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US president’s attacks have improved the fortunes of the former central banker’s Liberal partyView the full article

Stocks and dollar fall in tandem as tariffs dent outlook for American economyView the full article

The secret to high-performing teams High-performing teams aren’t the product of happenstance. They’re built on a foundation of trust, motivation, and employee empowerment. Rather than being shackled by constant oversight, these teams thrive when their achievements, both big and small, are celebrated. In an era where we’re seeing more and more micro-management, empowering employees to […] The post Stop watching and start trusting: employee empowerment for the win! appeared first on RescueTime Blog. View the full article

National security adviser and second lady will travel to Arctic island coveted by US presidentView the full article

Wall Street is weighing in on the possible fate of home loan giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, after a fleeting suggestion by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent earlier this week that the government's stakes could eventually become part of the proposed US sovereign wealth fund. View the full article

Airlines raise questions about scale of flight disruption after substation blazeView the full article

The fees you charge make a statement about your firm. By Loren Fogelman The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management Go PRO for members-only access to more Rory Henry. View the full article

The fees you charge make a statement about your firm. By Loren Fogelman The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management Go PRO for members-only access to more Rory Henry. View the full article

Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet withdraws confidence in Gali Baharav-MiaraView the full article

Armed forces recapture presidential palace and central bank headquarters, but fighting is not over View the full article

The chancellor’s Spring Statement must draw lessons from October’s flawed BudgetView the full article

US special envoy for Russia Steve Witkoff sides with Kremlin on territorial demandsView the full article

There has been lots of chatter in the past few years about the benefits of a shorter workweek, as some companies have tested out four-day work schedules and other variations on the traditional workweek. Back in 2021, on the heels of the pandemic, California Congressman Mark Takano even introduced a bill to enshrine a 32-hour workweek—though it never garnered enough bipartisan support to progress further. In surveys, a majority of workers have expressed interest in a four-day or 32-hour workweek (with no reduction in pay, of course). Even as some leaders increasingly see the evolution of the workweek as an inevitability, we’re still a long way from ushering in sweeping changes across the workforce. But a recent report revealed that many employees may already be leaning into a shorter workday—or at least a more flexible workweek. Corporate workers in the U.S. are now clocking out at 4:39 p.m. on average, according to data from the workforce analytics platform ActivTrak. The report found that while employees still log on by 8 a.m., they seem to be working less on average. The average length of the workday is now eight hours and 44 minutes, a decrease of more than 40 minutes from two years ago. However, ActivTrak’s findings also reveal a broader shift in how we work today: More people are logging hours over the weekend, especially at larger companies; and hybrid employees seem to have longer workdays, which could mean they’re wrapping up their work after hours. Many employees, especially caregivers, have said hybrid work enables greater flexibility in their workdays and allows them to set their own schedule. Perhaps the solution to our frustrations with rigid work schedules is a shorter, more flexible workday—not necessarily a truncated workweek. The challenges of a four-day workweek At tech companies like Bolt and Kickstarter, the shift to a four-day workweek has been popular with employees and a selling point for prospective talent. Still, while a four-day workweek can help alleviate certain workplace challenges, it isn’t a viable option in every job or industry. There are some types of businesses that simply cannot shut down for a full day each week. Also, this type of restructuring may have little benefit for shift workers with long hours. Even among knowledge workers, there’s a risk that cutting a full day would simply result in employees scrambling to cram their work into a shorter week. “Simply shortening the number of days we work won’t solve our problem,” wrote Mathilde Collin, CEO of the customer communication platform Front. “In fact, it might even increase stress and burnout: Squeezing more meetings into a shorter number of days means there’s even less time to focus and get creative, thoughtful work done.” Why flexible workdays could help Reframing this shift as a shorter workweek, whether that means four full days of work or five truncated workdays, could be a more effective approach. After all, much of the resistance to return-to-office mandates has stemmed from employees wanting to preserve the flexibility they had when remote and hybrid work was the norm. Employees are often just looking for more flexibility in the workday rather than fewer working hours, whether they’re trying to accommodate doctors’ appointments or school pickups—or simply want to take a proper lunch break. That’s why Collin’s company implemented flexible Fridays. “The team felt relief to have a day where they could work if needed, yet nothing was expected of them,” she wrote. “If you need focused time, you’ve always got it. And if you want to spend time with your kids or take a bike ride or go to a dentist appointment, you can do that guilt-free.” There’s also plenty of research that indicates workers are not necessarily more productive simply because they work longer hours. Adopting a shorter workday or workweek requires a shift in mindset from companies and employees alike, to ensure that they measure output rather than hours logged; it could also mean cutting back on superfluous meetings to give employees time back. And for companies that view a four-day workweek as a drastic measure, giving employees some flexibility to set their own working hours might actually be a better compromise—and a more realistic step in the right direction. View the full article

