How does the office fit into the new ecosystem of work? How can we build sustainable office spaces that meet new expectations? What is the wider implication of hybrid working on our cities?
Join our session at the Workplace Trends Research Summit on 19 April 2023, where Kasia Maynard of the Gensler Research Institute reports on recent research and the ripple effect of hybrid working.
The latest research from the Gensler Research Institute explores how to best enable hybrid working, optimise the office environment, meet goals of NET zero, whilst also maximising employee experience and engagement. The research highlights innovative case studies for sustainable design, alongside cutting-edge data on 30 cities across the world, and new survey results from UK workplaces. As hybrid working develops in maturity, there is a greater opportunity to design workspaces that are sustainable, customisable, and effective.
The acceleration of hybrid working since the global pandemic has prompted a paradigm shift in the way we work. Professional workers have more autonomy and flexibility to choose where and how they conduct their work. As a result, a new scenario for work is emerging in the aftermath of the global pandemic that will change the way office buildings are used in the future.
Gensler has studied the UK workplace since 2005. We have mapped the trajectory of how employees work, the relationship they have with their office, and the effectiveness of space. Since the pandemic, we have seen a sudden shift. While the office remains a critical component, it is now part of a wider network of channels in which employees can access work. This has prompted a wide-scale re-evaluation of the role of the office to compete as a desirable place to work.
For the first time, the office has been challenged to rethink its approach to curating experiences amid a new context where employees expect more from their workplace. As hybrid working patterns become more established, employees will seek to customise their work experiences. They will choose workspaces based on their ability to facilitate the type of work they need to do.
Therefore, the office needs to be prepared for all eventualities. There is increasing pressure to create offices that cater for every need of the modern worker, whilst also being conscious about space and energy efficiency. Gensler’s research demonstrates practical case studies and applied research to indicate where the future workplace is heading based on more than 15 years of longitudinal data.
The shift to more flexible working has revealed a potential to make more sustainable decisions about the office. As an industry, we are witnessing universal momentum around addressing the urgent issue of climate change. This year will be marked by the passing of new legislation with the aim of reducing carbon emissions. This is reflected in the new position of the British Council for Office (BCO) to reduce office occupancy density and eliminate Cat A office fit outs. The momentum is propelled by new expectations of work and the office which has prompted more conscious decisions around how we use office space. The presentation will showcase case studies of Gensler’s pioneering climate action solutions that use creative, innovative design approaches in offices around the world.
This presentation will draw on data from Gensler’s latest research data including Climate Action – a catalogue of innovative sustainable case studies; City Pulse – a survey of urban residents in 30 cities around the world; and the UK 2023 Workplace Survey of 2,000 UK office workers. The research knits together the wider implications flexible working has on our workplaces, cities, and the world.
Find out all the details, the outcomes, recommendations from this research and the related case studies at the Workplace Trends Research Summit on 19 April 2023 in London and online.
Kasia Maynard, Gensler Research Institute
Kasia Maynard is a researcher and writer with a background in the future of work and urban design. She holds an MA in Urban Design and Planning and has more than six years’ experience forecasting trends on the future of work. Kasia works across the global workplace surveys published by the Gensler Research Institute. Prior to this, she worked as an editor with the WORKTECH Academy – a global platform focusing exclusively on the future of work and workplace. She has presented research and insights on the future of work internationally, delivered workshops, and facilitated panels with prominent thought leaders across the industry.
Lawyers for two Kalgoorlie men on trial over an alleged million-dollar gold theft have told the District Court they were duped into participating in the alleged fraud of miner FMR investments.
Key points:
Closing arguments are being delivered in the trial of five people over the alleged theft of gold-bearing ore
Police allege 8,465 tonnes of gold-bearing ore with an estimated value of $1.17 million was stolen
A lawyer for one of the accused told the jurors the case hinged on whether they believed Patrick Keogh’s testimony or that of his former employer, Peter Bartlett
Russell Wilson Holden, 51, and his business partner, Simon Leslie Gash, 57, are fighting money laundering and fraud charges as part of the trial, which is now in its third week.
Patrick Rhyan Keogh, 42, the former general manager of FMR Investments, and former Greenfields Mill manager Christopher Robert Burns, 76, have both pleaded not guilty to stealing as a servant and other charges relating to the proceeds of an offence.
The charges relate to the alleged theft of 8,465 tonnes of gold-bearing ore from the Greenfields Mill, owned by FMR Investments, between December 2018 and January 2019.
Based on metal prices at the time, the gold the ore produced had an estimated value of $1.17 million.
Mr Keogh has maintained that FMR Investments founder, well-known WA mining entrepreneur Peter Bartlett, gave him permission to profit from the ore, referred to as the “clean-up pile”, during a conversation a decade ago.
The court has heard that material mined by Mr Holden and Mr Gash was combined with the allegedly stolen ore to make a bigger parcel for a milling campaign.
Defence lawyer David Grace KC said his client unknowingly played a role in the alleged scheme.(ABC Goldfields: Jarrod Lucas)
‘Unwitting bunnies’
In his closing address, Mr Gash’s lawyer David Grace KC told the court that the business partners were the “unwitting bunnies” in the case.
He said the pair were “not privy” to discussions between Mr Keogh and Mr Bartlett and were “entitled” to believe that the company’s general manager and mill manager were authorised to act as they did.
