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Google spoke about its year-end report on the crawling challenges Google faced in 2025 when crawling and indexing the web for Google Search. The biggest challenges include faceted navigation and action parameters, which make up about 75% of those challenges, Gary Illyes from Google said. This was on its latest Search Off the Record podcast, published this morning. What is the issue. Crawling issues can cause your site to lag and slow, it can overload your server, and make your website unusable and inaccessible. If a robot goes off on your site and gets into some infinite loop of crawling, it can take some time for the site to recover. “Once it discovers a set of URLs, it cannot make a decision about whether that URL space is good or not unless it crawled a large chunk of that URL space,” Gary said. By then it is too late and your site has slowed to a halt. The biggest crawling challenges. Here are the biggest crawling challenges based on the report: 50% are related to faceted navigation. This is a common issue for e-commerce sites where you can have infinite ways to filter products by size, colors, price, and so on. 25% are related to action parameters. This is when URL parameters that trigger a specific action rather than changing the page content significantly. 10% are related to irrelevant parameters. These are things like session IDs, UTMs or other parameters in the URL. 5% are related to plugins or widgets. Some plugins or widgets can cause URL issues and confuse crawlers. 2% are related to other “weird stuff.” This is like a catch all of URL issues including issues like double-encoding URLs. Why we care. Ensuring you have a good URL structure, without many of these URL traps for bots is essential for (1) making sure your server is healthy, (2) your pages load quickly and (3) search engines don’t get confused on what are your canonical URLs. The recording. Here is an embed of the podcast recording: View the full article

Microsoft has rolled out multi-turn search globally within Bing search results. Microsoft will add a Copilot search box to the bottom of the Bing search results, as you scroll down the search results page, this feature will dynamically appear. What is multi-turn search. This is when a searcher goes from the Bing search results, types in a follow up query into the Copilot search box at the bottom of the search results. Here is a screenshot of this feature: Here is a video of it in action: What Microsoft said. Jordi Ribas, CVP, Head of Search at Microsoft, posted this news on X – he said, “After shipping in the US last year, multi-turn search in Bing is now available worldwide.” Jordi Ribas added “Bing users don’t need to scroll up to do the next query, and the next turn will keep context when appropriate.” “We have seen gains in engagement and sessions per user in our online metrics, which reflect the positive user value of this approach,” he added. Why we care. Many search engines, like Google and Bing, are trying to get more users to use its AI engines. Google made AI Overviews flow more into AI Mode, despite how we may not like how it treats publishers. And now Bing fully rolled out, after testing it for several months, the Copilot search box at the footer of the search results. View the full article

I’ve spent over 20 years in companies where SEO sat in different corners of the organization – sometimes as a full-time role, other times as a consultant called in to “find what’s wrong.” Across those roles, the same pattern kept showing up. The technical fix was rarely what unlocked performance. It revealed symptoms, but it almost never explained why progress stalled. No governance The real constraints showed up earlier, long before anyone read my weekly SEO reports. They lived in reporting lines, decision rights, hiring choices, and in what teams were allowed to change without asking permission. When SEO struggled, it was usually because nobody rightfully owned the CMS templates, priorities conflicted across departments, or changes were made without anyone considering how they affected discoverability. I did not have a word for the core problem at the time, but now I do – it’s governance, usually manifested by its absence. Two workplaces in my career had the conditions that allowed SEO to work as intended. Ownership was clear. Release pathways were predictable. Leaders understood that visibility was something you managed deliberately, not something you reacted to when traffic dipped. Everywhere else, metadata and schema were not the limiting factor. Organizational behavior was. Dig deeper: How to build an SEO-forward culture in enterprise organizations Beware of drift Once sales pressures dominate each quarter, even technically strong sites undergo small, reasonable changes: Navigation renamed by a new UX hire. Wording adjusted by a new hire on the content team. Templates adjusted for a marketing campaign. Titles “cleaned up” by someone outside the SEO loop. None of these changes look dangerous in isolation – if you know before they occur. Over time, they add up. Performance slides, and nobody can point to a single release or decision where things went wrong. This is the part of SEO most industry commentary skips. Technical fixes are tangible and teachable. Organizational friction is not. Yet that friction is where SEO outcomes are decided, usually months before any visible decline. SEO loses power when it lives in the wrong place I’ve seen this drift hurt rankings, with SEO taking the blame. In one workplace, leadership brought in an agency to “fix” the problem, only for it to confirm what I’d already found: a lack of governance caused the decline. Where SEO sits on the org chart determines whether you see decisions early or discover them after launch. It dictates whether changes ship in weeks or sit in the backlog for quarters. I have worked with SEO embedded under marketing, product, IT, and broader omnichannel teams. Each placement created a different set of constraints. When SEO sits too low, decisions that reshape visibility ship first and get reviewed later — if they are reviewed at all. Engineering adjusted components to support a new security feature. In one workplace, a new firewall meant to stop scraping also blocked our own SEO crawling tools. Product reorganized navigation to “simplify” the user journey. No one asked SEO how it would affect internal PageRank. Marketing “refreshed” content to match a campaign. Each change shifted page purpose, internal linking, and consistency — the exact signals search engines and AI systems use to understand what a site is about. Dig deeper: SEO stakeholders: Align teams and prove ROI like a pro Positioning the SEO function Without a seat at the right table, SEO becomes a cleanup function. When one operational unit owns SEO, the work starts to reflect that unit’s incentives. Under marketing, it becomes campaign-driven and short-term. Under IT, it competes with infrastructure work and release stability. Under product, it gets squeezed into roadmaps that prioritize features over discoverability. The healthiest performance I’ve seen came from environments where SEO sat close enough to leadership to see decisions early, yet broad enough to coordinate with content, engineering, analytics, UX, and legal. In one case, I was a high-priced consultant, and every recommendation was implemented. I haven’t repeated that experience since, but it made one thing clear: VP-level endorsement was critical. That client doubled organic traffic in eight months and tripled it over three years. Unfortunately, the in-house SEO team is just another team that might not get the chance to excel. Placement is not everything, but it is the difference between influencing the decision and fixing the outcome. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. Hiring mistakes The second pattern that keeps showing up is hiring – and it surfaces long before any technical review. Many SEO programs fail because organizations staff strategically important roles for execution, when what they really need is judgment and influence. This isn’t a talent shortage. It’s a screening problem The SEO manager often wears multiple hats, with SEO as a minor one. When they don’t understand SEO requirements, they become a liability, and the C-suite rarely sees it. Across many engagements, I watched seasoned professionals passed over for younger candidates who interviewed well, knew the tool names, and sounded confident. HR teams defaulted to “team fit” because it was easier to assess than a candidate’s ability to handle ambiguity, challenge bad decisions, or influence work across departments. SEO excellence depends on lived experience. Not years on a résumé, but having seen the failure modes up close: Migrations that wiped out templates. Restructures that deleted category pages. “Small” navigation changes that collapsed internal linking. Those experiences build judgment. Judgment is what prevents repeat mistakes. Often, that expertise is hard to put in a résumé. Without SEO domain literacy, hiring becomes theater. But we can’t blame HR, which has to hire people for all parts of the business. Its only expertise is HR. Governance needs to step in. One of the most reliable ways to improve recruitment outcomes is simple: let the SEO leader control the shortlist. Fit still matters. Competence matters first. When the person accountable for results shapes the hiring funnel, the best candidates are chosen. SEO roles require the ability to change decisions, not just diagnose problems. That skill does not show up in a résumé keyword scan. Dig deeper: The top 5 strategic SEO mistakes enterprises make (and how to avoid them) When priorities pull in different directions Every department in a large organization has legitimate goals. Product wants momentum. Engineering wants predictable releases. Marketing wants campaign impact. Legal wants risk reduction. Each team can justify its decisions – and SEO still absorbs the cost. I have seen simple structural improvements delayed because engineering was focused on a different initiative. At one workplace, I was asked how much sales would increase if my changes were implemented. I have seen content refreshed for branding reasons that weakened high-converting pages. Each decision made sense locally. Collectively, they reshaped the site in ways nobody fully anticipated. Today, we face an added risk: AI systems now evaluate content for synthesis. When content changes materially, an LLM may stop citing us as an authority on that topic. Strong visibility governance can prevent that. The organizations that struggled most weren’t the ones with conflict. They were the ones that failed to make trade-offs explicit. What are we giving up in visibility to gain speed, consistency, or safety? When that question is never asked, SEO degrades quietly. What improved outcomes was not a tool. It was governance: shared expectations and decision rights. When teams understood how their work affected discoverability, alignment followed naturally. SEO stopped being the team that said “no” and became the function that clarified consequences. International SEO improves when teams stop shipping locally good changes that are globally damaging. Local SEO improves when there is a single source of location truth. Ownership gaps Many SEO problems trace back to ownership gaps that only become visible once performance declines. Who owns the CMS templates? Who defines metadata standards? Who maintains structured data? Who approves content changes? When these questions have no clear answer, decisions stall or happen inconsistently. The site evolves through convenience rather than intent. In contrast, the healthiest organizations I worked with shared one trait: clarity. People knew which decisions they owned and which ones required coordination. They did not rely on committees or heavy documentation because escalation paths were already understood. When ownership is clear, decisions move. When ownership is fragmented, even straightforward SEO work becomes difficult. Dig deeper: How to win SEO allies and influence the brand guardians Healthy environments for SEO to succeed Across my career, the strongest results came from environments where SEO had: Early involvement in upcoming changes. Predictable collaboration with engineering. Visibility into product goals. Clear authority over content standards. Stable templates and definitions. A reliable escalation path when priorities conflicted. Leaders who understood visibility as a long-term asset. These organizations were not perfect. They were coherent. People understood why consistency mattered. SEO was not a reactive service. It was part of the infrastructure. What leaders can do now If you lead SEO inside a complex organization, the most effective improvements come from small, deliberate shifts in how decisions get made: Place SEO where it can see and influence decisions early. Let SEO leaders – not HR – shape candidate shortlists. Hire for judgment and influence, not presentation. Create predictable access to product, engineering, content, analytics, and legal. Stabilize page purpose and structural definitions. Make the impact of changes visible before they ship. These shifts do not require new software. They require decision clarity, discipline, and follow-through. Visibility is an organizational outcome SEO succeeds when an organization can make and enforce consistent decisions about how it presents itself. Technical work matters, but it can’t offset structures pulling in different directions. The strongest SEO results I’ve seen came from teams that focused less on isolated optimizations and more on creating conditions where good decisions could survive change. That’s visibility governance. When SEO performance falters, the most durable fixes usually start inside the organization. Dig deeper: What 15 years in enterprise SEO taught me about people, power, and progress View the full article

