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In 2022, the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic gave rise the Great Resignation. This trend saw employees around the world leaving their places of work in droves. As a result, employee turnover surged to unprecedented levels. While resignation rates have gradually decreased from their 2022 peak over the past few years, turnover continues to be a major challenge for businesses. Recent research from PwC revealed that a fifth (20%) of employees had considered leaving their role in the past year, rising to a quarter (25%) of employees aged 1824. Retention is no longer about salary alone. Its about purpose, progression, and organizations seeing them as more than just a job title. Employees want to be at workplaces that offer growth and feedback, and a culture that reflects their values. The good news is that acting now can turn this challenge into a competitive advantage. Here are three actions that leaders can take to improve their retention, building workplaces that people do not want to leave, but rather stay at, grow, and thrive. Listen to your team (and do so more often) To understand and address the cultural challenges that might be causing team members to leave, start by gathering insights through surveys at key moments. That means onboarding, ongoing performance conversations, and exit interviews. These touchpoints offer a window into your employees experiences. It also reveals their joys and struggles throughout their journey. Leaders need to prioritize consistent, open feedback to show their teams that they value their evolving needs. Annual surveys alone are potentially missing key growth opportunities. Instead, embrace frequent pulse surveys and platforms for ongoing dialogue, creating a space where employees can feel truly heard. Perhaps most importantly, theres no quicker way to find out how team members are really feeling. They need to know that the company hears and accepts them for who they are Additionally, consider moving away from anonymous feedback. While anonymity may feel protective, it can suggest a lack of trust or safety. Building a culture of psychological safety, where team members feel secure sharing openly fosters trust and strengthens bonds. By nurturing this environment, leaders empower honest, heartfelt conversations that uplift their teams and open up the space to heal any existing rifts. Redefine success with people-centric KPIs Performance and adherence to a companys wider purpose matterbut not at the cost of people. To create healthy, thriving workplace cultures, organizations need to strike a fine balance between People, Purpose, and Performance. Organizations that achieve this foster a powerful state where productivity, team efficiency, and incredible engagement come together to create teams that produce and support one another as never before. When KPIs focus exclusively on delivery and deadlines, pressured managers may fall into the trap of neglecting employee well-being and development. Therefore, by prioritizing KPIs that serve the people, rather than solely focusing on the system, leaders demonstrate a commitment to their teams well-being and growth. Smart leaders shift the balance by daring to care for their people and introducing people-first KPIs alongside traditional business metrics. For example, what percentage of employees are in roles that align with their strengths and aspirations? How frequently are managers recognizing and rewarding their teams contributions? Even a simple good job from a manager, delivered with sincerity, goes a long way. Are managers actively developing high-potential individuals so that theyre ready for leadership roles? How often are you opening team meetings by checking in with team members and reminding them of why they matter to the project and wider organization? Even simple acts, like regular, sincere recognition, drive engagement. By embedding these behaviors into people-led leadership KPIs, organizations reinforce that organizations dont see people as a cost to manage, but as an asset they need to cultivate. By emphasizing people-centered KPIs, leaders ultimately contribute to the success and performance of the organization, while also creating a shared sense of purpose that inspires team members at all levels, ensuring that everybody wins. What the head office can learn from the shop floor I truly believe that leaders everywhere can learn a lot about people management from taking a step away from the traditional corporate environment and spending more time with their on the ground teams. The best leadership insights often come not from the boardroom but the shop floor. In customer-facing roleslike retail or hospitalitythe true health of your culture becomes clear. These environments offer an unfiltered view of how companies really treat, support, and motivate employees. My turning point in this regard came in my years in retail management, when I realized that I needed to break the circle of performance above all else in favor of cultures that allow team members to bring their full selves to work. Leaders who step into these spaces gain firsthand insight into what really drives their people: psychological safety, empathy, development opportunities, and being heard. The fundamentals dont change between corporate and customer-facing roles, but theyre often far more visible at the coalface. Spending time with frontline teams also exposes leaders to a more diverse cross-section of their workforce, building empathy and understanding that can shape smarter, more inclusive strategies. People leave cultures rather than companies While some employee attrition is inevitable in business, the truth is that much of it is preventable. When people walk away, its often from a lack of growth, recognition, or leadership that genuinely cares. Leaders who act with intention have a tremendous opportunity to build powerful, purpose-led workplaces that attract and retain top talent for the long haul.
