Points of view
Measure What Matters
What’s the real reason your boss wants you back in the office?
The real reason many bosses want everyone back in the office five days a week? Their ego. No joke. New academic research has found what many of us long suspected. Over the last six years, organisational psychologist Adam Grant at the Wharton School at the University...
Helping overlooked colleagues recover their motivation when you become their boss
“Be nice to people on your way up the ladder because one day you’ll pass them on the way back down.” This timeless pearl of wisdom was delivered to me by my father when I was starting a short-lived career in investment banking in my early 20s. Dad had moved to New...
Gillian Anderson may not be disappearing from work but many women in Ireland are
When one of the sexiest women in the western world tells you she’s not disappearing from work because of a few wrinkles or hot flushes, you’re likely to believe and applaud her. American actress Gillian Anderson’s Lessons of Worth campaign for L’Oreal – featuring some...
‘As I was saying’: Interruptions at work cost organisations more than they might think
The Irish are known internationally for the gift of the gab, and we have many colourful expressions for saying someone is too chatty. “He could talk for Ireland.” “She could talk the hind legs off a donkey.” “They’d live in your ear and rent the other one out for...
Stalling for time on EU Pay Transparency directive? That’s a business fail
The emotional tidal wave was immediate – livid, disgusted, shattered and, frankly, humiliated – when I was told “because he might be a husband and father one day”. That was what I had just been told by Bob, a male colleague in his 40s, when I asked why a junior male...
Work is broken and it is well past time to fix it for Ireland’s working parents
What do glass slippers, leather shoes, and the world of work have in common? Too many people pretend they’re the right size. Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters and US president Donald Trump’s officials all attempted to wear shoes that didn’t fit. Likewise, too many...
Is doubt a leadership superpower in the workplace?
The executive offices and boardrooms of the most successful companies are not full of people who know it all. They never were. Yet, in the age of the “strong leader”, this stereotype has fooled us into thinking that the best leaders know exactly where they’re going...
The case for flexible working: ‘We lose one-third of women in their child-rearing years’
When I first met Laura (not her real name), she was an associate solicitor in a small but busy general practice and excited to be pregnant with her first child. Five years later, she was a solicitor at a top Dublin law firm and a parent to two young children with a...
‘Brain fry’, the workplace side-effect of too much technology
How many times a day do you touch your phone as against shaking a human hand, hugging a friend or relative, or even stroking your dog or cat’s fur? How many hours do you spend staring at a screen – big or small – instead of into a person’s face? How much of your week...
‘Saving the family’ is really about putting women back in their boxes
Women in the US are being pushed from the frying pan into a five-alarm authoritarian fire. Religious conservatives, Christian nationalists and the tech bros of Silicon Valley, who have long conspired to put women back in their pre-civil-rights boxes, are not only...