 |
|
|
|||||
Stocks rose on Wall Street Tuesday afternoon and approached more all-time highs. The S&P 500 added 0.6% and is hovering around the record it set in late December. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 482 points, or 1%, after setting a record on Monday. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.6% as of 3:01 p.m. Eastern. Big tech companies were making some of the most notable moves. Amazon, which has reached into both retail and technology, surged 3.7%. It is one of the most valuable companies in the world and its outsized stock valuation helped counter losses elsewhere in the market, including a 1.7% loss from Apple. Micron Technology rose 8.8%, also helping to lift the market. Nvidia, which is often the biggest force behind the market’s direction, wavered throughout the day and was down most recently by 0.2%. Sandisk surged 25.8% for the market’s biggest gain. The stock’s value has jumped more than 800% since spinning off from Western Digital last February. The gains have been driven by artificial intelligence and the resulting demand for data-storage hardware. Western Digital rose 17.2%. Technology companies, especially those focused on artificial intelligence, are being closely watched this week during the industry’s annual CES trade show in Las Vegas. AI advances helped propel the broader market to a series of records in 2025. Investors will be watching companies for any updates that could shed more light on the big corporate investments in AI technology. The price of benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 2% to $57.13 per barrel, pulling back from sharp gains a day prior when the market reacted to U.S. forces capturing Venezuelan President Nicolįs Maduro in a weekend raid. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 1.7% to $60.70 per barrel. Treasury yields rose in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 4.18% from 4.15% late Monday. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which moves more closely with expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do, rose to 3.48% from 3.45% late Monday. Gold prices rose 1% and silver prices rose 5.7%. Such assets are often considered safe havens in times of geopolitical turmoil. The metals have notched record prices over the last year amid lingering economic concerns brought on by conflicts and trade wars. Markets in Europe and Asia gained ground. Outside of company announcements, Wall Street is preparing for several updates on the U.S. labor market this week, along with reports on the services sector and consumer sentiment. They will help paint a clearer picture of how vital parts of the economy closed out 2025 and the direction they could take in 2026. On Wednesday, the U.S. government will release its report on job openings for November. The October report showed that U.S. job openings had barely budged. Weekly unemployment data will be released on Thursday and the broader monthly employment report, for December, will be released on Friday. Outside of the employment reports, the Institute for Supply Management will release its latest services sector update on Wednesday, while the University of Michigan will release its latest consumer sentiment survey Friday. They are both widely monitored because the services sector makes up the bulk of the U.S. economy, and consumer sentiment has been shaky under the weight of higher prices and economic uncertainty. The Fed will be analyzing all of that data and more ahead of its next meeting in late January. The central bank cut its benchmark interest rate three times late in 2025 to try and counter the economic impact of a softer jobs market. Lower interest rates on loans can help bolster economic activity. Cutting rates also risks fueling inflation at a time when it remains stubbornly above the Fed’s 2% target and could potentially reheat. Rising inflation could counter any benefit from lower interest rates and weigh more heavily on the economy. Wall Street expects the Fed to hold interest rates steady at its January meeting. Damian J. Troise, AP business writer AP business writers Elaine Kurtenbach and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
Category:
E-Commerce
Weve grown strangely comfortable separating things that were never meant to be separated: leadership from management, vision from execution, and perhaps most damaging, culture from strategy. Inside companies, this split shows up everywhere. A CEO announces a bold future about democratizing access or building a place where people take smart risks. Then culture gets handed to HR as if it belongs on a separate track, while the business strategy unfolds on its own timeline. The result is predictable. Employees are asked to navigate the distance between what leaders say and how the organization actually works. That distance is not neutral. It creates avoidable friction, the kind of drag that occurs when people try to act on values the organization has not built around. Built Ins 2024 Culture Report shows that 74% of employees feel demotivated in a poor cultural fit, and 61% would leave for a stronger cultural fit even without a major raise. The message is clear: Misalignment is expensive. NEEDED: CLARITY AND STRUCTURE But the deeper cost is structural. Avoidable friction emerges when leaders declare a value but never define it or embed it into the operating model. You say you value accountability, but there is no shared understanding of what it looks like. You say family first, but still expect employees to respond while out of office. You say being a good partner matters, but your incentives penalize anyone who extends the sales cycle to build trust. This is not about leaders being disingenuous. It is about the reality that business is messy, and unspoken values tend to override the ones printed in the handbook. When leaders are not honest about what truly matters, employees spend more energy decoding the hidden rules than doing the work they were hired to do. The fix is clarity, not charisma. The organizations gaining ground today are not the ones with inspirational posters or expansive value lists. They are the ones willing to make their values operational. That is why the B Corp movement has more than doubled since 2020, with 10,394 certified companies currently, across 103 countries. Leaders are discovering something simple and powerful: When culture is strategy, performance compounds. According to Deloittes 2025 Global Human Capital Trends, companies with positive cultures deliver 30% higher innovation and 40% better retention. Analysis from McKinsey has shown that companies with a healthy culture are three times more likely to outperform companies with unhealthy cultures. What these companies share is not moral perfection. It is precision. They name fewer values. They define them. They make them actionable. They hold themselves accountable in the same ways they expect from their teams. Because here is the truth most leaders overlook: Every organization already has a culture. The question is whether it reflects the strategy or contradicts it. CULTURE MUST BE VISIBLE If you want to reduce avoidable frictionand the burnout, confusion, and turnover that followculture cannot remain a sentiment in an employee handbook. It has to be visible in hiring criteria, promotion decisions, meeting norms, resource allocation, and the daily choices that signal what actually matters. This often feels intimidating, which is why culture gets handed to HR like an extracurricular. But culture is not extra work. Culture is the work. And you do not need more values to fix it. You need fewer values with deeper integrity. When your words match your systems, the organization exhales. People stop guessing. Teams regain momentum. Alignment is not just a leadership obligation. It is a relief. For leaders, for employees, and for the business. When culture becomes strategy, you no longer have to push the organization forward. You create the conditions, and the culture pulls the strategy with it. Natasha Nuytten is CEO of CLARA.
