Your Work Friends
Edgy Work Talk. Fresh Insights. We Break It Down So You Stay Ahead.
Its not just you - work is bonkers. You get hit from all sides. Your boss. Your team. Your clients. Another org change. A layoff. Which makes you want to chuck it all and live off the grid.
Friend-to-friend? We get it. We're in it. And we're finding the best ways to handle your work sh*t so you don't have to go sell candles in Montana.
We're two leadership pros, and friends, hitting you with the latest news, expert interviews, and real solutions.
Your Work Friends
New Week, New Headlines: AI Agents Rising, Employee Engagement Plummeting, and Harvard's 200K Promise
Well, AI isn't just making waves—it's creating tsunamis! AI agents are here, and they're nothing like the ChatGPT you've been using. Meanwhile, employee engagement has hit rock bottom, and Harvard is making a $200K promise that could change higher education forever.
In this episode, workplace experts (us, Mel & Francesca) break down:
⏰ 3:15 AI agents: Clippy on meth? How these digital assistants could save you an entire workday (and maybe get us to a 4-day workweek!)
⏰ 9:42 Engagement crisis: Only 30% of employees feel connected to their company's mission (yikes!) and it's costing the global economy $8.8 TRILLION
⏰ 17:30 Harvard's big move: Free tuition for families making under $200K—game-changer or PR stunt?
⏰ 21:15 Pour one out for Forever 21: The retail giant that got us through our 20s files for bankruptcy
🔥 CAREER ADVICE YOU CAN USE TODAY:
- Why you should embrace AI agents now (before your colleagues do)
- The simple thing managers can do to boost engagement when everyone's burned out
- How to prepare for the coming talent war in 2030
- What Harvard's tuition change means for accessing elite education
CONNECT WITH US: Website: https://yourworkfriends.com and on the socials.
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#AIAgents #EmployeeEngagement #WorkplaceTrends #HarvardTuition #4DayWorkweek
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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I want to talk about AI agents.
Speaker 2:I love it. It seems like clippy on speed. Yeah, maybe meth.
Speaker 1:Hey, welcome to your work friends. I'm Francesca and I'm Mel. Thank you for joining us on our little indie workplace, pod, If you like what you're hearing please feel free to subscribe, and the more that you like, subscribe and share, it helps us keep going.
Speaker 2:So, thank you very much. Thank you very much. All right, mel, what's going on? Yeah, listen, you can't tell me anything bad today, because tomorrow is the first day of spring.
Speaker 1:No, it's not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is Just for folks on the line. It is St Patrick's Day. I'm just ready, just ready. We have this tree outside our front yard, yeah, and this weekend we looked out and things are starting to bud a little bit so exciting. But we have this family of blue jays and cardinals in this one tree.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's so complex, yeah, what's?
Speaker 2:going on here. Little meeting, little Disney princess action in my front yard. I'll take it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I should go out there and sing to them in the morning I plan to.
Speaker 2:My neighbors will think I'm crazy, but that's all right, it's good. It's a good thing. What's going on?
Speaker 1:with. You Got to give the neighborhood Listen. We are missing a tooth in our house. Hey yeah, enzo lost one of his bottom teeth, proceeded to put it on the counter. I went back for it. I asked him where is it? He does not know. Either the dog ate it or it's loose in the house somewhere. Either is equally disgusting and Lucyinate it. We just have teeth floating around my house. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. At least you don't have a collection?
Speaker 2:I do. Have you got a little jar of baby teeth?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is teeth. I'm like what the hell am I supposed to do with this? But then I'm like, oh cheap, yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:You could get a molar gold plated as a little necklace charm. Time Gross. Why are we?
Speaker 1:so weird. All right, mel, what are you talking about today?
Speaker 2:I have two topics. I want to talk about Gallup's recent article that came out on the 11th, talking about the post-pandemic workplace the experiment continues. And then also just some really good news around Harvard, making tuition free for more students.
Speaker 1:Okay, harvard Okay.
Speaker 2:Harvard I like to see it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like to see it. What are you talking about? Quite the endowment, so that's nice. Yeah, nothing to see here. Move over LLMs and apps. Ai agents are the next big thing. I have a theory that AI agents are the thing that's going to get us to the four-day work week. I want to talk about AI agents.
Speaker 2:I love it. It seems like Clippy on speed. Yeah, maybe meth Everything we wish Clippy was back in the early 2000s.
Speaker 1:I know, I think it's a missed opportunity not bringing Clippy back. Yeah, truly.
Speaker 2:Someone please help it out. It's right there. It's right there.
Speaker 1:All right, Mel, what's going on with Gallup?