“There was no earthly reason for them to believe otherwise,” Mr Grace said.
“They have been dragged into this case … they’re the unwitting bunnies in all of this.”
Mr Grace reiterated that there was no evidence of fraud and said his client had an obligation to pay Mr Keogh and Mr Burns, so he did.
“The prosecution will tell you they must have known [about the allegedly stolen ore], but there’s no evidence of that,” he said.
“There’s nothing to prove they would descend to fraud … it’s a giant step to conclude they went out to defraud.
“They risked losing everything.”
Defence lawyer Paul Yovich said Mr Holden had no reason to believe the deal was anything other than legitimate.(ABC News: Rhiannon Shine)
‘Above board’
Mr Holden’s lawyer Paul Yovich told the jury that his client had no reason to believe that the campaign was anything but “above board”.
“[Mr Keogh] tells them that, they act on good faith, it’s a handshake agreement,” Mr Yovich said.
“If there’s any deceit going on, [Mr Holden and Mr Gash] are deceived.
“They had no reason to believe it was anything other than an above board, arm’s length, gentleman’s agreement going on.”
Patrick Keogh (from left), Christopher Burns, Morgan Dombroski, Russell Holden and Simon Gash are on trial in the Kalgoorlie District Court.(ABC Goldfields: Jarrod Lucas)
The prosecution alleges the business partners knew about plans to combine the ore and defraud FMR Investments of its share.
Mr Yovich told the jurors the case hinged on whether they believed Mr Keogh’s testimony or that of his former employer, Mr Bartlett.
“If [Mr Keogh] didn’t [steal the ore], and if you’re satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, that’s the end of it,” Mr Yovich said.
“Mr Holden will have committed no offences, and that’s the same for the other co-accused.”
He later added: “If Mr Keogh is acquitted of count one [the charge of stealing as a servant], everyone goes home”.
The Greenfields Mill at Coolgardie is operated by FMR Investments. (Supplied: FMR Resources)
‘Human nature’
Mr Yovich said there was no evidence to support the prosecution case against Mr Holden.
“There is a gap … and the state is no Evel Knievel,” he said.
Mr Yovich told the jury to view Mr Holden’s December 16 2020 police interview with the knowledge that he had spent five hours in a cell before it began at 7pm.
The court also heard that his wife had been arrested that same day because she was a director of one of his companies, but she was later released without charge.
Mr Usher spoke briefly on Thursday morning about “financial gain” as a “possible motive” for the offending.
“It’s human nature to look for a reason to explain why someone has done what they’ve done,” he told the jury.
“On the evidence, it is open for you to find Mr Keogh and Mr Burns had financial gain borne out of an opportunity to use the clean-up pile for their own use.”
Defence lawyers for the remaining co-accused will make their closing arguments on Friday.
On an engineering project, Alex’s boss offered “fifty.” Alex negotiated it up to “sixty.” The trouble was, the boss meant “sixty-thousand dollars a year”; Alex was counting on sixty dollars an hour! That’s double: $120,000/year!
Unlikely? Yes, but it really happened!
Another example: Greg exceeded his sales quota. He was expecting a bonus equal to 10% if he reached or exceeded his goal. He received only a $5,000 bonus equal to 10% of his base SALARY not 10% of sales.
And there are hundreds more misunderstandings and memory lapses that can occur if you don’t “get it in writing.” Dates, durations, promotions, vacation, travel and other ancillary expenses, etc.
How can you prevent negotiating your compensation package only to find out later different from what you [thought you] negotiated? You should get it in writing.
On the other hand can “Getting It In Writing” be overkill? When the employer tells you out loud what the salary is, isn’t it tantamount to saying “your word isn’t good enough for me?”
Expensive misunderstandings can occur in the salary negotiation process, but you can prevent them easily enough by writing things down at the proper time.
Here’s four Guidelines that’ll help avoid these mistakes.
Guideline 1: When to get it in writing? Always get it in writing.
This is an ordinary and customary thing companies do – even small companies. Once you’ve finished the negotiations the employer will usually take the first step and say, “Well get this to you as a formal written offer by [date].”
If that doesn’t happen, then you should bring up the subject and leave it in their hands, but still with a deadline attached. Rarely, the written offer will be different than you expected. If that happens don’t delay at all in bringing it to the attention of the hiring decision maker. Guideline 3, “clarity initials” will minimize chances of a discrepancy showing up at this juncture.
Guideline 2: When to put it in writing – meaning when should you take the initiative and write up the agreement yourself.
Urgency is the key indicator. Often by the time someone is hired, the needs they’re expected to fill have now become pressing. In the urgency to get you in there up and running, your written offer can get lost in the shuffle. The longer the time period between the negotiation conversation and the written offer, the more likely things will be forgotten, recalled incorrectly, etc., on both your parts.
So, if it looks like that’s a possibility, you should offer to write it out. “Mr. Employer, since you want me at the training on Monday and fully operational by Wednesday, maybe I can lighten the load for you and write up what we agreed to in a letter of acceptance. Would that be okay?”
Guideline 3: Using the “clarity initials”
No matter who is going to compose the written agreement later, you’re always better off to use “initials” to clarify the negotiation right then and there. Why “initials”? Getting people to sign something often scares them; getting them to initial something feels less weighty, but it accomplishes the goal: something written right there in the negotiating session. That’s when things are fresh, and just a few written notes can avoid any surprises later.
