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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.
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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.
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E-Commerce
Six decades after it was created by Congress, the nonprofit that brought America Mister Rogers Neighborhood and Sesame Street will shut down for good. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced this week that it would officially shut down, ushering in an uncertain new era for the future of public broadcasting. The organization historically administers funds for NPR, PBS, and more than 1,000 local TV and radio stations nationwide. The nonprofit entity was signed into law by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to manage federal funds for educational TV and radio shows, but it fell victim to a defunding campaign initiated by the Trump administration and approved by a Republican-led Congress. For more than half a century, CPB existed to ensure that all Americansregardless of geography, income, or backgroundhad access to trusted news, educational programming, and local storytelling, CPB president and CEO Patricia Harrison said in a press release. Harrison said that the CPB decided to dissolve the organization as its final act instead of keeping the nonprofit on life support, which could make it susceptible to additional attacks. The Trump administration asked for the cuts to the public broadcasting organization, along with a sweeping pullback in foreign aid spending, earlier this year. Congress ultimately complied and in July voted to cut $1.1 billion in federal funds, with no Democrats voting in support. The public broadcasting fallout begins The Trump administrations decision to defund the countrys largest public broadcasting organization will likely echo for years to come, but were already starting to see some of its effects. In early December, a commission that oversees public educational TV in Arkansas voted to part ways with PBS, citing the shortfall of federal funds. That group framed the decision as a cost-saving measure, arguing that it relied on federal funding to pay annual dues of around $2.5 million to PBS in exchange for the broadcasters programming. The organizations commissioners, who voted 6-2 in favor of parting with PBS, are appointed by the governor. The Arkansas PBS network, now rebranded as Arkansas TV, struck an optimistic tone in its announcement, pointing to a slate of new programming it plans to develop to replace PBS, including two shows for children, two food series, and two new history-focused shows. Public television in Arkansas is not going away, Arkansas TV executive director and CEO Carlton Wing said. In spite of the states upbeat tone around its new brand and bespoke programming, Arkansas residents broadly support PBS and will likely feel the absence of its long-running educational shows. More than 70% state residents said that PBS is an excellent value to their community in recent surveys. The commissions decision to drop PBS membership is a blow to Arkansans who will lose free, over-the-air access to quality PBS programming they know and love, a PBS spokesperson told Fast Company. It also goes against the will of Arkansas viewers. Arkansas was the first state to sever its ties with PBS, but more could follow. Public TV and radio stations in rural parts of the country lack the donor base that their urban counterparts rely on and may be particularly vulnerable to new shortfalls in federal funding. Public support for public broadcasting The Trump administration has made dismantling public broadcasting a priority in its first year, but that position looks out of step with most of the country. President Trump has expressed his personal ire for public broadcasting, referring to PBS and NPR as two horrible and completely biased platforms and calling on Congress to defund what he characterized as a scam perpetrated by the Radical Left. Unlike the Trump administration, most Americans approve of the public broadcaster, which has long been funded through the now-shuttered Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In the U.S., 58% of households with a TV reported watching public programming through PBS in the course of a year. PBS consistently ranks as the most trusted source in America for news and public affairs, besting cable and broadcast networks, newspapers, and streaming services. In 1969, Fred Rogers, the creator and host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, famously testified before Congress to defend the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was facing a major budget cut from the Nixon administration just after its creation. His testimony was initially met with a chilly reception, but within the span of six minutes, Rogers won over the senator questioning him. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting went on to secure its full $20 million in federal fundinga comeback story the nonprofit wont be telling in 2026. What has happened to public media is devastating, said CPB board chair Ruby Calvert. Yet, even in this moment, I am convinced that public media will survive, and that a new Congress will address public medias role in our country because it is critical to our children’s education, our history, culture, and democracy to do so.
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E-Commerce
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