Workers - Publications - Faculty & Research

24 Oct 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Diasporas and Outsourcing: Evidence from oDesk and India

Keywords: Re: William R. Kerr; Manufacturing

20 Dec 2017
Lessons from the Classroom

How to Design a Better Customer Experience

to spend money on creating “moments of delight” for customers—and in 2013, staff logged more than 30,000 such moments for the chain’s hotel guests. Apple store employees are trained to handle upset customers; when a customer has a problem, View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Health; Entertainment & Recreation

27 Sep 2021
Research & Ideas

Managers, Your Employees Don’t Want to Be Facebook ‘Friends’

and beliefs online with the wrong colleague may expose employees to career consequences, such as not being hired or promoted and being discriminated against.” Workers are wary of friending bosses Across four studies, the authors examined... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Kim Raczka

23 Mar 2022
Blog Post

Learning Curve: The Brother-and-Sister Team Behind a New Edtech Nonprofit

approximately 150 million children ages 3 to 8, making it an ideal partner for working at scale. Rocket develops and delivers digital training materials focused specifically on boosting the skills of this group of public-sector educators. View Details

30 Mar 2020
Research & Ideas

The New Rules for Remote Work: Pandemic Edition

table or at least put them on a back burner for now, and let workers know which projects should be prioritized, says HBS Senior Lecturer Julia Austin, who provides leadership coaching to companies. “While now is a time to foster trust and... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Web

The 20th Century Zeitgeist - Leadership

and Labor created Influence: Medium 10 1910 s 19 Ford doubles factory wages and shortens workday Labor Secretary position created Worker shortage: Unions double membership and increase wages Influence: Medium-Low 20 1920 s 19 Union... View Details

18 Nov 2022
HBS Case

What Does It Take to Safeguard a Legacy in Asset Management?

professionals with an existing track record.” New employees relocate to Baltimore, where the firm is based. Investment teams are composed of generalists, not specialists, which maximizes knowledge sharing. The approach breaks with the common practices of treating... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services

18 Mar 2019
Research & Ideas

Stuck in Commuter Hell? You Can Still Be Productive

Workers commute an average 38 minutes each way between home and work—a trip that can feel like a dreadful chore before the workday even begins. In fact, long commutes lower job satisfaction and increase employee turnover. Now, recent... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

16 Mar 2023
Research & Ideas

Why Business Travel Still Matters in a Zoom World

Work-from-Anywhere World, How Remote Will Workers Go? Research News and Tips: Innovating Across Time Zones Feedback or ideas to share? Email the Working Knowledge team at hbswk@hbs.edu. Image: iStockphoto/Nikada View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin; Air Transportation

03 May 2022
Research & Ideas

Desperate for Talent? Consider Advancing Your Own Employees First

Job openings in the United States continue to hover at record high levels, exacerbated by the Great Resignation and a sputtering emergence from the pandemic. Competition remains fierce among companies struggling to find qualified workers. Yet many employers,... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

31 Jan 2023
Op-Ed

Can Insurance Technology Solve the Uninsured Driver Problem?

Unit at Harvard Business School. He studies the causes of financial distress among American households and how technology, private markets, and public policy can reduce those risks. You Might Also Like: Why Cutting Jobless Aid Isn't the Answer to View Details

Keywords: by Ray Kluender; Insurance

Web

Media Coverage - Managing the Future of Work

Feb 2025 Workshift To Break the Cycle of Low-Wage Work, Redesign the Workforce System By: Joseph Fuller 12 Feb 2025 HBS Working Knowledge Why Home Construction Has Slumped for Decades Re: William Kerr 10 Feb 2025 HBS Working Knowledge America's Digital Divide: Where... View Details

18 Dec 2017
Op-Ed

Why Employers Must Stop Requiring College Degrees For Middle-Skill Jobs

Credit: Pixsooz American companies have a problem. Over the past decade, they have begun to demand a bachelor’s degree in hiring workers for jobs that traditionally haven’t required one. This uptick in credentialing, or “degree inflation,” rested on the belief that... View Details

Keywords: by Joseph Fuller

01 Feb 2023
What Do You Think?

Will Hybrid Work Strategies Pull Down Long-Term Performance?

at prescribed times or days of the week. According to Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, who has studied remote work for years, totally remote workers constituted 15 percent of the US workforce as of early 2023, with another 30 percent... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

10 Apr 2014
Research & Ideas

John Kotter’s Plan to Accelerate Your Business

A mindset of "you get to" rather than "you have to." With this approach, which emphasizes to workers the privilege of working with great people on important work, "you don't ask anyone to do anything," Kotter says. Historically, people... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard

Research Summary

Overview

By: Ashley V. Whillans

Engaged with field work in East Africa, South Asia, and in several large hybrid organizations in the United States, Professor Whillans places a focus on exploring questions with strong theoretical motivation in the social psychological literature and relevant... View Details

29 Jul 2022
Research & Ideas

Will Demand for Women Executives Finally Shrink the Gender Pay Gap?

flexibility they need to work and be caregivers. Indeed, Healy and colleagues find that between 35 and 55 percent of the gender wage gap for executives reflects differences in the types of jobs that women choose versus men with the same qualifications. At the same... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

Web

Bibliography – The Human Relations Movement – Baker Library | Bloomberg Center, Historical Collections

North. The Industrial Worker: a Statistical Study of Human Relations in a Group of Manual Workers . Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938. Secondary Sources Adams, Stephen B. and Orville R. Butler. Manufacturing the Future: a History... View Details

Forthcoming
Book

How to Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage

By: Ranjay Gulati

What leads people to speak truth to power, share bold new ideas, or put their lives on the line? Most of us chalk it up to personality, presuming that our heroes are naturally fearless. But what if courage isn’t simply a matter of personality? What if it’s something... View Details

Keywords: Personal Characteristics; Personal Development and Career

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21 May 2014
HBS Seminar

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