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Team building exercises play a vital role in enhancing workplace morale. Activities like the Marshmallow Challenge encourage creativity and collaboration, as well as games such as Virtual Bingo that promote friendly competition. Engaging in these exercises not merely strengthens relationships but likewise improves communication among team members. Comprehending the various activities available and their specific benefits can help you choose the right ones for your team. Discovering the most effective strategies for sustaining this positive environment is fundamental for long-term success. Key Takeaways Marshmallow Challenge: Teams build the tallest structure using limited materials, promoting collaboration and creative problem-solving. Desk Safari Photo Challenge: Capture fun poses with office supplies to spark creativity and laughter among team members. Virtual Bingo: Play bingo using work-related terms to foster teamwork and lighthearted competition in a remote setting. Emoji Story Challenge: Use emojis to update projects, enhancing communication and making updates more engaging and fun. Human Knot Exercise: A physical team-building activity that encourages trust, cooperation, and improves team dynamics. The Importance of Team Morale Team morale is a critical component of a thriving workplace, influencing various aspects of employee performance and satisfaction. For nurses, high morale directly correlates with happiness, productivity, and engagement. Engaged employees experience reduced stress levels and demonstrate better performance, vital in high-pressure healthcare environments. Implementing team building exercises for nurses encourages collaboration, improves communication, and strengthens relationships among staff. Organizations that prioritize morale often see a 37% reduction in absenteeism, showcasing the importance of a supportive team culture. Additionally, higher morale leads to increased employee retention, as many workers value well-being investments over financial compensation. Engaging Activities to Boost Morale Engaging activities play a vital role in improving morale within the workplace, especially in healthcare settings where stress can be prevalent. Incorporating fun team-building exercises not just strengthens relationships but also boosts overall job satisfaction. Here are a few effective activities: Activity Description Benefits Inspirational Quotes Share uplifting quotes among team members Reduces stress levels Virtual Bingo Play bingo with work-related terms online Encourages collaboration Board Games Night Organize a night for board games Improves teamwork Pet a Pet Initiative Encourage team members to share pet stories Creates shared experiences These activities can lead to higher engagement and retention rates, creating a positive work environment vital for long-term success. Benefits of Enhanced Team Engagement Though many organizations recognize the importance of employee satisfaction, comprehending the direct benefits of improved team engagement is crucial for driving performance and retention. Improved team engagement can lead to a 14% to 30% increase in productivity, making a significant impact on overall business performance. Engaged employees experience 91% reduced stress levels, which promotes a healthier work environment and lowers absenteeism rates. Companies with high engagement see a 36% higher retention rate, helping to reduce turnover costs and maintain valuable institutional knowledge. Furthermore, improved engagement is linked to increased job satisfaction, with many employees prioritizing morale over pay. Indoor team building activities can strengthen relationships among team members, fundamental for cultivating a collaborative and supportive workplace culture. Creative Team Building Challenges Creative team building challenges serve as effective strategies for nurturing collaboration and enhancing communication skills among colleagues. Activities like the Marshmallow Challenge require teams to build the tallest freestanding structure using limited materials, promoting problem-solving and teamwork. The Desk Safari Photo Challenge promotes creativity by having teams capture imaginative animal poses with office supplies, leading to shared laughter. Engaging in Emoji Story Challenges lets teams convey project updates using only emojis, improving non-verbal communication. Moreover, the Human Knot exercise encourages trust and cooperation as members untangle themselves without releasing each other’s hands. For nursing team building activities, these challenges can reinforce a culture of appreciation, ultimately elevating workplace morale and strengthening team dynamics through fun and interactive experiences. Strategies for Sustaining High Morale Sustaining high morale in the workplace requires consistent effort and a variety of strategies to keep employees engaged and motivated. Implementing trust building exercises for leadership teams can promote transparency and strengthen relationships. Regular team-building activities, like monthly employee rewards and fun office challenges, improve team cohesion and collaboration. Moreover, flexible work perks, such as early finish Fridays, demonstrate your commitment to employee well-being. Companies that prioritize these efforts often see a significant decrease in absenteeism and an increase in retention rates. Strategy Benefits Trust Building Exercises Strengthens leadership and transparency Monthly Employee Rewards Boosts motivation and recognition Flexible Work Perks Increases satisfaction and engagement Frequently Asked Questions What Games at Work Boost Morale? Games that boost morale at work include icebreakers like “Two Truths and a Lie,” which improve communication among colleagues. “Office Trivia” encourages friendly competition and belonging, as well as “Compliment Circles” promote positive reinforcement. Collaborative challenges, such as “Escape Room Challenges,” develop problem-solving skills and teamwork. Incorporating physical activities, like “Paper Airplane Distance Contests,” alleviates stress and encourages laughter, all contributing to a more enjoyable and cohesive workplace atmosphere that improves overall morale. What Are Some Fun Team Building Activities? To encourage teamwork and engagement, consider activities like Trivia Time, which lasts about 30 minutes and promotes knowledge sharing. Virtual Bingo, ideal for remote teams, encourages bonding in a one-hour session. A Board Games Night can improve social interactions for 1 to 3 hours, as Build a Tower focuses on communication skills in 1 to 1.5 hours. Finally, Pet a Pet sessions create personal connections for approximately 45 minutes to an hour. How to Boost Team Morale at Work? To boost team morale at work, you can implement regular team-building activities that promote communication and collaboration. Organize events like trivia games or team lunches, which help nurture connections among employees. You might likewise encourage sharing inspirational quotes or initiating friendly competitions. Incorporating these activities can help create a positive work environment, leading to increased employee engagement and satisfaction. In the end, enhancing morale can improve productivity and reduce absenteeism in your organization. What Is the 30 Second Game for Team Building? The 30 Second Game is a team-building activity where you describe a word or phrase without using specific keywords, aiming for your teammates to guess it within 30 seconds. This game hones your communication skills and encourages creative thinking. It’s versatile, suitable for any group size, and can be played in-person or remotely. Conclusion Incorporating fun team-building exercises can greatly improve workplace morale and nurture a collaborative environment. Activities like the Marshmallow Challenge and Virtual Bingo not just engage employees but likewise enhance communication and teamwork. By regularly implementing creative challenges and initiatives, you’ll sustain high morale, which directly contributes to increased productivity and employee retention. Prioritizing these exercises is crucial for creating a positive workplace culture that benefits both individuals and the organization as a whole. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Fun Team Building Exercises to Boost Workplace Morale" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Team building exercises play a vital role in enhancing workplace morale. Activities like the Marshmallow Challenge encourage creativity and collaboration, as well as games such as Virtual Bingo that promote friendly competition. Engaging in these exercises not merely strengthens relationships but likewise improves communication among team members. Comprehending the various activities available and their specific benefits can help you choose the right ones for your team. Discovering the most effective strategies for sustaining this positive environment is fundamental for long-term success. Key Takeaways Marshmallow Challenge: Teams build the tallest structure using limited materials, promoting collaboration and creative problem-solving. Desk Safari Photo Challenge: Capture fun poses with office supplies to spark creativity and laughter among team members. Virtual Bingo: Play bingo using work-related terms to foster teamwork and lighthearted competition in a remote setting. Emoji Story Challenge: Use emojis to update projects, enhancing communication and making updates more engaging and fun. Human Knot Exercise: A physical team-building activity that encourages trust, cooperation, and improves team dynamics. The Importance of Team Morale Team morale is a critical component of a thriving workplace, influencing various aspects of employee performance and satisfaction. For nurses, high morale directly correlates with happiness, productivity, and engagement. Engaged employees experience reduced stress levels and demonstrate better performance, vital in high-pressure healthcare environments. Implementing team building exercises for nurses encourages collaboration, improves communication, and strengthens relationships among staff. Organizations that prioritize morale often see a 37% reduction in absenteeism, showcasing the importance of a supportive team culture. Additionally, higher morale leads to increased employee retention, as many workers value well-being investments over financial compensation. Engaging Activities to Boost Morale Engaging activities play a vital role in improving morale within the workplace, especially in healthcare settings where stress can be prevalent. Incorporating fun team-building exercises not just strengthens relationships but also boosts overall job satisfaction. Here are a few effective activities: Activity Description Benefits Inspirational Quotes Share uplifting quotes among team members Reduces stress levels Virtual Bingo Play bingo with work-related terms online Encourages collaboration Board Games Night Organize a night for board games Improves teamwork Pet a Pet Initiative Encourage team members to share pet stories Creates shared experiences These activities can lead to higher engagement and retention rates, creating a positive work environment vital for long-term success. Benefits of Enhanced Team Engagement Though many organizations recognize the importance of employee satisfaction, comprehending the direct benefits of improved team engagement is crucial for driving performance and retention. Improved team engagement can lead to a 14% to 30% increase in productivity, making a significant impact on overall business performance. Engaged employees experience 91% reduced stress levels, which promotes a healthier work environment and lowers absenteeism rates. Companies with high engagement see a 36% higher retention rate, helping to reduce turnover costs and maintain valuable institutional knowledge. Furthermore, improved engagement is linked to increased job satisfaction, with many employees prioritizing morale over pay. Indoor team building activities can strengthen relationships among team members, fundamental for cultivating a collaborative and supportive workplace culture. Creative Team Building Challenges Creative team building challenges serve as effective strategies for nurturing collaboration and enhancing communication skills among colleagues. Activities like the Marshmallow Challenge require teams to build the tallest freestanding structure using limited materials, promoting problem-solving and teamwork. The Desk Safari Photo Challenge promotes creativity by having teams capture imaginative animal poses with office supplies, leading to shared laughter. Engaging in Emoji Story Challenges lets teams convey project updates using only emojis, improving non-verbal communication. Moreover, the Human Knot exercise encourages trust and cooperation as members untangle themselves without releasing each other’s hands. For nursing team building activities, these challenges can reinforce a culture of appreciation, ultimately elevating workplace morale and strengthening team dynamics through fun and interactive experiences. Strategies for Sustaining High Morale Sustaining high morale in the workplace requires consistent effort and a variety of strategies to keep employees engaged and motivated. Implementing trust building exercises for leadership teams can promote transparency and strengthen relationships. Regular team-building activities, like monthly employee rewards and fun office challenges, improve team cohesion and collaboration. Moreover, flexible work perks, such as early finish Fridays, demonstrate your commitment to employee well-being. Companies that prioritize these efforts often see a significant decrease in absenteeism and an increase in retention rates. Strategy Benefits Trust Building Exercises Strengthens leadership and transparency Monthly Employee Rewards Boosts motivation and recognition Flexible Work Perks Increases satisfaction and engagement Frequently Asked Questions What Games at Work Boost Morale? Games that boost morale at work include icebreakers like “Two Truths and a Lie,” which improve communication among colleagues. “Office Trivia” encourages friendly competition and belonging, as well as “Compliment Circles” promote positive reinforcement. Collaborative challenges, such as “Escape Room Challenges,” develop problem-solving skills and teamwork. Incorporating physical activities, like “Paper Airplane Distance Contests,” alleviates stress and encourages laughter, all contributing to a more enjoyable and cohesive workplace atmosphere that improves overall morale. What Are Some Fun Team Building Activities? To encourage teamwork and engagement, consider activities like Trivia Time, which lasts about 30 minutes and promotes knowledge sharing. Virtual Bingo, ideal for remote teams, encourages bonding in a one-hour session. A Board Games Night can improve social interactions for 1 to 3 hours, as Build a Tower focuses on communication skills in 1 to 1.5 hours. Finally, Pet a Pet sessions create personal connections for approximately 45 minutes to an hour. How to Boost Team Morale at Work? To boost team morale at work, you can implement regular team-building activities that promote communication and collaboration. Organize events like trivia games or team lunches, which help nurture connections among employees. You might likewise encourage sharing inspirational quotes or initiating friendly competitions. Incorporating these activities can help create a positive work environment, leading to increased employee engagement and satisfaction. In the end, enhancing morale can improve productivity and reduce absenteeism in your organization. What Is the 30 Second Game for Team Building? The 30 Second Game is a team-building activity where you describe a word or phrase without using specific keywords, aiming for your teammates to guess it within 30 seconds. This game hones your communication skills and encourages creative thinking. It’s versatile, suitable for any group size, and can be played in-person or remotely. Conclusion Incorporating fun team-building exercises can greatly improve workplace morale and nurture a collaborative environment. Activities like the Marshmallow Challenge and Virtual Bingo not just engage employees but likewise enhance communication and teamwork. By regularly implementing creative challenges and initiatives, you’ll sustain high morale, which directly contributes to increased productivity and employee retention. Prioritizing these exercises is crucial for creating a positive workplace culture that benefits both individuals and the organization as a whole. Image via Google Gemini This article, "Fun Team Building Exercises to Boost Workplace Morale" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Most creators use Buffer to schedule posts. I turned it into a creativity lab — and in 90 days, my impressions tripled and my newsletter passed 1,700 subscribers. After 12 years of working at Netflix, I assumed I knew how to handle content systems. But stepping into the creator economy was a different game. I needed more than a scheduling tool — I needed a way to capture ideas as fast as they came to me. That’s when Buffer shifted from a scheduler into the missing piece of my creative process. With it, I built a system that turned scattered thoughts into consistent content. In 90 days, I went from 3,500 followers posting sporadically to reaching 100K+ people every month. Here’s exactly how I did it. How I turned my Buffer brain dump into a full content systemI tried every content planning method out there – spreadsheets, Notion databases, color-coded calendars. They all had the same flaw: they killed my creativity. Rigid planning meant I couldn't capture ideas in real-time. I'd have a brilliant post idea in the shower, at Barnes & Noble, or during my morning coffee — and by the time I got to my "content planning session," it was gone. In one week alone, I lost three potential viral post ideas because I didn't have a capture system aka I had them fully thought through but forgot my hooks and the structure I wanted for each post. One was about the time a Hollywood exec asked me for creator advice after ignoring my emails for years. Another was about how my film school friends now ask me for LinkedIn tips. Gone, because I was waiting for the "right time" to plan content. That’s when I flipped how I use Buffer. Instead of treating it as just a scheduler, I turned the draft feature into my running brain dump. Capturing ideas fastThe first shift was simple: stop waiting for the “right time” to plan content and capture ideas the moment they show up. That’s where Buffer drafts came in. Here's my exact process: The 3-minute rule: Any content idea gets captured in Buffer within 3 minutes of thinking it. No exceptions. Walking my dog? Voice memo, then straight to Buffer drafts. Middle of a meeting? Quick note, then Buffer draft.A living library of ideas: I now have 50+ idea snippets in my Buffer drafts at any given time. Some are full posts. Some are single sentences. Some are just intriguing questions I want to explore.Real example: I was making coffee one morning when I thought about how my Hollywood badges used to make me feel important. Three minutes later, I had a Buffer draft titled "CAA badge vs. creator audience." That random thought became one of my most engaged posts with 319 reactions. Turning ideas into a weekly mapWith dozens of ideas captured, I needed a system to organize them. I created a weekly content mapping template that turns brain dumps into strategic posts: Monday: Industry insights and trendsWednesday: Behind-the-scenes stories and vulnerabilityFriday: Actionable frameworks and how-tosThis isn't rigid — if something timely happens (like SNL hiring TikTok creators), I post about it. But having themes helps me batch similar content and maintain consistency. I use what I call the "batch and match" method. Every Sunday, I review my Buffer drafts and match them to the week's themes. A vulnerable story about workplace bullying? Wednesday. A framework for building creator audiences? Friday. Testing and iterating in BufferOnce posts were mapped, Buffer’s analytics became my secret weapon. I started A/B testing different hook styles using the queue feature: Question hooks: “Every creator living your dream built their empire on ONE signature series”Statement hooks: “I spent 12 years at Netflix, CAA, DreamWorks, and Lionsgate”Contrast hooks: “CAA. Netflix. DreamWorks. Lionsgate. Those badges got me in rooms. My audience got me ownership.”Contrast hooks increased impressions by 300%, proving themselves as the winner. Now I lead with tension in my posts. But here's the real magic — the feedback loop. Comments on posts become new Buffer drafts. Someone asks how I grew my newsletter? That's tomorrow's post. Someone shares their Hollywood horror story? That's a new angle to explore. The results from using Buffer became as a creative partnerBy the time I’d finished my 90-day challenge, Buffer wasn’t just helping me publish more often — it was shaping the way I worked. What started as a scheduling tool had become a creative partner, giving me the structure to stay accountable and the insights to grow my business. How Buffer kept me accountable and fueled my business growthOne of the biggest surprises was how motivating Buffer’s calendar view turned out to be. Empty days stared back at me, daring me to fill them. Full weeks gave me the momentum to keep going. That visual reminder was what flipped the switch. Seeing content lined up made me feel like a real creator with a system, not someone posting whenever inspiration struck. The ripple effects went far beyond impressions. Buffer insights shaped everything in my business: My top-performing content themes became modules in my Greenlight Yourself Bootcamp.High-engagement posts validated course topics before I built them.Comment patterns revealed what my audience actually needed.The impact of these compounding efforts was clear: better content led to community growth. Community growth led to course sales. Course sales funded my creative projects. And it all traced back to those Buffer drafts. How I used a 90-day challenge to triple my reachI needed something to keep my writing consistent so I embarked on a challenge to see if I could really do it. I wanted to grow my audience, establish myself as a thought leader but also talk to people on LinkedIn – this challenge would give me all of this and more! When I started this experiment, my numbers looked like this: 3,500 LinkedIn followers500 newsletter subscribers Sporadic posting scheduleNo consistent engagementMy commitment was to post daily for 90 days using only ideas from my Buffer brain dump. No external planning. No overthinking. Just capture, organize, post, and learn. Weeks 1-3: Finding my rhythmI averaged 10K impressions per post. The brain dump method meant I never stared at a blank page. Posted about leaving Netflix, building without permission, and creator economy insights. Weeks 4-6: Breakthrough moment. A post about Hollywood disappointments (captured during a random Tuesday reflection) exploded — 2,833 reactions and counting!!. The key? It came from an authentic Buffer draft, not a planned "viral post." Weeks 7-9: Newsletter growth accelerated. Started getting 100+ subscribers per week. Each high-performing post included a soft newsletter CTA. Buffer helped me identify which CTAs worked without being salesy. Weeks 10-12: The system became automatic. Wake up, check Buffer drafts, polish one for the day. Creativity flowed because I wasn't forcing it. By day 90, I had months of content ready. How you can build your own Buffer creativity labYou don’t need a 90-day challenge to get started. The system works in smaller steps, too. Here’s a quick way to set up your own Buffer creativity lab: Quick start guideSet up draft folders: Create categories for different content types (stories, insights, how-tos).Make a weekly map: Pick three themes that align with your expertise and assign them to specific days.Use the 3-minute rule: Capture every idea in Buffer within three minutes of thinking it — even if it’s just a one-liner.Build a testing loop: Track which post types perform best, then double down on what resonates.Metrics to watchDon’t just look at totals. The most useful signals are: Impression growth rate: Are you reaching more people week over week?Comment quality: Are people sharing their own stories or asking real questions?Newsletter conversion: Which post types drive the most sign-ups?Time from idea to publish: The faster you can go from draft to post, the more authentic your content becomes.Writing genius on demandBuffer started as a scheduler. By the end of this process, it had become the engine behind my creativity — helping me triple my impressions, grow my newsletter past 1,700 subscribers, and launch a successful course. But the most significant shift was in the way I worked. I stopped waiting for inspiration to strike and built a system to capture it. Your next viral post isn’t hiding in a complicated content calendar. It’s sitting in that half-formed idea you’ll have at lunch, or on your commute, or mid-shower. The real question is: will you have a system to catch it? Open Buffer today. Create a draft. Capture the idea bouncing around your head. Your future audience will thank you. View the full article

