Workers in the U.S. have more jobs than ever, and also a historic number of side hustles. Half of the American workforce is earning supplemental income, according to a recent survey from LendingClub and Pymnts.com. This includes gig-economy opportunities (Uber, TaskRabbit, etc.) and gambling, but also solopreneur endeavors such as selling artisanal products and renting out properties.
Overall, Americans’ secondary income streams could add up to $50 billion a month, though not all of it is reported to the IRS. White most workers turn to side hustles to make ends meet, the report found, those earning six figures aren’t immune to the lure of extra cash.
As an employer, you might be concerned if your staff is burning themselves out with moonlighting on nights and weekends — but with inflation outpacing salaries, they’ll need to pay the bills somehow.
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Automation nation: Can AI already do your job?
Stand-up meetings: Fewer chairs, greater efficiency.
Easter Bunny cocktail: It’ll have you hopping around.
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Automation Nation: Is ChatGPT Coming for Every Job?
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Ever since OpenAI’s ChatGPT launched back in November, automation has been the talk of the business community.
Some companies have embraced the technology: Meta and Canva use generative AI in customer service chatbots; Microsoft added it to Bing; and Buzzfeed has big plans for new content. (Whew! We knew we weren’t actually Hufflepuff; those old, human-written quizzes just failed to recognize us as Gryffindor. *wipes sweat off brow*)
A recent Goldman Sachs report predicted that AI could affect 300 million jobs worldwide, representing 18% of the global labor market. OpenAI’s own estimate is closer to 80%. Levi’s even plans to “supplement human models” with AI renderings of nonexistent people wearing its clothes.
While AI might not put every human out of a job, it will impact every small business. So what roles can we expect AI to replace?
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If the recent advancements in technology have you feeling like you’re living in I, Robot, you’re not the only one.
Codeword, a leading tech-marketing agency, even created an internship program for two AI interns named Aiko and Aiden. While they can’t fetch coffee, they’ll be “handling content at scale” and “generating large volumes of rough concept thumbnails for mood boards, news and trend research,” and other tasks.
As automation improves, we’ll start to see other roles be replaced or supplemented, especially ones that involve a lot of repetitive tasks: customer service reps, taxi and bus drivers, and receptionists for sure … but eventually, AI could take on duties of couriers, security guards, surgical assistants, and military pilots. (One aspiring entrepreneur went viral by asking ChatGPT to design a business plan for a $100 budget.)
Generative AI feels exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time, but despite its rapid advancements, most workers don’t need to give up on their careers just yet. When the business consultants at Lewis Silkin asked ChatGPT how it would manage staff, the chatbot gave impressive suggestions but concluded, “It’s always recommended to have human oversight and review of the generated texts.”
Yep, ChatGPT still wants us around the workplace a little longer. Perhaps, so we can eventually be its interns?
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Stand-Up Meetings: Fewer Chairs, Greater Efficiency
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Dr. Steven Rogelberg is a Chancellor’s Professor at UNC Charlotte and former president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
You don’t need a conference room (or even office chairs) to have a meeting.
Allen Bluedorn, a professor of management at the University of Missouri, compared the effectiveness of standing and sitting meetings. In a controlled experiment analyzing nearly 100 meetings with five participants each, Bluedorn and his colleagues found sit-down ones took 34% longer. Yet, meeting quality was not affected.
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Moreover, attendees reported greater satisfaction with standing meetings. Similar experiments conducted at Washington University found that stand-up meetings facilitated better group collaboration, openness to others’ ideas, and engagement than sit-down meetings.
This could be a neat tool in your meeting facilitation toolkit, not as something to use all the time but rather if it fits well. Here are some key caveats to keep in mind:
- Plan ahead. Notify your attendees about the standing meeting in advance so they know what to expect. If anyone is uncomfortable with this format, offer a seated option. Objections are usually due to a physical challenge or obstacle, and we want to honor and respect this.
- Monitor meeting length. People won’t want to stand for too long. Try to keep it under 20 minutes to reduce fatigue and/or irritation.
- Check meeting dynamics. Keep an eye out for any uncomfortable situations that may emerge given differences in physical stature. Your 5-foot attendee might feel frustrated standing behind your 6-foot-5 participant.
- Positive framing. Make sure attendees know this is a new approach being implemented in hopes of making your meetings more valuable, engaging, efficient, and fun. Seek feedback from them afterward to check whether they appreciate the format or want it to take a backseat.
Do you have a business question for the Organizational Psychologist’s Couch? Send it to b.newsletter@business.com and our experts may answer in an upcoming issue.
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On April 7 in Business History:
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- 1827: John Walker, who invented friction matches, sold his first set.
- 1927: U.S Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover took part in the first public demonstration of a videophone. The future president called the chief of AT&T on camera. (Is Zoom really so new?)
- 1933: About eight months before Prohibition’s full repeal, low-alcohol beer was legalized (again). Beer would remain the highest-selling alcoholic beverage for almost a century in the U.S.
- 1949: Henry Ford died. His factory-production innovations live on.
- 1969: Is your birthday today? If so, you share it with none other than the internet. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) awarded BBN Technologies a contract to build the precursor to the World Wide Web.
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Easter doesn’t have an official cocktail, so a Seattle bartender decided to create one. Jamie Boudreau, owner of Canon Seattle, came up with this “Esther Bunny” seasonal Manhattan riff:
- An ounce of bourbon
- ½ ounce Punt e Mes
- ¼ ounce Fernet-Branca
- ¼ ounce crème de menthe
- ¼ ounce triple sec
- Three dashes of angostura bitters
Stir on ice and then strain. The key move, though, is to hollow out a chocolate bunny for your serving vessel!
(If you’re observing Passover, wine is the traditional drink for a Seder meal, but Louis Royer XO Cognac is certified kosher … and it’s delicious.)
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Written by Skye Schooley, Ali Saleh, and Aaron Goldfarb. Comic by John McNamee.
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