Speaker 2:Okay. So Gallup put out an article on the 11th called the Post-Pandemic Workplace. The Experiment Continues and essentially they're highlighting how the pandemic really reshaped workplaces dramatically, obviously making hybrid work more common, a bunch of other things, but also some of the unintended side effects that are happening. One employee engagement and connection are at all-time lows. That's what I'm actually going to focus on. They also touch on mental health challenges having risen and managers are increasingly feeling burned out. By the way, one of their stats there was that managers are more likely to quit than the employees they manage.
Speaker 1:You're like peace, you do this.
Speaker 2:I understand you and I spoke about this a few weeks ago on New Week New Headlines how, houston, we have a manager problem, there's a mass exodus and Gen Z doesn't want that job. Managers are just getting sandwiched with everything right now, so I have real empathy for them. But I want to talk about employee engagement, because what they noted was that engagement and connection are at all time lows. Employee engagement, as we know, fell to a 10-year low by 2024. Oh shit, oh yeah, it's pretty grim. Only 30% of employees feel connected to their company's mission or purpose. That's another record low. You're going to hear a common theme here where they're like historic low, record low. Only 44% of employees strongly agree they know what's expected of them at work.
Speaker 1:That's not surprising, you and I not surprising. We hear that all the time.
Speaker 2:Yep, we hear it all the time. We're researching it for reciprocal work, right the boss, employee relationship. This is a huge gap. Only 28% of employees strongly agree that they're proud of the products and services that their organization offers. Another historic low. Did you say 28%? 28%, yikes, yeah, that's a lot of disconnect happening here.
Speaker 1:Your employees are one of the best manifestations and best communicators of your brand, and if they're not proud of that, whoops.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah. Only 21% of employees say they've received meaningful feedback from their manager in the past week. You and I talk about this all the time. Yeah, this performance management gap, that's really happening here Hygiene yeah, yeah, but managers are burnt out. So there's this trifecta of things happening, and then Gallup is estimating that the poor engagement is costing the global economy $8.8 trillion annually, and about 9% of global GDP.
Speaker 1:Wow, I believe it. This is the thing, this number. Okay, can I just say this you and I obviously have spent our life doing workplace stuff. We've also been covering this for the last 18 months on this pod and every month it gets worse and worse. It's costing us more and more. It's fascinating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fascinating. Yeah, look, I think leaders are needing to pay attention to these issues because it's directly impacting productivity retention. Ultimately, it's your organization's success that is getting damaged, and it's going to leave severe and lasting consequences and you and I talk about this all the time If these things don't start getting addressed really quickly. That war on talent that we keep talking about, we've talked the silver tsunami is coming. We're five years away, folks, 2030, all of these things are coming to a head around the same time, so now is the time to start really paying attention to your organization. What you need to do here, what's going to happen Look, the workplace post COVID and now with AI as well, I'd like to add is still an experiment in progress, as Gallup likes to point out.
Speaker 2:Our advice to you stay informed, stay engaged. Don't wait for the next wave of change to catch you off guard. Especially if you're an employee, if you're a manager and especially if you're an organization, you really need to start zeroing in on like where is your org at in these numbers? Even in this state, though, there are core things that remain true, and you and I always talk about these core things. Employees want clarity. They don't want guesswork. Orgs need to focus on making expectations clear, investing in manager support, reestablishing your company's purpose to keep teams connected, because a paycheck isn't enough. People want to feel value, they want to feel heard, they want to be heard, they want to be part of something, and when they don't get that, it does impact your business profit, because it isn't just a nice to have, it's a non-negotiable. I'm just going to leave it at that. So get out there, read it. Really interesting stuff, but, man, shocking. That 28% was really shocking. They don't feel connected to what you do, or yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a little sad because I think a lot of organizations are sitting on such great potential to rally your folks right, to get people behind a vision. I don't care what you're doing, I don't care if you're a trucking line, if you're Google, if you're Airbnb. Clear messages, though.
Speaker 2:Clear themes. Clear things happening. Very clear yeah, if you do nothing else in the next six months to a year, at a minimum measure where your org is at on each of these things.
Speaker 1:I would argue too, if you're a manager, the easiest thing you can do is have consistent one-on-ones Ask people how they are, make sure they're clear on what they need to do, give them feedback. That is like the most basic thing you can do that will give you the most return 100%. So here's the thing If you're working right now, you are talking about AI, you're hearing about AI, you're probably using chat, gpt or clot or perplexity at work, at home, at home. Potentially, that is like we used to say in retail. That's so L Y, because now we have AI agents.
Speaker 1:Obviously, we've been talking about this for the last six to seven months. You're starting to see more and more companies integrate them, like you have Microsoft co-pilot, salesforce has one, workday is coming out with one, oracle has one, and I wanted to make sure that everyone got what the hell an AI agent is, because if you're not entrenched in this all the time, you won't know what it is. So let's take a minute and talk about what AI agents are, what you can use them for, what the benefits will be to you as an employee and also what might be some drawbacks. Talking about managers here and then, if you really want to get into this and I'd recommend everyone get into it get excited about AI agents. What do you do?