For the past decade, quantum computing has struggled to balance promise and practicality. While the world’s most advanced systems remain engineering marvels, they’re bedeviled by the same flaw: the fragility of qubits—the fundamental units of quantum data—and the delicate hardware required to control them. A single fluctuation, for example, can collapse a quantum state, invalidating a computation. Most quantum systems also depend on large-scale refrigeration colder than deep space, with cryogenic racks that often occupy multiple rooms. Scaling quantum systems demands exponential increases in cost, energy, and environmental stability. So while the U.N. has designated 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, for all its scientific significance, quantum’s commercial trajectory remains narrow. But Japanese conglomerate Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) is attempting to rewrite that equation. In partnership with Japan-based quantum technology developer OptQC, NTT is attempting to break current orthodoxy through what is known as optical quantum computing, which uses photons instead of electrical currents to perform calculations. Since photons generate less heat compared to electron-based systems and can travel without resistance, these systems consume far less power. NTT argues that optical systems can be faster and more energy-efficient, forming the basis for greener, more sustainable computing. “This combination not only accelerates computational capability but also reduces environmental impact, positioning quantum technology as a foundation for a sustainable digital future,” says Shingo Kinoshita, SVP and head of R&D planning at NTT. Rather than relying on cooling systems, NTT’s design utilizes light sources and error-correction technologies developed under its Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) initiative. Japan’s broader industrial strategy sits just beneath the surface of this partnership. With the U.S. and China locked in geopolitical competition over quantum supremacy, Japan’s photonic-first model is being positioned as an alternative: one that favors energy efficiency and manufacturability over extreme-environment engineering. “Today, the energy footprint of AI is emerging as a global challenge. Optical quantum computing processes information with light, enabling dramatically lower power consumption and scalable qubit growth through optical multiplexing,” Kinoshita says. A million-qubit road map The approach builds on a series of rapid scientific breakthroughs across Japan’s quantum ecosystem. Over the past year, NTT—alongside RIKEN, Fixstars Amplify, the University of Tokyo, and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology—demonstrated the world’s first general-purpose optical quantum computing platform capable of running calculations without any external cooling. The upcoming platform fits inside a single room, a feat that many leading quantum systems developers can’t claim. NTT and OptQC outlined a five-year plan leading to the 2030 milestone. During the first year, the companies will conduct technical studies and begin codesigning while identifying early use cases with external partners. In the second year, they plan to build complete development environments for hardware and software. In year three, they expect to begin verifying enterprise use cases such as drug development, financial optimization, materials science, and climate modeling. The final phase will focus on scaling the system to reach millions of qubits and making it reliable enough to handle real-world use cases, thereby preparing the technology for adoption among companies, governments, and industries. Qubits must scale into the thousands for quantum computing to surpass the current capabilities of AI. Unlike classical bits used in general-purpose computing systems, which exist as 0 or 1, qubits can exist in multiple states simultaneously, enabling exponentially faster processing of complex calculations. “The 2030 vision of 1 million qubits is not just about performance, it’s about redefining how we align advanced computing with planetary limits,” Kinoshita says. “In the near term, as we aim for 10,000 qubits by 2027, the first impact will be within NTT’s own communications infrastructure.” Japan’s photonic bet to power AI As AI models grow in size and complexity, the demand for simulation, optimization, and high-dimensional problem-solving has also increased exponentially. NTT asserts that photonic quantum systems will become essential accelerators for next-generation AI and telecom networks such as 6G. In classical systems, electrical signals travel through semiconductor processors. Photonic systems replace those electrons with light, transmitting information through properties such as photon number, polarization, and amplitude. However, practical commercial quantum computing requires a scale of 1 million logical qubits, along with reliable quantum error correction, a mechanism that detects and corrects the subtle errors qubits constantly make. Today’s machines—even the most advanced systems by IBM, Google, and others—sit orders of magnitude below that mark and remain extremely sensitive to environmental disturbances. NTT claims that photonics changes the math. “Scaling to 1 million qubits by 2030 and then moving into mass deployment will demand a robust supply chain. Achieving high-performance quantum light sources and improving yield in precision fabrication will be critical steps,” Kinoshita explains. In essence, this means NTT must be able to reliably manufacture the key components, such as high-quality light sources, and improve production yields so the hardware can be built at scale. “By 2030, with 1 million qubits, the scope expands beyond telecom,” he adds. “NTT plans to explore these opportunities through partnerships with leaders in chemistry, finance, and industrial sectors.” The global stakes of a photonic strategy This is not the first attempt at room-temperature quantum hardware, as companies like Sydney-based Quantum Brilliance are also pursuing cryogenics-free architectures. Quantum Brilliance is targeting edge and data-center deployments with compact photonic-inspired diamond devices, while Atom Computing, headquartered in Berkeley, Calfornia, is building large-scale, room-temperature systems that use neutral atoms. “We truly believe that optically controllable neutral atom qubits allow a level of flexibility and practicality to the challenge of controlling millions of qubits with high-fidelity, low-crosstalk signals at room temperature,” says Ben Bloom, founder and CEO of Atom Computing. But NTT argues that photons, not electrons or atoms, offer an architecture capable of reaching true commercial scale. Its thesis is simple: Light is inherently more stable, generates less heat, and is ultimately more manufacturable than any matter-based system. “This shift transforms quantum computing from a niche technology into a broadly available resource,” Kinoshita says. Still, experts caution that the light-based computation path comes with its own unresolved challenges. “Photonics faces significant challenges that often get glossed over in the room-temperature narrative,” says Yuval Boger, chief commercial officer at Boston-based QuEra Computing. “You need near-perfect sources and detectors at scale, plus efficient photon-photon interactions, which don’t occur naturally and require complex optical elements. The engineering complexity of building a fault-tolerant photonic quantum computer with thousands of high-fidelity qubits is immense.” If NTT stays on track, the world’s first million-qubit system may come from a room-temperature optical platform in Tokyo, engineered for real-world use cases including molecular simulation for drug discovery and materials science, financial risk modeling, and manufacturing optimization. “Beyond technology, global coordination for specialized materials and resilience against geopolitical risks remains essential,” Kinoshita says. “When these systems can run in standard IT environments with ultra-low power consumption and rack-scale integration, enterprises will see cost-effective performance, governments will recognize strategic advantage, and the public will experience tangible benefits like greener networks and faster innovation. That moment will mark quantum’s shift from experimental to essential.” View the full article