Retirement should feel liberating rather than terrifying. But when an egg-salad sandwich costs more than your first bicycle, the stock market is making like Tom Petty, and economists are bending themselves into pretzels to avoid saying the word “recession,” retirement can feel hazardous to your financial health. In a perfect world, everyone would retire into a robust economy. But since we live in this world, there’s no way of knowing in advance if your timing is right. Retiring during a downturn may not be ideal, but there are several ways to manage it. Here’s how you can survive and thrive if you retire when the market is tanking. Know your retirement risks There are two distinct risks facing you and your money if you retire during a down market. The first is a timing risk. Market downturns typically coincide with economic downturns, which often leads to wide-scale job loss. Workers approaching retirement tend to be in their peak earning years, which can make them vulnerable to cost-cutting layoffs. Getting laid off just before retirement can be a bit of a one-two punch, since you may need to fund a longer retirement than you’d planned and your investments may have also taken a hit at the same time. The second potential risk is the possibility of cashing out some of your retirement portfolio while the market is down. If you have to access some of your retirement funds before the market recovers, you make any portfolio losses permanent. That leaves you with less money to live on now and less money invested that can continue to grow. Laugh in the face of risk Involuntary retirement and loss of principal may be nothing for a pre-retiree to sneeze at, but you can protect yourself from the vagaries of the market and your employment. These four strategies can help anyone who is contemplating retirement in the next few years: Keep a flexible retirement schedule In the movies, any police officer or international art thief who is only one day or one job away from retirement usually doesn’t survive the final act. These poor sods teach us the folly of tempting fate by setting a specific retirement date in stone—not to mention the importance of hiding behind whichever coworker is the hero and who therefore has impenetrable plot armor. Even if you’re not worried about getting clocked by a minor villain the day before you retire, your planned retirement date could run afoul of another danger: It has a decent chance of coinciding with a market correction. The stock market has a pattern of crashing approximately every seven to eight years, with periods in between of flat growth, minor but significant dips, and other market turbulence that has investors reaching for the Mylanta. Rather than setting a date on your calendar and treating it as sacrosanct, make your retirement plans flexible. If the market is iffy, consider working longer to give your portfolio time to recover. That might mean pushing back your last day or finding part-time or consulting work so you can avoid dipping into your nest egg. Rebalance early and often as you approach retirement Of course, not everyone has the ability to work past their planned retirement date. If you’re laid off, forced to retire, or simply need to retire right now because someone is microwaving fish in the office kitchen on a daily basis, you may end up leaving work at a bad financial time. But the investment decisions you make in the years before you retire can help protect you and your money from bad timing. Specifically, as you get closer to your planned retirement, you will want to regularly rebalance your portfolio to reduce your exposure to market risk. When you rebalance, you shift money from one type of asset to another to better meet your investment goals. As you get closer to retirement, you may want to move money from some of your higher-risk/higher-return investments (such as stocks) into lower-risk assets (such as bonds) or even cash equivalents (such as Treasury bills). Pre-retirees may want to rebalance as often as every six months or so. There are two benefits to regular rebalancing in the years before you retire. The first is that it allows you to lock in gains when the market is doing well. If you move money from stocks to bonds or T-bills when the stock market is going gangbusters, you get to capture those gains and put them safely into a lower-risk asset. In addition, capturing your gains and putting them in cash equivalents means you will not need to pull from your ailing investments if you retire during a downturn. You can easily access the money set aside in the cash equivalents and give your long-term investments time to recover. Make friends with your emergency fund According to conventional financial advice, every single person should have an emergency fund filled with enough money to cover three to six months’ worth of living expenses. The thinking is that such a fund will ensure you can keep afloat if you lose your job—but almost nobody actually has that kind of money sitting in a savings account. The five years before you retire are a great time to commit to building an emergency fund of that size. A three-to-six month financial cushion in an easily accessible account can help you bridge the gap between a badly timed retirement date and a market recovery. And even if the market is doing fine right when you retire, having that fund available can help you smooth over any financial difficulties you face during the transition. Wait to take Social Security It may sound counterintuitive, but one of the best things you can do if you retire into a market downturn is to hold off on taking your Social Security benefits. Even though Social Security is money that you can count on if the stock market is feeling funereal, most retirees are better off delaying benefits. Here’s why: Your monthly benefits increase by approximately 8% per year that you delay benefits between age 62 and age 70. There is no investment that can offer a guaranteed 8% growth per year (plus cost of living adjustments) over an eight-year period. And remember that your benefits are guaranteed for life. Waiting as long as you can to take benefits will give you a larger monthly income stream forever—or at least until the day you go to the big Social Security office in the sky. Don’t panic Involuntary retirement and locking in market losses are a retiree’s biggest risks, but you can mitigate both risks with some savvy planning. Keep your retirement plans flexible so you can take the time to wait out a market correction. Commit to a regular rebalancing of your portfolio to help reduce your exposure to risk, and build up your emergency fund so you can avoid dipping into your portfolio at the wrong time. Delay your Social Security benefits to get a higher benefit that lasts the rest of your life. Retiring during a market downturn is bad luck—but it doesn’t have to be a personal financial crisis. View the full article

