New Week_New Headlines: RTO Costing Employees $561/mo & CEO Optimism Rises. Do We All Finally Get Our Hot Girl Summer?

Heeeeeeeeey Friends!

Well, we're making it a fun news week. Because, you know what, we all deserve some good news to balance out the news-news. So, here's what we're talking about this week:

Topic #1: RTO Costing Employees $561/mo
Yes, according to Fortune, the average employee returning to the office spends $561 per month. That is comparable to the average two-person household’s grocery bill in the U.S. for the entire month, or as Francesca pointed out - a lease on an Audi. And, those aren't the only costs.

Topic #2: CEO Optimism Rises. Do We All Finally Get Our Hot Girl Summer?
For the first time in two years, CEOs' optimism about the economy is on the rise and above 50%, according to The Conference Board. We break down what that could mean for employees, and our summer.
NOTE: I (Francesca) cherry picked the good news out of this study - to show some sun coming through the clouds. For a super balanced view of this report, check out this breakdown by Dana Peterson, Chief Economist, at The Conference Board. 

Hot Job of The Week: Sales Beast at King Kong
Best job description of all time. 

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.

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Transcript

Mel: 0:05

Well, hey, friends, hey, this is your work. Friends, friends, friends.

Francesca : 0:11

It's been very, very much been added.

Mel: 0:27

Well, hey friends, I'm Mel, I'm Francesca and we are 2HR Leaders with no filter, exposing the stuff you need to know about work. We're here, a new week, new headlines, talking about stuff. Francesca, what are you talking about today?

Francesca : 0:41

Yeah, I'm talking about the uptick in CEO confidence and what that means for all of us. Mel, what are you talking about? Oh, awesome.

Mel: 0:49

I am going to talk about the cost of return to office.

Francesca : 0:53

I'm curious about that. Plus we have a fun, cool, hot job that we found so Hot jobs.

Mel: 0:59

It is really my new favorite thing. Well, I'd love to start with the pessimistic thing, so we can end on an optimistic thing.

Francesca : 1:07

Oh, let's do it. Let's do it Okay.

Mel: 1:13

So I was reading Fortune Mag online and the big headline was employees are spending the equivalent of a month's grocery bill on return to office and they're growing more resentful. Understandable, yeah, understandable. Kind of a chunk of change. I spent a lot of groceries.

Francesca : 1:33

So yeah, that would be. Yeah, it makes me nervous a little.

Mel: 1:36

That obviously sent me down more research here. Better up conducted a survey recently and part of that survey included some numbers on the number of primary remote roles that have now since moved to return to office, whether that's hybrid or fully back in the office. And, believe it or not, 50% of what was once primarily remote has moved to RTO.

Francesca : 2:02

Whoa. Yeah, I understand that if we're going from COVID to now, but that still feels very large.

Mel: 2:10

It's large, it went too extreme, so we're all remote. Now we're back. Yeah, one out of four businesses are citing the reasons for this are improved connection, culture and employee morale. And there's two sides to this coin, because the other side of this are people who are experiencing it employees. Fortune Magazine conducted their own survey with 1,400 professionals who since returned to office in some capacity or the other, and they found that employees who have been mandated to return to office have a higher rate of burnout, a higher rate of stress and have higher turnover intentions. So they plan to quit.

Francesca : 2:50

Can't tell you something. Anytime I've ever been mandated to do something, it kind of feels kind of ick, doesn't it?

Mel: 2:58

It does, it does, it's all in the delivery. So, they noted, if that return to office transition isn't handled with a higher level of humanity, sensitivity, empathy, what they're finding is workplace culture suffers significantly and the workforce sense of belonging plummet and you talked about this a few episodes ago.

Mel: 3:21

But the number one thing that's needed is belonging, one of the most important pieces of work, I think. Look, you're an organization. You're hiring professionals for a reason because you trust they bring skills and experience and their grownups and can handle and manage their work. If you're returning to office is a form of control to ensure you see them, that's not the same as providing an improved workplace culture. That's not improving relationships and that's certainly not going to improve morale. And so I think, if you're an organization considering RTO or you've already brought that in time to check in on those three buckets and see how are we doing in these three I think what's really hard is we all got used to working from home and seeing what we could accomplish when we worked from home.

