John White Alexander’s ‘Repose’ (1895).
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The ethics of idleness have been debated for thousands of years.
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The Fourth Industrial Revolution failed to deliver; it’s time that we put our faith once again in hard science.
Portrait of Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820.
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Assessing around 500 of the composer’s correspondence, we are able to see how a rise in sadness and other negative emotions resulted in increased creative productivity.
Life online isn’t ideal, but it is manageable.
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From setting passwords to cultivating patience, a mindful approach to virtual working, studying and socializing can make life online manageable.
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Five tips for greater employee satisfaction and productivity.
About one-third of Canada’s workforce are also caregivers, most often to aging parents or parents-in-law.
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Changes to working life created by COVID-19 give employers an opportunity to embrace a caregiver-friendly work culture, supporting the millions of Canadians who juggle employment and informal caring.
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Australia’s living standards have remained remarkably stable compared to those of other countries. Losing access to China wouldn’t change that much.
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A conservative estimate of the productivity gains from working from home suggests they’re bigger than all of the reforms of the 1990s combined.
Cannabis use is increasingly mainstream.
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New research explores how using cannabis at different times of the day influenced employee behaviour.
We asked 1,400 managers to rate working from home. Some 8.4% said their teams were less productive, 57% said it was the same, and 34% said it was higher.
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Working from home during lockdown reminded many of us of the benefits of office life. With a bit of imagination we could have the best of both worlds.
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Trials show a four-day week really works. With economies desperate for recovery, now could be the perfect time to encourage it.
‘Now, have I got the skills to fix this?’
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In these troubled economic times, skills and technology are key to lifting the UK out of the productivity doldrums.
Don’t sleep on the job.
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The more businesses encourage their employees to sleep well, the better their employees perform.
Happy holiday!
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Why hit the beach on holiday when you can use your annual leave to be ill at home instead?
Don’t take too long.
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Tilting toilets are the latest suggestion to limit time spent on the loo at work.
The leisure industry led one of many campaigns to free people from working on Saturday afternoons.
Government legislation followed numerous campaigns in the 19th century for Saturday afternoons off.
“[The Westpac scandal] comes at a bad time for the government which has legislation before parliament to crack down on union behaviour that goes off the rails, and here you have business behaviour being even worse,” says Michelle Grattan.
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University of Canberra VC Deep Saini and Michelle Grattan discuss this week in politics, and talk about what to expect in the last parliamentary sitting fortnight, which starts this Monday.
Albanese describes Australia as presently in a ‘productivity recession’.
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In his second “vision statement” Albanese says he wants to pursue his “productivity project”, and paints himself as a fiscal conservative well removed from Bill Shorten’s tax and spend approach.
Carbon productivity is the measure that matters, but we are hung up on the productivity of our workers.
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Labor productivity doesn’t matter as much as emissions productivity. Workers aren’t a particularly finite resource.