America’s Best Employers | The New Corporate Offsite | #MeToo’s Big Bill

Plus: How To Get Your Employees To Fall In Love With You Again

Welcome back, everyone. Hope you had a nice Valentine's Day. Believe it or not, some couples say working from home together has actually helped their relationship, according to a new survey from Upwork. This week in Forbes Careers:

–Office culture without the office

–How to manage “achievement junkies” on your team 🏆

–The wellness 🧘🏽‍♀️ retreat is the new corporate offsite 

What does corporate culture mean when you take away the beer taps and ping pong tables? That’s what many companies are wrestling with as we reach the second anniversary of the pandemic. When the office is no longer center stage, the squishy definition of culture that consultants like to repeat—“how things get done around here”—gets even harder to grok when the “here” is no longer a place most people go every day.

To go with Forbes’ list of America’s Best Employers, I spoke with several companies—including Genentech, PayPal and General Mills—about corporate culture to see what they’re focused on now. From “protected time” hours to more frequent virtual all-hands meetings to built-in “wellness days” that give everyone more time off, the focus is shifting away from perks that make the office enticing to benefits that make life more manageable. 

This year’s list of top employers can be found here, with stories not only about how corporate culture is shifting to focus more on local teams, but how a range of hospitals have had to wrestle with healthcare worker burnout and the women behind top midsize employer Vera Bradley, where workers still get a chocolate bar and a crisp $50 bill on their birthdays. What makes a “best employer” best in today’s world may have shifted a little, but the most important things haven’t changed: Putting action behind touted “values,” the presence of leadership on the ground and giving workers time to manage the rest of their lives. 

On that note, the Forbes Careers newsletter will take a one-week hiatus next week as I take some much-needed time off with my family. We’ll be back in your inbox on Feb. 29 with more ideas, news and insights—hopefully well-rested and ready for what’s next.

Work Smarter

The high-profile Spotify controversy shows why companies should all have chief reputation officers.

Searching for a job? Here are five ways to make your LinkedIn profile pop this year.

Why empathy is the best currency in the current war for talent.

When managing a crisis, follow the “four laws of holes”—something Peloton isn’t doing.

Here’s the right way to manage “achievement junkies” on your team.

On Our Agenda

#MeToo’s big bill: The Senate passed a bill last Thursday that would end forced arbitration in workplace sexual assault and harassment cases, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law. When that happens, “it will free tens of millions of workers from forced arbitration clauses,” writes Forbes’ Kim Elsesser. 

Giddyup, coworker: Offsites are increasingly becoming a way for employees to get together when the office is less of a draw. Salesforce announced last week it was introducing Trailblazer Ranch, a 75-acre wellness retreat set amid the redwoods of California that will offer access to yoga, hiking and outdoor fire pits alongside leadership training and onboarding for new hires. 

The pressure of “pleasanteeism”: A new Qualtrics survey shows the impact of work on burnout and mental health: Two years into the pandemic, 58% of employees say their job is the source of their mental health problems. Meanwhile, as many as 75% of U.K. workers surveyed by a workforce health and well-being company said they suffer from “pleasanteeism,” or the pressure to put on a brave face at work.

Mandate impact: On Friday, New York City was expected to terminate the nearly 4,000 city employees who had not complied with the municipality’s vaccine mandate. That’s only about 1% of the city’s total workforce and down from earlier estimates of those who would be impacted.

Watch those Zoom links: The new CEO of Peloton’s first virtual meeting with employees was interrupted by upset laid-off workers, according to a CNBC report. What we want to know: How did they get the link?

Book Club

The newest book from CEO adviser Keith Ferrazzi, Competing In The New World Of Work, based on research of more than 2,000 Fortune 500 executives, looks not at how companies went remote or tried hybrid, but how they’ll operate in the world that comes after the pandemic. With coauthors Kian Gohar and Noel Weyrich, Ferrazzi, who is also a Forbes leadership strategy contributor, focuses the book on a new model of leadership—radical adaptability—he argues will be paramount in the years to come.

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