The Final State To Pass An Equal Pay Bill | Meeting Remote Colleagues | Gas Perks For Workers

Plus: The Job Market Is Still Hot—And Wages Are Still Growing

Happy Tuesday, everyone. Kansas fans are celebrating after winning the largest comeback in N.C.A.A. championship game history—even if it felt like the biggest game was played on Saturday, when Duke and Carolina faced off in 'Hoops Armageddon.' This week in Forbes Careers: 

– Meeting your coworkers for the first time

– Mississippi’s new pay equity law ‘stands alone’

– Beware the MBA boss

As you read this, I’ll be on a plane, heading to New York to meet many of my Forbes coworkers for the first time. After six months of seeing their faces on Zoom and swapping messages on Slack, I’m excited to meet most of them for the first time. While I’ve worked with our team’s assistant managing editor, Diane Brady, in the past—I’ve never met everyone else in person.

Like many people who’ve started new jobs in the past two years, I’ve done so remotely. I live in Atlanta, and while many of Forbes’ editors and reporters are based in the New York area, the company has a flexible policy to remote work. Our team, which includes editors who cover careers, leadership strategy, C-suite roles like CMOs and CIOs, and founder groups like ForbesWomen and For(bes) The Culture, is getting together for a day and a half of brainstorming, team-building and, of course, cocktails.

As return to office plans kick into high gear and business travel takes off again, many people—even those who aren’t new—are getting reconnected with people in person. Certain occasions—like our team-building offsite—calls for face-to-face meetings, while other moments don’t, writes London Business School’s Julian Birkinshaw. If you’re a little nervous about meeting coworkers for the first time, here’s some ideas for how to get to know your new colleagues (maybe I should read this one). And then of course, there’s what to wear—and what not to—when yoga pants are no longer the answer.

Work Smarter

Forbes assistant managing editor Steve Bertoni talks with Harry’s co-CEO and cofounder Jeff Raider about what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

Want to build your brand on LinkedIn? Here are the new features you need to know about. The professional social platform is also launching new tools for a skills-first economy you can read more about here.

Desk too close to the pantry? How to stock your kitchen at home for a productive remote workday.

Your work and your life may feel like an “either-or.” Embrace an expansive, flexible approach instead.

One of the hottest topics in leadership development is trust. Here’s how to build a new mindset around it.

On Our Agenda

Beware the MBA boss: A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that if your manager is an MBA, you might make less. As Forbes contributor Erik Sherman writes, when people with business degrees are put in charge, versus founders or internal managers who come up the ranks, wages drop by an average of 6% in the U.S. 

Pain at the pump: From childcare challenges to office politics, workers have their reasons for not wanting to return to the workplace. But a recent survey by management consultancy Korn Ferry finds that commuting is what the majority are most dreading. And as sticker shock at the pump has Americans hesitant to hit the road, some employers are creating new perks to get them where they need to go. Read more from Forbes assistant editor Emmy Lucas.

Quitting is so yesterday: Rather than resigning outright, more workers are coasting, slacking or cyberloafing, writes Forbes contributor Jack Kelly, taking advantage of a hot job market to take it easy rather than move on. A recent survey of 11,000 U.S. workers found 39% were coasting and a January 2022 study by Gallup revealed half of employees reported they’re neither engaged nor disengaged at work. 

Your online network may want to recruit you: Blind, the anonymous professional social network, where tech workers share raw posts or thoughts about their workplaces, recently announced the launch of Talent by Blind, planning to connect its more than 5 million members with employers. Similarly, the women’s professional tech network Elpha hopes to “flip the cultural match on its head and help women find companies that are a culture match for them,” cofounder Cadran Cowansage told me recently. 

Give yourself a text break: New research from the business school at Florida International University finds that excessive use of text-based communication, such as email, Slack messaging or texting for complex tasks can lower the performance of your work started later in the day. In one test, for instance, participants had to work via text or in person to put a series of pictures in the right order—those who used text didn’t find as many errors as those who were in person, a 19% reduction in complex reasoning, the study found.

Book Club

Marcus Buckingham is a management guru known for writing about finding your strengths rather than developing your weaknesses. He started his career at Gallup, which is known for its research on employee engagement. But what’s missing in the conversation in the workplace, Buckingham writes—about our work, our careers and our personal lives—is love, he writes in his latest book, Love + Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life. 

Key quote: “Really, there’s no space between the two,” Buckingham writes. “Some will tell you not to bring your personal feelings—your loves—to work. The data, however, reveals that the causal arrow pointing the other way is just as strong. How you feel about work—whether your work is uplifting or soul-destroying, whether it fulfills you or empties you out, whether it makes you feel valued or utterly useless—all of it will be experienced most keenly at home, by you and the ones you love.”

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