Hello, Quartz at Work readers!
Gen Z is having a harder time around the water cooler, and their conversation skills aren’t to blame. For younger workers who came up in the time of pandemic Zoom school and remote work, the return to office push has had them struggling with their soft skills in professional settings. And they can use some help with communicating.
With young workers experiencing in-person work for the first time, many entry-level employees haven’t learned some key communication skills they’d normally have picked up in in-person classrooms and offices. Companies are noticing the difference, too: In the UK, firms like Deloitte and PwC are bringing their youngest recruits into all-new training programs intended to strengthen their communication chops.
But according to researcher and facilitator Dustin York, some of those skills have little to do with the spoken word: Younger workers also need help with nonverbal cues—the kind that help you keep eye contact, express through gestures, and read a room.
“Being able to build trust with colleagues and with customers, to build credibility and empathy,” he says, “comes down to nonverbals.”
In good news, he says, we can workshop for showing up more naturally. Quartz at Work’s Gabriela Riccardi explains how to teach core communication skills via better body language and nonverbal hints.
Among them, he names three key abilities we can all brush up on. One hint: They have to do with 👀, 👋, and ⏱. Find out what they are by reading on.
FUEL AGAINST FATIGUE
😴 Oysgezoomt (adj.): Fatigued or bored by Zoom, at least in Yiddish. According to Thrive Global CEO Arianna Huffington, although plenty of us are in the office at least part of the time, we’re still feeling flat-out from virtual meeting fatigue.
In an interview with Quartz’s Anna Oakes, Huffington talks about ways to recover from the exhaustion that’s plaguing us in hybrid and remote work. One solution: Microbreaks, or short resets that can subdue our stress.
According to cognitive research, we only need 60 to 90 seconds to get a recharge that can keep us feeling powered for hours. Huffington details how you can establish a routine of resets in your day. For what it’s worth, hers includes far-flung locales and Taylor Swift.
THE TURNOVER TIPOFF
1 million: The number of retail workers researchers looked at to understand exactly what happens to teams when their best coworkers leave.
You might suspect that when great teammates leave, more will follow them. And it’s true: Exits by top performers do set off more departures from their company. But surprisingly, the corresponding impact (and turnover) depends on exactly how these coworkers leave.
In a newly-published study, researchers from the University of British Columbia and the University of Minnesota find different outcomes if a top teammate’s exit was:
👋 A choice to move on
⛔️ A dismissal
😢 A layoff
The study also discovers a surprising side effect: When high performers leave, more high performers quit. And when low performers leave, well, the low performers still on the job tend to go, too. Learn exactly how these exits prompt turnover—and why a layoff matters much more than two-week notice.
PIVOT TO CODE
AI is poised to transform our jobs—if not put some of them at risk of replacement. According to an April report from Goldman Sachs, about two-thirds of US occupations will be impacted by AI to some degree. Now coding boot camps, which promise to equip students with the most in-demand skills, are adapting to reflect that.
Instructors like General Assembly and Code.org are adding AI to their lessons—before AI replaces them, too. “Our instructors are on the ground teaching it now,” said Robert Jones, vice president of product strategy at General Assembly. Reporter Michelle Cheng explains how education companies are adapting to AI so their business models don’t become obsolete.
KNOW YOUR OMBUDS
According to one estimate, US employees lose two and a half weeks of time per year to office conflict. And frankly, that’s a lot of minutes spent arguing over the quarterly review system or the project ROIs.
➡️ Enter the in-house ombuds. This emerging position is put to work as a neutral third party for company conflict, tasked with intercepting issues and collecting complaints.
The role serves as more than a sounding board when Andy from accounting torpedoes your big budget—it can also be a key contributor to surface discrimination, harassment, or other workplace issues that don’t always feel safe bringing to a manager.
It turns out that organizations like Pinterest and the World Bank have ombuds on the payroll. So should you petition for your company to have one, too? Read on and find out.
THERE’S JUST ONE APP FOR THAT
Apple’s early App Store ads famously proclaimed, “There’s an app for that”—anything you wanted to do on your phone, the company insisted, you could do through an app. But when smartphones came to China, there was just one app that really mattered: WeChat, the self-styled “superapp.”
In the latest episode of the Quartz Obsession podcast, host Scott Nover asks reporter Ananya Bhattacharya why Western tech companies are so fixated on building a superapp—or an “everything app,” as Elon Musk likes to say. And will they ever make it happen?
📖 If reading’s more your thing, try the transcript, or learn more about why Elon Musk won’t be able to make a superapp.
QUARTZ AT WORK’S TOP STORIES
🔄 What happens to turnover when colleagues leave?
🧠 To unlock your full potential, know your biomarkers—including ones your smartwatch can’t track
😣 Is your oysgezoomt causing stress?
⚠️ LinkedIn announced layoffs and the closure of its Chinese jobs app InCareer
👨👧👦 How to plan coverage for a parental leave boom
YOU GOT THE MEMO
Send questions, comments, and stories of ombuds embeds to aoakes@qz.com. This edition of The Memo was produced by Gabriela Riccardi.