How should you broach the subject? At the end of the negotiating session say, “Why don’t we just jot down what we’ve covered here, and we’ll sign an actual letter of agreement later. Sound OK?”
Write it down. When you’re done, give it to Ms. Employer and say, “is that accurate for now?” She says yes, and then you say, “Okay, let’s initial it and we’re good to go!” You initial it, and turn it to her to do the same. Copy it if convenient, and you keep an original.
Initial it? Isn’t that accusing them of being untrustworthy? Isn’t that overkill if it’s just one number and benefits? Not if you use the rationale of “clarity initials”: i.e. this is not about trust, it’s about clarity. Here’s another way to say it: “Here’s the notes I’ve got on compensation [read your notes], and I know that it’s always important to be very clear whenever money is involved. So, I’ll go ahead and initial this, and when you do the same, that ought to make sure we’re on the same page, OK?”
Guideline 4: Most negotiations have two back-and-forths. The company makes an offer; the candidate counter offers. The company makes a second offer; both reach a final agreement. In that average case, get it in writing at the end.
If the negotiation is complicated and has several rounds, use the Clarity Initials Principle to determine when to write it down. Formulations of stock value, setting performance criteria, laboratory and equipment requirements, succession guarantees, change in management clauses, severance, etc., all might take some back-and-forth time.
As you progress through the negotiations, you won’t need initials on every time, but whenever you think there might be any chance of misunderstandings, put it in writing. Don’t worry about upsetting your Mr. Employer. After the second time, he will smile, “Oh yes, you’re making sure we’re clear.”
In our first Vibe Check episode, Julie Jeannotte, HR Expert and Researcher at Officevibe, chats with Andrea Kalavsky, People Consultant at peopleOsophy, to talk about all things alignment. More specifically, they dive into how prioritizing and maintaining alignment around a company’s mission, values, goals, and general outlook keeps employees engaged in the long haul (and less likely to look for greener pastures).
Read on and watch the full episode to learn how you can get your team to row in the same direction, even in rough seas.
How organizational alignment leads to better business outcomes
How HR and leaders can foster and contribute to alignment
The importance of prioritizing alignment in each stage of the employee life cycle
The role technology plays in aligning employees and teams
“If your team knows what success means to your organization, they will do anything required to get there. And when things aren’t in alignment, they will call it out and challenge it.”
Andrea Kalavsky
How People Ops leaders can pilot alignment at work
Company-wide alignment isn’t a given. It’s something that organizations must actively work towards. And as our guest, Andrea, points out in this episode, People Ops teams have the power to pilot businesses to success by helping leaders, managers, and employees leverage the right tools and processes.
Use her key tips to get you started on the right track:
Help employees at all levels understand the power of listening mechanisms and how to use them. These can be all-hands meetings, one-on-ones, team forums, or employee engagement platforms like Officevibe.
Use these mechanisms as moments of connectivity where you can listen to and learn from one another. Psychological safety and trust are paramount to get your team fully in sync and aligned.
Give your team a voice to help you uncover misalignment. Evaluate pain points so that you can properly pivot your strategy or process.
Do the same to highlight your wins. Celebrate what’s going great, contributing to a stronger company culture, and leading to better business outcomes.
Don’t shy away from using technology as a sidekick. It enables you to analyze and quantify employee sentiment so you can act on hard facts.
📺 Watch the full episode if you want more advice and insights from Andrea’s professional journey in people operations.
Meet our illustrious guest
Andrea Kalavsky
Coach, advisor, mentor, and leader (in no particular order)
“I’ve found myself being able to thrive when my personal values, my motivations, and my aspirations are in alignment with where I work and what I do.”
Andrea Kalavsky
Andrea’s route to People leadership has been non-traditional. She started managing tech, social, and digital teams before realizing she was a people People person.
Since then, she’s worked in some small (and large) people-centric, mission-driven companies, including Innocent Drinks, Daylesford Organic, People Against Dirty (the people behind Method and Ecover), Koru Kids, and a handful of deep-tech post-seed start-ups.
Driven by a strong desire to experiment and do things differently, Andrea is naturally attracted to places and people who aspire to change their industries or categories for the better.
…And our Vibe Check host!
Julie Jeannotte
Officevibe’s HR Expert & Researcher
Julie’s (or JJ as we like to call her) life’s mission is to help organizations understand the value of placing their people at the heart of their strategy and business. Her background, research, and innate curiosity give her a unique perspective on day-to-day team challenges and the ever-evolving world of work.
Anyone who knows JJ knows this: she’s a wildflower who speaks from the heart. Inspired by the uniqueness of individuals and driven by the power of collectivity, she focuses on bringing out the best in humans to create meaningful change.
Vibe Check: A conversation series filled with real talk & genuine advice
Vibe Check, Officevibe’s brand-new conversation series, is a place where we have open, honest, and authentic conversations about the human side of business. Our goal is to help you achieve better business outcomes with people-led initiatives.
To set your business up for success, you need real, proven advice. And we have the right experts to give you just that. No sugarcoating or beating around the bush. Just real talk and genuine advice from people who’ve been there, done that. That’s what Vibe Check stands for.
So, what’s a vibe check? It’s a phrase for asking “how are you really doing?” It opens the door to meaningful conversations between colleagues, professionals, but most importantly, human beings.
