The M.I.D., as we call it, is curated by our editorial team from more than 50 news sources. Like a lot of good ideas, this started as something I wanted for myself. If I can’t read everything, I at least want to stay abreast of the most important developments.
This week in HR, Leena Nair broke another glass ceiling, the vax mandate for large employers died, we learned AI-led interviews are terrible (duh), ex-Coke CHRO gave great insights into DEI and culture, and there’s a huge anti-work group on Reddit we bet you didn’t know about.
Leena Nair has wrapped up her role as Unilever’s Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) to join French luxury fashion house Chanel as its new Global Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Leena Nair is Chanel’s first Indian-origin boss and at Unilever, she was the first woman, first Asian and youngest person to hold the top HR post. She expressed her gratitude to the FMCG major as she left the company. “After thirty years at @Unilever, I’m sure you can imagine how hard it is to say goodbye. It was stated in a previous NPR interview that from the factory floor at Unilever to the Global Chief Executive Officer of Chanel, Nair is a “serial glass ceiling breaker.” Money Control
The Biden administration is withdrawing its COVID-19 shot-or-test rule for workers at large employers in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that blocked the measure from taking effect. The announcement was posted Tuesday in the advanced version of the Federal Register. Government lawyers followed that notice with a motion asking a Cincinnati-based federal appeals court to dismiss the pending legal challenge to the emergency temporary standard, saying its withdrawal of the rule will moot the case. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule, issued Nov. 5, mandated most employers with 100 or more workers to either require employees to be fully vaccinated or pass at least weekly a COVID-19 test. The high court’s six conservative justices called the measure an unauthorized exercise of agency power and that the challengers — a coalition of Republican states’ attorneys general and business groups — were likely to prevail on the merits. Bloomberg Law
In recruitment, up to 86% of employers use job interviews mediated by technology, a growing portion of which are automated video interviews (AVIs). AVIs involve job candidates being interviewed by an artificial intelligence, which requires them to record themselves on an interview platform, answering questions under time pressure. The video is then submitted through the AI developer platform, which processes the data of the candidate — this can be visual, verbal, and/or vocal. The technologies used for these videos present issues in reliably capturing a candidate’s characteristics. There is also strong evidence that these technologies can contain bias that can exclude some categories of job-seekers. But as developers work to remove biases and increase reliability, we still know very little on how AVIs are experienced by different categories of job candidates themselves, and how these experiences affect them. Without this knowledge, employers and managers can’t fully understand the impact these technologies are having on their talent pool. As a result, organizations are ill-equipped to discern whether the platforms they turn to are truly helping them hire candidates that align with their goals. HBR
After spending more than 35 years working in human resources, Coretha Rushing has learned a thing or two about creating company cultures that employees respond to. The executive coach and former CHRO at Equifax and Coca-Cola has recently joined the board of ThredUp, an online marketplace for secondhand clothes. The new post at the mission-driven company comes at a time when workers around the globe are thinking about the bigger role they play within an organization, Rushing says. “People want to see a greater purpose in the job they have, irrespective of the level of skills and capabilities that they bring,” she says. “ThredUp, which is changing the consumer’s view of secondhand clothing and keeping clothes out of landfills, offers a chance for employees to do well and do good.” Rushing spoke with EBN about how the employer and employee relationship has changed in recent years, detailing ways managers can play a bigger role in their team’s success, how to communicate in a remote workplace, and why the success of a company comes down to a rich culture. Employee Benefits News
A new subreddit r/WorkReform has gathered more than 300,000 members a day after it was formed. It follows a Reddit storm that emerged on Wednesday after the moderators of the viral subreddit r/antiwork temporarily made the group private. r/antiwork was founded in 2013, but has garnered increased attention during the pandemic after its membership skyrocketed to 1.7 million. The subreddit advocates for better working conditions and pushes back against bad bosses. However, many longstanding members expressed frustration about how the movement is often misrepresented as being anti-work and promoting laziness, rather than as a platform to discuss and change exploitative labor practices. The emergence of r/WorkReform, which was started on Jan. 26, seems to reflect this. “We believe that each person should not be worked to death by their employers with ridiculous wages that are unable to cover basic life needs,” it says in the group description. It advocates that labor should provide every person with all basic life necessities, including food, healthcare, and shelter. “One should not have to give up one for the other,” it reads. Business Insider