Google's John Mueller said that when it comes to AI Search and the changes that come with that, Google's core search algorithms, spam detection methods, spam policies, and other search systems do not fundamentally change.View the full article

SEO roadmaps age poorly. Search evolves faster than planning cycles, technical debt accumulates quietly, and AI shortens the distance between approval and obsolescence. The post Why SEO Roadmaps Break In January (And How To Build Ones That Survive The Year) appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Bing Search has rolled out what it calls multi-turn search in Bing globally. This is something we saw Microsoft Bing test back in June, when we saw a floating Copilot follow up search box at the footer of the Bing search results page show up as you scroll. It is now globally live for all to use.View the full article

OpenAI seems to be jazzing up its ChatGPT responses by showing more visual responses, like Google's knowledge panels and top stories. This goes across people, places, products, and ideas, OpenAI said.View the full article

America must now ask itself if it can restore a culture of shameView the full article

US digital payments company appoints former board chair Enrique Lores to replace Alex ChrissView the full article

Gary Illyes, along with Martin Splitt, of Google posted a podcast explaining the top crawling challenges Google noticed amongst its 2025 year of crawling. The top challenges Google had with crawling included faceted navigation, action parameters, irrelevant parameters, calendar parameters and other "weird" parameters.View the full article

Google's John Mueller said he would "caution against assuming that you need to do this level of analysis for all URLs on a website in order to achieve optimal SEO" when it comes to reviewing bad redirects or CSP settings. Why, because bad redirects or CSP settings are often simply visible when doing normal browsing, and if you see it, then that is enough.View the full article

Billionaire folds rocket maker into a lossmaking AI start-up, betting scale and control can beat rivals to blockbuster IPOView the full article

