Future of Work Roundup - Week of October 17

Welcome to the Future of Work Roundup. Each week, we bring you five top stories—drawing from the latest academic research and industry trends—to give you an easily-digestible snapshot of how work is changing—and why it matters.

A breakthrough for gig workers?

CBS News reported that the Biden administration is proposing a rule that could result in more gig workers. The draft rule includes the use of six factors to determine if a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. The new law would lower the bar to be classified as an employee and could be a big win for gig workers.

Designing your digital HQ

WIRED reported on how, amid the shift to remote work, new digital headquarters are being designed and implemented. Slack, for example, has designed its Digital HQ around three pillars:

• Building a workplace free of silos.
• Creating tools and systems that are inclusive.
• Automating away inefficient tasks and bureaucracy, making room for deep work and collaboration.

Tech layoffs

New research from Crunchbase detailed the widespread layoffs that are hitting the tech industry. As of mid-October, more than 44,000 workers in the U.S. tech sector have been laid off in mass job cuts since the beginning of 2022.

The dangers of agenda theater

A new article in Harvard Business Review outlines the dangers of “agenda theater.” This cousin of “productivity theater” involves wasting time creating detailed meeting agendas that create perceptions of effective meetings, but do not actually improve meeting effectiveness and may even lead to more rigid and ineffective meetings.

A struggling metaverse

The Wall Street Journal reported that Meta’s metaverse has seen lackluster adoption to date. Internal documents reveal that the technology has glitches and that users are failing to adopt the platform in line with expectations. Meta set an initial goal of reaching 500,000 monthly active users for Horizon Worlds, its flagship metaverse app, by the end of this year, but has recently slashed that figure to 280,000.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for next week’s Future of Work roundup.