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OFCCP Proposes Changes to Construction Contractor Scheduling Letter and Contract Award Notification Requirement Form

Quick Hits Covered construction contractors may be required to provide additional data and documentation in response to the construction compliance review scheduling letter and itemized listing. Covered construction contractors may be required to provide additional information on Form CC-314 about new construction contract awards that exceed $10,000. Comments on the proposals are due no later than April 26, 2024. As set forth in its notice and comment request of February…

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Is Your Workplace Biased Against Introverts?

Managers almost universally say they want to see passion in their employees. Yet sometimes, they can’t spot it when it’s right in front of them.Extroverted employees are more likely to be considered passionate compared to more introverted colleagues—even if it’s not true—according to recent Harvard Business School research. That’s because they tend to demonstrate their feelings more, using cues like animated facial expressions, while introverts come off as more aloof…

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Why Every Leader Needs to Worry About Toxic Work Culture

Employees quit their jobs for different reasons, and a major one is because of a toxic workplace environment. In fact, researchers discovered that between April and September 2021, toxic culture was the main reason why employees decided to leave their jobs. A toxic work culture refers to a situation where negative behaviors are tolerated within an organization. It can quietly harm employee happiness, stop new ideas from flourishing, and weaken…

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What can we expect in China in the year of the dragon?

As 2024 gains momentum, it’s significant to note that this year is marked by the Year of the Dragon according to the Chinese zodiac. The dragon, symbolizing strength and good fortune, frames the backdrop for China’s journey forward after a challenging 2023. The previous year saw China navigating the aftermath of the pandemic, with its economy starting to recover from stringent lockdowns and travel restrictions.Despite substantial challenges in the real…

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Order from Chaos: Is It Possible to Overcome Global Disorder in the World by 2040?

For the 2024 World Youth Festival in Sochi, a group of young experts under the auspices of the Valdai Discussion Club prepared a report titled “Charting the 2040: Younger Generation Insight on the World in the Making”. This report left a very favourable impression; it is thought-provoking and represents a very interesting model for the future development of the world. We have previously responded to the part of it dealing…

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Your Dream Job May Not Exist (and That’s Okay)

For decades, the mantra “follow your passion” has been one of the most popular pieces of career advice. Ever since Steve Jobs famously told Stanford graduates back in 2005 to “find what you love”, university students have been nudged to pursue careers that align perfectly with their personal interests. But this approach can be misguided.  For many of us who do not know exactly what we like or want to…

  • Post category:INSEAD Knowledge
  • Reading time:9 mins read
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Bringing innovation to a not-for-profit setting

In this episode of The Committed Innovator, American Red Cross chief innovation officer Sajit Joseph speaks with McKinsey innovation leader Erik Roth about the challenges and opportunities involved with innovation in a not-for-profit setting, where the goal is return on impact and teams can include volunteers. This is an edited transcript of their discussion. You can listen to the full episode on your preferred podcast platform. Every time we go…

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How to Spot the Next Technology Breakthrough

If your company is working on a new technology that has yet to pass this inflection point, what must happen to get you there?The evolution of new technologies follows an S-curve. In the beginning, there is a long incubation period during which technological development and use are confined to basic science. This period is characterised by high uncertainty about the technology’s performance and there is virtually no confidence in the…

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Why You Should Give Employees Skin in the Game

Topics Radar Brief insights on emerging trends in management from the opening pages of MIT Sloan Management Review’s quarterly print magazine. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share MIT Sloan Management Review: What spurred your focus on employee ownership? Vicente Reynal: As a leader, I had experienced great equity appreciation at the companies I had worked at. But I kept wondering: How could I engage the hourly workforce in achieving…

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Generative AI is only as good as the data you feed it

Generative AI is the pinnacle of data science. It will boost profits, reduce costs, and help you expand into new markets. To take full advantage of generative AI’s capabilities, train your models on all your data. Taylor Brown The world is being transformed by AI-assisted medicine, education, scientific research, law, and more. Today, researchers at the University of Toronto use generative AI to model proteins that don’t exist in nature; pharmaceutical…

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As AI Upends Recruiting, Job Seekers Need a Waze App for Careers