At a factory in Austin, a startup recently finished its first prototype: a row house it plans to replicate in cities nationwide to help with the housing shortage. Row houses—narrow, multistory homes that share walls with neighbors on each side—are ubiquitous in older neighborhoods from Brooklyn to San Francisco, but aren’t commonly built now. The American Housing Corp., wants to bring them back. “Row homes are an underbuilt category in the United States,” says Riley Meik, cofounder and CEO of the American Housing Corp. The company has developed a kit of parts that can be quickly manufactured, shipped to building sites in dense urban neighborhoods, and assembled, helping shrink construction costs. While the price of an American Housing Corp. row house will vary, some of the first row houses in Austin will sell for around $750,000. Riley MeikBobby FijanHarris RothaermelWilliam Davis “The U.S. is actually good at building single family homes on the outskirts of town—you look at the numbers that Lennar or D.R. Horton does, they are building over 150,000 homes a year,” Meik says. “But they are never going to build in the cities where people already live and want to live.” The challenge of the missing middle Meik, an engineer who previously cofounded a rocket company, started thinking about housing during a stint at SpaceX’s former headquarters near Los Angeles. On his way to work, passing through single-family neighborhoods, he looked at the houses and wondered why more of them weren’t starting to be replaced with duplexes or fourplexes. Like many cities, large swaths of the greater Los Angeles area had zoning laws for years that restricted construction to single-family homes. Then a 2021 state law that changed that, allowing lots to be split for duplexes. Still, few developers were building the projects. Meik knew that building more “missing middle” housing—buildings like row houses that are bigger than apartments but smaller than single-family houses—could help begin to fill the enormous housing shortage in cities like L.A. “I started tweeting about it, and saying, ‘It’s legal. Why aren’t we doing it?’” he says. He connected with his eventual cofounders online. “We met just kind of screaming into the void—this is a problem that needs to get solved in this country, and we want to work on it,” he says. “That brought us all together. It’s something we’ve all been obsessed with for a very long time. So it wasn’t hard to convince each other that we should jump off into the deep end together and build this thing.” They saw that a challenge for missing middle housing was the cost of construction. “There were probably hundreds of projects that I was seeing where someone had the approvals in hand, they were fully cleared, but the construction costs were too high and they couldn’t start the project,” Meik says. Shrinking construction costs To help reduce costs, the startup turned to prefab construction. The concept isn’t new—builders have been making housing parts in factories since Sears houses were shipped on trains in the early 20th century. Basic manufactured homes, formerly known as mobile homes, now often look more like conventional houses but cost significantly less. Other startups have tried to scale up prefab construction for apartment buildings, backyard guest houses, or higher-end homes. Some have failed spectacularly, like Katerra, which raised more than $2 billion before going out of business. To avoid one of the pitfalls that some other builders have faced, the American Housing Corp. designed all of its components to fit inside standard shipping containers so that they can be moved cost-effectively. The shipping containers can travel affordably by rail, rather than on a truck, from the factory to a city. “I think one of the things that has held back prefab to date, specifically volumetric modular, is it is incredibly expensive to ship those modules,” Meik says. “They’re oversized loads, and you get into the tens of thousands of dollars per module to ship them. We can be at less than $5,000, all-in, to ship a unit from Texas to California.” Factories can be expensive—Katerra spent $150 million on one before it closed—and if they need to be built near each market, it makes the product uneconomical. (Cosmic, another startup that has been rebuilding homes in the L.A. area after the 2025 wildfires, takes a different approach to this problem, building low-cost microfactories at each site.) The American Housing Corp. designed a new kit of parts—from floor and wall panels to fully assembled kitchens and bathrooms—that can be built in an automated factory and then shipped to a site for quick assembly. The core materials, like steel and fiberglass reinforced cement panels, “are more common in automotive or aerospace than housing,” he says. Designing a system for multistory homes was a challenge. “I think most people thought we were crazy for choosing to build a three-story home as our first,” says Meik. “The structural engineering, assembly process, and equipment required are completely different than building something as simple as a backyard home. But we believe that the only way to solve the housing crisis is by building missing-middle housing at scale. And we felt that row homes were the obvious choice.” A new manufacturing model The company started building a “minimum viable” factory last summer to begin testing its manufacturing process, and then started building a prototype house. They deliberately took it slowly—designing and building one floor, learning from it before building the second floor, and then refining the process again before building the third floor. As the team experimented with the first house, the total manufacturing time took weeks, but as it begins operations, it will move much more quickly. The company is now planning a new factory that aims to build one home per day. Right now, the early factory is churning out building parts that are being sent to Intertek, a certification company, for testing. After certification, the company plans to begin building homes in its first factory this year, while the new, larger factory is under construction. When the parts are delivered to a building site, they’re designed to be assembled with a crane in days. All of this shrinks costs enough that projects can pencil out, Meik says. The company also plans to act as a developer, working with partners to buy land on empty lots in dense neighborhoods, so that it can handle the entire process. “Our biggest learning from other [prefab] companies is that in order to have full control of what you build and how you build it (and truly be able to innovate in the way homes are built), you need to be both the prefab company and the real estate development firm,” Meik says. “Vertical integration has given us the freedom on the engineering side to redesign the home from the ground up in order to make it mass-producible in a factory setting. We don’t use two-by-fours, drywall, or hammers and nails. Our homes are designed to be built with machines.” Using density to lower housing costs For consumers, the biggest reason that the homes can be more affordable is density. “Land is the most expensive thing in the areas that we want to build in,” Meik says. “So the only way that we can really decrease cost for the end customer is by fitting as many homes on a certain piece of land as we can.” In Austin, one of the cities where they’re building first, they plan to sell row houses for less than $750,000 in neighborhoods where single-family homes sell for $1 million to $2 million, offering an option for buyers who otherwise might not be able to stay in a compact, walkable neighborhood. The first house is three stories tall, with four bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. The company will sell houses directly to consumers; later, it may also rent them out in some cases. It plans to work nationally. While the floor plans and interior finishes will be similar from city to city, the homes are designed to use different facades that are designed to fit the local context. Historically, row houses have come in many forms: In a city like Philadelphia or New York, they range from simple working-class homes to taller, more ornate buildings for wealthy families. The design is meant to fit into existing urban neighborhoods. “We wanted to find a way to build something that would fit in between two New York City brownstones,” Meik says “We want to build in Brooklyn Heights and someone to walk by and say, ‘That’s nice.’ I think prefab historically has either leaned very ugly or hyper-modern, and unfortunately, neither of those really fit in in the neighborhoods that we want to build in.” As they scale up, they want to recruit more engineers to work on the housing crisis. “Housing has often been thought of not as an engineering discipline, but something that’s left to the trades,” he says. “I think that’s completely wrong. One of our primary goals at the American Housing Corporation is to show great engineers that hey, you can bring those phenomenal skills that you developed building cars or rockets or iPhones and apply those skills to solving the most important problem of our generation—figuring out how to build more homes in this country.” View the full article