The last year has seen a global reckoning with the effects of social media on kids. Australia banned children younger than 16 from using social media platform. Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation became one of the most purchased books of 2024. And former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for these platforms to create warning labels akin to those on tobacco products. Despite wide acceptance that social media can contribute negatively to children’s social and emotional well-being, families, schools, and governments have no interest in pretending these platforms will eventually fade into obsoletion. Instead, many of these entities are interested in reevaluating and placing guardrails around how children engage with online platforms. At the Fast Company Grill at SXSW earlier this month, executives from Life360, Yondr, and Yoto—all tech companies that emphasize finding balance between the online and offline world—addressed the nuances of when and how children should engage with social media. Tom Ballhatchet, vice president of creative, UX, and innovation at Yoto, is adamant that his business is not anti-tech. The company’s signature product, the Yoto Player, is an audio-forward device that users can insert physical cards into to listen to stories, podcasts, music, and more. Other than a tiny display which might show illustrations or cartoon figures, the gadget is completely analog, allowing children to engage with content without the distraction of a screen. “We’re trying to put kids in control of their listening and learning and education,” Ballhatchet said. “Parents often tell us that because their kids are in control, that actually gives them a bit of independence back.” Lauren Antonoff, the chief operating officer of Life360, a platform that allows families to keep track of one another’s whereabouts, echoed the idea that technology can be used to facilitate independence. “Life360 isn’t designed to be used actively on your phone,” Antonoff said. “It’s designed so that you can put your phone in your pocket and go out and play ball, or go to the store, and your parents can keep an eye on you.” Jennifer Betka, the chief marketing officer of Yondr, a company that makes pouches used to store phones for schools and event venues, wants children to learn about the digital world and what it looks like to practice safe behavior, while preventing overexposure and addiction to these platforms at a young age. “The next generation should really be able to live life untethered and strike a healthy balance between their screens and the world around them,” she said. Watch the full panel below: View the full article

Premier Li tells business leaders Beijing chooses to pursue globalisation and multilateralismView the full article

‘We may hate him. We may be harsh on him. But he’s our president,’ says Kyiv-based campaignerView the full article

Swedish defence contractor expected to benefit from European wariness of US military productsView the full article

Western firms scale back presence in Hong Kong and China as financial activity slowsView the full article

FT calculations point to dramatic impact of government reforms to benefits systemView the full article

The US buyout giant bought bikemaker Accell at the peak of a pandemic-era deals boom. It has just completed a painful restructuringView the full article

Large language models are unaware of the offline context that sensitive information might be employed inView the full article

Vessels have been directed to Asia and Europe to carry ‘thousands’ more cars to America than usual View the full article