Do a quick follow up with the employer by learning how to write an email interview thank you letter. Typically, only about 5% of those looking for a job send out thank you letters. Be one of the few and get a second interview or land the job.
The key to success is to send out a note the same day or no later than the next. This way you can get your name in front of the employer as quickly as possible.
Career experts and employers are not in total agreement on whether or not sending a thank you letter through email is proper protocol. Technology has changed the job search market with today’s online job boards, email, and web resumes. Let the company’s culture guide you when making your decision about emailing a thank you letter. Your best bet is to send an email and then follow up with a formal lette through snail mail.
Follow the tips below and keep your thank you note brief:
Be sure to check your spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
Thank the interviewer for his or her time.
Tailor the letter to the company and the relationship you established with the interviewer.
If during the interview you forgot something of importance mention it in your email.
Do reinforce important information provided during the interview.
State your interest in the job being offered.
Quick and to the point, that’s how to write an email thank you letter. This sample can serve as a model when you write your email thank you note:
Dear Mr. Jones,
Thank you for the opportunity to interview for the position of Loan Officer at Bloomington National Bank. I believe my education and experience are a fit for your organization. I look forward to helping your bank expand its market share and achieve its goals as it expands into the commercial mortgage field.
If I can provide you any additional information, please let me know.
I look forward to working with you soon!
Sincerely,
James Lichner
(123) 456-7890
email address
Follow up with your thank you note as soon as possible and place yourself ahead of the competition in the job search race.
Generally, we define empathy as the ability to sense emotions of others coupled with the ability to judge what someone else might be thinking and feeling. In common parlance, empathy is most often defined by the metaphors: ‘standing in someone else’s shoes’ or ‘seeing through someone else’s eyes’
Psychologically speaking, there are basically four kinds of empathy in humans, which are self-empathy, mirror (emotional) empathy, cognitive empathy and compassionate empathy as described below:
• Self empathy – Self-empathy is the act of giving ourselves empathy, listening to our own feelings and unmet needs with compassion and understanding. This does not make the problems go away, or magically make all our needs met. But it does help us to feel connected and centered within ourselves. It can also be a tool to express ourselves with more honesty. Though it doesn’t make problems go away, it makes it easier to endure them.
• Cognitive empathy – It means knowing how the other person feels and what they might be thinking. It is very helpful in negotiations or motivating people. It has been found that people who possess good cognitive empathy (also called perspective taking) make good leaders or managers because they are able to move people to give their best efforts. But there can be a downside to this type of empathy. If people, falling within the “Dark Triad” – narcissists, Machiavellians and psychopaths – possess ample ability of cognitive empathy, they can exploit others to the extent of torturing them. Such people have no sympathy for their victims and expertly use their ability to calibrate their cruelty.
• Emotional empathy – It means feeling physically along with the other person as though their emotions are contagious. It makes one well-attuned to another’s emotional world, which is a plus in any of the wide range of callings. There is a downside attached to emotional empathy that occurs, when people lack the ability to manage their own emotions. This can be seen as psychological exhaustion leading to a burnout as commonly seen in professionals. The purposeful detachment cultivated by those in medical profession is a way to void burnout. But when the detachment leads to indifference, it can seriously hamper the professional care.
• Compassionate empathy – Also commonly referred to as empathic concern, this type of empathy not only means understanding a person’s predicament and feel with them but spontaneously move to help them, if needed. In fact, empathic concern is the vital ingredient of an empathic response in a given situation. It is the kind most required in people working as social volunteers.
Empathy – a basic trait –
Empathy is inherently present in humans to varying extents and, therefore, we are affected by another’s predicament differently. In fact, it is one of the basic traits of humans so much so that any one devoid of it strikes us as dangerous or mentally ill.
Females frequently score higher on standard tests of empathy, social sensitivity, and emotion recognition than do males.
Its inherence in humans can be established by the fact that how young children respond to the emotions of family members. Besides children, some household pets also express their worry, when the family members are in distress. The pets hover nearby and put their heads in their owners’ laps showing that even animals have empathy. Besides humans, many other species exhibit presence of empathy to a varying extent.
A compelling evidence for the presence of empathy in animals came from the following research. The researchers reported in 1964 in the American Journal of Psychiatry that rhesus monkeys refused to pull a chain that delivered food to themselves if doing so gave a shock to a companion. One monkey stopped pulling the chain for 12 days after witnessing another monkey receive a shock. Those primates were literally starving themselves in order to avoid causing hurt to other animals.
Role of empathy in life –
• Empathy plays great role in our life in almost every sphere. The skill of empathy, though we inherit it, can be cultivated, which plays a significant role in making us successful in those spheres. Role of empathy in the life of an individual is actually dependent on its conceptualization by the individual, which varies widely. Nevertheless, empathy acts to reflect what has been perceived and creates a supportive or confirming atmosphere.
• Empathy is a powerful communication skill that is actually underused by many. It allows one to understand thoughts and resultant feelings created by them in others. Empathy also makes one to respond to other’s feelings sympathetically so that they can win their trust, which promotes communication further. Our fear of failure, anger, and frustration suddenly drop away, allowing for a more meaningful dialogue and a deepening of relationships.
• Empathy is more than simple sympathy, which makes the individual understand others with compassion and sensitivity. That is why it is plays an important role in the workplace, where many people work together to achieve something of significance. It helps create deep respect for the co-workers, thereby fostering a harmonious atmosphere in the workplace.