I’ve read a lot of books on building a culture at work. A lot of the advice is well intentioned but to me overly complex. A 20-step framework is a lot harder to live by than a simple operating principle. Culture is something people feel and live more than implement. Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz wrote in his book What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture, “It’s not the values you list on the wall. It’s not what you say in company-wide meetings. It’s not your marketing campaign. It’s not even what you believe. Who you are is what you do.” For me, culture is created through actions. It’s the choices leaders make every day that shape how people experience their work. Words can motivate, but actions are what transform. I feel strongly that culture lives in daily behavior, in the decisions that happen behind closed doors, and in the examples leaders set. When those actions don’t match the message, culture starts to crumble. “At its core, culture is the outcome of how people treat one another. You can read an organization’s culture in the everyday interactions between team members, customers, partners, and other stakeholders,” notes Dan Pontefract, a leadership strategist and award-winning author of six workplace culture books. “Good or bad, culture is contagious. When people observe respect and generosity, that behavior spreads. But when they see apathy, ego, or petty power plays rewarded, the culture will inevitably corrode. Wherever you look, culture is an outcome, and it becomes the core of how that organization operates.” When Leaders Don’t Live Their Values You probably remember when Uber experienced its explosive growth in the early 2010s. CEO Travis Kalanick was known for being bold and disruptive, in more ways than one. The company’s “innovation at all costs” mantra fueled success, but behind the scenes the culture was the opposite. Despite all the values-based talking points emphasizing “customer obsession” and “empowerment,” employees defined the culture as toxic, with high levels of burnout, ruthless competition, and ethics issues. People complained about long hours, fear-based leadership, and a lack of trust and accountability. In 2017, former engineer Susan Fowler went public with her experience, describing a workplace filled with harassment, fear, and silence. Uber’s culture didn’t fail because it lacked values. In fact, it listed many of them on its website that sounded like ones you read about as “best practices” in Harvard Business Review. Actually, it failed because those values weren’t real because they weren’t practiced. What leaders said and did were two totally different things. Eventually Kalanick was fired and the company had to rebuild its culture from scratch. When Leaders Do Live Their Values Microsoft is a different story. When Satya Nadella took over as CEO in 2014, the company’s culture was competitive and closed off. It was struggling to innovate and it was losing touch with its people, trying to operate in an industry that required constant change. Nadella knew that the strategy wasn’t the big issue, the culture was. Instead of rolling out a new list of corporate values, as CEOs tend to do in grand fashion, he focused on improving behavior. Uncharacteristic for a tech exec, he talked about empathy, curiosity, and growth, and then he modeled them. Nadella openly shared his own learning journey and encouraged people to learn from mistakes. He talked about taking the company from a “know it all” culture to a “learn it all” culture. He created space for collaboration and growth instead of competition and fear. The shift is attributed to Microsoft’s dramatic increase in revenue and success in cloud computing and AI. Employee engagement improved, innovation returned, and Microsoft regained its energy and purpose. The company became known for its empathy-driven leadership and ability to adapt. Nadella didn’t just talk about culture, he lived it—and people followed. Actions Speak Louder Than Words Culture isn’t what you say in meetings; it’s what people see you do that matters. If I tell people to say no to meetings but I attend every meeting, people will live in fear of my words. If I tell people to challenge the status quo and they see me actively questioning assumptions, they’re much more likely to do it themselves. When your actions reflect your words, trust grows. When they don’t, it fades fast. Kevin Bishop, director of talent development at LinkedIn, believes culture is one of the most important things an organization can focus on. “Culture isn’t static,” he says. “It’s a living, evolving force shaped by our daily choices and actions. If we’re not intentional, it can drift away from our values and become a liability rather than a strength.” Are your actions aligned with your words? Do you practice what you preach when it comes to team culture? Ask yourself these questions: What words would I use to describe my team’s culture? How am I demonstrating those words every day? What word would my team use to describe our culture? How am I empowering my team to succeed? How am I removing barriers instead of creating them? If you’re brave enough, this is a great exercise to do with your team to shape the culture you want, together. Leading by Example Culture isn’t a set of beliefs. It’s a set of choices. Every day, your team watches what you do and learns from it. That’s what defines your culture. If your actions reflect your values, people will trust you. If they don’t, they’ll stop listening. The best leaders understand this simple truth: Culture is not what you say, it’s what you do. View the full article

