Flex Index

'Tis the season for giving thanks 🙏

Some leaders are reverting to forced ranking, keystroke monitoring, and hustle culture—the practices that tanked companies in the 2000s. Others are setting ambitious goals, balancing efficiency with employee happiness, and investing in human connection. Brian Elliott (@Work Forward), Debbie Lovich (Boston Consulting Group (BCG)), and Ryan Anderson (MillerKnoll) reunited on the About Place podcast to discuss what's changed since they launched Future Forum in 2020—and what's actually driving performance versus what's just management theater. https://lnkd.in/gfs_Bhjj

How was your Sunday evening? If you're back in the office full-time, chances are it wasn't great. New data from Adobe shows #remote workers get the Sunday scaries a few times per year. Office workers? Once or twice a month 😱 The gap widened over the past year, with one-site workers 47% more likely to report worsening pre-Monday anxiety—a timeline that tracks neatly with the latest #RTO wave. 82% of workers experience some form of Sunday dread. But where you work Monday through Friday determines how often it hits and how hard. Check out the full study 👉 https://lnkd.in/gNV5aNNp

Sure, #RTO headlines dominate the news cycle, but here's what's not getting enough attention: companies doubling down on #flexibility are winning the talent war. Business Insider just profiled 7 companies staying remote: Atlassian, Deel, Dropbox, Mozilla, OLIPOP PBC, Toptal, and Zapier. These companies are building competitive advantages through flexibility—better hiring, stronger retention, and higher satisfaction. Deel's CoFounder and CEO, Alex Bouaziz, put it best: "Companies going back to the office are leaking talent to us, whether or not they want to admit it." https://lnkd.in/gYxH6Jy9

Think #flexiblework is just a Tech thing? Not so fast. Even when you exclude Tech entirely, the pattern holds: • Small companies (<500 employees): 50% are Fully Flexible • Large enterprises (25k+ employees): Just 11% are Fully Flexible Meanwhile, 68% of those large firms stick to Structured Hybrid—setting specific in-office schedules.

Dear exec who's worried about efficiency: Instead of pushing AI and RTO for the 3rd or 5th time, maybe look at your team's calendars. 32% of office workers spent more than half their week in meetings, and less than half of those meetings are effective. We're in the third "year of efficiency," pushing people to do more with less and crank up the output—but still not willing to put the energy into making meetings better. Flex Index partnered up with Dropbox to dig into the latest on why meetings don't work, and what we can do about it. Allison Vendt and team brought together a great group of experts: Molly Sands, PhD (Atlassian), Neil Morelli, PhD and Jonathan Flower (Workplace Labs), Caribay Garcia Marquez, PhD (Microsoft), Jeanette Mellinger (Question) and Patrick Lightbody (Reclaim.ai) Instead of focusing on eliminating meetings, we focused on making them better. Here's a few examples of what you'll find in the writeup. 1️⃣ The rule of one: The top reason people attend inefficient meetings is to rep their team or function. The issue? 2-4 people get invited from same function. 2️⃣ Simple frameworks: The word "meeting" covers debates, decisions, and development—as well as a host of other activities that might be an email. Build a taxonomy that you use for every invite: give clear expectations, reduce clutter, and force some thinking ahead of the calendar send. 3️⃣ AI can help: Only 20% of respondents use AI to summarize meeting notes and action items. Want to reduce attendance? You have to share out what got decided, why and what's next. 👉 Read on: https://lnkd.in/dZNTPVXT #meetings #productivity #AI

h/t Marketoonist

#Hybrid workers are embracing #AI at work. In-office workers? Not so much. New data from the latest Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes (SWAA) shows a clear split in how different workers are adopting AI 👇 Hybrid workers saw the biggest jump in work-related AI use — from 35% to 39% between December 2024 and October 2025. Fully in-office workers are taking a different path. Their AI use at work barely budged. But outside of work? It surged from 28% to 37%. The pattern suggests hybrid workers are integrating AI into their daily workflows, while in-office workers are experimenting with it on their own time. Check out the full report 👉 https://lnkd.in/ge64MiVi

J.P. Morgan just spent $3B on a skyscraper with 19 restaurants, coffee delivery to desks, and 24/7 access. Jamie Dimon calls it a "recruitment tool." Maybe. Or maybe it's the most expensive way to miss the point. Research shows workplace #flexibility is consistently a top 3 factor in job satisfaction—right alongside compensation and meaningful work. Yet companies are spending billions on office perks instead of what actually drives #retention: autonomy, flexibility, and trust. https://lnkd.in/g_Ykb2RF

American workers lost 8 full workdays to traffic last year. The Texas A&M Transportation Institute says #hybridwork is actually contributing to worse congestion. The likely reason? We've traded 5 days of moderate traffic for 2-3 days of absolute gridlock.