• Similarly, empathy is helpful in our professional life because, besides facilitating communication, it makes us a sympathetic listener to our clients, whereby we are able to understand them better.
• Because empathy makes us able to communicate effectively and listen empathetically, we stand a better chance of making our personal and social relationships successful. In fact, empathy is capable of nurturing every kind of relationship we enter into or are in.
• As it is clear that empathy affects our life with far reaching ramifications, we should help our children to cultivate this trait so that they can become better human beings. Since empathy promotes pro-social behavior, it will help our children build close relationships, maintain friendships and develop better communities. Emotional intelligence has assumed great importance over the past twenty years as an instrument in developing an ability to work with our own and other’s emotions. One of the most important components of emotional intelligence skills is empathy.
Conclusion –
Undoubtedly, empathy immensely affects our everyday life. This trait will come in handy in situations, where we find ourselves trapped, because it will make us understand other’s perspectives.
Though we are born with this trait, it happens to be underused by many. As empathy is one of the most important skills to be practiced for success in everyday life, we should encourage our children to cultivate it.
Alison Roman is cooking rice, a grain she dismissed as “filler” in her 2017 cookbook Dining In. But she’s preparing a Passover dessert, and leavening agents are verboten. Roman is not a chocolate person, so flourless chocolate cake is out. But in 2015, rabbis declared rice kosher for Passover after an 800-year ban. So rice pudding it is.
It’s February, over a month before the Jewish holiday, but Roman needs to complete the all-day shoot for her “Home Movies” YouTube series before she goes on a seven-city tour for her latest cookbook, Sweet Enough, out March 28. Her loft-like Brooklyn apartment with whitewashed brick walls and exposed pipes looks more like a studio than a living space when stuffed with lights and cameras. Pots boil over and dishes pile up, but Roman approaches the chaos with enviable levity, squeezing lemon here and sprinkling red pepper flakes there while declaring to the camera that the word “unctuous” has been banished from her vocabulary for onomatopoetic reasons. Being invited into Roman’s kitchen is like snagging a seat at your foodie friend’s boozy dinner party, a vibe that helped her 2021 “Thanksgiving Special” rack up over 1 million views.
Roman declares that she will diverge from the recipe as written and chill the rice pudding without plastic wrap so it can form a film. She hates food without texture—she’s anti-avocado and fills her tuna salad with an obscene amount of celery—so she must add crunch to this mushy dessert. Her crew members exchange skeptical looks, but Roman is probably right. She usually is, about food anyway. Her stances—anchovies make everything better; one-use kitchen tools are a waste; crispy potatoes are superior to mashed—might turn off potential fans if her recipes didn’t work so well.
But her opinions have also gotten her in trouble. In 2020, Roman was semi-canceled and the New York Times suspended her column after she intimated in an interview that Marie Kondo and Chrissy Teigen, women of color in a traditionally white milieu, had sold out by launching lines of home goods—even though Roman herself was working on a line of spoons.
Roman apologized, but she didn’t disappear. She never returned to the Times, but just a month after her suspension, she launched her snarkily named “A Newsletter.” Unlike some public figures felled by scandal in the early days of the pandemic, she couldn’t retreat to a compound. “I didn’t have a choice. Not financially, not emotionally, not intellectually. I have to pay rent. I had no fallback,” she says.
Steadily, her popularity grew again. Perhaps Roman has endured because while she apologized, she didn’t go on an apology tour. She read the comments and engaged in conversations about her privilege, but she doesn’t present herself as a new person. “I had two choices: I could let it ruin my life or not,” she says. “I’m an authentic person, and what is authentic to me is to cook. So I did. There were a lot of people before who didn’t like me. There are a lot of people now who don’t like me. If you try to trace a trajectory from pre-that to post-that, it’s the same person with a wonderful dose of evolution.”
Her life has changed in the last three years. On top of the pandemic and publicity woes, she went through a break-up, met someone new, moved, and got a new therapist. “There are certain things that can only come from failing in a really epic way in a very public forum,” she says. “You become more nervous and afraid and ashamed. But you also become a little bit more brave.”
With her new cookbook, ‘Sweet Enough,’ Roman returns to her roots as a pastry chef.
Justin J Wee for TIME
Roman, 37, dropped out of college to work as a pastry chef. Her parents weren’t particularly thrilled and didn’t offer her any financial assistance. She baked for six years in her home state, California, and her adopted home, New York, including at Pies & Thighs and Momofuku Milk Bar. After Dining In, her editor urged her to write a book of desserts. Instead she wrote Nothing Fancy, a best-selling cookbook that instructs readers how to stage low-maintenance dinner parties like the ones occasionally featured in Roman’s videos: think guests arranging cheese plates while sipping three-ingredient spritzes. She just prefers savory food. Even in her new book on sweets, she’s included a savory section—and yes, anchovies make an appearance.
Desserts can be intimidating. It’s harder to make real-time adjustments. You don’t know if a cake tastes terrible until you serve it. But Roman insists many of her dessert recipes are “casual.” The one on the book’s cover, “Raspberries and Sour Cream,” isn’t even really a recipe. It’s a suggestion that sprinkling sugar on raspberries and layering them with spoonfuls of sour cream will taste delicious. (It does.)
