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5 Unfair and Discriminatory Hiring Practices That Go Unnoticed

Businesses that prioritize diversity in their workforce significantly increase the likelihood of fostering creative and innovative thinking among their employees by 150%. Also, companies with a lot of different ethnicities and races in their management team are 35% more likely to do better than average in their industry.  For a long time, people have understood that teams with diverse backgrounds work better together. How can you make sure your workplace…

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Playing offense: Industrials staying ahead in the energy transition

The recent market turmoil and ongoing challenges of an accelerated energy transition are putting pressure on all sectors of society, from governments to utilities to consumers—industrials included. Industrials are highly exposed to energy costs and the recent price volatility caused by large disruptions such as the invasion of Ukraine, among others, has severely affected the sector’s energy cost baselines. In addition, the sector has to significantly reduce emissions to meet…

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Why Clarifying Ukraine’s Security Status Is in Russia’s Interest

Mistrust continues to govern relations between Russia and the West. Two years of full-scale military confrontation have only served to confirm existing negative preconceptions about each side’s intentions. President Putin could make the initial move to break this deadlock by sending a clear message that Russia does not seek to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and considers the idea of security guarantees for Ukraine to be legitimate. In response, Western leaders should…

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Green Views for Healthier Diets

An image of a verdant forest glade or a tranquil pasture. Natural scenes typically conjure up positive emotions and a sense of wellbeing for most individuals, but could they also influence them to make healthier food choices? The answer, according to our new article, just published in Nature’s new journal Communications Psychology, is yes.Our studies, which exposed people to natural or urban environments before asking them to make snack or…

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Want a More Ethical Team? Build Expertise, Not Just Guidelines

Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Ethics is often associated with the abstract realm of philosophers. But there’s nothing abstract about the risks for business leaders: Ethical missteps can expose their companies to a host of reputational, regulatory, and legal risks. In response, companies develop ethical guidelines or codes for decision makers and set up boards to govern guideline usage. For example, companies under growing pressure to fight bias are…

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Union Intrusion: New OSHA Rule Permits Non-Employee Union Representatives on OSHA Inspection Walkarounds

 By Matthew A. Sloan, A. Scott Hecker, and Adam R. Young Seyfarth Synopsis: On April 1, 2024, the Federal Register published OSHA’s final rule revising its regulations regarding whom employees can authorize to act as their representative(s) to accompany compliance officers during on-site OSHA inspections. Under Section 8(e) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, employees and employers alike have the right to have a representative accompany OSHA Compliance Officers (“CSHOs”) during physical…

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Get protection with unified security operations platform, now in public preview

Today, I am excited to announce the public preview of our unified security operations platform. When we announced a limited preview in November 2023, it was one of the first security operations center platforms that brought together the full capabilities of an industry-leading cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM), comprehensive extended detection and response (XDR), and generative AI built specifically for cybersecurity. This powerful combination of capabilities delivers a…

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Navigating the Mood of Customers Weary of Price Hikes

Inflation remains front and center for consumers and businesses, which continue to reel from the double-digit rise in prices during the COVID-19 pandemic and the interest rate hikes designed to cool them. While price increases for goods have slowed, the climate remains uncertain, with inflation ticking up again as recently as February.How should companies navigate the mood of shoppers, who remain cautious after being squeezed over the past two years,…

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5 practical ways to make life easier for your family when you die

Nobody likes to think about their own death, but it may be important to consider some of the challenges your family could face when you’re gone. The “cost of dying” is on the rise and if you don’t put plans in place now, you could leave your loved ones in a difficult position. Indeed, according to SunLife, the average cost of dying – including basic funeral costs, professional fees for…

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Navigating unknowns: Auto insurance questions in a new mobility era

Before the end of this decade, autonomous vehicles (AVs), electric vehicles (EVs), and shared forms of mobility are poised to transform the mobility landscape. How will the auto insurance landscape evolve to adapt to this wave of disruption? This is a large question with many, many answers. At ITC Vegas 2023, McKinsey brought together a group of 20 leaders from auto insurance, automotive, and mobility to discuss the future of…

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Customer Service AI and Automation: Friend or Foe?