Francesca : 4:15

A lot of people outperformed their years prior as well, so it felt like remote was working. And then I know we've talked about this before but to have this flip of now we're mandating you back. I'm very curious to know what the employee has to cover to return to work if they're mandated back on Monday through Thursday or Monday through Friday, because employees have to feel like they have to pay out of pocket to keep their job. I understand why burnout would go up.

Mel: 4:42

Let's get to the juicy part of the headline Bank accounts, because they started with the financial. But I wanted to start with the other pieces because there's clearly a physical, mental, emotional and financial impact to this Bank accounts.

Mel: 4:56

The average employee returning to the office spends $561 for a month, transportation, additional child or pet care and any sort of domestic assistance. So things like grocery delivery, potentially, or you need to send your laundry out because you don't have time to throw it in between meetings for 15 minutes, or you're paying for lunch now that you normally would just make it home, or a cup of coffee. All of these things are starting to add up and that $561 a month is comparable to the average two-person household's grocery bill in the US for their entire month. So people are paying to work, or at least feel like they're paying to work, and if you're paying to work, I want to feel good about where I work.

Francesca : 5:48

Yeah, when you think about that number another just fun fact that's like a $45,000 car you could lease a pretty nice car. You could lease an Audi like an A4 or an A3 for that, Right, that's what you're asking the folks.

Mel: 6:02

Needless to say, this is an ongoing discussion. Return to office is a hot topic. But, to your head point we've talked about this before If you're mandating and it's not a thoughtful reason for bringing people together and you know this if there is research that shows getting together is valuable, it does increase work satisfaction, it does improve working relationships, but that's if it's done well. If done poorly, which these mandates? We've seen them right, like the threats you'll get fired or you will get promoted, or key cards being scanned daily to see when you check them. And now that's a category of done poorly. And what better. Up in the University of California conducted a study and they found when this is done poorly, that's what's causing resentment, which leads to that turnover, and turnover your highest expense covering that turnover having a higher new people.

Mel: 7:01

So it does actually hurt business bottom line and businesses should care about it. That's fascinating. We get it.

Francesca : 7:09

Not every job allows you to work from home, but there are a lot of jobs that it can work really well, once we can figure out the sweet spot for we get together when it, when it feels really good to get together and we have a good purpose for it, and we work remotely when they need to work remotely, like we pick where and when depending on what we're doing and we trust each other to Do it. That to me feels like the sweet spot. Doing that on scale as an organization. It's been done, but it takes quite a bit of trust and it takes an engineered culture to do. It has to come from the top.

Mel: 7:44

Yeah, I have to come from the top, so we'll see our to is continuing to be an interesting topic. Hey, listen, if any of you out there listening to this episode and your organization is doing this really well, yeah, we want to hear about it. Let us know. Join us in our LinkedIn group, send us an email. Friend at your work runs comm and Follow us the story. We're happy to share it because we do want to highlight those businesses that are doing this. Right, let's talk about CEO optimism.

Francesca : 8:17

Well, for the first time in two years, optimism outweighs pessimism among CEOs, which is Pretty cool thing. Listen, I was looking for good news. I will try to. It was an confirmation bias. I don't know what the hell this is. I was just looking for good.

Mel: 8:34

I was looking for good work news.

Francesca : 8:35

You know.

Mel: 8:36

I know that you love for good news. It's like you need a little good news these days.

Francesca : 8:40

We need a little good news and there's always good news but sometimes it's kind of nice to know just getting better, is this getting worse? The conference board Does this thing called the measure of CEO confidence. It's a quarterly report where they're looking at how our CEOs feeling About the economy and what are they planning on in the next six months, in the next year, in terms of spend and in terms of capital investment, employment, wages, etc. I always think this is a really interesting thing to look at because, just like you manage your own budget, you are taking into account things like how is the economy? How's inflation? Do I have a big trip coming up? All this good jazz.