Roman’s recipes are simple: Thanksgiving turkeys are cooked on sheet pans and beans don’t need to be pre-soaked. Simplicity may seem like an obvious way to achieve popularity, but it’s not every cookbook author’s goal. Take London restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi, whose uber-popular cookbooks notoriously contain recipes with dozens of steps. “He did so much for cookbook writers because he pushed people to the f-cking limits,” says Roman. “So anything easier than that people were like, ‘Oh, thank god.’”
When Roman left the restaurant world to work at Bon Appétit, she tried to impress her bosses with complicated dishes. But readers weren’t making them. She asked herself: “Do I want people to know what a badass cook I am and what skills I possess? Or do I want people to feed themselves?”
Roman also learned at Bon Appétit that she was telegenic. She is the rare influencer who projects the same energy in person as she does on camera. Her wit and candor buoy the cooking video genre from informative to outright entertaining. Some of her fans comment that they tune in every week with no intention of making the recipes, just to watch Roman try to dislodge ingredients from her overstuffed refrigerator. During the Passover shoot, Roman’s assistant sits curled up on an orange couch, fact-checking the cook’s quips. Nothing is pre-rehearsed. “It can only appear casual, natural, authentic, and relaxed if it really is,” Roman says.
That sometimes includes delving into the messy contradictions of her own cooking edicts. She’s moved on from rice pudding to a potato dish shared with her by a friend who used to work under Alice Waters at the famed Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse. Roman didn’t want to use a mandolin for the recipe (see: her policy on single-use kitchen tools), but she cooked the dish by cutting the potatoes with a knife and then again using the more precise mandolin. The mandolin potatoes were crispier. “You win this time, Alice Waters,” Roman says. She assures viewers that they can get the mint green tool she’s using online for about $18. Her assistant Googles the particular brand and corrects her: it’s more like $80, though Amazon has a sale for about half-off at the moment. They don’t reshoot the segment; Roman transforms the mistake into an opportunity for banter. “When I was a kid, this only cost $18,” she gripes.
Roman keeps her flaws on-camera. In a recent video she filmed with a friend who never bakes, she repeatedly insists she “loves teaching” while simultaneously micromanaging the process of making a fruit tart, down to adjusting the cherry her friend had placed on top. Based on the comments, viewers found Roman’s need for control endearing—she knows her stubborn attitude is her appeal. Roman is a whizz at branding: her signature orangey-red nail and lip color and affinity for vintage speckled bowls scream Brooklyn ramshackle chic. Her life is aspirational yet accessible to the Millennials who follow her: the newsletter reaches tens of thousands of subscribers across all 50 states, and her fans are mostly women ages 24 to 44, according to Roman’s Instagram data.
Yet she takes umbrage at the idea that she’s a “cool girl,” a phrase often lobbed at her, and not always kindly. She thinks people are confusing insecurity for snobbery. “When I hear ‘cool girl,’ I think aloof, cold. But I’m pretty warm and friendly, I think?” she says. In fact, she started hosting dinner parties to manage her social anxiety. “I can recuse myself from the social activity while being social because I’m in the kitchen. I have a job to do.”
But she is undeniably popular. Her recipes often go viral. Her Shallot Pasta, Labneh Dip, and Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies were inescapable at Millennials’ dinner parties (including my own) for years. Back in 2019, I was in Park City, Utah and stopped by the local Whole Foods to try to buy labneh—a Middle Eastern cheese with the consistency of yogurt—to make her famous dip. Not only was the grocery store sold out, but the cashier informed me multiple customers had specifically asked about Roman’s recipe.
That’s no accident. In her pastry chef days, the description of a dessert on a menu could make the difference between a slow night and a profitable one. “You want them to be like, wow, we sold a lot of desserts tonight,” she says. “So how do I write this so that people are like, ‘F-ck I have to order this’?” Now sometimes the name for a recipe comes to her before the recipe itself: “Dilly Bean” sounded whimsical, so she reverse-engineered a recipe for stew with dill and beans. Her viral “Shallot Pasta” was, at one point, going to be called “Anchovy Tomato Pasta,” and Roman is convinced the same dish wouldn’t have taken off with that moniker. Some recipe names even betray a level of intimacy that’s enticing to her fans: in one video, she explains that “Goodbye Meatballs” were so named after a breakup over dinner.
It works. Even Ryan Murphy once reached out to say he is a fan. They went to dinner, and two years later he dropped her name in his hit Netflix series The Watcher. Her YouTube channel saw a flood of new followers unfamiliar with Roman—or her baggage.
Ice cream in melon, a recipe from ‘Sweet Enough’
Courtesy Chris Bernabeo—Sweet Enough/Alison Roman
Roman’s caramelized maple tart
Courtesy Chris Bernabeo—Sweet Enough/Alison Roman
Sweet Enough includes a recipe for bread pudding from Nora Ephron’s beloved novel Heartburn. The book chronicles, with thinly disguised pseudonyms, Ephron’s divorce from Carl Bernstein after he cheated on her while she was pregnant. It’s sprinkled with recipes that often recall a particular memory in the narrator’s life. Roman admits that the bread pudding wasn’t to her taste, but she wanted the excuse to write about one of her idols. Ephron, herself a famous dinner-party host, writes in Heartburn that “after a hard day, there is something comforting about the fact that if you melt butter and add flour and then hot stock, it will get thick! … It’s a sure thing in a world where nothing is sure.”