Despite the recent buzz, customer service automation isn’t a new concept. As early as the 1980s, interactive voice responses (IVR) were first developed, using pre-recorded voices to answer basic queries, redirect calls and guide users.[1] Today, due to technological advancements and artificial intelligence (AI), the functionalities of customer service automation have completely revolutionised interaction between businesses and their customer base. This has paved the way for modern and intuitive products…

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How Could the Lawsuit against Apple Shift the Smartphone Landscape?

People seem to really like their iPhones. What is the harm to consumers from the behavior that prompted the EU regulation and the Department of Justice lawsuit? The iPhone is indeed a great product. I have one myself. Perhaps the easiest way to explain it is to consider how we would all feel if Motorola had been able to prevent the innovation that became the iPhone 20 years ago and,…

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EEOC Weighs in on Alleged Conflict Between Religious Beliefs and Civil Rights Training

By Rachel See, Dawn Solowey and Adrienne Lee Seyfarth Synopsis: In a written opinion issued on March 7, 2024, the EEOC confirmed that an employee must not only show a sincerely held religious belief, but that the employee’s religious belief is actually in conflict with the workplace training or program. The EEOC’s opinion also confirmed that an undue hardship analysis is not limited to considerations of an employer’s financial cost,…

  • Post category:Seyfarth Shaw LLP
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What’s Enough to Make Us Happy?

(Image created with Midjourney, an artificial intelligence tool)Happiness, an elusive condition we all want to experience, is a popular topic. It’s a complex subject. It may or may not require everything from good health to sufficient wealth to good relationships in varying degrees for each of us. The result is measured in terms of outcomes that may be more or less than we expected, just as customer satisfaction is measured…

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Fiscal and monetary policy: debating optimal interactions

3 April 2024By Jacopo Cimadomo and Demosthenes Ioannou Governments and central banks can shield the economy from shocks with their decisions. The ECB Blog looks at a recent high-level conference that analysed the interaction of fiscal and monetary policy and questioned some long-held beliefs. Governments and central banks reacted boldly to mitigate the economic damage of the pandemic and recent geopolitical conflicts. Euro area governments and the EU as a…

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The state of cloud computing in Europe: Increasing adoption, low returns, huge potential

On the surface, the cloud journey for many European companies is an impressive story. A stunning 95 percent of European companies in our recent survey say they’re capturing value from cloud, and more than one in three say they intend to have more than half of their workloads on cloud. But scratch below the surface, and the story is a little less rosy. The vast majority of the value companies…

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Maritime Interdiction, a New Global Geopolitical Weapon

Since time immemorial, the sea has been a contested arena for state and non-state actors, for the passage of valuable goods and the control of traffic. Traditionally, the straits have been the focus of attention.On March 23, 2021, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, the world had its first experience with an accidental blockade of global maritime traffic due to the Evergreen Ever Given, which blocked the Suez Canal…

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Last chance to record archaic Greek language ‘heading for extinction’

The initiative, led by Professor Ioanna Sitaridou (Queens' College and Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics), contributes to the UN’s International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-32), which aims ‘to draw global attention on the critical situation of many indigenous languages and to mobilise stakeholders and resources for their preservation, revitalization and promotion.’ Romeyka is thought to have only a couple of thousand native speakers left in Turkey’s Trabzon region, but…

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Impacting audiences across the globe: CEO Excellence revisited

McKinsey’s Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vik Malhotra chat with McKinsey Global Publishing leader Raju Narisetti about the global impact of their best-selling book, CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest (Scribner/Simon & Schuster, March 2022), and reflect on why the book is as relevant today as it was two years ago. An edited version of this third and final installment of our three-part…

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Reinventing the Organization for GenAI and LLMs

Previous waves of technology have ushered in innovations that strengthened traditional organizational structure. Not so for generative AI and large language models. Ethan Mollick April 02, 2024 Reading Time: 11 min  Topics Data, AI, & Machine Learning AI & Machine Learning Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Consider this an early eulogy for the traditional organizational structure, which began in 1855 with the first modern organizational chart and thrived, more…