Almost 10 years ago, physician and data scientist Dr. Ruben Amarasingham founded Pieces Technologies in Dallas with a clear goal: use artificial intelligence to make clinical work lighter, not heavier. At a time when much of healthcare AI focused on prediction and automation, Pieces concentrated on something harder to quantify but more consequential—how clinicians actually think, document, and make decisions inside busy hospital workflows. That focus helped Pieces gain traction with health systems looking for AI that could assist with documentation, coordination, and decision-making without disrupting care. But as hospitals began relying more heavily on AI for diagnosis, triage, and daily operations, the expectations placed on these tools changed. It was no longer enough for AI to sound impressive or move fast. It had to be trustworthy under real clinical pressure. Pieces did not set out to become a case study in healthcare AI accountability. But over the past two years, that is effectively what it became. In 2024, a regulatory investigation by the Texas Attorney General’s office into the accuracy and safety of its systems forced the company to examine how its models behaved in real-world settings, how clearly their reasoning could be explained, and how quickly problems could be identified and corrected. Rather than retreat, the company reexamined its models, documentation practices, and safeguards. Those efforts later became central to its acquisition by Smarter Technologies, a private equity-backed healthcare automation platform formed earlier this year through the combination of SmarterDx, Thoughtful.ai, and Access Healthcare, in September 2025. The purchase price was not disclosed. Pieces’ journey captures a defining truth about healthcare AI today: the technology is no longer judged by ambition alone, but also by whether it can withstand scrutiny, explain itself under pressure, earn clinician trust, and operate safely in environments where the cost of error is measured in human outcomes. FROM PROMISE TO PROOF AI arrived in healthcare with big promises. It would ease physician workloads, speed decisions in emergencies, and cut through the complexity of modern care. Some of those promises materialized early. But as adoption spread, hospitals began to see the limits of systems that were impressive in theory but fragile in practice. In early 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration published updated guidance on AI and machine learning-enabled medical devices, calling for stronger post-market monitoring, clearer audit trails, and safeguards against model drift in high-stakes settings. The Federal Trade Commission reinforced that message through enforcement actions targeting exaggerated AI claims and misuse of sensitive health data. Those signals changed the conversation, forcing many hospitals to ask vendors harder questions: How does your system reach its conclusions? Can clinicians understand and override its recommendations? And does the model behave consistently as conditions change? For many AI companies, the excitement of the last decade no longer buys time. Proof does. A REAL-LIFE TEST Pieces encountered those expectations earlier than most. The regulatory scrutiny forced the company to confront how its models reasoned through patient data and how clearly that reasoning could be explained to clinicians and regulators alike. But Amarasingham says the company’s mission never shifted. “Our team is focused on building the tools to make life easier for physicians, nurses, and case managers who are carrying the weight of the health system every day,” he tells Fast Company. That focus meant publishing method papers, sharing documentation with health systems, and creating processes that exposed when models struggled, drifted, or required recalibration. Those practices became foundational to the company’s next chapter. Shekhar Natarajan, founder and CEO of Orchestro.ai and a longtime observer of healthcare regulation, sees this as part of a larger reckoning. Many AI companies, he says, relied on what he calls “emergent safety,” assuming ethical outcomes would arise naturally from good intentions and culture. “That approach no longer holds,” Natarajan explains. Regulators now expect safety and accountability to be engineered into systems themselves, with reproducible reasoning, documented controls, and safeguards that hold up even when teams are stretched thin. BUILDING TRUST Trust in healthcare does not come from branding or inspiration. It comes from repeated proof that technology understands clinical work and behaves consistently under changing conditions. Clinicians want AI that respects the pace of the workday, adapts to the unpredictable rhythm of patient care, and reduces cognitive burden rather than adds to it. Above all, they want systems that behave predictably. Pieces shaped its approach around these realities, focusing on building tools to work alongside clinicians rather than ahead of them and creating ways for teams to question the system’s conclusions. It also designed its internal processes to document when the model was correct, struggled, drifted, or needed recalibration. ​For Amarasingham, that kind of thinking was essential for the progress of the company. “Innovation, to us, had to serve the care team first. The goal was to reduce cognitive load rather than to add to it,” he says, a view that aligns with a growing consensus in healthcare AI research. That emphasis aligns with what independent clinicians say is holding healthcare AI back. Dr. Ruth Kagwima, an internist at Catalyst Physician Group in Texas, says AI adoption stalls when tools disrupt already overloaded clinical workflows or fail to earn trust through clarity and validation. “AI systems that succeed in hospitals are easy to understand, fit naturally into daily work, and show clear proof of safety and accuracy,” she says. “They have to protect patient data, respect clinical judgment, and improve care without adding friction.” Another independent healthcare analyst, Dr. Patience Onuoha, who is an internist affiliated with multiple hospitals in Indiana, points to the practical constraints that still slow adoption at the bedside. “Data is often messy and siloed, and new tools can disrupt already busy clinical workflows,” she says. “There are also real concerns around safety, bias, legal risk, and trusting algorithms that are not easy to understand.” Natarajan believes this will be the defining standard of the next decade. In his view, companies survive regulatory pressure when they transform their internal principles into systems that can be inspected. They build clear chains of accountability, create evidence trails that reveal where bias may appear, and show clinicians not only how a model works but also why it does. IMPACT ON THE FUTURE Healthcare AI is moving toward a world where oversight is a design requirement rather than an afterthought, especially with regulators demanding documentation that spans the full lifecycle of a system. They want performance data segmented across race, age, and medical conditions, assurances that the system cannot infer sensitive traits that patients never disclosed, and they want companies to demonstrate how quickly they can detect and correct model drift. Some of this momentum comes from damage that has surfaced over time. For example, recent research reported by the Financial Times found some AI medical tools tended to understate the symptoms of women and ethnic minority patients, potentially worsening disparities in care because models weren’t trained or evaluated for fairness and transparency. Companies that adapt to this new reality will shape the next generation of clinical AI. Pieces now operates within this landscape. As part of Smarter Technologies, it is working to bring its governance practices to a wider network of hospitals. That means integrating safety frameworks across larger datasets, more diverse populations, and broader distribution environments. It is difficult work, but also the kind of work that defines leadership in a field where the cost of failure is measured in human outcomes. A NEW CHAPTER Healthcare AI is entering a consequential phase of growth, where the safety of AI systems is far more important than headline-grabbing breakthroughs. As hospitals sharpen their expectations for AI, Amarasingham believes the industry will need to adopt a different mindset. “In healthcare and AI, you’re not playing to win once and for all; you’re playing to keep playing, keep learning, and keep improving outcomes for patients,” he says. The work, he adds, will never be finished, because the rules shift and the needs evolve. What matters is whether companies choose to design for that reality. In other words, AI in healthcare will advance only as fast as it earns trust. And that means healthcare AI vendors and buyers must now, more than ever, be committed to steady, transparent work that stands up under pressure. View the full article

President Donald The President's support of legislation that would cap credit card interest rates at 10% has flagged in recent weeks, but experts say that the debate has highlighted significant gaps in regulators' understanding of the credit card market and how its risks are priced. View the full article

The humble tripod is an unheralded but essential part of any film or photo shoot. It’s the key to making shots level and pans smooth, and as a piece of equipment it’s seemingly about as simple as can be, with three legs and a mount at the top. But as any photographer or filmmaker knows, setting up a tripod properly can involve dozens of moving parts, clamps, pivots, and adjustments. A new tripod system from Italian camera equipment maker Manfrotto turns this setup into a single fluid motion. The Manfrotto One’s unique design allows for all three of its legs to be deployed simultaneously, extending out to the desired length in concert, each locking in place with a single lever. Thanks to a ball-based hub at the top of the tripod, the camera can be leveled in another single motion. And a custom-designed mount makes it possible to swap out cameras within seconds. The idea was to adapt this essential piece of gear to the way content creators are blending their media types. It’s increasingly common for content producers—from social media amateurs to film and photography pros—to quickly move from still cameras to mobile phones, toggle between photo and film, and alternate between horizontal and vertical frames. Designed by the London industrial design studio Layer, the Manfrotto One tripod was reconsidered from every angle to be easier to use and more adaptable to dynamic conditions. “Much of the brief was around quickness,” says industrial designer Benjamin Hubert, founder of Layer. “You’re quickly moving or panning a camera, then you’re able to snap it off and do some handheld shots, and then [you can put the camera] back on and quickly reset the height or the angle of the setup. It’s those transitional elements that allow for speed of use and as frictionless interaction as possible.” Seeing the One as a once-in-a-decade flagship product, Manfrotto has made an eight-figure investment in this new platform. It’s partly an effort to meet changing user needs, but also to stay ahead of the competition. “They’re seeing a lot of people enter the space, a lot of inexpensive products, a lot of commodity, a lot of things out of China and other parts of the world,” Hubert says. “They needed to move the needle and create something that was a big step forward.” Designing a new tripod Despite the seemingly simple makeup of a tripod, it’s a highly complex piece of equipment, and redesigning it to function quickly was far from straightforward. Manfrotto reached out about two years ago to Layer, known for its conceptual and product work ranging from airplane seats to wheelchairs to cryptocurrency wallets to dog toys. Hubert and his team broke the tripod down to what ended up being hundreds of individual components and reconsidered what made them work smoothly. “All the adjustment levers, all the attachment points, all the joints, everything is there because it has to be there from a functional point of view,” Hubert says. “Managing all of that noise and that amount of elements became one of the biggest challenges.” After churning through hundreds of prototyped components and narrowing them down to a series of viable options, Layer presented its designs as a kit of parts, with interchangeable elements and a shared logic. Combining the best bits, they dialed in on what became the One. Prioritizing how quickly the tripod could unfurl and how easily users could swap cameras on and off, Layer’s design focused on the size and placement of its key levers, making sure they could be manipulated almost effortlessly. The designers rethought the tripod’s conventional telescoping legs and created a system for the legs to extend both up and down from a central shaft, allowing the length to be controlled by a single lever. And rather than hiding parts or masking the functional elements of the tripod, Layer opted to accentuate the most critical moving parts in its overall form factor. “It’s like a skeleton constantly on display,” Hubert says. With the Manfrotto One tripod system’s retail price starting at $499, this may not be the gear for the average TikTok user. But the One’s clever design and adaptable use may even have amateurs looking at their old tripods with an unexpected level of scorn. View the full article

