Newsletter #6 (September 23, 2024)

Amazon says "get back to the office", more DEI news, Microsoft's deal for Three Mile Island power is something else, how about that 5th Circuit, and more!

Welcome to Newsletter #6, my twice-monthly, long-form newsletter where I write about all things HR and L&D, the business world, and/or other interesting current events. Let’s go!

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1. The beginning of the end of Southwest Airlines has arrived.

After caving to immense pressure several weeks ago from Elliott Investment Management, Southwest Airlines previously announced they would be making changes to its age-old business model. Later this week, the public will hear more details about what this will mean. Despite their warnings about ‘difficult decisions’ coming, rest assured Southwest will undoubtedly become something its founder Kelleher did not ever want: they will now be just like every other airline.

2. DEI programs continue to evolve, change, or get scrapped, depending on your viewpoint.

Caterpillar is just the latest company to announce they are modifying how they approach their DEI initiative(s). I again personally think some of this is due to companies naturally evolving what this looks like in a tenuous political environment, but also, like any other company program, they should evolve. But you cannot overlook the obvious, which is there are clearly companies changing their approach due to public pressure from certain groups and/or customer feedback. And, companies are not the only ones: colleges and universities have had to adopt their models for various reasons.

All that to be said, this was an interesting read. It does a great job summarizing some of my prior points about the importance of building DEI into company programs and the research behind that, while also focusing the message on the economics of doing so.

3. Microsoft firing Three Mile Island back up was not on my bingo card. How about you?

Putting aside the ecological concerns, this commentary is focused solely on the stated need for Microsoft putting this deal together: the impact of AI. Microsoft asking to turn the power back on at Three Mile Island to help power its AI needs says a lot about the current demand, and the direction, of where we may expect generative AI to continue growing. I still think some of the hype about AI is overblown, but this is a real development to consider.

4. The Fifth Circuit seems to have settled the question about the DOL setting a salary test for exemption (for now……).

This decision helps settle some of the uncertainty surround the US DOL’s ability to help regulate positional exemption requirements in terms of overtime and salary consideration for business roles heading into the election and 2025.

So, for now, if you were thinking you did not need to plan for the January 1, 2025 change to go into effect, now is the time to rethink that. Get ready while you can.

5. Amazon said “get back to the office, we need to do some layoffs!”

Just kidding. That’s not what they said. But that’s likely a small part of what they intend to do. I’ve written previously about the need for every company to make decisions that are best for their workforce in terms of managing remote or hybrid work.

Amazon has always struck me as a large, monolithic corporation that did not necessarily have the need for real estate for corporate processes, rather only the need for large-scale warehouses to distribute products. Amazon picked a curious time to make this announcement, and did not give affected employees much time to make a decision (or make changes to how they are living their lives). In the end, they (rightly) anticipate there will be people who will choose to make a career change away from Amazon, and Amazon will get the right-sizing they were looking for.

6. 65% of employers now are including pay in their job postings, according to WTW’s latest survey.

Whether or not it is solely due to the impact of regulations or local ordinances are beyond the point of this from my perspective. Just post the pay rate. Stop playing games with candidates. I also think an argument from the ‘old school’ that pay is confidential and nearly considered a trade secret is completely ridiculous.

Look, if people want to find out the pay rate for a job posting, they may have to jump through a ton of hoops to do so, but they can find out so just go ahead and be transparent about it (or at least a range). Worse, if you make them wait until they are hired on to find out what everyone in their department is making, that’s where it can become a retention issue anyway.

Besides, no one should want to work for any employer that can be accused of doing something like this, do you?

7. Workday reports that job applications grew four times faster than requisitions in the first half of 2024.

Which I think is bullshit. Have you ever tried to apply for jobs that use WorkDay? Insert eyeroll here on creating yet another profile, uploading your resume, try to use their ‘parse resume’ function to find you have to clean it all up anyway…..sorry, I digress.

In all seriousness, I appreciate reading through WorkDay’s transparent data they are seeing in their platform. That information, along with the jobs data from ADP, helps give us a better sense of what is actually happening economically than our dated federal government information. WorkDay’s survey work included in this latest report helps you also keep tabs on what applicants are thinking and feeling about the labor market.

8. A recent study from Lightcast will make you want to pour a drink.

No, seriously. They said, and I quote, that U.S. employers will soon face, “the largest labor shortage the country has ever seen.” According to their data, the only reason our workforce has grown since 2019 is due to immigration.

Not a great time for HR staffs in many companies to be considering this. Reskilling and redeployment is a possible answer to the kneejerk decision of layoffs. Take the time to consider it at your organization.

9. LinkedIn Lunatics of the Newsletter: the copy/paste bandits.

We all know there are bots and likely AI profiles on most any social platform nowadays. Lately, there seems to have been a proliferation of those on LinkedIn. If you were doubting that, look no further than this latest doozy I spotted. Whether they are bots, AI profiles, or simply people trying to clout post, they are our LinkedIn Lunatics of the Newsletter.

10. Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting, as it turns out, isn’t as random as it seems.

A recent study found that Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting is actually a quite accurate depiction of the night sky. Pretty crazy stuff.

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And that’s a wrap. I’ll be back in two weeks. Let me know what you think!

© September 2024 Brandon Caldwell, all rights reserved. Hyperlinks are used frequently for proper credit to source material on respective websites, news articles, social media or other sources. While it can be a useful tool, no ChatGPT or other generative AI was used in the production of this newsletter. Opinions are mine and do not reflect the opinion or policy of others including employers past or present.