Flextirement, negotiating RTO plans, the stress of job hunting after a long work day
Here are 5 things to know about work this week.
Hello, and welcome to WorkLife’s 5 things newsletter. In this weekly newsletter, we will spotlight five things to know about the latest issues affecting modern workplaces.?
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1. Can I negotiate a flexible schedule like I would with a salary?
A working professional applying to remote and hybrid jobs in the marketing industry was ghosted after she asked during the interview what the hybrid schedule would really look like for her since she lives two hours away from the office.
Sure, candidates get ghosted during the interview process all the time, but this situation emphasizes a new challenge job seekers now have: What’s the right way to negotiate a remote or hybrid work schedule?
We talked to experts to figure out the best tips for negotiating a remote or hybrid schedule, similar to how we would negotiate other things like PTO, benefits and salary. Their number one piece of advice? Find a company that truly believes in its remote or hybrid policies. “There are many companies that have permanent work from home, full-time in office and others hybrid,” said Jack Appleby , consultant and creator of "Future Social" – a newsletter about social media strategy. “Try to not change the culture of companies you’re applying for. Go pursue companies offering the work-life balance you’re interested in.”
2. Older workers plan for flextirement instead of retirement
Some workers don’t want a full-blown retirement anymore. The idea that once you reach 62 years old, you shut your computer and start collecting social security benefits just isn’t really attractive to folks who enjoy their jobs.?
But that doesn’t mean that they want to continue working 40 hours a week either. Introducing: flextirement. It’s the idea that the person might continue working, but part-time and on a schedule that suits them, leaving them time to enjoy retirement. This way, employees could continue contributing to the workforce while lessening the knowledge transfer gap to younger colleagues. It’s the model that recruitment advertising agency HireClix is using.?
“Traditionally, people become contractors, but that isn’t a fit for us,” said Neil Costa , founder and CEO at HireClix. “We want a tighter bond and something more important. We started talking about the option of how to help people wind down while also keeping the knowledge worker.”
3. Could ChatGPT replace career coaches and mentors?
Picture this: You’re a young professional in the workforce struggling to understand work politics, how to ask your manager uncomfortable questions and how to climb the corporate ladder. In the past, someone in that situation might turn to a mentor or a career coach for advice.?
However, young professionals are struggling to find mentors since they graduated into a remote workforce and have struggled to boost their soft skills. They’re turning to ChatGPT instead, but does the technology really stand up to the test of questions someone might ask it??
We asked the same five career-related questions to ChatGPT and Tom Dowd , director of career coaching at career opportunity platform Guild, who has more than 12 years of experience in career development, to find out how their answers differ. See how they compared (and you might be surprised).
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4. Recognition around the value of dyslexic thinking is growing in the workplace
Dyslexia is one of many conditions that employees may prefer to not tell their employers about, and an estimated 20% of the population worldwide has it, according to Yale University.
But more companies are recognizing how dyslexic workers often employ unique ways of thinking that can drive innovation and better business outcomes, and they’re trying to better support those staff. In fact, LinkedIn launched a learning course for organizations and their workers covering how to best support those with dyslexia and celebrate dyslexic thinking. More than 1,500 organizations have pledged to take the course, according to the hiring platform.
On LinkedIn , users can include dyslexic thinking as a skill listed on their profiles. Since about a year ago, tens of thousands of users have added dyslexic thinking as a skill, according to the platform.?
“I think still the majority of dyslexics don’t tell their workplace, and what we want to do is really shift that narrative because you can’t empower what you can’t see,” said Kate Griggs , founder and CEO of global charity Made by Dyslexia.
5. How are you supposed to find time to job hunt after an exhausting 9 to 5?
Applying for a job takes a lot of work. And that work is usually done before or after an eight-hour workday at the place you are trying to move on from. It’s exhausting.
New technologies like application portals are supposed to make it a faster experience. However, people end up having to upload their resume just to type it all out in each section anyway so that the system has the information in the right spots. It’s like navigating a maze, except you need to do it over and over again because of the inability to reuse information across different application tracking systems.
Shikhar Sachdev , a tech worker based in San Francisco, applied to 250 jobs to track application times. He found that older application tracking systems like Workday and Taleo make job applications as much as 128% longer.?
So what should job seekers do to alleviate some of the stress??
Elsewhere in Digiday Media
Check out some of Digiday Media’s other stories on the future of work over the past week:
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This newsletter was curated by Cloey Callahan, senior reporter at WorkLife. Let us know what you think, or what you hope to see more of, by dropping us a note at [email protected].