Category:
E-Commerce
If you were building global teams in 2025, you wouldnt need me to tell you it was a crazy year. We experienced economic volatility and AI disruption. Plus, tightened borders caused companies to adjust and readjust their approaches. 2026 wont be calmer. But the elements we need to master to stay competitive are now coming into focus: Navigating mobility disruption, creating unity across increasingly distributed workforces, and building the transparent, compliant infrastructure needed to employ people anywhere. 1. Rethink mobility strategies After a decade or so of relative calm, global mobility is now being disrupted from every angle. Thats because geopolitical instability, along with economic shifts and competing visa regimes are fundamentally changing how companies access and rely on talent. Governments are modernizing immigration with digital platforms like the European Travel Information and Authorisation System, yet the same environment is producing abrupt travel restrictions, emergency evacuations, and rising protectionism. The result is a system that is technically more advanced but practically more unpredictable. Sharp increases in visa costs in some major economies have pushed many companies to rethink their talent strategies. High fees and uncertainty are accelerating offshoring and nearshoring, especially for high-value work in AI, product development, and cybersecurity. Yet with many companies facing hiring freezes and restructuring, mobility in 2026 will need to be more selective and strategy-led, not volume-driven. To thrive in this new landscape, companies should build mobility capability in-houseowning compliance knowledge, digital tooling, and real-time monitoringwhile deepening partnerships with specialist mobility consultants who can navigate complex jurisdictions. This kind of hybrid model will ensure companies are poised to rapidly respond to regulatory changes in an uncertain world. 2. Overcommunicate around AI workflows AI is already embedded in day-to-day work, but without clear communication, it can easily create more noise rather than value: generic content, duplicated effort, and confusion over what is trustworthy. Most teams are still bolting AI onto old workflows, instead of redesigning those workflows with AI in mind. Overcommunicating around AI workflows means making it clear how AI is used, why its used, and where humans fit in the loop. Teams should openly align on what should be automated, what should remain human-led, and how decisions are made and documented. The clearer the communication, the more consistently teams can use AI without compromising quality or accountability. For AI to support unity rather than undermine it, organizations should: Make it clear that AI is a tool for productivity, not as a quiet headcount reducer. Transparency builds trust and encourages adoption. Establish shared guidelines on when and how to use AI. Create internal spaces where people can share prompts, tools, and lessons. 3. Hire for soft skills Tethered to the emergence of AI is an increasing skills gap. Workers often feel confident that they are employable, while employers increasingly question whether available talent matches the demands of modern, tech-driven roles. Education systems still lean toward linear, narrow training, while careers are becoming more non-linear and cross-functional. In 2026, employers that struggle to find hard skills will need to hire for potential instead by focusing on soft skills like communication and problem solving. Also look for curiosity and comfort with ambiguity. The most resilient global teams will build around people who can move across domains, learn new tools quickly, and evolve with the business, instead of those optimized purely for todays job description. 4. Understand transparency mandates Finding the right talent is one problem. Employing people compliantly and fairly across borders is anotherespecially with the new regulatory challenges 2026 is throwing our way. New pay transparency rules require employers to show not just what they pay, but how they arrived at those decisions. Early evidence from transparency laws in some regions suggests they can meaningfully narrow pay gaps when combined with structured reporting. The next wave, including EU-wide pay transparency requirements, will push employers to formalize compensation frameworks and maintain audit-ready data. Many organizations are underprepared. Only just over half of employers are putting money into improving wage transparency. Employees often feel in the dark about how pay works, and ad hoc transparencysuch as publishing a few rangeswont fix that. In 2026, companies will need payroll and HR systems that can: Produce locally compliant payslips Classify roles consistently across borders Surface pay data by region, role, and gender Without this infrastructure, it becomes difficult to demonstrate that outcomes are structured, comparable, and non-discriminatory. 5. Build the infrastructure of global employment In 2026, global companies are expected to expand quickly, de-risk that expansion, and provide a consistent employee experience worldwide. Spreadsheets and fragmented vendors simply cant keep up. The response is the rise of dedicated global employment infrastructure: employers of record, global payroll systems, and collaboration suites. Built correctly, the right stack: Keeps contracts, benefits, and payslips locally compliant Provides a single source of truth for workforce data Enables real-time visibility and control for leaders Reduces misclassification, tax, and security risks In a year of continuous change, this kind of infrastructure will prevent global expansion from becoming a tangle of entities, local providers, and hidden liabilities. PREPARE FOR 2026 Mobility disruption, distributed work, AI, skills gaps, and regulatory shifts are converging into a single test: Can your organization operate as a coherent global system? The teams that win in 2026 will: Treat mobility as a strategic lever Design AI-augmented workflows that enhance clarity and cohesion Hire for adaptability and potential, not just narrow experience Treat transparency as a business priority rather than an afterthought Build compliant employment infrastructure that can scale The world is not getting simpler. But with the right strategies in place, businesses can leap the hurdles and continue to unlock the benefits of global teams. Sagar Khatri is CEO of Multiplier.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||