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The old adage the only thing constant is change seems to ring true in workplaces today. Workplaces are rife with challenges, from navigating economic uncertainty to rapidly adapting to technological change. Workplace mental health support plays a pivotal role in helping employees build resilience to navigate the stressors they face. When we discuss mental health in the workplace, we often think of a corporate office: a desk, a screen, and a Slack channel. In reality, the need for mental health support extends to all sectors and workers. From healthcare to hospitality, construction to retail, food service to utilities, workers in non-office jobs are just as in need of support as their desked peers. There is no such thing as a stress-free workplace. As a leader, what you do to address it can make all the difference. It’s a business imperative At Calm, weve seen this firsthand. Through our app, we support over 3,500 organizations, including 600 non-office industries. Across sectors and industries, employees come to Calm for stress, anxiety, mindfulness, and sleep support. Workers across the board might share similar challengesanxiety, burnout, family stressbut their experiences are unique to their role or environment. An office worker may fear being replaced by AI. A warehouse worker may worry more about the risk of injury or being replaced by automation. Each of those fears is valid, and each deserves bespoke support. Supporting workers isnt just the right thing to do; its a business imperative. According to yale researchers, the U.S. economy loses over $280 billion each year due to mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression. Gallup found that employees who report poor mental health take nearly five times as many sick days. Thats $47.6 billion in lost productivity. But more than that, its millions of people quietly struggling to get through the day. It doesn’t have to be this way and making mental health support a priority goes a long way. It begins with open and honest communication. Leaders must be willing to share their own experiences with stress, anxiety, or burnout to normalize these conversations. Ive publicly discussed my personal journey with my team, from experiencing panic attacks starting as a teenager to leading Calm, aiming to inspire others to prioritize their mental well-being. This transparency has helped break down the stigma associated with mental health challenges and encourages employees to seek help when they need it. Steps leaders can take Here are some other ways leaders can help incorporate employee mental well-being as a workplace priority: Talk about it. Leadership sets the tone and should model and share their own experiences balancing mental well-being while at work. Listen. Be present. Find ways to hear from your teams.Understand the stressors that exist across different types of work. For some, its emotional fatigure. For others, its physical strain or unpredictable hours. All of it matters. Meet people where they are. Whether its a digital platform, a flyer in the locker room, or a text-based check-in, delivery matters as much as the message. Tailor support. One-size-fits-all solutions fall flat. A call center agent and a construction worker have very different needs, and your approach should reflect that. Normalize mental health in company culture. Mental wellness shouldnt feel like an afterthought. At Calm, we begin every all-hands meeting with a short meditation. I try not to start my day by checking emails or texts. These arent big shifts, but theyre grounding. When mindfulness is integrated into the rhythm of work, it becomes an integral part of the culture, rather than just a checkbox. At Calm, weve learned that purpose and performance arent opposites. When employees feel supported, they show up stronger and better. Engagement goes up, turnover goes down, and business benefits. Stress isnt going away. However, we have an opportunity to transform how we support employees in handling it. Workplace mental health support isnt optional; it’s essential. It is crucial to create a supportive and sustainable workplace that enables leaders to take a holistic approach to caring for their people. After all, we cant build healthy companies without a thriving workforce across all teams in every sector of our economy. David Ko is CEO of Calm.
Category:
E-Commerce
In today’s workplace, everyone’s racing to a digital finish line. Organizations have embraced transformation, but in a rush to adopt new technologies, many leaders have prioritized speed over strategy without aligning teams, systems, and goals. The result? Disconnected ecosystems where information gets lost and workflows become increasingly disjointed. To accelerate effectively, teams need more than just tools. They need clarity. The data from Lucids recent acceleration equation survey highlights that when teams build from a common foundation with shared context, processes, and alignment, they save time and enhance agilityenabling everyone to move faster together. Identify the visibility gap Theres an increasing divide in confidence and clarity around how teams understand their work. Visibility isnt just about dashboards, its about a shared understanding of expectations, deliverables, and goals. And that understanding is where the gaps are widening. While 93% of executives in the survey said they feel confident in project expectations, only 74% of individual contributors feel the same. Without clarity on how tasks contribute to broader goals, even high-performing teams face friction, redundancy, and missed opportunities. This lack of shared visibility is compounded by the scattered information thats become all too common in todays workplace. The average employee toggles between