Speaker 2:Let's do it. A few months ago, allie K Miller, who's like the AI go-to, wrote a really great article on how to set up your own AI agent, and I was very tempted to do it, and then I was afraid about securities. Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this.
Speaker 1:I think about an AI agent as like a helper that can do tasks, they can make choices, they can help you get stuff done. The thing that's interesting about AI agents is they not only do what you ask, but they also know what you need and help you out. They'll finish multiple tasks for you, as opposed to right now, chatgpt or a large language model where you ask it a question and then it gives you an answer, and then you ask it another and then it gives you an answer. Ai agents could do multiple things at once and basically be your little assistant on the side. Truly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my favorite AI agent video recently was someone updating their website on the side, so all they did was set it and forget it, and they were watching it to the updates for them. Which hours of time saved.
Speaker 1:That's the thing. They can work on their own. And the thing with AI agents, too, is they get better over time. Very exciting stuff. Just a prime example of this let's say you're at work and you ask your AI agent. We'll call your AI agent, alex. You say to Alex I need you to plan next week's team meeting, and so Alex is going to go out and check everyone's schedule, find the best time, send the invites, create an agenda based on past meetings and even remind you about follow-ups after the meeting is over. That's an AI agent. Okay, very different than a large language model. Still using AI as the back can work on its own, complete multiple tasks and get smarter as it goes along. Who doesn't want that? Other ways you can look at it too email help. They can sort your emails, put important ones first, write them back. They can help you sort through data, make better choices, make reports. They can do calendar planning like setting up. I fucking hate setting meetings up. I hate it.
Speaker 2:That one task alone. Oh my God, that's why.
Speaker 1:I love having an admin Go away yeah, but now you can have an AI agent that's just taking care of all of it right Setting up the meetings, updating the calendar, reminding you, helping customers as well. We're starting to see some of this in bookkeeping and in accounting. I almost think about it, as everybody's got a coordinator now. Yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Just to give you a lay of the land around AI agents and what will this look like next year? Because we already know what it looks like this year with ChatGPT and Claude in 2025. We're starting to see AI agents. Next year, ai agents will be everywhere. So what's it going to look like? It'll be part of every workday and it'll be hopefully running a little bit smoother. There's some upsides to this. There's some things I'd like us to consider as well. Right, it's projected that by 2026, 20% of organizations will use AI to flatten their structures. Potentially, economic Times came out with an article last year with those predictions and you can see that, because AI agents can save basically right now, in 2025, on average, one full workday of work for everyone.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:They're projecting that by 2026, they could even save at least two to three days of work and or do two to three days of work for somebody Getting more done absolutely on the table. I would love for everyone to think about this as an opportunity and not will AI take my job? Do not think about this, as they're here to replace you, right? They're here to work with you. That's the way I would go into this. Think about what they can do to do your most boring, repetitive tasks that follow some clear rules of thinking that leaves you to do more creative thinking, more of the human-centered work, understanding feelings, making tough choices. The best teams will have folks that can do that really sophisticated, human-centered work, strategic work, and AI agents doing some of the kind of the work that a lot of us don't even want to do anyway.
Speaker 2:Like orgs really need to think and get clear about what the future of work looks like for each role within their organization.
Speaker 1:You have people trying to figure this out and to your very good point in this discussion for at least 10 years. And I still haven't seen a lot of organizations really make big swags of change. We just did that report the other week about only 13% of organizations are actively reskilling their people right now. Right, okay, that tells me we're not there and AI agents are here, and so there's going to be some friction and AI agents are here, and so there's going to be some friction.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing. What can you do to get ready? Here's my recommendation, if you can. So right now, openai you can get an AI agent and make your own AI agent. All right, on OpenAI, that's 200 bucks a month. You could do that. Here's my other recommendation, so you don't have to spend money. One is ask in your organization. If you don't know, start to ask like where are AI agents in the systems that you're using? If you use Workday Oracle, salesforce, microsoft, there is an AI agent in that, and if they haven't embedded it already, it is coming. Ask if it's there, ask when it'll be there and put yourself as number one to be on the list to get it, if you can, because be an early, early adapter.
Speaker 1:Do not get afraid by this stuff. Honestly, in my experience, with all technology coming from an elder coming from an elder, the worst thing you can do is run away from it. The best thing you can do is run face forward into it and figure out how it's going to work for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, test little things. Test it on something dumb. Scan my email for tasks that I need to do and organize it for me. Put it in a project plan for me. Do that. A minimal at a minimal test set.
