Lila MacLellan

The United States finally has a president-elect but it remains a nation that feels truly divided. Pulling the country together sounds like a job for the politicians, but there’s little reason to believe they will meet this challenge with quick success (if they agree to meet it at all). This means that come Monday morning, as Americans file back in (or log back on) to their workplaces, it will be up to managers to create a sense of cohesion despite the turmoil, if not for the good of their country than for the good of their teams.

For three days, Americans have waited for election results with one hand on the TV remote (or a refresh button), and the other clutching stress-eating concoctions like General Tso chicken and fried rice burritos.

If it was never completely possible to leave politics at the door to your workplace, now the idea is probably laughable. In the US, especially, the political has become deeply personal—and everything, including a deadly virus—is charged with partisan significance.

When a CEO gets political, the reactions are usually mixed.

“How are you?” has never been the best way to ask authentically about how someone was feeling. But before the Covid-19 pandemic, it was a sufficient and widely accepted form of checking in, especially in the workplace.

American CEOs have become very vocal about several contentious political and social issues. Just in the past few years, many have advocated for LGBTQ rights and voiced concern for America’s Dreamers. Some have taken heat for embracing gender-neutral bathrooms. Many condemned the travel ban from Muslim countries that US president Donald Trump instituted shortly after he took office. More recently, dozens have pledged support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Narcissists are attracted to power and know how to get it.

Dropbox, the file-sharing software company, is giving up entirely on its offices as a daily destination and converting all of its 13 global properties into “Dropbox Studios.”

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, recently announced he was committed to building an “apolitical” workplace, but the politics of that move did not sit well with a substantial number of employees at the San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange.

The vice presidential debate of the US election was remarkable for what it was not: a shitshow.

As the pandemic stretches on unevenly around the globe, the German government wants to codify labor conditions for remote employees.

After the first US presidential debate on Tuesday, searches for “immigrating to Canada” spiked online, just as they had the night of the 2016 election results. Now that the US president has tested positive for Covid-19, the turbulence and uncertainty could lead to even more intense interest in migrating north. 

In the beginning, you probably didn’t miss the commutes.

Back in June, Brian Armstrong, CEO of the digital currency exchange Coinbase,  tweeted his support for the Black Lives Matter movement, making him an anomaly in his industry. It was an easy, possibly empty gesture, but it beat the deafening silence from most of his peers in the crypto world.

Vernā Myers, vice president of inclusion strategy at Netflix, says the best thing about what has happened in the past few tragedy-marked months since the Black Lives Matter movement was reignited is that “the words ‘oppression’ and ‘structural racism’ and ‘systemic issues,’ these are part of the parlance, the regular vocabulary.”

As of this week, it will be rude to ignore the other commuters in an Uber carpool: The company is reviving shared rides, but only for people who work together.

US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died today at age 87, was more than an intellectual giant who changed the way we understood the law and civil rights. She also shared lessons about how to live with integrity and style.

From 1900 until his death in 1952, Charles Clinton Spaulding helmed the largest Black-owned business in the US, the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, and championed a gentler, kinder form of capitalism that did not sacrifice growth. Despite the racist political and cultural forces working against him and other Black executives at the time, he turned a once-struggling firm into a prominent business worth nearly $400 million in today’s money.

Earlier this year, boxing superstar Mike Tyson shared astonishing video clips from one of his recent sparring sessions. At 53, the former multi-year world heavyweight champion appeared as fearsome as ever. The displays of his might went viral.

In early August, almost two months after businesses in the UK started reopening, just 17% of office workers had made it back to the office. An anxious UK government—one report said the country’s economy stood to lose £480 billion ($600 billion) to remote work—embarked on an awareness campaign, urging white-collar employees to head back to the workplace.

“It beats driving alone,” a cartoon skunk declares in a cheerful 1974 public service announcement encouraging Americans to carpool. In the ad, a reporter interviews Noah (captain of the Biblical ark) about the rewards of sharing a ride. “It worked out for us,” the bearded sailor chirps. “You’re going to have more fun together,” his animals croon.

As a child in New York City, Steven Roberts attended a predominantly Black church where—as is common in Black churches across the US—God and Jesus were depicted as white men.

I once managed to land a job offer by casually referencing my admiration for Leonard Cohen during the interview. Also, they needed someone immediately and I was available.

Months into the pandemic and its economic fallout, a lot of workers are feeling understandably anxious and insecure about the future. What can companies do to boost morale?