In case you haven’t been deluged with enough day-themed holiday shopping sales yet, the travel industry will try to tempt you with some seemingly tantalizing travel offers on December 2, aka Travel Tuesday, traditionally the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving. But whether the travel deals are actually steals may require you to do some research in advance and read the fine print so you don’t face some unexpected fees once you’re on vacation. If you regularly book through a specific travel provider and have a sense of what you normally pay, that will help you to better suss out whether you’re actually saving money. Knowing what a specific trip or ticket would normally cost is important because travel providers may have artificially inflated the price just to offer a discount this week, Sally French, a travel expert at NerdWallet, cautioned to the Associated Press. There’s a sense of urgency with deals like these, she said, but it’s also important to make sure a trip that you’re booking actually works for you and is something you genuinely want. That said, there may be some discounts that are worth taking advantage of. Here are some highlights. BLANKET DISCOUNTS WITH SPECIFIC COMPANIES For seasoned travelers, some of the most attractive offers this week will likely come from companies you already book with regularly. Even then, however, there are some asterisks to each of these deals. Perhaps they can be used only on select dates or for specific locations, for example, which may put a damper on your wanderlust. Amtrak may not seem like the most exciting place to begin, but if you regularly travel by train—or have a trip in mind—you may be able score up to 25% off regularly priced fares if you book a ticket by December 3 for travel anytime from January 5 to March 15, 2026. That said, there are four blackout dates that coincide with holidays in January and February, while some routes aren’t eligible for the discount. If you do have your eye on something a bit more exciting, then “insiders” (aka people who have supplied their information) could score up to 20% off a stay at one of the boutique hotels in the Proper Hotels collection, along with a $175 dining credit. And Marriott is offering discounts ranging from 15% to 25% off stays at participating locations for reservations made through December 2, depending on whether or not you’re a Bonvoy member and book through its app. Many major airlines are also advertising discounted fares for flights booked on Travel Tuesday; however, deals are primarily focused on specific routes. DEALS ON BOOKING SITES Aggregators in the travel world are also getting in on the action with some specials. Discounts range widely in terms of what’s being discounted and the amount, but it’s worth checking the various sites if you have a trip in mind. You may be able to score up to 40% off by booking accommodations through Booking.com, while Hotels.com is promising up to 50% off on reservations for eligible hotels and resorts. Not to be outdone, Priceline is offering up to 60% off select travel packages, and some people may even be able to score up to 75% off at a “curated” list of 24 hotels by booking through Expedia. Some property owners are running their own promotions for bookings on Airbnb and VRBO, though you’ll have to have some dates and locations in mind to find those deals. More broadly, Airbnb is offering up to 50% off a single experience or service in Los Angeles, New York, or Paris if you book through Thursday, December 4. DISCOUNTS FOR CRUISES, RESORTS The most tantalizing, but trickiest, deals to navigate are often at resorts or for cruises. That’s because the discounts offered this week may not tell the full story of how much you’ll pay once you arrive, as fees and on-site activities can be quite expensive. This is the area of Travel Tuesday where you may want to proceed with caution lest you sign up for a trip that turns out to be far more expensive than you realized. It’s also fair to wonder why specific locations are so heavily discounted when others are not. You can score up to 65% off reservations and potentially get some other money-saving perks at select Sandals Resorts locations for travel booked through December 2. And Club Med has extended a sale through December 2, offering up to 50% off at some of its all-inclusive resorts. The major cruise operators are seemingly always running some sort of sale, but the discounts may be bigger this week. Princess is offering up to $800 off fares, while Royal Caribbean is advertising up to $1,000 off its fares. And you can save up to 75% off the booking for a second guest with Celebrity Cruises. But if all these deals feel dizzying, travel experts say don’t book just for the sake of booking. The decline in international visitors to the U.S. has seen many travel companies discount rates to ensure they are booked, and that trend will likely continue. As French told the AP, rest assured: “If you don’t buy on Travel Tuesday, you haven’t missed your moment.” View the full article

