Best at Work Insights: Employees’ happiness is overrated
Do we worry too much about how happy employees are? I lead Best Companies Group, a research and advisory firm focused on helping organizations create high-engagement and high-performance cultures, and I certainly believe so. If anything, I think caring about employees’ happiness is overrated. Let me explain. Employee engagement levels have been dropping for years. […]
Flying off the glass cliff?
You’ve no doubt heard of the glass ceiling — the barrier above which women couldn’t rise professionally — but have you heard about the glass cliff? It’s not as familiar a term as the ceiling, but the glass cliff is real. It’s what happens when a woman or someone from another marginalized group is put […]
Pot of gold
Placing aside the morality of marijuana use, let’s consider how much money Virginia is currently leaving on the table without a regulated, taxed recreational cannabis market. In 2020, directed by the Virginia General Assembly, which was then under Democratic control, the Joint Legislative Audit & Review Commission conducted a study on legalizing marijuana in Virginia. […]
The cost of leaning in
In 1982, the comic strip “Frank and Ernest” noted that Ginger Rogers — standing in for all women — did everything Fred Astaire did but “backwards and in high heels.” Even 41 years ago, that sentiment felt like a well-known acknowledgement, and it still holds true now. This issue, in our third annual Women in Leadership […]
Business climate change
It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a revolution in how workers and businesses think about where, when and how we work. And that change is fully reflected in the survey responses we received from the 100 companies selected for this year’s Virginia Best Places to Work cohort. Seventy-one of those 100 businesses […]