KACHARAGADLA

“Genius clubs” to channel older workers’ talents. Mandatory retirement — at 80. A “dynamic” work/life path, instead of today’s linear path. The end of the expectation of rising pay as you age. Volunteering: the new status symbol. Unions for older workers. These are some of the fascinating forecasts I’ve just heard regarding the future of work for Americans over 50. These predictions I just received from experts, which I’ll elaborate on shortly, are part of Next Avenue’s month-long series on the future for Americans over 50 to celebrate our site’s fifth anniversary. Our previous pieces: “ The Future of Health for Americans Over 50 ,” “ Personal Finance Forecasts for Americans Over 50, ”  “ How People 50+ Will Live in the Near and Distant Future ” and “ What the Future of Adult Learning Will Look Like .” Coming up: The Future of Caregiving for People 50+. To help set the scene, let me share what  Roy Bahat , head of Bloomberg Beta and co-chair of  The Shift Commission on Work, Wo

There inevitably comes a time when a manager has to give negative feedback. It’s inevitable. No employee is perfect. Everyone can use a little improvement. The tricky part is providing feedback in a way that doesn’t send the employee spiraling into a pit of despair and self-loathing. That’s one way to get on the bad boss list. When it’s time for the annual review, or even a much-needed discussion with an underperforming employee, don’t hide from the impending uncomfortable situation. Negative feedback can be dished out in a way that doesn’t damage egos, or send employees packing. In fact, when given in a positive way, negative feedback can be very motivational and inspiring. An   article from   Psychology Today   explains how to give good constructive feedback using the sandwich method. Start with a compliment, gently add what needs improvement, then top it off with another compliment.While this method can be applied to giving feedback almost every time, here are some additio

How should teams of experts working on knowledge-intensive projects be structured? Should they be hierarchical? Or will flexible, self-organized groups perform better?  Teams often struggle with how to get the most value from the members’ expertise, to minimize conflict, to integrate their diverse expertise, and to leverage it during all phases of a project. The traditional approach is to put the person with the most experience and expertise in charge — for example, a head coach or a chief programmer. The assumption is that this person has the expertise to make the best decisions about how to allocate tasks and responsibilities. Teams that adopt this model feature a rigid hierarchy, whereby final decisions are centralized through this single, formally designated individual. The downside of this approach is that when projects increase in complexity and team size, the central individual can become a communication and coordination bottleneck for the team. Another approac

The global investment firm sets sights on Vizag Franklin Templeton has plans to launch its operations in Visakhapatnam in case the State government provides land facing the seashore. Franklin Templeton President and COO Jennifer Johnson informed this to Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who called on her in California on Tuesday. She also enquired about the availability of high-end talent in AP, telecom carrier capacity, broadband connectivity and cloud infrastructure, etc. Mr. Naidu assured her that the State government would provide land, water and power etc. to start a campus. The government was providing fiber connectivity to every house. To provide Internet services to the remotest villages, the government was working with Google X. An ecosystem was being developed in Visakhapatnam for Fintech, data analytics and processing, he said. As far as manpower was concerned, Mr. Naidu said Franklin Templeton need not have any apprehensions. Out of every four IT professi

Bias at work can be overt and insidious. It can be shocking and enraging. But the subtle “Wait, what just happened?” moments are far more frequent. Take these examples: A client assumes you are in a subordinate role because of your age. A prospective customer only makes eye contact with your white colleague. A coworker calls you “angry” while your equally assertive male counterpart gets labeled “strong” (a far too often occurrence for women as   one of our previous studies   showed). Moments like these leave you questioning others’ intentions and your own perceptions. The inner dialogue can sound a bit like, “I’m upset. But should I be? Do I have a right to be?” At best, this shadowy bias is exhausting. At worst, it is soul destroying. Bias’s sometimes slippery nature also makes it difficult to eradicate in the workplace. Leaders implement policies that prohibit discrimination against protected classes, but rules can’t prevent unconscious, unintentional bias. How do you legis

These days it seems like most people have too much on their plate. Everyone complains about feeling overworked. So how do you tell your boss you simply have too much to do? No one wants to come across as lazy, uncommitted, or not a team player. How can you protect your image as a hard worker while saying uncle? What the Experts Say No matter how busy you are, it can feel exceedingly difficult to talk to your boss about your heavy workload. The reason is twofold, according to Julie Morgenstern, productivity expert and author of  Never Check E-Mail in the Morning .  First, you may worry that by saying something you’re going to lose your job. “In the bottom of your belly is this feeling that if you can’t handle the work, there’s someone else who can; you feel dispensable,” she says. Second, “the natural tendency is to think, ‘I am not working hard enough, smart enough, or efficiently enough. I should be able to handle this.’ So you suffer in silence.” But doing so is dangerous for