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Microsoft Priva announces new solutions to help modernize privacy programs

We know managing privacy is harder than ever. The increasing complexity of regulatory requirements and constantly changing regulations make day-to-day privacy management a challenge. Manual, inefficient processes and inflexible tools can make it difficult for organizations to know where data is located and how it’s being used. The Microsoft Priva product portfolio helps organizations meet these challenges and their existing and emerging regulatory obligations. This week, we are thrilled to…

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Employees Out Sick? Inside One Company’s Creative Approach to Staying Productive

Absenteeism is so pervasive in Latin America and Asia that 10 percent of a business’ workers might not show up on any given day.This risk can create tremendous uncertainty, especially for businesses running on low margins, says Jorge Tamayo, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School. “You can’t control absenteeism, and you don’t know when you will receive an order for a very important buyer,” he says. “So how do…

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How to bridge the experience gap by supporting nurses of all tenures

From baby boomers to Gen Zers, the question of how the four generations comprising today’s workforce can best work together gets a lot of attention. Personal and professional experiences, levels of training, employer expectations, and career outlook can vary across generations. In nursing, tenure is a particularly nuanced factor that adds complexity to the discussion on workforce dynamics and may be one of the more definitive features of employee experience…

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April 2024 Global Immigration Alert

Please note:  while we address certain country-specific updates, this Alert contains information regarding global requirements, policies, and procedures as they stand as of the date of publication. We highly recommend reviewing any global mobility inquiries on a case-by-case basis, including any consulate-specific or immigration authority resources, in “real-time” before traveling internationally. Please reach out to our Global Mobility Team in advance of any international travel. Canada – Update on Post-Graduate…

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How business leaders are using Copilot right now

BBy now it’s clear: AI will transform work for everyone. But some business leaders have moved to the front of the pack. In the past year, people in industries around the world have adopted Copilot for Microsoft 365, testing how it can revolutionize the way they work. The early results show Copilot users spend less time on mundane, energy-sapping tasks and more time on high-level, high-value work, allowing leaders to…

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Do Investors Use the Media to Hurt Their Competitors?

When Mark DesJardine was working on his Ph.D., in 2015, he studied a few of the organizations that certify lumber harvested from responsibly managed forests. As he dug into the details, he noticed a troubling pattern. A CFA charterholder, Tuck professor Mark DesJardine teaches the MBA elective Social Entrepreneurship. He is focused on issues related to strategy, sustainability, and finance, with a specific focus on shareholder activism. The independent, not-for-profit…

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McKinsey Global Private Markets Review 2024: Private markets in a slower era

At a glance Macroeconomic challenges continued If 2022 was a tale of two halves, with robust fundraising and deal activity in the first six months followed by a slowdown in the second half, then 2023 might be considered a tale of one whole. Macroeconomic headwinds persisted throughout the year, with rising financing costs, and an uncertain growth outlook taking a toll on private markets. Full-year fundraising continued to decline from…

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UK’s only research institute dedicated to understanding early cancer receives £11 million donation

Located on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus – the largest bioscience ecosystem in Europe – the Institute brings together world-leading expertise from across diverse fields including biology, physics, mathematics, epidemiology, medicine, and computer science under one roof with one goal: to predict and prevent cancer.The donation will support the redevelopment of the Hutchison building, home to the Early Cancer Institute. This will enable the Institute to scale up its work, creating…

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The Dark Side of Brussels’ Energy Policy: The Green Deal’s Death Knell

Any measure that hinders the supply of affordable energy to Europe, such as the continuation of sanctions or a premature withdrawal from long-term gas supply contracts, will cause massive damage to the European economy and set the EU back by years, if not decades, Ulrike Reisner writes. Pursued under the concept of the Green Deal, the energy transition has been one of the strongest and most damaging factors influencing the…

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How Seeing a Regular Doctor Improves Primary Care

It is well documented that a sustained therapeutic relationship between a patient and a doctor is valued by both patients and doctors alike. Surveys also highlight the health benefits and improved management of health conditions for patients who have an ongoing therapeutic relationship with the same primary care physician, known as relational continuity. Yet, continuity is tricky in practice when the healthcare system is under strain. In the United Kingdom, as…

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How shockproof is your supply chain, really?