What developments around rent reporting and new credit standards portend for mortgage companies. Part 2 of a series on government-sponsored enterprise changes. View the full article

Ringcentral claims the direct-to-consumer lender breached a 2021 contract for telephone services to help facilitate up to 1.3 million calls a day. View the full article

Georges Elhedery tells FT Global Banking Summit it is ‘not an option’ for lender to fall short in key areasView the full article

On November 14, hotel and short-term apartment rental chain Sonder Holdings filed for bankruptcy, just days after suddenly announcing it would be “winding down operations immediately,” abruptly kicking guests to the curb and sending employees scrambling for answers. The company had faced major, unforeseen costs from a deal signed in August 2024 to integrate reservation systems with Marriott International and promote Sonder listings through the hotel giant, according to a statement issued four days earlier. Sonder had long been an outlier in the short-term rental space, which was a big part of its appeal to investors. Most of its competitors—short-term rental companies like Kasa and AvantStay, the big hotel chains, and individual hotels and bed-and-breakfasts—either own and operate their own properties or manage them on behalf of owners for a cut of revenue and profits. Sonder, by contrast, took out long-term leases on apartment units so it could rent them out for short-term stays, a business model similar to that of WeWork, the once high-flying chain of coworking spaces. But that model wound up saddling Sonder with fixed costs from long-term leases, especially rent payments. That held true even when competition or low demand limited how much it could make from guests, or other unexpected costs from factors like post-pandemic inflation or the Marriott integration added up, analysts and others in the industry tell Fast Company. “We call it rental arbitrage, where you take out a long-term lease on an apartment building, and then you try to make more than that in short-term leases,” says Jamie Lane, chief economist at short-term rental analytics firm AirDNA. Lane also raises the comparison to WeWork, which famously filed for bankruptcy protection in 2023, entering a court-approved restructuring plan the following year. (Sonder didn’t reply to an inquiry from Fast Company.) Experts say Sonder’s failure isn’t an indictment of the short-term rental model or the larger hospitality sector writ large, but rather the result of mixing high fixed costs with variable income in a competitive marketplace. Still, other companies applying that approach to hospitality largely failed in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic—and Sonder’s abrupt shutdown suggests investors are unlikely to back such a model again anytime soon. “The broader story here is that the lease-arbitrage model has proven economically destructive across real estate cycles,” says Roman Pedan, founder and CEO of hotel and apartment-rental operator Kasa, which runs more than 70 properties across the country. “It’s sort of a weapon—a toxic weapon of financial destruction.” The rental-arbitrage model In the heyday of coworking-space businesses like WeWork and before the pandemic disrupted the travel industry, the rental-arbitrage approach made sense to investors. Sonder essentially applied the WeWork model to travel lodging, replacing the traditional front desk with a tech-forward approach to check-in and guest services (made popular through Airbnb and Vrbo). Other companies with a similar model, including Stay Alfred, Domio, and Lyric, shuttered in 2020 amid pandemic travel disruptions. Many hospitality chains make money through management agreements in which they share revenue with building owners or other hotel and short-term rental operators that both own and operate their own real estate. Sonder, by contrast, leased the majority of its listings from building owners at a fixed rate, according to the company’s annual report. For a time, that model made Sonder into an investor darling. Just over six years ago, the company achieved unicorn status, raising a $225 million Series D round at a $1.1 billion valuation. In 2022, the company went public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger that valued the company at $2.2 billion. Sonder closed out 2024 with more than 9,900 hotel rooms and furnished apartments available for rent across 41 cities in nine countries, according to its annual report to investors. And the contract with Marriott brought in an additional $15 million in startup “key money” payments to Sonder since its signing last year. “Sonder had gotten lucky,” Lane says. “They had raised money just before the onset of the pandemic, so they had a good war chest to sort of get them through it.” And the company later got subsequent boosts from the SPAC deal (which included an additional $310 million in investments) and the Marriott arrangement. Though the industry has long faced criticism for converting long-term rentals into vacation lodging, constraining the housing supply and at times introducing disruptive travelers into quiet neighborhoods and apartment buildings, occupancy is up overall from before the pandemic, Lane adds, though numbers haven’t yet recovered in some major cities where Sonder offered rentals. In short, others in the industry say, the problem is with the lease-arbitrage model, not the concept of renting whole homes or apartments to tech-savvy travelers. “Significant capital commitment” Sonder’s business model may have also seemed like a boon to property developers, especially when the company would lease out entire buildings to effectively convert into apartment-style hotels, says Emir Dukic, founder and CEO of Rabbu, a real estate marketplace for short-term rental owners. The practice, though often criticized by housing advocates for taking entire buildings off the traditional rental market, saved landlords the trouble of finding individual long-term tenants. “Something that usually, as a landlord, would take you a year to lease up in a building, Sonder came in and did it overnight, and made a significant capital commitment to get those leases,” Dukic says. “So it was a win-win situation at the time for both parties, and they were able to scale it quickly.” Those apartment-style units, often larger than traditional hotel rooms, were likely appealing to Marriott for effectively expanding the chain’s portfolio, Dukic explains. But they were also commonly clustered in competitive urban markets with other hotel and apartment rental options nearby. Even with self-check-in and other tech features, hospitality remains a labor-intensive business, he adds. Rooms still need to be cleaned, and someone still needs to be on call around the clock to help guests with lockouts, clogged toilets, or flaky Wi-Fi. Most of Sonder’s inventory was subject to “fixed leases, whereby we agree to a fixed periodic fee per unit that may be subject to negotiated rent escalations,” according to the company’s annual report. In other words, unless landlords were willing to renegotiate, those payments would remain due regardless of what room rates the company could demand, rising costs due to inflation, or the apparent failure of the Marriott agreement to significantly boost occupancy. What about the landlords? Lane and others emphasize that the short-term rental industry, which includes a mix of chain businesses and smaller operations renting houses and apartments to travelers, is still generally faring well. But what Sonder’s bankruptcy will mean for building owners, essentially its landlords, remains unclear. The company had already exited some 3,300 units across 85 buildings as of June 30, 2025, according to the company report, and Pedan says Kasa has taken over management of more than a dozen former Sonder properties. Kasa, which announced a $40 million investment round in August, citing more than $100 million in annual booking revenue, typically operates with a more standard hotel management contract. Kasa is responsible for day-to-day operations, including marketing, housekeeping, and pricing, while building owners are responsible for capital improvements, which can include things like HVAC and roofing upgrades. The company’s agreements ensure both parties benefit when properties do well, keeping interests aligned, Pedan says. “When I say ‘aligned,’ I mean we want to win when the owner wins and make less when the owner is making less,” he says. “So we make money as a percentage of their profit and their revenue.” Another short-term rental management company, AvantStay, also issued a statement on November 10 urging landlords affected by the Sonder shutdown to consider adding their buildings to AvantStay’s portfolio of more than 2,500 properties. The company has already connected with a big fraction of affected property owners, says founder and CEO Sean Breuner, who like others remains optimistic about the industry as a whole. “I think the industry is very healthy,” Breuner says. “It’s alive and well, and demand in aggregate is the highest it’s ever been since we started 10 years ago.” Sonder’s shutdown came shortly after Marriott announced the termination of the companies’ deal “due to Sonder’s default.” (Marriott didn’t respond to an inquiry from Fast Company.) But in a filing in the bankruptcy case, the company said it ended the agreement and reached out to guests after concerns that Sonder would abruptly lock paying customers out of their rooms. “Guests who were occupying Sonder-managed properties might be prevented from retrieving their personal belongings, including medication, passports, personal effects, or other essentials,” according to Marriott. Just before the bankruptcy filing, Janice Sears, interim CEO of Sonder, declared in a statement that the company had reached “a point where a liquidation is the only viable path forward,” with guests and employees alike abruptly given notice that operations would shut down. At least two lawsuits have been filed by Sonder employees alleging the company violated federal and state laws requiring warning periods before mass layoffs. Brian Nettle, an attorney who represents a Sonder employee seeking class-action status in one of the cases, says, “It’s just an unfortunate situation for plaintiffs in the class to have just lost a job suddenly.” View the full article