Francesca : 9:18

Well, ceos do the same thing, right in terms of how they're gonna manage a business. They're looking at what's happening. How confident do I feel about money that's gonna be coming in? How confident do I feel about things happening in the ether to start to save all this happy jazz? If you're not familiar with the conference board, they're a think tank. They also do a lot of organizational boards as well. They have one for CEOs, cmos, clos. You and I have been part of conference boards before. They're entrenched in a lot of major organizations, so they do have a very good pulse on what's going on in businesses and they have a pretty good pulse on the CEO confidence.

Mel: 9:55

That's great Okay.

Francesca : 9:57

Yeah, all right, I got a little bit more news. I'm gonna unpack this a little bit and I also want to talk about why this might be cool for employees. All right, so at 53% favorability in terms of the economy, it was at 46%, so we see this bump up. 46% last quarter, it's now at 53, which is huge.

Mel: 10:16

Again, the first time in two years that it's been above 50 yeah, and 7% increase in just one quarter is not a small increase.

Francesca : 10:24

Not a small increase. A couple of other things to look at. In terms of this optimism about the economy 1 32% of CEOs said economic conditions were better than compared to six months ago. Okay, just last quarter, only 18% of CEOs said that. So we've gone from 18 to 36% massive jump up there, which is huge. 36% of CEOs expected economic conditions to improve over the next six months. Again, that's up from 19%. Yeah, these are all big jumps, big jumps. So the key categories really good news. It's very good news. They're saying listen, last six months better, looking forward the next six months, feeling really good about that in these statistically significant jumps Again first time in two years. So we're seeing this turnaround.

Francesca : 11:11

Why this is important for employees. Because of this confidence or this optimism, 35% of CEOs expect their workforce to expand over the next 12 months. That's exciting. 72% of CEOs expect wages to increase by at least 3%. That last thing I want to share here is that most CEOs are not planning to revise their capital spending. This was an interesting data point because what that means we're not going to go whole hog on throwing a lot of money into new ventures or new buildings, etc. We're going to invest those monies in keeping our labor.

Mel: 11:49

That's a good sign. With all the recent layoffs and everything else, that's a good sign for people to feel the retention of employees.

Francesca : 11:57

Yeah.

Mel: 11:57

Agree.

Francesca : 11:58

Agree. I know for some of you that have had micro recessions in tech or in finance, where we've seen layoffs that might feel not true to your story. Think about this, though, in aggregate, because there have been industries like healthcare, like hospitality, like travel and leisure that have had booms. This, again, is looking at the economy and aggregate.

Francesca : 12:21

Yeah, it's looking good. So are we out of the woods? Not yet, but we're getting there. It'll be interesting to look at next quarter. Also, mel, want to remind you. Do you remember what I told you when I found out that the panitone color of the year was peach fuzz? Remember when this was in December or something I said? What did I say? What did I say, mel?

Mel: 12:45

You said we're about to have a hot girl summer.

Francesca : 12:48

Hell yeah, that concerns that we're all about to have hot girl summer. Listen, inflation's going down, interest rates are steady, or they're going down, the CEO's feeling good, you know what that says Hot girl summer, hot girl summer Thank you for coming to my TED.

Mel: 13:04

Talks. This is good news and, to your point, I'm sure, for a lot of people who have been impacted by layoffs, this is eye roll material, I'm sure for them, or it can feel that way because it's super personal, but this does take into account the bigger picture, which is so important. So this leaves me feeling a bit more optimistic.

Francesca : 13:24

Yeah, Hot girl summer yeah.

Mel: 13:26

Girl summer yeah. Mel what's this week's job? Oh my gosh, I had the best time researching this week the hot jobs, and I was on Indeed and found Indeed. You were Indeed, was on Indeed, indeed, looking for this. There is a digital marketing firm out of Santa Monica, california, called I love Santa.

Francesca : 13:55

Monica, by the way, have you ever visited?