Artificial intelligence is changing the nature of work on a scale some predict will be as transformative as the Industrial Revolution. It’s also exposing the yawning gaps in a fractured US employment system that many companies and workers find difficult to navigate.The situation demands a dramatic overhaul of how policymakers, educators, and employers devise, construct, and manage career pathways, which are the routes aspiring workers take as they graduate from…

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Third millennium thinking

Awash in a tsunami of often-conflicting information, people tend to look to experts for guidance on what to believe and what to do. If an expert comes across as highly confident and their opinion dovetails with one’s political views or confirms what one’s social circle tends to believe, then the opinion usually resonates as truthful and valuable. But how do we really know if we are making fully informed decisions…

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Using M&A as a launchpad for transformation

M &A can offer a powerful lever for executing strategy, transforming organizations, and delivering exceptional value creation. In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast, two McKinsey experts talk about how executives under pressure to create more value for shareholders and stakeholders can benefit from using a transaction as an opportunity to transform the entire organization. Alex Liu is a partner in McKinsey’s Minneapolis office and a leader…

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Investing in Kaedim

The games industry has a cost problem. Over the last decade, we’ve seen record growth in player demand driven by several tailwinds, including: the rise of mobile and emerging markets, new business models like free-to-play and subscriptions, transmedia storytelling, and much more. Yet that growth has come with a price in the form of rising game development budgets. Players today expect more from their games than ever before – more…

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How to Make AI ‘Forget’ All the Private Data It Shouldn’t Have

There’s a virtual elephant in AI’s room: It’s nearly impossible to make the technology forget.And there are an increasing number of scenarios where consumers and programmers may not only want to remove data from a machine learning model—they may be required to do so by law. For instance, since Europe’s tougher data privacy regulations went into effect in 2018, they have created complications for companies worldwide. Questions around data privacy…

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Can a Wage Increase Make Employees More Productive?

In California, the upcoming minimum wage boost for fast food workers to $20 starting April 1st has ignited discussions about its potential influence on worker productivity.  Currently, the median hourly wage for fast-food workers in the U.S. is $13.43, while in California, it stands at an average of $16.60 per hour. Examining the connection between minimum wage hikes and productivity reveals a nuanced picture.    Wage Increase and Productivity Research…

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The journey toward AI-enabled railway companies

Many types of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities have accelerated in recent years due to tumbling costs of data storage and processing, rapidly expanding data availability, and improved data storage and modelling techniques. In general, analytical AI can analyze historical data and make numeric predictions, while generative AI (gen AI) allows machines to produce new outputs similar to human-generated content. Gen AI, in particular, has been building momentum since 2017 and…

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New Sanctions Against Russia: Taking a Swing at the Ruble

Amid the second anniversary of the start of the Special Military Operation (SVO) in Ukraine, a number of Western countries and associations launched a new set of sanctions against Russia, as expected. In quantitative terms, the number of Russian companies and citizens subject to restrictive measures was indeed high. However, the latest wave of sanctions does not bring qualitative changes - their impact on the Russian economy and its relations…

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It’s time for a new managed services model

Managed services was born out of a need to outsource responsibility for monitoring and maintaining certain services, or more often specialized appliances such as on-prem data warehouse solutions or rather cumbersome ETL servers or network configurations. Between 2005 and 2006 this outsourcing practice became what it is today, IT managed services (MS). IT MS has undoubtedly changed and evolved over the years, particularly in the technical capabilities that most MS…

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Winning the Game of Boardroom Chess

It is broadly understood that bold, expansive postures and gestures convey power and credibility. But how often have executives entered a meeting confident in achieving their goal, only to leave blindsided – unsure of how the power dynamics shifted in favour of an opposing viewpoint? Most people assume that their actions are their own. However, our research would argue that it is the (often unconscious) responses to the behaviour of others…

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  • Reading time:11 mins read
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Philip R. Lane: The 2021-2022 inflation surges and monetary policy in the euro area

11 March 2024By Philip R. Lane[1]In 2021-22 inflation surged due to the direct and indirect effects of the energy shock, together with a set of pandemic-related factors and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In this post on The ECB Blog, Chief Economist Philip R. Lane looks at the monetary policy actions taken by the ECB in response to these extraordinary inflation shocks.IntroductionIn this blog post, I review the monetary policy…

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Viewing Life as a Learning Process

Hart Posen is not shy about his privileged childhood, but only because it vanished with no warning. He grew up in Winnipeg, Canada, in a family of entrepreneurs. His father, who was raised in an orphanage, founded a rental car company in the early 1970s that became a large international firm. “By the time I was a young teenager, my family was very wealthy,” Posen says. In the early 1980s,…

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How Could Harvard Decarbonize Its Supply Chain?