The record-breaking Falcons Flight roller coaster starts out slow, but don’t be fooled. Seconds into the ride at the new Six Flags Qiddiya City in Saudi Arabia, passengers are jolted into a high-speed journey that ascends mountainsides, passes through dark tunnels, and then does it all over again. The ride reaches a height of nearly 640 feet, lasts for nearly 3.5 minutes, and travels more than 2.6 miles. It’s the largest, longest, and fastest roller coaster in the world, reaching peak speeds of about 155 mph. To make it, a European design and manufacturing company used the most powerful electro-magnetic propulsion system on the market. Though Saudi Arabia just killed plans for the Line, its futuristic 150-mile-long city, it now holds records at its park, including the world’s tallest inversion on a roller coaster and the world’s tallest pendulum ride. Falcons Flight holds the speed, height, and length records for roller coasters, according to Intamin Amusement Rides, the Liechtenstein-based company that designed it. Founded in 1967, the company’s work spans from monorails in Moscow to an observation tower in Argentina, and includes what it claims was the world’s first “giant drop” ride in 1995. It says its newest roller coaster is part of “a commitment to pushing boundaries.” Intamin’s linear synchronous motors (LSM) drive system gives Falcons Flight an edge in terms of engineering. LSMs use electro-magnetic propulsion to move the ride forward through permanent magnets on the coaster train and electromagnets on the tracks. That’s different from other methods, like an old-school chain lift pulled by a motor, or a hydraulic launch. With LSMs, a moving magnetic field pulls the train forward. LSMs debuted on two Intamin-designed rides—Superman: Escape From Krypton at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, and the Tower of Terror II ride at Dreamworld in Australia, both of which opened in 1997. Today, it’s a popular way to build roller coasters because it’s more efficient and cheaper to run. It’s also super fast. Intamin says Falcons Flight was was always intended to break records; the bird-shaped trains were designed to be aerodynamic, with windshields “engineered to pierce through the air,” not to mention save riders’ eyes from all that wind. The Six Flags Qiddiya City opening late last year came after the November closure of Six Flags America just east of Washington, D.C. Six Flags announced later that month that more closures are forthcoming for underperforming parks. The Quiddiya City park is its first outside the United States. View the full article

WordPress published AI guidelines with five principles designed to encourage responsible use of AI. The post WordPress Publishes AI Guidelines To Combat AI Slop appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

At the 2026 Detroit Auto Show, the spotlight quietly shifted. Electric vehicles, once framed as the inevitable future of the industry, were no longer the centerpiece. Instead, automakers emphasized hybrids, updated gasoline models and incremental efficiency improvements. The show, held in January, reflected an industry recalibration happening in real time: Ford and General Motors had recently announced $19.5 billion and $6 billion in EV-related write-downs, respectively, reflecting the losses they expect as they unwind or delay parts of their electric vehicle plans. The message from Detroit was unmistakable: The U.S. is pulling back from a transition that much of the world is accelerating. That retreat carries consequences far beyond showroom floors. In China, Europe, and a growing number of emerging markets, including Vietnam and Indonesia, electric vehicles now make up a higher share of new passenger vehicle sales than in the United States. That means the U.S. pullback on EV production is not simply a climate problem—gasoline-powered vehicles are a major contributor to climate change—it is also an industrial competitiveness problem, with direct implications for the future of U.S. automakers, suppliers, and autoworkers. Slower EV production and slower adoption in the U.S. can keep prices higher, delay improvements in batteries and software, and increase the risk that the next generation of automotive value creation will happen elsewhere. Where EVs are taking over In 2025, global EV registrations rose 20% to 20.7 million. Analysts with Benchmark Mineral Intelligence reported that China reached 12.9 million EV registrations, up 17% from the previous year; Europe recorded 4.3 million, up 33%; and the rest of the world added 1.7 million, up 48%. By contrast, U.S. EV sales growth was essentially flat in 2025, at about 1%. U.S. automaker Tesla experienced declines in both scale and profitability—its vehicle deliveries fell 9% compared to 2024, the company’s net profit was down 46%, and CEO Elon Musk said it would put more of its focus on artificial intelligence and robotics. Market share tells a similar story and also challenges the assumption that vehicle electrification would take time to expand from wealthy countries to emerging markets. In 39 countries, EVs now exceed 10% of new car sales, including in Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia, which reached 38%, 21%, and 15%, respectively, in 2025, energy analysts at Ember report. In the U.S., EVs accounted for less than 10% of new vehicle sales, by Ember’s estimates. U.S. President Donald The President came back into office in 2025 promising to end policies that supported EV production and sales and boost fossil fuels. But while the U.S. was curtailing federal consumer incentives, governments elsewhere largely continued a transition to electric vehicles. Europe softened its goal for all vehicles to have zero emissions by 2035 at the urging of automakers, but its new target is still a 90% cut in automobiles’ carbon dioxide emissions by 2035. Germany launched a program offering subsidies worth 1,500 to 6,000 euros per electric vehicle, aimed at low- and middle-income households. In developing economies, EV policy has largely been sustained through industrial policies. In Brazil, the MOVER program offers tax credits explicitly linked to domestic EV production, research and development, and efficiency targets. South Africa is introducing a 150% investment allowance for EV and battery manufacturing, giving them a tax break starting in March 2026. Thailand has implemented subsidies and reduced excise tax tied to mandatory local production and export commitments. In China, the EV industry has entered a phase of regulatory maturity. After a decade of subsidies and state-led investment that helped domestic firms undercut global competitors, the government’s focus is no longer on explosive growth at home. With their domestic market saturated and competition fierce, Chinese automakers are pushing aggressively into global markets. Beijing has reinforced this shift by ending its full tax exemption for EV purchases and replacing it with a tapered 5% tax on EV buyers. Consequences for U.S. automakers EV manufacturing is governed by steep learning curves and scale economies, meaning the more vehicles a company builds, the better it gets at making them faster and cheaper. Low domestic production and sales can mean higher costs for parts and weaker bargaining power for automakers in global supply chains. The competitive landscape is already changing. In 2025, China exported 2.65 million EVs, doubling its 2024 exports, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. And BYD surpassed Tesla as the world’s largest EV maker in 2025. The U.S. risks becoming a follower in the industry it once defined. Some people argue that American consumers simply prefer trucks and hybrids. Others point to Chinese subsidies and overcapacity as distortions that justify U.S. industry caution. These concerns deserve consideration, but they do not outweigh the fundamental fact that, globally, the EV share of auto sales continues to rise. What can the U.S. do? For U.S. automakers and workers to compete in this market, the government, in our view, will have to stop treating EVs as an ideological matter and start governing it like an industrial transition. That starts with restoring regulatory credibility, something that seems unlikely right now as the The President administration moves to roll back vehicle emissions standards. Performance standards are the quiet engine of industrial investment. When standards are predictable and enforced, manufacturers can plan, suppliers can invest in new businesses, and workers can train for reliable demand. Governments at state and local levels and industry can also take important steps. Focus on affordability and equity: The federal clean-vehicle tax credit that effectively gave EV buyers a discount expired in September 2025. An alternative is targeted, point-of-sale support for low- and middle-income buyers. By moving away from blanket credits in favor of targeted incentives—a model already used in California and Pennsylvania—governments can ensure public funds are directed toward people who are currently priced out of the EV market. Additionally, interest-rate buydowns that allow buyers to reduce their loan payments and “green loan” programs can help, typically funded through state and local governments, utility companies or federal grants. Keep building out the charging network: A federal judge ruled on January 23, 2026, that the The President administration violated the law when it suspended a $5 billion program for expanding the nation’s EV charger network. That expansion effort can be improved by shifting the focus from the number of ports installed to the number of working chargers, as California did in 2025. Enforcing reliability and clearing bottlenecks, such as electricity connections and payment systems, could help boost the number of functioning sites. Use fleet procurement as a stabilizer for U.S. sales: When states, cities and companies provide a predictable volume of vehicle purchases, that helps manufacturers plan future investments. For example, Amazon’s 2019 order of 100,000 Rivian electric delivery vehicles to be delivered over the following decade gave the startup automaker the boost it needed. Treat workforce transition as core infrastructure: This means giving workers skills they can carry from job to job, helping suppliers retool instead of shutting down, and coordinating training with employers’ needs. Done right, these investments turn economic change into a source of stable jobs and broad public support. Done poorly, they risk a political backlash. The scene at the Detroit Auto Show should be a warning, not a verdict. The global auto industry is accelerating its EV transition. The question for the United States is whether it will shape that future—and ensure the technologies and jobs of the next automotive era are in the U.S.—or import it. Hengrui Liu is a postdoctoral scholar in economics and public policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Kelly Sims Gallagher is a professor of energy and environmental policy and director of the Climate Policy Lab and Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