multiple platforms just to get a full picture of a project. It’s no surprise that 40% of knowledge workers dont know where to find key project resources, leading to delays, duplication, and frustration. These visibility gaps and scattered systems dont just slow teams down, they trap them in inefficient cycles that waste time and sap momentum. Workers are stuck in a cycle of disconnect Even the most capable teams can falter when processes lack consistency and documentation. Without clear guidance, employees often spend more time deciphering workflows than executing them. Our recent survey asked workers how often they recreate processes or documentation simply because they cant find themand nearly a third of workers recreate processes multiple times a week. With that, 43% of executives struggle with managing change effectively. This is not due to resistance to structure but stems from insufficient documentation and communication. Ive seen this firsthand while scaling a company. As deadlines pile up and teams shift into execution mode, process and visibility often take a back seat. What feels like progress can quickly turn into misalignment when theres no connective tissue holding efforts together. This fragmentation leads to significant time losses, with a staggering 85% of workers spending up to two hours daily searching for information. Thats an entire workday lost each week. Disconnected tools and fragmented project context can leave teams in a loop of improvisation and inefficiency. And while meetings are meant to solve that, more than 60% of employees say they walk away without clear next steps, which only adds to the confusion. One in five workers believe standardized, updated process documentation would save them at least three hours daily. This highlights an incredible opportunity for massive time and cost savings. What Ive realized, and what our customers consistently tell us, is that teams dont need more systems; they need clearer, more centralized information that meets them where they already work and breaks the unproductive cycle consuming their time and energy. What’s really needed to accelerate work Todays workplace isnt suffering from a lack of toolsbut from too many disconnected ones. About 28% of employees surveyed say outdated or inadequate tools are slowing them down, while scattered information across platforms creates confusion instead of clarity. Teams often end up working in parallel rather than in sync, wasting valuable time and losing momentum as they struggle to find what they need. What truly accelerates work isnt more tools but better orchestration that connects existing solutions in a way that enables clear, confident teamwork. While most firms aren’t looking to overhaul their tech stacks, theyve recognized that the key to efficiency lies in clearer communication protocols and more effective collaboration. So now is the time to invest in the right areas: streamlined processes and integrated tools that foster cross-functional work. But the real magic happens when creating consistency. When teams share the same view and access information effortlessly, they don’t just move forwardthey accelerate with shared purpose. Our opportunity as leaders? Transform scattered effort into a unified force that powers genuine, breakthrough innovation. Dave Grow is CEO of Lucid Software.
Category:
E-Commerce
TikTok has boosted the careers of numerous musicians, thanks to their songsboth new and oldgoing viral. The latest example is Connie Franciss 1962 hit Pretty Little Baby, which is currently inescapable across For You pages. Now, TikTok is making it even easier for artists to capitalize on viral moments. The platform has rolled out its music insights tool globally, following a limited beta launch that was quietly tested with a select group of artists two months ago. TikTok for Artists offers musicians daily updates on how their songs are being used and which tracks are generating the most engagement. Metrics include the number of views, posts, and creator interactions per song, as well as insights into each posts performance. Artists also gain access to demographic data about their followers, such as age, language, and self-identified gender. All tiers of artists will gain insights on TikTok that they can use to take their careers to a whole new level, said Tracy Gardner, TikToks global head of music business development, in a statement. We built the platform to give artists transparent access to useful, actionable data about their music and their fans, to help them better engage with the TikTok community and supercharge their careers both on and off the platform. One early tester, Cyril Riley, said: My team and I rely on TikTok for Artists daily, sometimes even hourly. In such a rapidly evolving industry, it’s crucial for us to consistently monitor and review the analytics of my account.” Another musician, Jordan Adetunji, called it a game changer. Alongside the analytics tool, TikTok has launched a pre-release feature that lets artists promote upcoming music on the platform. Fans can pre-save unreleased albums directly to their Spotify or Apple Music libraries, making the music instantly available when it drops. Not everyone is enthusiastic, though. Some critics view this as TikTok following in Spotifys footsteps (Spotify launched Spotify for Artists back in 2016), fostering a culture of music made specifically to go viral. As The Faders Jordan Darville writes: A massively popular app creates artist services that steer the sound of music in directions more profitable for the platform, and simultaneously throttles royalties to make shareholders happy. Perhaps these new TikTok features will inspire more unexpected comebacks from pop icons of the 60sor maybe theyll just give us new options to soundtrack our TikTok carousels.