Brian Kenny: One sage piece of advice I heard long ago, is to worry only about what I can control, which works great until you're responsible for an outcome that involves others over whom you have no control. Such as the conundrum of firms everywhere, including 96 percent of the Global 250 who have committed to reducing their carbon footprint. There are things you can control in your physical plant,…

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Paving the Way for NFTs

A computer scientist by training, Rogers was involved in the creative industries from the early nineties, when he created the Beastie Boys’ website. He was later involved in Winamp and the launch of Apple Music, before working at luxury conglomerate LVMH as its Chief Digital Officer. He also sits on the board of fashion shopping website and app Lyst. During the webinar, Rogers shared that he first learned about Bitcoin back…

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Analyzing the CEO–CMO relationship and its effect on growth

CEOs who place marketing at the core of their growth strategies are twice as likely as their peers to have greater than 5 percent annual growth, according to a recent survey McKinsey conducted with input from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). CEOs and chief marketing officers (CMOs) must work together closely for any marketing plan to flourish. On this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey partner Robert Tas joins…

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A Bone to Pick with Distinctiveness of Trade Marks

  Is the mark “Melbourne Bone and Joint Clinic” (the MBJC Mark) for medical and orthopaedic surgery type services in classes 35 and 44 registrable as a trade mark? In Melbourne Bone and Joint Clinic Pty Ltd v Registrar of Trade Marks [2024] FCA 53, the Federal Court of Australia found that the MBJC Mark was descriptive of the services offered thereunder and lacked the distinctiveness required for registration. Background…

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Drive to Subscribe: Revving up subscription success

Achieving subscription success was the theme in the Business-to-Consumer (B2C) market during and immediately following the pandemic. Traditional transactional approaches to product sales saw significantly less resilience than subscription models which were better at protecting cash flow. In the Business-to-Business (B2B) market the concept of ongoing contracts, facilitated via renewals, shows subscriptions have been established for some time. The recent boom in B2C has introduced more focus and innovation in…

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Report From Final Day of The 2024 ABA OSHA/MSHA Law Conference

By Brent I. Clark, James L. Curtis, Patrick D. Joyce, A. Scott Hecker,  Daniel R. Birnbaum, Melissa A. Ortega and Taylor Iaculla Seyfarth Synopsis: This week we are attending the ABA Occupational Safety and Health Law Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The meeting includes representatives from the U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA Review Commission, the MSHA Review Commission, OSHA and MSHA Judges, and the Solicitor’s Office, as well as management, labor, and safety…

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Singapore Employers, Are Your Hiring Practices in Order for the Next TAFEP Request?

Quick Hits The Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) was set up in 2006 by the Ministry of Manpower, the National Trades Union Congress, and the Singapore National Employers Federation, to promote the adoption of fair, responsible, and progressive employment practices in Singapore. Since its inception, TAFEP has slowly gained traction with employees and job seekers alike as an avenue for redress of concerns regarding harassment and…

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Costlier goodbyes: Increased termination notice entitlements under the Canada Labour Code as of February 2024

This article was orginally published on Sept. 26, 2023 and updated on Jan. 17, 2024: On Sept. 26, 2023, we published an article (see below) regarding the amendments to the Canada Labour Code that would, among other things, greatly increase the individual termination notice entitlements of employees working for federally regulated employers. As a reminder, these amendments are coming into force on Feb. 1, 2024. It is to be noted…

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Data residency in the AI era: New capabilities to manage your data

