Fortune

One responsibility is infamous for consistently coming across the desk of the CHRO: how to handle staffers who aren’t hitting the mark. There are all sorts of reasons why employees may not be living up to workplace expectations. On top of evergreen management challenges, a new generation of workers isn’t interested in climbing the corporate ladder at all costs, and employees are suffering from a surging mental health crisis. Workers are also feeling disconnected, and nearly 82% are at risk of burnout this year, according to a recent Mercer report. All of that can add up to a workforce in crisis—and a perfect storm for business leaders. Fortune spoke with a dozen HR executives and workplace experts, including the people leaders of Microsoft, Salesforce, Indeed, and EY, to hear what they think it takes to get workers who are falling behind and get them up to speed. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dm-8ZcAa

The best and the brightest on Wall Street don’t have a great track record when it comes to beating the S&P 500, but Research Affiliates Chairman Rob Arnott may have found an answer and has launched an alternate index to prove it. In a report titled “Nixed: The Upside of Getting Dumped” that was co-authored with Forrest Henslee, he said stocks that get booted off indexes eventually outperform them while stocks that are added underperform. “As it turns out, getting dumped by an index can have an impressive upside, just as a romantic breakup can sow seeds for personal growth,” they wrote. “Dumped companies and their shareholders fare surprisingly well on average, better even than the stocks that replaced them.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/eKYxS8u4

Companies are sweetening the pot for incoming executives: No move to company headquarters? No problem. Starbucks’ incoming CEO Brian Niccol, who lives in California, will not be required to relocate to the coffee chain’s headquarters in Seattle. Hillary Super, Victoria Secret’s incoming chief executive, will also be permitted to work remotely, pioneering an apparent trend of a company’s top brass working from afar. It’s a mouth-watering prospect for executives wanting to retain some day-to-day flexibility and spend some extra time at home with family. But some remote CEOs could get a massive wake-up call, some future of work experts say: Not only will their employees resent their boss’s absence from the office, it could be hurting the company itself. Read more: https://lnkd.in/esrZ9MXk

In Fortune today -- The reality of Russia’s economic situation is far more complex & concerning than some would have you believe. The productive core of the Russian economy has been severely compromised as Putin ‘throws everything into the fireplace’ https://lnkd.in/eWFit-V5

There’s likely no shortage of people who would pay to work for Rihanna, a global superstar and the wealthiest female musical artist in the world. Victoria’s Secret just found out how expensive it is to poach a chief executive from one of her companies. On Wednesday, America’s largest seller of lingerie announced it had hired Hillary Super—the CEO of Savage X Fenty, the singer-songwriter’s body-positive lingerie brand—to be its new CEO, effective Sept. 9. According to her employment agreement, Super’s compensation package could exceed $18 million. Read more here: bit.ly/4dtzKHW

It was 2am on one night in 2011 when Mark Zuckerberg was “hanging out with all the interns,” including playing a couple of chess matches with Sophie Z. Novati (who claims she won). “That was the vibe of the company at the time,” Novati says, adding that it was the first time she was able to ask him the million-dollar question: How’s the social network going to make any money? Of course, today, Facebook—or Meta—is a $1.3 trillion social media giant with Instagram and WhatsApp under its wing. However, up until 2012, the year Facebook went public, its mobile app didn’t actually make money. It didn’t feature ads and the move to incorporate them was considered risky.  In the end, the company was able to turn likes and shares into profit, by turning its users into the product. “His response to me was, if you can figure out a way to capture people’s valuable attention, you can always figure out how to turn that into money later,” Novati, now the founder of Formation recalls to Fortune. Read more: https://lnkd.in/g9J3g-Sf

A survey of annual reports from the biggest U.S. corporations are increasingly highlighting artificial intelligence as a possible risk factor. According to a report from research firm Arize AI, the number of Fortune 500 companies that cited AI as a risk hit 281. That represents 56.2% of the companies and a 473.5% increase from the prior year, when just 49 companies flagged AI risks. “If annual reports of the Fortune 500 make one thing clear, it’s that the impact of generative AI is being felt across a wide array of industries—even those not yet embracing the technology,” the report said. “Given that most mentions of AI are as a risk factor, there is a real opportunity for enterprises to stand out by highlighting their innovation and providing context on how they are using generative AI.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/gY39uNFM

Critics have ridiculed 21-year-old’s Avi Schiffmann's new product, called “Friend”—an A.I.-powered, always-listening necklace that chats with you through text messages—throughout its development. At first, media outlets questioned Schiffmann’s decision to spend $1.8 million of his $2.5 million in capital he’d fundraised to buy the domain name “friend.com.” He initially said he did it for the publicity, because we’re “talking about it.” He’s since changed his mind: “The true answer I have for you is that it keeps the artwork consistent. It’s simple. I like it.” Then, he released the product’s first commercial on July 31, World Friendship Day, on X. It went viral, but not in the most favorable way for Schiffmann.  Read more here: bit.ly/3SRJ0NG

Tesla is taking the next steps in developing its humanoid Optimus robots—or at least it’s hiring workers to take those literal steps. For up to $48 an hour, you could help collect data to train Tesla’s AI-powered robots, designed to automate work in company factories. According to job listings on LinkedIn, Indeed, and Tesla’s website, Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company is hiring “data collection operators” to gather movement information and provide equipment feedback on the Optimus robots. Workers are required to wear motion-capture suits and virtual reality headsets to simulate the movements and actions of the bots. Per the job listing, applicants must be able to walk for over seven hours a day and should be between 5’7″ and 5’11″ in order to operate the motion-capture suits. Payment ranges between $25.25 and $48 per hour. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dezzpDEU

"Technology, and especially the internet, can really help you be lazy.” In 2009, during his commencement speech to University of Michigan graduates, Google cofounder Larry Page encouraged them to “be lazy.” “Find the leverage in the world so you can be truly lazy,” he said. Read more here: bit.ly/4dNZKxw