While global trade has risen dramatically since the 1990s and has continued to improve the lives of millions of people, geopolitical concerns have lately been rising too. Terms such as “reshoring” and “friendshoring” have seen increased use in corporate presentations by more than 20-fold in the past few years. For example, in recent years China’s share of US imported manufactured goods fell from 24 to 15 percent. The latest value-added…

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How to Create Slides That Suit Your Superiors: 11 Tips

Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images I recently interviewed 20 of my customers, all in senior roles at Fortune 100 companies, and asked them their biggest pain point in presenting to higher-ups and even colleagues. What I heard consistently was that it can feel like Goldilocks…

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Weed at Work: Can Georgia Employers Still Drug Test?

Quick Hits Georgia allows patients with specific health conditions to use low-THC oil-based products that may contain up to 5 percent THC; meanwhile, over-the-counter CBD oil is limited to a maximum of 0.3 percent THC. Georgia law does not limit the methods or means of drug testing available to employers, nor does Georgia law infringe on an employer’s ability to take adverse action against an employee who fails a drug…

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Your new way of working: Copilot for Microsoft 365

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have tremendous vision and passion, and Copilot for Microsoft 365 can help turn dreams into reality. With Copilot for Microsoft 365, you can use the power of AI to reduce the daily grind of running your business—giving you additional time to reach more customers, create new products, and continue to grow your business. Copilot for Microsoft 365 is available for businesses of all sizes, and we recently announced…

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A brave new (generative) world – The future of generative software engineering

This blog article explores potential futures in software engineering based on current advancements in generative AI. While the content presents a plausible vision, it cannot predict the future. Our purpose is to inspire software engineers, software companies and enterprises who are embracing the next generation of ‘product-centric’ business models driven by software to anticipate and embrace the transformative potential of generative AI with bold and forward-looking actions and strategies. The…

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How to prepare for the CFO role

A few years into his tenure in treasury at PepsiCo, Arun Nayar realized that to rise higher, he would need to supplement his financial expertise with operational know-how. To get that experience, he persuaded the company’s leaders to give him a lateral role overseeing finance in the global operations division, an area he knew nothing about.“When I went into those meetings, it was a different language,” he recalls. “That was…

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Who Is the Leader to Put Boeing Back on Course?

This commentary originally appeared in Fortune. Having known the past six CEOs of Boeing personally across multiple corporate governance crises, my phone has been ringing off the hook since the abrupt announcement of a massive shakeup in Boeing’s leadership ranks, including the retirement of CEO Dave Calhoun at the end of the year, the replacement of Board Chair Larry Kellner, the immediate resignation of Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stan Deal,…

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Planning for retirement in your 50s: Seven essential steps

Financial planning is likely to look different at different stages of your life. So, what matters most when you reach your 50s? Ed Read Cutting, our Director in Belgium, takes a look at some of the key areas to consider. As you approach your 50s, retirement planning takes centre stage. It’s a critical phase where thoughtful decisions can significantly impact your financial security and overall well-being during your later years.…

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Trump’s Path to Victory: A Priority Electorate and a Convenient Vice President

Competition of candidatesIt is worth clarifying that for Trump, issues of loyalty are extremely important and this feature will influence his choice of vice president along with the real strategic advantages of one of the candidates.Marjorie Taylor-Green, Mat Goetz, Byron DonaldsAll three are close to Trump ideologically, but do not appeal to the political centre and are even losing popularity in their own states. Trump already has an anti-rating (it is not his…

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Cyberloafing Unplugged: Overcoming Online Distractions in the Workplace

Amid seemingly never-ending layoffs and a laser focus on efficiency, companies are expecting their employees to make productive and focused use of their time on the clock. Yet, research has shown that employees often spend a significant amount of time cyberloafing – using the internet for personal purposes during work hours – with one study putting this figure as high as 60 to 80 percent.Remote and hybrid work arrangements and a significant…

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