In January, we updated our Microsoft Copilot product line-up to expand Copilot for Microsoft 365 to more businesses and announced no seat minimum for commercial plans. Now we’re excited to announce the expansion of Microsoft’s data residency capabilities by adding content of interactions with Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 to our portfolio of data residency commitments and offerings. We are expanding our product terms and Microsoft 365 data residency offerings…

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Why Companies Should Share Their DEI Data (Even When It’s Unflattering)

Companies struggling with diversity, equity, and inclusion might be tempted to hide their workforce data. Why shine a light on a company’s limited progress—or worse, risk a public-relations headache?It turns out, all news is good news when it comes to letting customers know how diverse—or not—your workforce is, says a recent paper by Harvard Business School researchers. Even when a company’s numbers aren’t ideal, their transparency sends the message that…

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Beyond Goals: David Beckham’s Playbook for Mobilizing Star Talent

Superstar talent brings the kind of wattage that can power a business to the next level, as recent high-stakes decisions facing soccer legend David Beckham show.Two new Harvard Business School case studies examine the questions Beckham and his team pondered as he transitioned from the world’s biggest sports stage to cementing a legacy as a businessman, entrepreneur, and club owner. What’s the best way to build a team around a…

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As inheritance disputes hit a record high, here’s how you can make a watertight estate plan

When you pass on, it should hopefully be a time for your family to come together, mourn, and commemorate your life. However, there has unfortunately been a recent increase in the number of inheritance disputes, and cases are at a record high. From rising property prices to a surge in dementia diagnoses, there are several factors behind this trend. One of the best things you can do to limit the…

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Evolving the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle

The software developers and systems engineers at Microsoft work with large-scale, complex systems, requiring collaboration among diverse and global teams, all while navigating the demands of rapid technological advancement, and today we’re sharing how they’re tackling security challenges in the white paper: “Building the next generation of the Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL)”, created by pioneers of future software development practices. Two decades of evolution It’s been 20 years since…

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Paralympian Lex Gillette’s top 7 AI tools for accessibility

Discover the AI innovations empowering lives on and off the athletic track Human sighted guides are instrumental in supporting blind athletes. They offer comprehensive instructions on adaptations, training, and methodologies. Today, much like a guide, Azure OpenAI Service is helping power Microsoft apps that help people accomplish their goals, no matter how large. Copilot for Microsoft 365 can automate tasks and generate content, Microsoft Translator can bridge linguistic barriers, and…

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Leading through uncertainty: An interview with Neeti Bhalla Johnson

Inspiring leaders motivate their teams to embrace the opportunities and growth inherent in change, according to Neeti Bhalla Johnson, the president of Global Risk Solutions at Liberty Mutual Insurance (Liberty). Born in India and raised in Kenya, Bhalla Johnson is passionate about furthering diversity, equity, and inclusion at the insurer, cosponsoring a group for Asian professionals there and participating in its women’s networking and advocacy group. She spoke with McKinsey…

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The human element is key: An interview with Barbara Karuth-Zelle

Barbara Karuth-Zelle, COO and board member of Allianz, is passionate about driving technology and AI innovation for a sustainable future. She’s spent more than 20 years at the insurer—including as CEO of Allianz Technology, its internal technology service provider—and is known for her ability to assemble diverse teams that get things done quickly. Karuth-Zelle spoke with McKinsey senior partner Jörg Mußhoff about generative AI (gen AI), digital transformations, sustainability, and…

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International Women’s Day 2024: Pay gaps, the law of averages and accelerating progress

International Women’s Day for 2024 has the important theme of Count Her In: Invest in Women. The UN talks about the importance of empowering women and investing in women in a range of ways. This includes accelerating women’s economic empowerment by recognising that when women entrepreneurs are successful, this can lead to more benefits. The topic of investing in women has been in the headlines in Australia, following the first…

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2024 Commercial Litigation Outlook and Webinar Series

Seyfarth’s Commercial Litigation practice group is pleased to present the fourth annual installment of the Commercial Litigation Outlook, which provides insights on litigation issues and trends to expect in 2024. Since its inaugural publication in 2020, Seyfarth’s Commercial Litigation Outlook has served as a beacon for legal professionals, providing invaluable insights and forecasting emerging trends.  2024 promises to be one for the history books — a vastly more robust regulatory…

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