The Best of This Week

Building a More Sustainable Economy

Amid a pandemic and an economic downturn, today’s corporate leaders have a historic opportunity to reinvent their companies’ business models and help build a financially profitable, socially inclusive, and ecologically beneficial economy. This new, multitrillion-dollar frugal economy is already emerging, fueled by three megatrends — B2B sharing, distributed micromanufacturing, and triple regeneration — that help companies do better with less by maximizing value for all stakeholders.

How This Recession Could Reverse Decades of Advancement for Women

This year, unemployment among U.S. women reached a historic high, hitting double digits for the first time since 1948 and reversing a consistent upward climb in employment that began in the 1970s. During the pandemic, many women have faced the lose-lose choice between preserving their health or keeping their jobs. Others have had to give up their work to care for children. These losses, accruing atop long-standing inequities, may jeopardize decades of economic advancement.
 

Deploying Surveillance AI for a Safer Workplace

Organizations may soon start monitoring employees’ whereabouts and behavior more closely than ever using surveillance tools such as apps, sensors, and algorithms that scrape and analyze the data people produce as they work. Deployed ethically, AI can be another tool to enhance workforce performance by keeping employees safe and healthy.

Setting Good Boundaries When WFH

Widespread remote work during the pandemic has forced many of us to blur the line between work and home. As a manager, it’s important to help employees (and yourself) set boundaries that provide time and space to be productive.

What Else We’re Reading This Week:

• Advice from two Stanford business professors on being a good and compassionate boss during unsettled times
• Building organizational AI and machine learning capabilities calls for a fundamental reengineering of existing business processes
• America is facing an “information catastrophe” when it comes to public health data

Quote of the Week:

“The next revolution will happen when every aspect of a business, from top to bottom, is designed with AI in mind. Call this new construct the intelligent enterprise.”

— Joseph Byrum, chief data scientist at financial services company Principal, in “Leading the Intelligent Enterprise”

The Best of This Week