Like Ephron, Roman cooked through chaos—even if it was of her own making. When her comments on Teigen and Kondo went viral, Roman’s food came under scrutiny. People pointed out that her chickpea stew recipe bore similarities to Indian chana masala. “I have tried to cook things that feel authentic to me and do a better job of hearing why people were upset and adjusting,” she says. “But ultimately it wasn’t like, ‘I can never use this ingredient again.’ It was, ‘Here’s a better way to handle it.’”
Discussing the criticism over coffee at Brooklyn’s Ace Hotel, I expect Roman to be evasive, defensive, or even rehearsed. But she is open. She removes her beanie as she sits at a corner table of the hotel’s ultra-modern restaurant, rain pouring outside the window behind her. In her videos, Roman leans heavily on a self-deprecating joke. But she eschews that crutch in person: she never hesitates in her answers. She speaks in thoughtful paragraphs, leaving her drink untouched for long stretches. “I’m not ashamed of who I am. I f-cked up,” she says, a note of defiance in her voice. “But I never wanted to have ‘a comeback.’ It’s like eating sh-t on the sidewalk. If you lay there, people are going to notice. But if you get right back up, you can rebound and keep moving.”
Keep moving she did, though not without fits and starts. She was set to host a show on CNN+ until the streamer abruptly shut down in 2022. She was in a meeting when it happened. “I had a million texts and calls, ‘Are you OK?’” she says. “The last time this happened, my world fell apart. I was so scared. So when I found out, I was like, ‘That’s fine. I’ll get through it.’” CNN picked up the show for its network, and Roman shot two seasons. Each episode focused on a different ingredient, where it came from, and how to cook with it. She was at a promotional shoot when she got a call: CNN was making big cuts to its original programming. Her show was on the chopping block along with another food series, Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy. At least she was in good company. Roman is shopping it to other distributors.
For now, she’s filming more “Home Movies” focused on baking the recipes from Sweet Enough, beginning with a video on the equipment you’ll need (not much besides a cake pan and a whisk) and ingredients you should have (flour and sugar of any brand, but she insists on Diamond Kosher salt). She has set a policy not to comment on other public figures’ lives and is happier for it—though it’s been hard. At one point she mimes her impulse to word vomit. But she’s trying to maintain perspective. “I’m a fallible person who will probably make a mistake again. The goal isn’t to be perfect. It’s to be a human that can evolve and learn.”
She pauses. “Not to make it an allegory for baking, but every time I f-cked up a recipe, I learned something. It wasn’t a waste of time. If you only ever succeed, you’re probably pretty boring. You’re probably not that resilient.”
In this article, I will be discuss simple steps to take action on each day at work to accomplish more in less time. By following these steps, you will learn how to be productive at work on a daily basis.
Benefits of Increasing Productivity
Learning how to be more productive, especially at work, typically results in you increasing the efficiency with which you complete your tasks. Completing more work in less time has many benefits from the obvious benefit of freeing up more of your time for non-work related tasks, increasing your motivation to continue to be productive, increasing your sense of accomplishment and reducing your overall stress levels.
Then of course, there are the positive work benefits that come from increasing your productivity–especially on a daily basis. By being able to complete more work in less time with the high level of quality that you typically complete your work-related tasks, you are literally achieving more at work. Achieving more at work usually earns you benefits that will likely impact your life, and your work life balance, positively.
How to be Productive at Work Daily
There is no one set of strategies or steps to becoming “productive,” and what leads to success for one person may be a disastrous strategy for another person to try to follow. As a result, I encourage you to test out each of the steps below, and decide for yourself which of the steps will be effective at increasing your productivity at work, and that are therefore worth the effort to put into action, and continue using, until you see positive results. These positive results likely will not happen after just one attempt, rather try each step out for at least a week before making a final decision on whether that particular strategy is personally beneficial for you to pursue.
Step 1: Tie Rewarding Tasks for Finishing Work Tasks: To increase your productivity daily at work, you can tie enjoying a rewarding task with accomplishing a less rewarding and/or necessary work-related task.
For example, you can delay enjoying a rewarding task, such as having your first cup of coffee or tea, until after you complete one work-related task. Or, you can delay checking any social media until you’ve completed three work-related tasks.
Step 2: Shift Your “Productivity” Schedule: Everyone experiences a natural lull in energy at some throughout the day. If you are working outside of the home, in a 9-5 or similar job, that lull in energy typically (but not always) comes during the late afternoon.
Shift your work schedule by one hour so that you are leaving work, or at least not attempting to be highly productive, by 4:00 p.m. or whenever your energy lull happens to be. This will ensure that you have more energy to be productive during work hours that you decide will be productive, and reduces your stress levels by not creating unrealistic expectations of what you should accomplish right before the 5:00 p.m. end of day hits.
Step 3: Snacking to Keep Your Energy and Productivity Up: Continuing with the idea that people naturally have more energy to be highly productive at certain times of day, you should also be aware of how the food you eat can positively increase the energy you have and can help you to be more productive.
Foods, typically fruit such as apples, oranges, and bananas, or other foods like honey and agave, are high in both fructose and sucrose. These are two sugars that serve different energy purposes in your body, one giving you a short term energy boost while the other gives you energy over a longer period of time. In either case, by snacking puposefully, you can help make sure that you have the stamina to finish your work day strong and with the high level of productivity you started your day with.