The only constant in life is change. This truth is as salient today as it was when the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus posited the idea centuries ago. It’s a truth that most modern leaders know firsthand, especially when it comes to culture. Culture is in constant flux. Emergent ideas are introduced to an organization—be they new technologies or nascent philosophies—which catalyze new imaginations and result in new ways of work. However, the question isn’t if things will change but how and when? So, we sat down with the former CMO of McDonald’s North America, Tariq Hassan, for this week’s episode of the From the Culture podcast to talk about cultural change and how leaders can best navigate it. As Hassan poetically puts it, every organization is haunted by the ghosts of cultures past. These are the existing conventions of an organization that were once introduced and integrated into its operating system but linger about even after a leader departs. Some were advantageous in the moment but perhaps soured over time. Others were likely rejected at first glance but eventually revealed themselves to be useful. These cultural contributions can be edifying or detrimental to an organization. Therefore, it’s incumbent upon new leaders to identify which ghosts should be summoned and which ought to be exorcised. How Will I Know According to Hassan, a trained strategist turned C-suite executive, culture should evolve but also remain static. This dynamic might seem paradoxical on the surface, but it is empirically supported by the literature. Famed anthropologist Grant McCracken refers to this as “fast and slow” culture. Slow culture consists of the deeply held beliefs and assumptions of an organization that inform “how we do things around here.” Fast culture, on the other hand, is a reflection of the organization’s beliefs in a contemporary context, based on the realities of today. They both exist at the same time but change at different rates. Slow culture moves at a glacier pace, if at all. This is the static nature of culture that Hassan argues is the anchor of an organization that keeps it stable. Fast culture is far more temporal—the evolving parts of Hassan’s cultural calculus. When considering change, new leaders must distinguish between the fast and the slow, which parts must be revisited (the fast) and which should be reinforced (the slow). This is where reenvisioning comes into play for the CEO and executions become contextualized for managers. Three Ideas To navigate these complexities, Hassan offers three recommendations. First, leaders must approach change with great humility. This means realizing that someone was there before you who helped get the organization to where it is today. As good as you may be, you can’t enter the company thinking Everyone here is incompetent and only I, alone, will save it. Doing so is to ignore the cultural conventions that ushered in its past successes or, worse, it may lead you to erroneously mistake them for the lingering conventions that may have prevented the organization from thriving. Discerning the differences is key. Secondly, Hassan suggests adopting a curious mindset. As a leader, he’s far more infatuated with questions than he is with answers. Questions invite other members of the organization who have experienced previous cultures to contribute to the exploration of change. It allows leaders to brain surf the institutional knowledge that already exists and leverage the endowment effect so that members of the team feel a sense of ownership in the change. That way, they are a part of the change as opposed to the change happening to them. Lastly, Hassan emphasizes the importance of empathy—self-aware perspective taking. Considering the kaleidoscope of meanings the world presents to our collective sense; having more perspectives provides a vivid picture of the organization’s reality, which helps you, as a leader, lead change more effectively. This, as Hassan notes, is not only true of business culture but also of culture more broadly. And that’s spot-on. Things aren’t the way they are; they are the way that we are, to paraphrase famed French-born author Anaïs Nin. And if that is the case, then understanding the multiple perspectives of the organization is critical to truly understanding the organization itself. Without this understanding, how can you effectively lead change? Check out our full conversation with Tariq Hassan on the From the Culture podcast, where we explore the inner workings of organizational culture with the leaders who lead them. View the full article

Move by one of the biggest UK lenders broadens options available to low-deposit borrowersView the full article

