This collaboration emphasizes the Primax-Tymphany Group's vision to lead the industry in developing solutions that merge advanced technology with practical functionality. By delivering unparalleled integration of vision, audio, and interface systems, the Primax-Tymphany Group will solidify its role as a driving force behind next-generation innovations. About Primax-Tymphany Group Primax-Tymphany Group combines decades of engineering expertise with a market-driven mindset to deliver integrated vision, audio, and interface technologies. With an ODM+ approach and a foundation in X-IN-1 Sensory Fusion, the Group empowers global partners across industries including automotive, conferencing, robotics, and smart living. Visit ; for more information. View original content: SOURCE Primax Electronics