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E-Commerce
The Velvet Sundown is the most-talked-about band of the moment, but not for the reason you might expect. The “indie rock band,” which has gained more than 634,000 Spotify listeners in just a few weeks, has spoken out in response to accusations that the group is AI-generated. The suspicions first surfaced on Reddit last week, where users discussed the band’s sudden appearance in their Discovery Weekly playlists on Spotify. The Velvet Sundown exhibits several common indicators of AI involvement: eerie, uncanny-valley-style images, a now-deleted fabricated Billboard quote in its Spotify bio, and virtually no internet presence prior to last month. As the speculation picked up media attention, an X account claiming to represent the band responded to the rumors: Absolutely crazy that so-called journalists keep pushing the lazy, baseless theory that The Velvet Sundown is AI-generated with zero evidence. The post went on to read: This is not a joke. This is our music, written in long, sweaty nights in a cramped bungalow in California with real instruments, real minds, and real soul. Every chord, every lyric, every mistake HUMAN. Adding to the confusion, the X account that posted the denial is not the one linked from the band’s official Spotify page. In other words, multiple social media profiles appear to be representing the band, all of them claiming to be official. When Fast Company reached out to the X account that first posted last week, an apparent spokesperson for the band tried to clarify the situation. There are a couple Twitter accounts floating around because different members have been responding in different ways, the spokesperson wrote in an email to Fast Company. Were a collective, and not everyone agrees on how to handle the attention. They added that the ambiguity is part of the story and is helping to get people curious about diving down the rabbit hole. They also admitted to having used some AI tools in the process, mostly for press visuals and experimenting with aesthetic ideas. Still, they insisted, the core of this has always been about human musicianship. According to its Spotify bio, the Velvet Sundown is a four-piece consisting of singer and mellotron player Gabe Farrow, guitarist Lennie West, Milo Rains, who crafts the bands textured synth sounds, and free-spirited percussionist Orion ‘Rio’ Del Mar. The band maintains that its two full-length albums are written, played, and produced by real people, adding, No generative audio tools. The textures and glitches that people point to as proof are just from lo-fi gear, weird mic setups, tape loops, that sort of thing. Whether AI is involved or not, the controversy highlights the growing conversation around generative AI in the music industry. Deezer, a streaming service that flags AI-generated music, recently reported receiving more than 20,000 fully AI-created tracks per day. The Velvet Sundown, for its part, defends the artistic freedom to experiment. For us, this has always been about making strange, emotional music and exploring how to present it in interesting ways. It might not fit neatly into anyones expectations, but its honest to what were trying to do.
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E-Commerce
How the Boomer wealth transfer could reshape global finance. Born too late to ride the wave of postwar prosperity, but just early enough to watch the 2008 financial crisis decimate some of their first paychecks. Old enough to remember dial-up. Young enough to buy Bitcoin on their phones. Theyve lived through tech booms, housing busts, meme stocks, student debt, and five different definitions of “retirement planning.” Now, as trillions in wealth begin to change hands, this generation stands to serve as a bridge between old capital and new code, traditional finance and the blockchain future. If handled wisely, this moment wont just shape the portfolios of younger investorsit could reshape the architecture of global finance itself. The $46 Trillion Handoff Roughly $124 trillion in wealth is expected to pass from baby boomers to younger generations by 2048, with millennials set to inherit the largest share: approximately $46 trillion over the next two decades. While Gen X is expected to inherit slightly more than millennials in the next 10 years, by the 2040s, millennials will take over as the dominant inheritorsand primary stewards of global capital. This isnt just a generational milestone. Its a once-in-history opportunity to redefine how capital is allocated, what assets are prioritized, and what financial frameworks endure. Millennials arent inheriting a set playbooktheyre writing a new one. Digital Assets Have Grown Up The timing couldnt be more significant. After years of growing pains, the digital asset space is undergoing a profound transformation. Following the collapse of FTX in 2022, the ecosystem began maturing rapidly. By 2024, a major inflection point arrived: The Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), marking a formal bridge between traditional finance and crypto. The ETFs shattered recordsunderscoring just how much pent-up demand existed among retail investors, registered investment advisers (RIAs), and institutions that had previously been locked out of the asset class. So far, nearly $41 billion has flowed into these products, a staggering figure for any ETF, let alone one tied to an asset recently dismissed as fringe. Additionally, North Americas crypto market is now dominated by large transfers over $1 millionabout 70% of transaction volumereflecting deep institutional involvement. And its not just about ETFs. Major institutions are integrating crypto into their offerings in tangible ways: Mastercard and Visa are experimenting with stablecoin settlements. Lyft is leveraging Hivemapper for road data. AT&T is offloading traffic onto the Heliu network. This isnt the Wild West anymore. Regulation is clarifying. Infrastructure is stabilizing. And serious capital is arriving. The Bridge Generation So, which generation is most naturally situated to carry digital assets into the financial mainstream? Not Gen Z (at least, not yet). While 42% of these young investors own cryptocurrency, only 11% have a retirement account, indicating a preference for immediate, high-risk investments over long-term financial planning. Not boomers, either, who have largely opted outjust 8% hold digital assets, while 64% have more traditional retirement accounts. Millennials, however, are fluent in both financial worlds. Theyre almost equally likely to invest in crypto as they are in retirement accounts36% own cryptocurrency, and 34% have retirement plans. They understand ETFs and decentralized finance, spreadsheets and stablecoins. They grew up with the internet and came of age during the 2008 crisis. Theyre old enough to remember the dot-com bust, young enough to see blockchains promise. In short: Millennials have a tech-native mindset and a healthy respect for risk. That balance matters. Surveys show that millennials are more comfortable investing in crypto than any older cohort. In fact, 62% of millennial ETF investors say they plan to allocate to crypto ETFs, making it the No. 1 asset class for that age group. And theyre not just speculating12% believe crypto is the best place to invest for long-term goals, compared to just 5% of boomers. This makes millennials uniquely qualified to shepherd digital assets out of their adolescence and into legitimacy. Market-Wide Impact As nearly $85 trillion moves into the hands of Gen X and millennials combined, every asset manager, RIA, and financial institution will be forced to adapt. Catering to these investors wont just mean better digital UX or TikTok explainers. Itll mean rethinking allocations, product offerings, and frameworks that may have, until recently, assumed digital assets are fringe. They are not. Not anymore. The generation that straddled Web2 and Web3 is about to call the shots. They speak the language of blockchain and the cadence of capital markets. That dual fluency will define the next phase of global investingand determine whether crypto becomes a credible pillar of the financial system or stalls as a misunderstood asset class, never realizing its broader potential. The opportunity isnt in betting on crypto. Its in building the institutions, tools, and strategies for a world where digital assets are simply part of the portfolio. And that world? Its coming faster than most expect.
Category:
E-Commerce
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