$500bn start-up to refocus efforts to improve ChatGPT as Google and Anthropic narrow its early lead View the full article

Since its launch in June we have been rolling out our integration with Site Kit by Google. Every Yoast SEO Premium customer now has access to it. The update brings key Google Analytics and Search Console insights directly into your Yoast Dashboard, giving you a clear view of your site’s performance without switching between tools or tabs. Previously, only users of Yoast SEO (free) and Yoast SEO Premium who already had the Site Kit plugin installed could use the integration. Access is now available to all Yoast SEO Premium customers even if Site Kit is not installed, and it will become available to remaining Yoast SEO (free) users soon. What you can do with the new integration Connect once to see an immediate overview of your most important metrics. View organic traffic, impressions, clicks, and bounce rates in one place. Spot opportunities faster and understand where to focus your SEO work. Benefits See how your site is performing without switching between tools Quickly spot what needs attention with a clear site wide overview Dig into categories or individual pages to understand patterns and save time Group content by type to focus on the areas that matter most Find new opportunities to grow traffic by combining Yoast insights with Google data Learn more about the benefits on the Yoast SEO Dashboard integration page. How to get started Update Yoast to the latest version (26.5), open your Yoast Dashboard, follow the steps in the Site Kit widget, and your insights will appear right away. If you want step by step guidance on how to connect Site Kit by Google insights to Yoast SEO, please visit this help article on how to set up. For Yoast SEO (free) users We will continue rolling out access to the integration with Site Kit by Google for free users. Keep an eye on your Yoast Dashboard as it becomes available over time. The post Site Kit by Google insights now available for all Yoast SEO Premium users appeared first on Yoast. View the full article

Inside a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology late last year, scientists gave an AI system a new task: designing entirely new molecules for potential antibiotics from scratch. Within a day or two—following a few months of training—the algorithms had generated more than 29 million new molecules, unlike any that existed before. Traditional drug discovery is a slow, painstaking process. But AI is beginning to transform it. At MIT, the research is aimed at the growing challenge of antibiotic-resistant infections, which kill more than a million people globally each year. Existing antibiotics haven’t kept up with the threat. “The number of resistant bacterial pathogens has been growing, decade upon decade,” says James Collins, a professor of medical engineering at MIT. “And the number of new antibiotics being developed has been dropping, decade upon decade.” The research, recently published in the journal Cell, is part of his lab’s Antibiotics-AI Project and offers one example of AI’s potential in medicine. The team tried making a small number of the compounds, and then used one to clear a drug-resistant infection in a mouse. In another part of the study, the researchers used a different approach to generate additional molecules, leading to another successful test in mice—and the possibility that novel, fully AI-designed drugs may eventually be available for the most dangerous infections. The current challenge The standard approach to creating new antibiotics involves screening an existing library of compounds, one by one, or sifting through samples of soil to find promising new candidates. Since the 1980s, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a few dozen new antibiotics, but most of them are minor variations on drugs that already exist. “What’s happened in the last couple decades is, it’s largely been a discovery gap where folks are discovering antibiotics, but they’re more or less very similar—and they are analogs to existing antibiotics,” Collins says. The challenge is compounded by poor economics for drug companies. “It costs effectively just as much to develop an antibiotic as it does a cancer drug or blood pressure drug, for example,” he says. “With an antibiotic, you might only take it once or only over a few days, whereas with a cancer drug or a blood pressure drug, you could take it for many months, years, or even for the rest of your life. With each use, an antibiotic also only makes a fraction of the profit.” All of this means that if you’re infected with bacteria that’s hard to treat—like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which also resists many other drugs—there are fewer options available. In the U.S., MRSA kills an estimated 9,000 people each year. Evolving uses for AI The Collins Lab has been studying antibiotics for around 20 years. Initially, the team used machine learning to better understand how antibiotics work and to look for ways to make existing antibiotics more effective. Around six years ago, they started using artificial intelligence as a platform for antibiotic discovery. They used AI to screen existing libraries of compounds to look for new antibiotics, leading to the discovery of new molecules that worked against infections in new ways. A spin-off nonprofit, Phare Bio, is now working to move promising candidates toward the market. The biotech company hopes to launch a trial of halicin, a drug initially developed for diabetes treatment in 2009 that was discovered to have powerful antibiotic properties by Collins’s research team a decade later. The latest research goes a step further—not just screening through existing compounds, but creating new ones. The scientists used two different approaches. First, they used a library of millions of chemical fragments known to have antimicrobial activity, and used the algorithms to turn those fragments into complete molecules. In the second approach, they used the AI to freely design new molecules, without starting from existing fragments. As the computer churned through new designs, the researchers were free to work on other tasks until the AI was done. After the molecules were generated, “we applied a series of down-selection filters to prioritize which ones to synthesize and test,” says Aarti Krishnan, a senior postdoctoral fellow in the lab. “Those steps took a few days and involved human feedback, where medicinal chemists manually inspected over 5,000 candidate molecules and selected them for synthesizability.” Actually making the molecules was challenging—some of the AI’s ideas were so wild that they would either be impossible or impractical to manufacture. (This will improve as the AI evolves.) But the team was able to make a small number. From the part of the study that worked from fragments of existing molecules, the scientists were able to make two candidates, one of which was very effective at killing drug-resistant gonorrhea bacteria. From the part of the study that let AI freely design new molecules, they synthesized and tested 22 samples, ultimately advancing one candidate in a successful test that treated drug-resistant MRSA in mice. Now, the lab’s nonprofit partner is continuing to work on both molecules so they can undergo more testing. A new use for generative AI While the use of AI in drug development isn’t new, this particular application of generative AI is. “To our knowledge, this is the first generative-AI approach that’s designed completely novel antibiotic candidates whose structures do not exist in any commercial vendor space,” Krishnan says. Drug development is still a slow process, and moving through human trials will continue to take time. But AI can clearly help in the early discovery phase, reducing cost and increasing the chances of success. “AI allowed us to explore much larger chemical spaces than are currently available from screening libraries. And in doing so, it opened up these new molecules for our consideration,” Collins says. The approach could also be useful for other types of medicine. “All of the AI methods that we use could be readily extended to other indications,” he says. View the full article

Apparently any place looks better if you just say it’s Japan. That’s according to a TikTok trend, dubbed the “Japan effect.” First reported in Casey Lewis’s youth trends newsletter After School, the trend has users making slideshows of two images. For all intents and purposes they are the same, except one is labelled with the original location and the second is labelled Tokyo, Japan. The idea being that the “Japan effect” is so strong, just the location tag can filter how we perceive an ordinary street or an average American neighborhood. Scrolling through the comments, those watching these TikTok videos genuinely believe the second image looks better than the first. “I’ve seen so many of these videos and it’s made me realise my own huge Japan bias,” one comment read. “Why is it so real.” (Some do play around with the saturation or add soft pink filters which somewhat undermines the theory). Others suggest the “Japan effect” has little actually to do with Japan. Instead, it’s an example of the grass always being greener or the shift in perspective when we take a moment to romanticize the mundane parts of life, they say. “America is actually pretty beautiful, it’s just a psychological barrier to being able to appreciate things you see on a daily basis,” one user commented. “I sometimes do that in my own house,” another wrote. ““If this was an Airbnb, I’d be having a blast.” Really makes you appreciate what you have.” And yet the “America effect” doesn’t have quite the same charm to it. Japan simply has a reputation for making everything that bit cooler. Even 7-Eleven is better in Japan. Japanese culture also appears to yet again be having a moment. From the explosion in popularity of anime on streaming giants like Netflix—the company says anime viewership on the platform has tripled over the past five years—to the rise of matcha. In the U.S., retail sales of matcha are up 86% from three years ago, according to NIQ, a market research firm, so much so the bright green drink has become a bona-fide accessory. It’s no surprise, then, that Japan has become a top destination for young travelers. Gen Z and millennial visits to the country are up 1,300% since 2019. Japan is now the most popular country on social media, according to a 2025 Titan Travel study. The country has experienced a 50% increase in search volume over the past three years, with 184 million Instagram posts, and 15.6 million TikTok hashtags for #Japan, according to the report. Of course, the temptation to romanticize and exoticize foreign countries is a large part of the reason people travel in the first place. Simply put, the “Japan effect” exists, as one TikTok user noted, “because we associate this country with pain suffering and heartbreak.” View the full article

