Soundbites
Bye-bye to long hours? So long to bragging about how busy you are. At least that’s what Lucy Kellaway would have us believe from an article in The Economist. People who took fake pride in being snowed under will have to find new ways to impress as punishing CEO schedules will start to look unhip and inefficient. The “long-hours culture” is due for an overhaul, Kellaway predicts. “The pressure for change will come not only from lazy millennials averse to hard slog, but from older workers
exhausted by the tyranny of technology.” Among her indicators: “Google in Dublin confiscated employees’ devices when they left the office, and
Uplifting invention You may not know this about elevators. It comes from an interview in Ethix magazine with Randy Wilcox, Otis Elevator Company’s recently retired president for the Americas. By his account, Otis came into being 162 years ago because of a safety problem. Elevators had been around since Egyptian times, but they could be perilous contraptions. Elisha Graves Otis invented a safety brake which kept an elevator from falling if the hoisting rope broke. “So the company was essentially born out of solving a safety problem,” says Wilcox. “An elevator is actually the safest form of transportation,” he claims. “It is even safer than walking down the street.” Moreover, “Safety remains our most important absolute and it is more important than profit.... At Otis if you compromise in safety or ethics you’re much more likely to lose your job than if you miss the numbers.” Wilcox contends that elevators are environmentally friendly because they are regenerative and can put energy back on the grid. “A traction elevator has a counterweight and a cab, and whenever there’s an imbalance you’re either using energy to overcome that imbalance, or that imbalance can create energy,” he explains. When the counterweight is heavier than the elevator cab, the movement actually generates electricity. “If you are the only passenger on an elevator going up, you are likely putting energy on the grid. And on a loaded elevator going down, you are also putting energy on the grid.” So if you are one of those who takes the stairs instead of the elevator, keep doing so — but for the exercise, not to save the environment, says Wilcox. ◆
The Marketplace September October 2015
Marketplace Sept Oct CS6 2015.indd 20
Daimler deleted messages that arrived in the inboxes of staff who were on holiday.” In the new work economy, “To get your work done by a reasonable hour will not be a sign that you are a slacker, but that you are working efficiently.” Office productivity will soar: “There will be fewer pointless initiatives and meetings,” writes Kellaway. “Memos will be shorter. Performance reviews will be less unwieldy. For most things three bullet points will be enough.” But not all is lost for Type A folk who need somewhere to use their abundant energy. “Some,” she predicts, “will do aggressive volunteering and compete to change the world more successfully than the next guy.”
Flourish or falter [Business] is a noble calling. Business activity raises individuals and whole populations from idle penury to greatness. By attending to a society’s basic needs for goods
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