Step 4: Start and End Your Day With Special Tasks: For most people, the most challenging part of experiencing consistently high levels of productivity is finding the motivation to just start working. To help with this problem, try giving yourself select tasks to work on to start and end your day.
To begin your day successfully and to quickly achieve productivity in your day, the first task you should try to accomplish is something fairly short, simple and/or enjoyable to complete. This will ensure that you finish your first task of the day, and that you are left with positive feelings of motivation and accomplishment from doing so.
To end your day, and prepare for the next day, leave work when you are only halfway done with a particular task that can be completed the next day without having a negative impact on your work. Most people feel uncomfortable with “unfinished” work, and this sense of not finishing your work and the discomfort that comes with it will provide a reliable source of motivation to start your work immediately the next day to be able to get to and complete your previous day’s unfinished task.
A MAN plotted sweet revenge on his former boss for sacking him before Christmas by sabotaging his attempts to replace him.
The automotive technician told of how he was able to get his own back on an abusive employer after exposing some serious wage discrepancies.
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A man plotted sweet revenge on his former boss for sacking him before ChristmasCredit: Getty
In a thread on Reddit’s Petty Revenge, the unnamed man explained how he spent years working under a boss owner who would “verbally berated him in front of the rest of staff”.
Then one day, right before Christmas he was suddenly laid off, along with another colleague, after the owner claimed they were stopping the side of the business they worked on.
“We were shocked, especially with how nonchalant an arrogant he was about it. He told us to pack out things and he’d have our final checks to us by the end of the week,” he wrote.
However, after returning to work to pick up his tools he found out that his boss had simply laid them off to be replaced by a single employee on a lower wage.
The man then gleefully recounted how he plotted his revenge.
“I stewed over it the entire time I was loading my stuff. Surprisingly, the new guy came over to see what I was doing. We talked about the job and the installs. Then, an idea popped into my head,” he said.
After asking his replacement what his wages were, he discovered that he was making much less per hour.
“When I found out, I made sure to let him know, and told him personally, he’d be insane to do the job for what he’d been hired at.”
He continued: “A few minutes later, as I was strapping down my tool box, he came walking out, got in a car, and left.”
The owner was reportedly furious and screamed at his former employee for making the newbie quit on his first day.
“I just laughed, said gee, I guess my work here is done, got in my truck and drove away.”
In a satisfying end to the saga, the man discovered it took his boss almost six months to find a replacement.
Redditors loved the revenge story, and one said: “Your employer was a slimeball and a scumbag, good for you for getting instant revenge.”
Another quipped: “Virtuous Revenge. Great name for a band!”
A third wrote: “You didn’t sabotage your replacement. That was an act of virtuous revenge.”
Meanwhile, another employee was left furious with their boss for advertising her job for over £75,000 what she gets paid.
Kimberley Nguyhen wasn’t going to let that slip, and instead planned her revenge by applying for the vacancy and posting about it internally.
The 25-year-old copywriter went viral on Twitter after shaming her employers and later quit her job.
Online users rushed to praise her actions, calling it a “boss move”.
It’s amazing how many people can’t describe their achievements in order to maximize its impact. Whether its in a resume or in a job interview, your ability to describe your achievements is a critical factor for success.
So many people underplay their achievements! Question is, do YOU?
Are you submitting your resume for that job you want, or even need? Or perhaps you’re preparing for an interview?
When you finally get the opportunity to talk about what you have achieved, it’s an opportunity you won’t want to waste. I’ve pulled together 7 keys to guide you on describing your achievements for maximum impact.
1. Clarify Your Involvement in the Achievement: Use powerful words that describe your contribution. For example, ‘created’, ‘reorganized’ or ‘established’. Passive statements like ‘did’, ‘performed’ or ‘was involved in’ don’t indicate your level of involvement – they’re worthless, so don’t use them.
2. Describe a Start, Middle and End: mention the starting conditions, such as ‘poor performance’, ‘high costs’, ‘unpalatable risk’, and follow with a statement on what you made happen (the project, change initiative, etc), and cap it off with the result – was the desired outcome achieved?
3. Quantify the Achievement: use numbers and hard measures where you can. For example, say ‘saved $50,000’ rather than ‘saved operating costs’. The more specific you are, the greater the value of your statement of achievement. In almost all cases, a percentage value has a higher-impact than an absolute number. In some cases, what might look like a minor achievement, when quantified, it could be a major achievement as perceived by others.
4. Don’t Forget Over-Achievement!: If you set out to save $50,000, but instead saved $60,000, then make sure this is known. So many people forget to do this.
5. Indicate Your Personal Award: Some achievements warrant special reward, so mention them. If you were promoted, or awarded a bonus, then add it into your statement of achievement.
6. Include details of challenging circumstances: If the achievement was tough due to business events or conditions, then make sure you say what they were. It’s important to describe any challenges you faced. For example, if there were many layoffs in your organization whilst you were tasked with improving team morale, then make these conditions clear.
7. State the Effect of the Achievement, 360-degree style: Describe the achievement not just from your own perspective; also describe what it meant for your colleagues, subordinates, management and customers (where appropriate.) Don’t forget to quantify the effect for each of these groups of people too.
Returning to Learn: Embracing CTE for a Future-Ready CareerAs the world celebrates National Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month, it's time to revisit the...