Panera Bread is spending millions to overhaul its menu in an attempt to lure back the customers it’s lost in recent years. In a downward fast-food spiral, Panera hasn’t significantly increased its revenue since 2023. Now, the company says it’s putting money back into better ingredients, staff, and its cafés. The St. Louis-based chain, known for its sandwiches, soups, and salads, hasn’t been delivering on its signatures. Panera last year started using the cheaper iceberg lettuce in its salads, for example, and customers weren’t happy. “You know what guests told us?” said Paul Carbone, CEO of Panera Brands, the parent company of Panera Bread, Einstein Bros. Bagels, and Caribou Coffee. “No one likes iceberg, and no one gets that and says, ‘Oh, my god, that white salad, it looks so appetizing.” Now, full romaine salads are making a comeback. In 2023, Panera’s sales reached $6.5 billion, which is still about the highest it has been. The company said today that its goal is to clinch $7 billion in annual sales by 2028 from the roughly $6 billion it brings in currently. After surveying its customers, Panera found that they wanted better portions and improved cafés. The chain plans to increase portions and food variety. It’s introducing drinks like frescas (fruit drinks) and “energy refreshers” (lower-caffeine beverages), and increasing salad toppings to eight ingredients from the regular five. Guests will notice that avocado halves and cherry tomatoes will be sliced, not whole, starting early next year. “We make the guest chase the cherry tomato around the bowl,” said Carbone, who assumed his role in March. Panera is also vowing to update its cafés, an important effort as around 25% of meals are eaten within restaurant walls. It had invested in kiosks for ordering, but it got to the point that customers couldn’t find human employees, said Carbone. Now, the restaurant is pouring money back into labor and renovating the older café locations. “What does the café of the future look like?” Carbone said. “We’re doing a lot of work around that, we’re going to test different things.” JAB Holding Company, the investment firm that owns Panera Brands, had planned to take the company public in 2021. The deal was broken the next year, and Carbone said it’s off the table until Panera’s sales increase. —Ava Levinson This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister publication, Inc. 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

Fiscal watchdog faces Treasury select committee after accidental publication of key report prompted chair to resignView the full article

AI image generators used to be terrible at handling text. Even once the models mastered hands with five fingers, the presence of mangled, nonsensical, vaguely Cyrillic-looking text was a dead giveaway that an image was generated by AI. Not anymore. Today’s most advanced image generators have slowly improved their text generation. OpenAI’s image generator within ChatGPT handles basic text tasks fairly well. And design-centered models like Ideogram are great for simple, practical text tasks like creating video thumbnails. This week, though, Google has released Nano Banana Pro, an updated version of its wildly popular AI image editing tool. Nano Banana Pro, like its predecessor, is middling when it comes to generating realistic AI photographs. But it’s absolutely amazing at creating beautiful, informative, accurate infographics. In fact, the model is so good that it can turn literally anything into a professional quality infographic in a matter of seconds. Don’t Read To Me Personally, I absorb very little of what I hear. I’m a visual learner, so if I listen to a presentation without taking physical notes or seeing some kind of visual aid, most of the information dissipates into the ether before my brain has any shot at absorbing it. Add background noise or a presenter who mumbles, and I’m totally screwed. I love infographics because they take complex information and lay it out in a way my brain can grok. I can glance at a graphic and absorb more information than I’d get in a two-hour lecture. In my testing, I was therefore thrilled to see Nano Banana Pro’s remarkable ability to take pretty much anything I threw at it, and turn the data into a bespoke visual aid. First, I started with some practical use cases. I fed Nano Banana Pro data on the recent performance of a YouTube channel I’ve been developing called California Dad Reviews. Based on my analytics data, Nano Banana spun up an infographic showing what’s doing well on my channel, several standout videos from the last month, and its recommendations for what to shoot next. In this case, I gave the model unique data from my channel. But because Nano Banana Pro is integrated within Google’s Gemini 3 chatbot, it can also perform background research on its own. In another test, I asked the model to research the best times to cross the San Francisco Bay Bridge, and then present its results visually. It’s impressively comprehensive and useful. Graphics Get Personal These kinds of informative graphics are helpful. I’m sure that bloggers will be tripping over themselves to integrate Nano Banana Pro’s infographics into their SEO optimized posts. But in my testing, I found that the best uses for the tool’s new visual capabilities are more personal. I recently took my senior dog, Lance, to the vet for his annual checkup. He got some routine bloodwork, and his vet’s report was laden with medical terms and specifics. I fed the whole thing into Nano Banana Pro, and got a clean infographic summarizing the findings. Spoiler alert: he’s doing great! The model is especially powerful because it’s able to process nearly any kind of input data. In planning a day trip for a large group in downtown San Francisco, I copied and pasted a long WhatsApp chat with lots of logistics into the model. It spat out a pretty graphic summarizing the day’s plans, complete with a bespoke map of the city. I shared it to the group, and people loved it. Show me the Visuals Again, as a visual learner, the ability to conjure up an infographic in a few seconds (and for free) from essentially any input data is incredibly valuable. It’s also easy to do. You open the Gemini app, paste in the data you want to process, select the Create Image option, and let Nano Banana Pro plug away. Beyond dog health visualizations, though, Google’s new model says a lot about where visual AI is going. In the early days of image generators, creating fun, bizarre images (Ballerina Cappuccina, anyone?) was enough to hold users’ attention. You can only generate so many AI cat photos or Hunky Jesus memes before the tech gets old, though. In response, AI companies are increasingly specializing—creating image generators that solve bounded, real-world tasks. Again, tools like Ideogram are tailored to designers. Adobe has a whole suit of generative tools built into its iconic Photoshop and Premiere products for photographers and videographers. And ChatGPT’s models are perfect for things like making event posters. For Google, though, the endgame has always been about processing tons of information and summarizing it for users. We saw that in the company’s classical “10 blue links,” and more recently in its wildly popular AI Overviews. Now, Google appears to be using its AI image generation prowess to summarize and present information visually. That evolution means we’re almost certain to see Nano Banana generated infographic images appear within other Google tools—first AI ones like NotebookLLM, and later within live search results presented to everyday users. With my brain’s preference for visuals, I’m thrilled to see this new direction play out. To get the ball rolling, I fed this entire article into Nano Banana Pro. True to form, the infographic is beautiful: View the full article