Would you share the pages of your journal with a bunch of strangers, because that’s the idea behind social wellness app Exist. The new iOS social wellness app wants to turn journaling into a social experience. Originally designed with Gen Z in mind, Exist unexpectedly found its audience among middle-age users, with the average sign-up age landing at 40. Seeing this, the founders pivoted to focus on this group, creating a space for real, raw conversations about life’s challenges. Exist calls itself the edgier cousin of Calm and Headspace, but instead of solo meditation, it puts social journaling at the center of its mission. The app is built on the idea that healing happens best together, not alone. Users can track their moods daily, explore guided meditations, and engage in audio exercises, but the real draw is its community. In terms of its interface, Exist functions like a TikTok for mental health, offering a swipeable feed of videos and text-based public journal entries. Users can respond to daily prompts, share their thoughts, and interact through comments, creating a space for support and real conversations. “The biggest feature that makes us different is the community side,” cofounder Alicia Waldner told TechCrunch. “Headspace and Calm proved that there’s this audio-based market, but people still feel very alone in those experiences and in real life, people meditate and then they journal, but that’s a solo experience. And what we did was make that a social experience. So instead of journaling all your thoughts and feelings at home and putting it underneath your bed at night, you’re sharing it with the world, and people are commenting back.” Exist also offers an AI-powered question feature designed to push users to dig deeper into their thoughts and feelings. This tool encourages a more reflective and thorough journaling experience. While the community and social journaling features are free, users looking for guided audios and meditations can unlock them with a $5.99/month subscription. View the full article

Zoom has announced a significant expansion of its AI Companion platform, introducing new agentic AI skills and custom agent capabilities that span across Zoom Meetings, Zoom Phone, Zoom Team Chat, Zoom Docs, and Zoom Contact Center. The announcement, made March 17 during a company event in Orlando, highlights more than 45 innovations aimed at boosting productivity, simplifying workflows, and strengthening relationships through enhanced AI functionality. “AI Companion is evolving from a personal assistant to being truly agentic, which signals a major leap forward in how AI can enhance productivity and collaboration at work,” said Smita Hashim, chief product officer at Zoom. “We’re delivering value for our customers through AI agents and agentic skills that solve real customer problems, helping them connect, collaborate, and get more done, all within the Zoom platform our users trust and love.” Agentic Skills for Streamlined Workflows Zoom’s AI Companion now includes multi-step task execution, using memory and reasoning to tap into appropriate agents and skills. New agentic features include calendar management, clip generation, advanced writing assistance, and the ability to manage complex customer service workflows through Zoom Virtual Agent. AI Companion’s expanded role includes task orchestration and decision-making capabilities, enabling it to learn over time and improve efficiency. Zoom users can also access custom AI agents through AI Studio, allowing tailored virtual agents for specific business needs. These features are available in beta and are expected to become widely accessible later this spring. Custom AI Companion Add-On Zoom plans to launch a Custom AI Companion add-on in April for $12 per user per month. The add-on enables organizations to customize AI Companion with their own meeting templates, industry-specific vocabulary, and third-party data sources. Features include a personal AI coach, custom meeting summaries, and the ability to create custom avatars for Zoom Clips using user-provided scripts. The add-on will incorporate Small Language Models (SLMs) trained on multilingual data to complement Zoom’s third-party LLMs. These models are optimized for specific tasks and built to facilitate multi-agent collaboration. AI Companion Across Zoom Workplace Zoom Tasks with AI Companion will debut in late March, allowing users to track and complete tasks from summaries, chats, and emails within Zoom Docs. AI-generated meeting agendas and live notes will launch in May, and voicemail summaries for Zoom Phone are already available. A new mobile voice recorder is also expected to launch in March, offering transcription and action item extraction. Zoom Docs will receive advanced AI enhancements in June and July, including context-based writing plans, internal/external data searches, and automated table generation. Zoom Drive, a centralized content repository, will launch in May. Customer Experience and Industry Solutions Zoom is extending AI capabilities into customer-facing services. Zoom Contact Center will feature Zoom Virtual Agent for voice and chat, along with AI-intent routing and Advanced Quality Management. AI-intent routing launches in March, with the latter expected in May. Zoom Business Services will integrate agentic skills for marketing, sales, and customer care. Zoom Revenue Accelerator will soon include a sales-focused agent offering insights and prospecting tools. Industry-specific offerings are also in development. Zoom Workplace for Frontline launches in April with mobile-first tools for on-shift workers. Zoom Workplace for Clinicians, expected in late March, will automatically generate clinical notes. Zoom Workplace for Education will add AI-generated lecture summaries in May and live transcript interaction later in the year. Zoom is also expanding its hardware certification program in April to include document cameras for education and patient-room cameras for healthcare. Zoom AI Companion continues to be included at no extra cost for customers with paid Zoom accounts. Some advanced features, customizations, and agents may require additional fees or separate pricing tiers. This article, "Zoom Unveils Major Expansion of AI Companion with Agentic Skills and Custom Agents" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article