Speaker 1:I think these are exciting. I'm stoked for this. I also feel like this is going to move very quickly. The people that have been using it and can teach everyone else how to use it and be the earlier adopters are going to win.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. I was thinking when you said it'll, by next year it'll be everywhere. I was like in three months it will be everywhere.
Speaker 1:From an enterprise perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:That's everything's going on a three month clip. We're going quarter by quarter releases and that sort of thing. I feel like one of the reasons why LLMs got so much traction so quickly because they have the freemium versions of things 200 bucks a month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's still not cost effective for a lot of people, and I would be very wary of trying something that's free from an agent perspective because of the level of access it receives. There's a lot of free stuff out there. This is a little different, though, I think, from a security standpoint.
Speaker 1:When it's free, you're the product.
Speaker 2:What's your FBO? So Harvard is going to make tuition free for more students, which is very exciting. Well, how do you like them? Apples Good one. Well, how do you like them? Apples Good one, all right. Harvard is making a major shift. Families earning $200,000 or less will now pay no tuition. It's not just about affordability. According to the article in the New York Times, it's a strategic move to maintain diversity and access and higher education After that Supreme Court ruling that struck down affirmative action and higher education.
Speaker 1:After that Supreme Court ruling that struck down affirmative action, anybody that's under $200,000 or is like they're getting five, five scholarships away.
Speaker 2:Good call. Previously, only families making under $85,000 qualified for free tuition. Now a much larger pool will benefit from this. This move follows similar policies that we saw recently with MIT, penn other elite universities that are moving in this direction after that Supreme Court decision. It also comes at a time when confidence in higher ed is declining significantly and universities are facing a lot of scrutiny from political leaders. Why does this matter? Because access to elite education is often a pipeline to top careers and leadership roles, as you and I both know.
Speaker 2:In expanding and we have that awesome talk with Braden Olson around socioeconomic status and how that is actually the number one indicator of someone's future success is where they start and how they're like. That's our biggest discrepancy in success. So expanding financial aid could make a real impact on who gets a seat at the table in the future, one of the things this article calls out, though time will tell if this is really going to be a benefit or if it's a PR strategy play, so something for us to track and watch. I'd like to think that this is not just a PR strategy play and that they really are trying to level the playing field, so I like to see it. Keep it coming. I hope more universities do it quite frankly, because access to education should be expanded, especially at elite universities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love seeing that the elite universities are going first. I don't think Harvard has a PR issue right now in terms of getting a massive endowment, like when you look at MIT, when you look at Pitt, like these are massive schools that have massive endowments. The fact that they're going first here and $200,000 is not chump change right that is.
Speaker 2:That's a great number.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great number. It's a great number, so I'm stoked for that. I am absolutely stoked for that.
Speaker 2:They don't and you don't have to do it.
Speaker 1:This is my other thing Like when you're seeing some of these organizations do things that they don't have to do, especially now.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm for it. Yeah, I'm so for it. So to me, this is FI news Go for it. Don't count yourself out. If you're a student considering one of these elite institutions, apply. Yeah, I love to see it. What's?
Speaker 1:your sad one, Dude. Did you hear Forever 21 filed for I?
Speaker 2:know. I just sent my girlfriend in college a note and said do we need to pour one out for Forever 21 for getting us through our 20s?
Speaker 1:The funny thing was, a couple of days ago I was thinking like, is Forever 21 even still a thing? And I don't remember the first time I was in one, but remember it was like the shit.
Speaker 2:Listen, we all had an outfit. It was black pants and a nice top, and then it turned to jeans and a nice top. And where did you get those tops? Forever 21. You could always count on going in and coming out the Union Square Forever 21. Did you ever go into that?
Speaker 1:Yes, I know exactly which one you're talking about. Yes, eight floors Just get lost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and for a hundred bucks you had 10 new outfits.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, it was the best Because it was like a treasure hunt. Plus, it was oh, this looks like it's all peach and frilly, but it was all like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like Forever 21 walked, so Shein could run. Oh, forever 21. I know, thank you, thank you for the good times.
Speaker 1:We appreciate you and I'll take. I am.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, I know Forever 21. I am oh okay, I know forever 21. This episode was produced, edited and all things by us myself, mel plett and francesca rennery. Our music is by pink zebra and if you loved this conversation and you want to contribute your thoughts with us, please do. You can visit us at yourworkfriendscom, but you can also join us over on LinkedIn. We have a LinkedIn community page and we have the TikToks and Instagrams. So please join us in the socials. And if you like this and you've benefited from this episode and you think someone else can benefit from this episode, please rate and subscribe. We'd really appreciate it. That helps keep us going. Take care, friends. Bye, friends, thank you.