Walmart's onsite childcare, Gen Z's workday TV habits and more
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. How onsite childcare is helping Walmart staff return to the office
One of the biggest hurdles for parents returning to in-person work is finding adequate childcare. Shortages of childcare workers mean access is limited, and costs continue to climb. But some major employers are trying to solve this by bringing childcare to the office itself.?
This May, Walmart opened a childcare center for staff at its new home office campus in Bentonville, Arkansas. The center, spread across two large buildings, accommodates over 500 children, from infancy to pre-K. It stands to be the largest childcare offering in the Northwest Arkansas region, poised to increase local market capacity by 15%, according to the retail giant.?
2. Current policies ‘failing’: How HR leaders can fight workplace ageism
Ageism is an unfortunate reality of the work world —?with HR leaders often hard-pressed to find solid solutions to widespread bias against workers of a certain age.?
“Current policies and workplace dynamics are failing to protect employees from age-related discrimination,” said Heather O’Neill, career expert at the resume-design platform Resume Now. “We need stronger tools, more comprehensive education and targeted training to put an end to this epidemic.”
In a recent survey of more than 1,000 workers over 40 years old, Resume Now found that 9 in 10 had experienced age-related discrimination at work.
3. Gen Z wary of ‘trusting their gut’ – potentially reshaping future leadership
With the rise of AI, our technology is thinking more — even as the newest generation of workers may be thinking less.?
That’s the conclusion of a groundbreaking study encompassing nearly 400,000 respondents and spanning 160 countries, revealing that Gen Z employees trust their instincts far less than any previous generation — signaling a fundamental shift in how corporate leaders of the future could approach decision making.
The research, from AI-powered workplace analytics firm Marlee, shows a massive decline across generations in workers’ willingness to validate and stand behind their own points of view. Rather than “trusting their gut,” younger workers tend to seek external validation and reference points before making decisions.
4. Gen Z watches an hour of TV during workday
Remote workers often find time to slip in household tasks and other duties during the workday, but also leisure activities — like watching TV. In fact, Gen Z employees are watching almost an hour of TV daily while working, according to an analysis from TollFreeForwarding.com based on time use survey data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.?
In a year, they can watch the entire series of Friends — all 236 episodes — nearly two and a half times over, that report found. And ultimately they are paid over $8,000 a year to watch TV, according to the report.
5. Should you make an HR AI chatbot of yourself?
While a flurry of new AI tools are becoming available to help with HR processes, few HR professionals actually have much experience with AI tech, and many remain confused or intimidated by it.
But some are highly tuned in and eager to integrate new tech into their personal lives and professional workflows, like Colleen McCreary, data platform Confluent’s new chief people officer. She’s leveraging knowledge from her past role in fintech investing, and a long career in HR, to experiment with practical use cases — including making a chatbot of herself, called “AI Colleen”
“I think there are a lot of HR people who are either terrified of AI, or they are over the moon excited, and just not quite sure what to do with it,” McCreary said.?
Color by names and numbers
56% of managers said they are fully responsible for managing and resolving team conflicts – whether or not they feel prepared to do so, found a Gartner survey of over 3,000 managers from around the world taken last year.
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 Courtney Marabella , senior social media/audience manager for Digiday . Let us know what you think, or what you hope to see more of, by dropping us a note at [email protected] .