Below, Tim Elmore shares five key insights from his new book, The Future Begins with Z: Nine Strategies to Lead Generation Z as They Disrupt the Workplace. Elmore is the founder and CEO of Growing Leaders, a nonprofit dedicated to developing emerging leaders. As a speaker and coach, he has helped organizations from universities to Fortune 500 companies connect more effectively across generations. What’s the big idea? Many leaders are scratching their heads over Gen Z. The old playbook doesn’t work anymore—but figuring out how to engage and collaborate with this generation is what turns good leaders into great ones. Listen to the audio version of this Book Bite—read by Elmore himself—below, or in the Next Big Idea App. 1. Turn frustration with Gen Z into hope According to a survey by Resume Builder, three in four managers agree that today’s young employees, from Generation Z, are the toughest generation to lead. I believe Gen Z is frustrating to us because they seem so very different, and often unexplainable. I think it’s because of a phenomenon I call the Peter Pan Paradox. Peter Pan could mysteriously fly into London and sprinkle Pixie dust everywhere to make magical things happen. On the other side of the coin, Peter Pan wanted to live in Neverland, where boys never have to grow up. Over the last decade, I’ve noticed something magical and tragic happening in culture. The Age of Authority is decreasing. Gen Zers often come in with an authority that doesn’t require a title. They are intuitive about using AI. They see where culture is going. They know how to monetize social media, and they have visibility on future customers. At the same time, the Age of Maturity is increasing. They often come in behaving unprofessionally. The pandemic delayed their growth. Their social and emotional skills are delayed in development. Employers are saying 26 is the new 18. Almost one in three employers fire them in the first month. So, how should leaders respond? We must listen more than we used to listen to young staff. We must coach more than we used to coach young staff. Maya was hired right out of college—and immediately her team could tell she’d never had a full-time job before. She wore flip flops to work and often arrived at the office 10 minutes late. Maya spent most team meetings quietly, glancing at her phone from time to time. Her manager spent extra time coaching her on the fundamentals, hoping she’d catch up. Then, one day, the payoff happened. Maya burst into her manager’s office with a big smile on her face. She told him she’d been thinking about a problem their team had been discussing for months. Maya had an idea on how they could use AI to solve that problem. It ended up being an incredible solution. No one had known what was going on inside her head. You might say, Maya became her own version of Peter Pan. 2. Gen Z ROI is well worth it In 2018, Colin Webb graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While at MIT, he served four terms as class council president and now serves his alma mater as a member of the MIT corporation, the school’s board of trustees. Upon graduation, he was offered a job by General Motors. Colin was asked to serve as a design, release, and development engineer for their Cruise autonomous vehicle program. He helped make smart cars. He quickly realized he was part of an old industry with a traditional style of getting things done. Obviously, he and his young teammates brought some new ideas, but when he bounced them off his supervisor, he was told to keep his head down and his nose to the grindstone. Soon after, however, Collin did something audacious. He emailed Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, and shared his ideas for improving the company. Mary replied and agreed that his ideas were good and that she’d take them to her executive team. They, too, agreed his ideas were good. But when those ideas made their way down the organizational chart, they died on the vine. Again, Collin was told to keep his head down and nose to the grindstone. In fact, he was told it would take about eight years before he’d get the chance to lead anything. They might as well have told Collin to leave. Within a year, Collin had left the company, even though he is not a quitter. Since then, he has started three companies and sold one of them. He’s doing very well, working hard and living his dream—working with AI. Sadly, similar stories happen all the time. Too often, supervisors miss what Gen Zers bring to the team for three reasons: When we’re comfortable, we default to: That’s not the way we do it here. When we’re scared, we become more concerned with procedures than with progress. When we’re experienced, we assume they’re young and don’t know much. In 2017, a woman walked into a New Hampshire thrift store looking for a picture frame she could restore. She found one for four dollars and thought, “Even if I can’t use it, the price is inexpensive.” She bought it. When she got home, her family examined it and said, “The frame is nice enough, but the painting inside looks like it’s from a famous artist. You should have it evaluated.” When the woman did, she discovered it was an N.C. Wyeth painting that later sold for $191,000. Not a bad trade-off. In many ways, this is an analogy for Gen Z. We usually don’t spend a lot on them right away since all we can see is their frame. Later, we realize it’s what’s inside of them that’s so valuable. Let’s stop treating them like expendable commodities and begin treating them like currency worthy of investment. Let’s find a way to connect with and get curious about them. This may be key to thriving in the future. 3. Relationship and trust mean everything to Gen Z Many Gen Z team members enter their careers directly after college, without having had a full-time job before. Parents encouraged them to focus on academics, but we all know that the classroom rarely resembles the office. Four in five Gen Z job candidates go so far as to bring their parents with them to the interview. At the same time, they also bring with them a new perspective on authority. Much like Generation X some 35 years ago, they are suspicious of corporate leaders, political leaders, educational leaders, and even religious leaders due to stories of corruption. This has fostered a significantly different view of authority than that held by seasoned business veterans. OLDER GENERATIONS Position gives you right to influence. Older folks have wisdom. Systems offer order to chaos. We must listen to the man at the top. The top dog wins the debate. The leader is a gatekeeper. YOUNGER GENERATIONS Connection gives you right to influence. Older folks may be irrelevant. Systems must be disrupted or grow. Top people should be listening to us. The best idea wins the debate. The leader is a guide. Relationships and trust mean everything to most members of Generation Z. While research confirms they don’t trust most traditional institutions, they do trust people—even people from older generations—whom they get to know. So, here are the shifts we should make: Don’t think control, think connect. Don’t think inform, think interpret. Don’t think what, think why. Don’t think inputs, think outcomes. Don’t think tell, think ask. Don’t think manage, think mentor. We don’t know much about the future, but we do know that Generation Z will be there. Let’s build bridges of relationship that can bear the weight of honest disclosure. Everyone will win. 4. How to hire Gen Z Thousands of companies are struggling with the diminishing number of job candidates. I describe what lies ahead in a metaphor I call A New Kind of Storm: We are facing a blizzard. Young people often won’t take traditional entry-level jobs as they did in the past. This blizzard is part of a new winter season. A smaller population, plus issues with addiction and incarceration, reduces the employment pool. This may be part of a larger new ice age. Within a decade, there will be more 65-year-olds than 16-year-olds in the U.S. So, what can we do? Make your organization’s offering more attractive. Make their job the best first job to launch their career. Approach your role as a mentor, not a manager. Gen Z seems to know it’s a buyer’s market when it comes to getting a job. Sally hosted an interview with a Gen Zer (we’ll call him Owen). In the interview, she asked Owen to describe a time when he faced a challenge and was proud of how he made it through. She was pleased with his response and, three days later, asked HR to extend an offer to Owen. His response? He said, “Are you kidding me? There’s no way I will work for that woman. She triggered my PTSD when she asked me to talk about a challenge of mine. It didn’t feel psychologically safe.” We need a new approach to job interviews, especially with Gen Z candidates. For many, it’s a new experience, and employers can use this acronym to get acquainted: P—Preferences: What do you wish to be true about the job? E—Expectations: What are your assumptions about the work? R—Requirements: Any demands or deal breakers? K—Keys to their heart: Get to know them beyond their role as a worker. S—Salary: Clarify, and possibly negotiate. This is your chance to build a bridge. Don’t miss the opportunity to do so. 5. Not all Gen Z myths are true Many bosses (or people over 45) see Gen Z behave in certain ways, don’t understand it, and then stereotype them. During my research for this book, I shared some of these stereotypes with Gen Z focus groups. I will never forget meeting with one group and communicating that many leaders believe that Gen Zers don’t really want to work. After all, they leave right at 5 p.m., and don’t stay a minute longer. They often leave a task halfway done and head out. It feels like they don’t like to be there. One 21-year-old, full-time team member replied, “Dr. Tim, do you know why I leave right at 5? I rush out because I need to get to another job. I don’t make enough to pay the bills at this first job. Then, I go take care of my mom, who has stage 4 cancer.” Suddenly, I realized this Gen Zer’s work ethic is just fine. There is, however, one stereotype that’s not a myth. Millions of Gen Zers can be fragile, especially when receiving feedback. It seems that “hard” is the new “harsh.” Some have never had to hear firm feedback face-to-face with a boss. One of the most challenging situations leaders must face is hosting difficult conversations. Many supervisors avoid them. I created another acronym for sitting down with and correcting a teammate: A—Ask: Asking questions makes them feel valued. L—Listen: Listening makes them feel heard. Gen Zers want to have a voice. E—Empathize: Empathizing makes them feel understood. G—Guide: This is when you can provide the necessary feedback. The correction was communicated using a bridge, not a badge. Enjoy our full library of Book Bites—read by the authors!—in the Next Big Idea App. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission. View the full article

Many of us have heard of “boomerang employees”—someone who leaves a company and later returns—but there’s a newer version showing up in the workplace: the layoff boomerang. Maybe you’ve seen it yourself. A coworker disappears after a round of cuts, only to show up again a few months later. Same desk. Same job. Sometimes even a bigger paycheck. According to research done by Dr. Andrea Derler at workforce analytics firm Visier, 5.3% of laid-off employees now get rehired by the same organization after a layoff. But the most surprising part isn’t the number—it’s that it’s been happening for years. We just didn’t know. “What surprised me the most was that this has been happening for the last several years. The 5.3% isn’t just a recent figure; consistently, organizations seem to be rehiring after layoffs,” she says. While it might feel more prevalent now, with AI adding confusion and uncertainty for business leaders, it was happening during the pandemic as well—and maybe even before then. “Change has always happened,” Derler said. “We’ve always had those crisis moments, but things just come out into the open more nowadays. We have the data.” So why is this happening? Are companies realizing they let valuable talent go too quickly? And is the rise of AI making this more common? To find out, Fast Company spoke with Derler about her research, as well as several employees who shared their boomerang experiences anonymously to avoid potential retaliation. Why layoff boomerangs happen Many employees who return after a layoff come back within six to 10 months. Derler says that window isn’t random—it lines up with how long it often takes organizations to realize they still need the skills of the people they let go. Part of the issue is that most companies only plan six to 12 months ahead, which leaves little room for long-term strategy. “Which is not long enough,” Derler says. With such a limited horizon, companies may not fully understand which skills they’re losing during layoffs. “There’s a lot that gets lost in that time because they don’t have a really good sense of what skills these employees have, that they’re about to let go,” Derler said. “You may be losing employees only because you don’t know what else they could be doing for the company in the meantime.” By the time companies realize they still need certain skills, six to 12 months may have passed—which coincides with the window in which layoff boomerangs typically occur. “That time window makes sense, because strategic changes and restructuring of a department or a whole business unit takes that long,” Derler says. In other words, by the time the dust settles, companies often realize they never should’ve let those employees go in the first place. Then, they want them back. The disruption for the employee Beyond the emotional toll, layoffs disrupt not only the person being let go but entire teams. And according to Derler, layoff boomerangs are often high performers. “That means you’ve done your best, you’ve performed highly on the scale of performance ratings, and you still got let go. So that’s tremendously traumatic,” Derler says. But the ripple effect doesn’t stop there. “Imagine the people on the other end suddenly get this call back and are asked or offered a job back at the company. It’s tremendously disrupting for the teams who are losing colleagues . . . [and] for the person who is actually losing the job,” Derler says. Even for those who do return, the move isn’t always a long-term solution—it’s often just the next step in navigating an unpredictable job market: “If the person hasn’t found a new job in the meantime, they may come back, but they may not stay long, because they’re really still traumatized for what you did to them a year ago,” Derler says. One worker described her experience as a layoff boomerang: “When I was first laid off from this company in March 2018, I was completely blindsided—it was my first time ever facing a layoff. The website I was writing for shuttered entirely, so we were all out of a job,” the worker says. After the site was purchased and relaunched by another company, several of the original employees were rehired. The former employee reached out to a rehire to see if there were opportunities available. “They were—but on a contractor basis. I was underemployed, freelance is not for the weak, and needed the money. So I agreed to sign on. My pay as a contractor was close to what I was paid when I first worked at the site, but I didn’t have any benefits,” she explains. After several months working there as a writer and editor, she was brought on officially as a staff member. But a few months later, another round of layoffs hit, and she was let go for the second time. “I wasn’t intending to stay there longer than I had to—I was applying for other jobs almost the entire time. When I was laid off the second time, I had actually been in the process of interviewing for another job. Thankfully, I got that one, so after a month break in between jobs, I started the new one,” she says. One Reddit user details their experience as a layoff boomerang. They were let go from a company where they had worked for over six years. “I was very loyal, but also know when you work for a company with 350k+ employees that layoffs happen. I left in very good standing and had a stellar reputation there. But head counts get reduced,” they explain. Months later, they received an offer to return. “Fast forward to [receiving] an offer from the very company that laid me off in October. Different boss, different department, more pay,” they say. Another worker has boomeranged back to her old company—kind of, and hopefully. “I was laid off quite unexpectedly in February. I had been there for 3.5 years and survived at least two other layoffs. As a technical writer, layoffs seldom surprise me. We’re always some of the first cut,” she explains. The employee did not expect to ever hear from the company again, but a new opportunity emerged unexpectedly, much like the layoff itself. She agreed to join for a three-month contract while the company worked on approval for a permanent headcount in the 2026 budget. “To be perfectly honest, I’d been out of work for almost 10 months. I was out of unemployment, my savings were gone, and I was borrowing money to pay my rent. That was the real driver for taking the role,” she explains. Still, she loved the job and the team, and embraced the chance to contribute. “I poured my soul into building that help center, enabling a chatbot for the help center. It was a real passion project for me. I actually accepted a cut in pay to get my foot in the door with the contract,” she says. Her team’s positive reaction to her return convinced her that she had made the right choice, and bolstered her confidence that a full-time, permanent position was in her future. Before considering being a boomerang yourself, Derler advises asking for a reentry interview, or at least considering one. This is where you can have a proper interview with the hiring manager to find out the details of the role. Here, you can ask yourself: “How solidly sure is my employer that they need this role filled, that I’m the right person for the role?” And that another layoff isn’t on the horizon? The disruption for the employer By laying off employees without expecting to bring them back, there are “unintended consequences that organizations may or may not be aware of,” Derler says. If companies understood this, she argues, they could use data to reduce the unnecessary disruption. “If we already know we’re going to rehire some of them, why cause all that disruption—that additional uncertainty?” The first disruption after the layoff itself is the “turnover contagion.” This happens when one employee is laid off and others leave because they perceive the environment as unstable. Employees often notice that if one team member is let go, it could signal uncertainty for themselves. “This is becoming an uncertain role for me; I’d better look elsewhere,” she explains. This ripple effect can disrupt teams, hurt productivity, and further increase the financial and operational costs of layoffs. The second disruption comes in hiring them back. “It’s actually a lot more expensive to rehire people. They earn 3% more than those who have stayed at the company, and they earn 5% more than when they’ve been let go. So the financial implications of the rehiring of previously laid off employees is also not nothing,” Derler says. When an employer realizes they need to bring someone back, they may have to pay a premium. “It’s possible that these employees have found another role. We don’t know what happens in those six to 10 months before the rehiring,” she explains. Layoffs are not collateral damage—and they shouldn’t be viewed that way, Derler says. “We’re talking about humans and people and career-minded individuals. It’s a clear failure of workforce planning. It is a failure of leadership strategy setting. It’s a failure to be more long term-minded. It’s a failure to understand the employee skills,” she said. At the end of the day, layoff boomerangs show just how tricky workforce decisions can be. For employees, coming back can feel like a second chance—but it also brings questions about trust, commitment, and whether the role is really solid. For employers, there’s the cost—both money and disruption—to think about. Paying attention to skills, data, and planning ahead can help make sure everyone comes out ahead when the workforce shifts. View the full article