Mel: 13:56

I have not, but I really would love to visit. I've seen photos of the pier and would really just like to bum around for a bit.

Francesca : 14:05

Shout out for Sella Rosa Pizza. That's the first place I ever had burrata, just so everyone knows. Okay, good.

Mel: 14:11

I'm gonna add my list. So in Santa Monica there is this digital marketing agency called King Kong.

Francesca : 14:19

Already love it.

Mel: 14:21

And they had a couple of really funny positions. What stands out to me is always these job titles which I'm like yeah, let you know what hell. Yeah, let's have fun at work, let's get creative, let's not be boring, and this is right up my alley. So they had two roles. I'm gonna read one of them, if that's okay. If everyone indulged me in reading this job description, the first one was Sales Beast. Can you guess what's a sales beast?

Francesca : 14:50

Just telling it Going huge into sales, sales all day, like ABC always be closed. I guess that's the right thing.

Mel: 14:57

So this role is Sales Beast slash, obviously business development manager I'm sure they were like probably be a little professional here and add that in Pay is between 200 and 250K a year.

Mel: 15:09

I'm seeing it. It doesn't say it's a contract job, so you know, maybe it's flexible. But the funniest part is this description. Can I read this description to you? Please do? Dear Sales Beast, I know you're tired of the cold call, tired of getting hung up on time after time, having door after door slammed in your face, or I'm wrong. There's some strange lizard person who enjoys that stuff. And if you're a lizard person then I'm sure you also enjoy reading job ad after job ad Reading. You will have proficiency in handling a high volume of leads and multitasking effectively. Over and over again Boring. So let's cut the shit, hit the free throw and get those other listings in the bin.

Mel: 15:53

Sir Siri, q-world Domination Music who are we? We're a digital marketing agency that's damn good at getting our clients more clients, but we're nothing without 85 of the most passionate marketing lunatics you've ever seen. Think of the TV show the Office. But instead of Dwight and Angela being weird, think more staplers and Jell-O. I mean, I can talk about the Australian Financial Review Awards we won for best places to work, but the proof is in the pudding. Check our LinkedIn or Glassdoor and see the vibes for yourself. Wait, what Are you still reading? You're a hard sell. I know it's time. I know it's time. Write that juicy cover letter and hit apply already. Tell me about yourself no, not the fact that you played college football or you love baking on the weekends. Tell me the details, your reason for why, why you wake up and do this shit for fun. The bone marrow of sorts Still not sold. It's time to check those benefits out. Good luck, good luck. I think this is such an awesome job Come on Two thoughts.

Francesca : 16:52

Whoever's writing that copy just needs a promotion Anytime cut this shit is in a job description, that's just yeah.

Mel: 16:59

Korra, why you wake up and do this shit for fun. I mean let's have some real conversations in the job process. I love this. I love the whole vibe of this. They also have a Yoda of YouTube job available, so we'll link to both of those jobs in the show notes. If you're interested, go get them. Enjoy King Kong Bravo.

Francesca : 17:21

Oh my God, Geez, this shit. Yeah, this just says cut the shit.

Mel: 17:25

Cut the shit. Yeah, I love that term.

Francesca : 17:27

All right, king Kong, king Kong it's doing it.

Mel: 17:30

They're cutting the shit.

Francesca : 17:31

Good, that was awesome to chat with you today. Awesome to chat with you too.

Mel: 17:39

We're stoked to come back Thursday. We have guest speaker Brett Traynor joining us. He is the leader of the Corbett Escapy podcast and initiative. You can find him on TikTok and LinkedIn and he is on a mission to convert 10,000 plus people to corporate Escapy life meaning if you're into gigs and gig work, freelance, being a single Pringle, as Francesca likes to say he's going to give some really interesting information about how to get started and how to be successful. Yeah, Can't wait, Can't wait.

Francesca : 18:14

Thanks so much for joining us today. Like and subscribe. Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. It is up at yourworkfriendscom. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work friends. Bye, friend, music off One, two. What are the rules you follow?