Most professionals spend their days focused on performance, deadlines, deliverables, and doing good work that gets noticed. That’s normal. But there’s an overlooked truth about work (and life, really) that doesn’t show up in job descriptions or KPIs. Work feels better, and often goes better, when it’s shared. Shared in the human sense: letting someone in, acknowledging others, and enjoying progress together instead of alone. That idea comes through clearly in a story Oprah Winfrey often tells about growing up in Mississippi and learning an early lesson from a candy bar. “I’m telling you, if you do something to make someone else happier, it’s almost like it comes back to you exactly 100-fold. . . . I learned for myself, even as a little kid, that the candy bar tasted better if I had somebody to say, “Isn’t this good?” . . . All things in life get better when you share it, and when you do something for someone else, the benefit comes back to you as well as to them. That’s where I get my great joy.” It’s a simple story. Now, let’s apply it to the workplace, where we spend the majority of our waking hours. Because most of us miss it. Work isn’t meant to be a solo sport When people keep everything to themselves—ideas, credit, stress, wins—work becomes transactional and isolating. That’s a bummer by my book, and I’ve been in these dreadful offices before. But when workers share, even in small ways, something shifts in the atmosphere. Trust grows. Energy increases. People feel less alone in the grind. So, what does this look like in everyday work? Sharing builds connection without extra effort You don’t need a team-building exercise to create connection. Sharing context on a tough project, looping someone in early, or simply saying, “Here’s what I’m working on,” helps others feel included. It builds community. Inclusion, even informal inclusion, reduces friction and misunderstandings. Shared credit strengthens collaboration Calling out a colleague’s contribution—especially when you don’t have to—does more than make them feel good. It signals praise, respect, loyalty, and fairness. People are more willing to help when they know their effort won’t go unnoticed. Helping others improves your own work This is the part Oprah points to that people often underestimate. When you support and serve someone else—by offering feedback, time, or encouragement—it benefits you in many ways. It helps reinforce cultural values like empathy, generosity, and servant leadership. I would wager that most meaningful work moments for you may have involved other people. Those times when you were tasked to solve a problem together, laughing after a stressful meeting, and celebrating a small win. Work satisfaction rarely comes from achievement alone. It comes from achievement that’s witnessed. None of this requires a title, authority, or permission. And it’s free. I’ll leave you with a few ways to share with peers and colleagues on the fly, starting today: Share information instead of guarding it. Say thank you out loud; don’t just think it. Invite someone into a win instead of claiming it. Check in when someone looks overwhelmed. Include others in daily decision-making. Share credit with the team. The candy bar tastes better when someone else is there to enjoy it with you. Work does too. This week, intentionally share one thing at work—credit, your help, context, or appreciation. Notice how it changes not just the other person’s day but also yours. —By Marcel Schwantes This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister site, Inc.com. Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy. View the full article

Common feature in electric vehicles has raised safety concernsView the full article

If you’re a CEO, entrepreneur, recruiter, or hiring manager, you know how important it is to hire the right people for the right roles. But hiring the right people for the right roles goes way beyond simply attracting “the best and brightest” of your industry. Just because someone is highly qualified, great at what they do and has impressive experience, doesn’t mean they are a good fit for your organization or your culture. If you want your business to thrive in the marketplace, you need to filter out potential employees who may not be a great fit for your organization and attract those who are the most likely to thrive. Here are three ways to attract potential employees who are more likely to fall in love with your brand. Give candidates a realistic job preview According to LinkedIn, the biggest concern candidates experience when searching for a job is not knowing what it’s really like to work at an organization before they apply. If you truly want to give candidates a transparent look at your organization, including the not-so-glamorous side of the role they are applying for, consider adopting Realistic Job Previews as part of your recruitment strategy. Realistic Job Previews (RJPs), as the name suggests, are designed to give candidates a realistic peek behind the curtains of the role they are applying for so they can make well-informed decisions on whether the job is one which they will love and thrive in. Some companies, like Boston Consulting Group, allow candidates to take a 3D tour of the company and to register for a job simulation. Other companies, such as Marriott, use gamification to give candidates the opportunity to perform the digital equivalents of the tasks they would perform on the job if they are successful in their application. This gives candidates a close approximation of the difficulty level of the jobs they are applying for and can help them decide whether the job they are applying for is a good fit for them. If you simply don’t have the budget for these high-tech solutions, an effective low-tech alternative may be to simply allow candidates applying for a job at your organization to spend an entire day in your workplace shadowing team members in the department they are applying to be a part of and speaking with any of your team members individually or in groups—unsupervised and without any intervention or interruption by any member of our leadership team. This allows candidates the opportunity to have a truly unfiltered and uncensored view of your business from the perspective of employees without management running interference. Candidates who like what they see will be more likely to apply for (and love) a role at your organization, while those who don’t will look elsewhere for employment (saving you valuable time and money). This is RJP in its purest and most transparent form. Don’t worry too much about scaring off candidates with the truth, because when you stop and think about it, if they join your team, it won’t be long before they see both your strengths and weaknesses for themselves. It’s much better to be upfront with candidates so they can make an informed choice rather than to hide the truth and have your new employees quit after a few months, weeks, or days after they experience your culture for themselves! Articulate an inspiring purpose Research by Gallup shows that employees with a strong sense of purpose in the workplace are 5.6 times as likely to be engaged in their jobs compared to those with a low sense of purpose. And research conducted by McKinsey indicated that 82% of employees believe it’s important for their company to have a purpose. That’s why it’s important to carefully articulate your purpose in a way that inspires potential employees who are aligned with your purpose to want to work with you. If your purpose is, for example, to help alleviate poverty, it will attract individuals who love the idea of helping people improve their quality of life. If your purpose is to create technologically advanced products that improve the lives of customers, that purpose will help attract individuals who genuinely love being involved in the process of technological innovation. And, if your purpose is to help preserve the environment, you will attract employees who are passionate about conserving natural habitats. If your company doesn’t have a thoughtfully articulated and documented purpose, take the time to do so right away—it just might help you to attract individuals who will love working at your organization. Demonstrate that you value career development If you want your employees to love your organization, let them know upfront what career opportunities they may be eligible for across the organization beyond the role for which they are applying. Deloitte’s Explore Your Fit initiative does a good job of this by using technology that allows candidates to answer a series of questions about themselves, their experience, and their interests. Based on the responses, Deloitte will provide candidates with a custom digital guide to help them navigate career opportunities within their fit area. If you prefer a more personal touch, have a conversation with candidates that includes a review of your organizational chart, and what positions they may be eligible for if they excel at the position they are currently applying for—especially if your company has a history of promoting from within the organization. Some companies that value career development have even been known to create custom positions for high performers they want to retain even after they have outgrown the positions they originally applied for—something you may want to consider if you want to ensure that you retain your top talent, even in roles you may not have previously envisioned. When employers demonstrate that they value career development, candidates are more likely to have confidence that their work will be meaningful and lead to future opportunities within the organization—helping them make a more informed decision and more likely to fall in love with the jobs they have applied for. Of course, there are several other ways to attract employees who will love working for your organization, but these three activities are an excellent way to start the process of having potential employees who will fall in love with their roles in your organization. View the full article