Category:
E-Commerce
Alarm over China’s stranglehold on critical minerals grew on Tuesday as global automakers joined their U.S. counterparts to complain that restrictions by China on exports of rare earth alloys, mixtures, and magnets could cause production delays and outages without a quick solution. German automakers became the latest to warn that China’s export restrictions threaten to shut down production and rattle their local economies, following a similar complaint from an Indian EV maker last week. China’s decision in April to suspend exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets has upended the supply chains central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies, and military contractors around the world. The move underscores China’s dominance of the critical mineral industry and is seen as leverage by China in its ongoing trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump has sought to redefine the trading relationship with the U.S.’s top economic rival China by imposing steep tariffs on billions of dollars of imported goods in hopes of narrowing a wide trade deficit and bringing back lost manufacturing. Trump imposed tariffs as high as 145% against China, only to scale them back after stock, bond, and currency markets revolted over the sweeping nature of the levies. China has responded with its own tariffs and is leveraging its dominance in key supply chains to persuade Trump to back down. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to talk this week, and the export ban is expected to be high on the agenda. Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system. Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors. The suspension has triggered anxiety in corporate boardrooms and nations’ capitalsfrom Tokyo to Washingtonas officials scrambled to identify limited alternative options amid fears that production of new automobiles and other items could grind to a halt by summer’s end. “If the situation is not changed quickly, production delays and even production outages can no longer be ruled out,” Hildegard Mueller, head of Germany’s auto lobby, told Reuters on Tuesday. Frank Fannon, a minerals industry consultant and former U.S. assistant secretary of state for energy resources during Trumps first term, said the global disruptions are not shocking to those paying attention. I dont think anyone should be surprised how this is playing out. We have a production challenge [in the U.S.], and we need to leverage our whole government approach to secure resources and ramp up domestic capability as soon as possible. The time horizon to do this was yesterday, Fannon said. Diplomats, automakers, and other executives from India, Japan, and Europe were urgently seeking meetings with Beijing officials to push for faster approval of rare earth magnet exports, sources told Reuters, as shortages threatened to halt global supply chains. A business delegation from Japan will visit Beijing in early June to meet the Ministry of Commerce over the curbs, and European diplomats from countries with big auto industries have also sought “emergency” meetings with Chinese officials in recent weeks, Reuters reported. India, where Bajaj Auto warned that any further delays in securing the supply of rare earth magnets from China could “seriously impact” electric vehicle production, is organizing a trip for auto executives in the next two to three weeks. In May, the head of the trade group representing General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, and other major automakers raised similar concerns in a letter to the Trump administration. “Without reliable access to these elements and magnets, automotive suppliers will be unable to produce critical automotive components, including automatic transmissions, throttle bodies, alternators, various motors, sensors, seat belts, speakers, lights, motors, power steering, and cameras,” the Alliance for Automotive Innovation wrote in the letter. By Jarrett Renshaw and Ernest Scheyder, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
For more than 30 years, meteorologist John Morales has broadcast weather forecasts to South Floridians, warning the hurricane-prone region about the storms headed toward its coast. But now, Moraless ability to give accurate, quality forecasts to those residents is being hampered because of the recent federal government cuts to science and climate research. The Trump administration has laid off thousands of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the agency responsible for the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center, among other resources. Already, National Weather Service offices across the country are short-staffed, and the department has curtailed its data collectionlike launching fewer weather balloons. With fewer staff and data, weather forecasts are becoming less accurate. This means residents wont have the weather information they need about approaching storms like hurricanes. Morales illustrated this point in a recent broadcast on NBC 6 South Florida by looking back at a forecast he did six years ago, concerning Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm that decimated the northwest Bahamas. In the clip, he acknowledged that viewers had anxiety because it looked as if the storm was heading straight toward South Florida. But Morales had assured them: Its going to turn [away from the coast]. The turn was never forecast to be on Sunday. … The turn will come Monday afternoon, Monday evening into Tuesday. Remember that? Morales said in the broadcast after the old clip played. He had been right and, thanks to proper data collection and forecasting, was able to ensure viewers were prepared. Confidently, I went on TV and told you its going to turn, you dont need to worry, he said. I’m here to tell you that Im not sure I can do that this year, because of the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science in general. National Weather Service offices across South and Central Florida are already 20% to 40% understaffed, Morales noted. There’s also been a 20% reduction in weather balloon launches, which collect atmospheric data like wind speed, humidity, pressure, and so on. And what were starting to see, Morales continued, is that the quality of the forecast is becoming degraded. Because of federal government cuts, it’s likely hurricane hunter aircrafts wont be able to fly this year, he added. Hurricane hunters fly directly into the eye of storms in order to make forecasts even more accurate, thanks to real-time data. With less reconnaissance missions, Morales said, we may be flying blind. Thats especially dire considering this years hurricane season is expected to come with an above-average number of storms. Last year was an intense hurricane season too, with $5 billion events and a total of more than $124 billion in damage. (The Trump administration has since cut NOAAs ability to track the cost of climate change-related weather disasters, so its not clear if well know just how damaging this years hurricane season ends up being.) For Morales’s South Florida viewers, all these federal cuts mean they may not know how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline, he added, leaving them unprepared in the face of what could be a disastrous storm season. Morales has been forecasting the weather in South Florida for 34 years, and this isnt the first time hes spoken out about a dire reality. In October 2024, as Hurricane Milton was barreling toward Floridas west coast, Morales got emotional describing the storms intensity. “This is just horrific,” he had said then, while also making it clear to his viewers that record-hot seas, fueled by climate change, were driving that escalation. Scientists and meteorologists have been trying to translate the costs of the Trump administration’s federal cuts to everyday Americans. Moraless broadcast does so bluntly. When sharing the clip to his Buesky account, Morales captioned it with the quip: Cuts have consequences, illustrated. And Morales ended the television segment with a call to action, as many scientists have been during the Trump administration. I just want you to know that what you need to do is call your representatives, he told viewers, and make sure that these cuts are stopped.
Category:
E-Commerce
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