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One of the most pervasive rules of business is compete-to-win or perish. But as more organizations struggle to navigate an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous landscape, some innovative leaders are choosing to collaborate over compete. This is particularly necessary within the organization, where collaboration may be considered beneficial in theory, but in practice, the rules of engagement still revolve around competition: colleagues become rivals over promotion opportunities, recognition, and advancement. The competition within the organization makes it harder to navigate the disruption and certainty on the outside. How do leaders banish in-house competition? They create and model a culture that uncompetes. To uncompete is to intentionally choose to reject competition and actively design for collaboration. Here’s how. Harness two types of envy Team collaboration increases when we feel psychological safety—like our team has our back. Competition and envy among colleagues can reduce psychological safety and create a hostile environment if not managed well by leaders. Managing envy to motivate teams—not sabotage each other—is a skill. Organizational psychologists broadly characterize envy as falling under two categories: benign and malicious envy. Benign envy motivates us to work harder toward a goal when we see someone else achieving it, malicious envy can be destructive and often results in us wanting to sabotage or undermine a colleague’s success. A powerful way to cultivate benign envy is to focus on the hard work a team member did to achieve a goal, rather than just focus on the achievement itself. Leaders can harness benign envy to create a culture of motivation and collaboration by highlighting the effort it took over outcomes, particularly team-based efforts. Implement rewards for collaboration Many workplace cultures are individualistic, where only individual wins are celebrated. This makes it more attractive for employees to prioritize gaining individual success over collaborative ones. Instead, leaders must implement recognition and reward systems that emphasize collaboration and teamwork. Leaders can verbally name collaboration as an organizational value. Collaboration must also be defined explicitly as a metric for rewarding career development, advancement, and recognition. For promotion and other career development conversations, list “examples of collaboration” as one of the metrics being considered. In addition, group incentive programs are another way to operationalize collaboration, when rewards are pegged to team performance and meted out among the group rather than just individually. Incentivized teams increased their performance by 45%, compared to a 27% increase for individual incentives, according to a study by the International Society for Performance Improvement. Organizations that implement a peer-to-peer recognition program also benefit from creating a culture of shared success. Set reasonable work boundaries In the race to beat competitors, more organizations are normalizing “always on” work cultures. Silicon Valley, in particular, is popularizing a “996” work expectation of working 12-hour shifts six days a week in the race to innovate on AI. When leaders model that workers must be always-on, it creates and exacerbates a scarcity mindset—that there’s never enough time or resources in a day to complete tasks, so we have to keep working more. It also often fosters the belief that employees must compete against their colleagues to demonstrate dedication and competence. When leaders model reasonable work hours and expectations, the message gets communicated that employees don’t have to hustle for rewards. This looks like visibly and vocally taking time off, working reasonable hours, and not penalizing employees when they don’t respond immediately. Hustle culture often leads to burnout, another side effect of competitive environments. By comparison, in collaborative work cultures, employees feel supported to work reasonable hours without fear. Consider job-sharing and other collaboration models Nobel prize-winning economist Claudia Goldin discovered a surprising way to reduce the gender wage gap—job-sharing. A lack of flexibility (also a challenge in always-on cultures) impacts women’s earning potential. But when they’re able to work part-time and trade off their shifts—particulary common for pharmacists—the wage gap almost disappears. What if more leaders could explore some roles at the organization being set up for “job-sharing”—such as two colleagues who work closely together and could substitute for each other easily when the other is out? This can help foster team ownership and collaboration versus individual priorities. One company, Jotform, moved to create small, cross-functional teams when their leaders noticed the company was growing but output wasn’t. These cross-functional teams of 3–5 people each would focus on a single product instead of bouncing between priorities. Each group was paired with its own designer and given ownership. “Almost overnight, the quality of our work improved. The teams moved faster, communicated better, and felt more motivated. Since then, cross-functional teams have become a core part of our culture—and one of our biggest competitive advantages,” writes CEO Aytekin Tank, reflecting on the past decade since the company moved to this model. Of course, establishing a number of collaboration norms, particularly around communication, was key to making it a success. Co-leadership models A compelling case for co-leadership, particularly organization co-CEOs, is emerging. One study of 87 public companies led by co-CEOS between 1996 and 2020 found they had better shareholder returns (9.5%) compared with similar companies who only didn’t. Co-CEOs are not common nor without controversy, but done right, there’s evidence that collaboration at the highest levels can truly drive innovation. Take Netflix, where Ted Sarandos and Reed Hastings were able to leverage complementary skills to grow the company. Management professor Michael D. Watkins lays out seven norms of how a successful co-CEO partnership could operate, including designing clear conflict-resolution mechanisms, creating a leadership charter, and dividing responsibilities by expertise, not convenience. This is even more necessary as AI continues to disrupt many industries. A nonprofit organization I was involved with in the past, Upaya Social Ventures, also transitioned to a co-CEO model last year. Collaborating with their complementary skills has been necessary to serve the organization’s mission of creating dignified jobs for people living in some of the poorest regions of India. Left to chance, many organizations default to competitive norms, where collaboration is often stalled because of internal rivalries. That’s why it’s necessary to uncompete—for leaders to intentionally prioritize and design norms that make collaboration supported, rewarded, and institutionalized. Only then can we reduce inter-organization competition and move towards true collaboration. View the full article

It’s almost the end of the year, and for many, that means health flexible spending account (FSA) funds are set to expire. FSAs allow employees to set aside pretax money to pay for healthcare expenses such as copays, some medications, and deductibles. But many people aren’t aware that the funds don’t always roll over into the next calendar year after December 31. Sometimes, employers will provide grace periods of up to two and a half months past the end of the year to allow for extra time to use your FSA funds. Others may allow you to carry over up to $660 per year. But 33% of employers have a hard deadline, so if you don’t use your funds by the end of the year, they’re gone. In 2023, around half of all FSA account holders forfeited some funds back to their employers, with the average amount left in accounts being $436. In general, experts say this is because many Americans don’t know of the deadline. “People tell us one of the main reasons they forfeit FSA funds is because they aren’t aware that they have a deadline in the first place, or they don’t know how much they have left in their account,” says Rachel Rouleau, chief compliance officer for Health-E Commerce, the parent company of the FSA Store, per CNBC. Still, even if employers don’t roll over funds or offer grace periods, there are some ways to make the most of your funds before the year is out—even if you don’t have healthcare expenses left to cover. According to Joseph Giordano, compliance manager for Health-E Commerce, there are tons of everyday products that you’d likely be buying anyway that can be covered by FSAs. “We estimate that the average American household spends $1,600 a year on healthcare purchases that are FSA eligible,” Giordano told Yahoo Finance. The list of items that can be paid for with FSA funds is extensive. It includes baby care items, skincare products (like face masks), high-tech health devices (like foot massagers), telehealth services, acne medication, cold and flu medicines, and more. Find the full list of eligible products on the FSA Store website. View the full article

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