How not to motivate your employees | It’s Too Easy to Buy Stuff You Don’t Want | X Will Donate Ad Revenue To Gaza Aid Groups And Israeli Hospitals, Elon Musk Says | 20,000 Amazon workers in Spain set to walk out on Cyber Monday

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How not to motivate your employees - The Economist

Here are some handy rules of thumb. Anyone who calls themselves a thought leader is to be avoided. A man who does not wear socks cannot be trusted. And a company that holds an employee-appreciation day does not appreciate its employees.

It is not just that the message sent by acknowledging staff for one out of 260-odd working days is a bit of a giveaway (there isn’t a love-your-spouse day or a national don’t-be-a-total-bastard week for the same reason). It is also that the ideas are usually so tragically unappreciative. You have worked hard all year so you get a slice of cold pizza or a rock stamped with the words “You rock”?

McGregor, who died in 1964, was a product of his time. The vignettes in the book feature men with names like Tom and Harry. But his ideas remain useful.

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It’s Too Easy to Buy Stuff You Don’t Want - The Atlantic

I’ve made many impulse purchases in my life, but the first one that I found genuinely unsettling was a pair of Nike VaporMax sneakers. It was July 2018, and I was mindlessly tapping through Instagram updates while waiting to meet friends for lunch. That’s where I saw the sneakers, tucked between photos of last night’s outfits and this morning’s bagels: futuristic, baby pink, and a new arrival, according to the ad. This was the heyday of artificial sneaker scarcity, when every design worth a damn sold out before you even had a chance to decide if you liked it. I pounced.

The order took maybe 15 seconds. I selected my size and put the shoes in my cart, and my phone automatically filled in my login credentials and added my new credit-card number. You can always return them, I thought to myself as I tapped the “Buy” button. Almost as soon as I’d paid, I snapped out of the mania that had briefly overtaken me, $190 (Jesus Christ) poorer but with one pair of Jetsons-looking shoes on their way to my apartment. It’s always a little horrifying to realize that advertising has worked on you, but this felt more like I had just watched the velociraptor in Jurassic Park learn to use the doorknob. I had completed some version of the online checkout process a million times before, but never could I remember it being quite so spontaneous and thoughtless. If it’s going to be that easy all the time, I thought to myself, I’m cooked.

That experience wasn’t the result of any particular just-to-the-market technology. Instead, a handful of small changes to the mechanics of online shopping had begun to accumulate into something meaningful: Advertisers were amassing stores of personal data with which to tailor their ad targeting. Retailers were offering free shipping and free returns on everything—buy now, decide later. Browsers and operating systems were urging users to save login credentials and financial details within their software. The expanded use of payment shortcuts such as Apple Pay and Shopify’s Shop Pay was circumventing the need to create a new account or log in to an old one. “Buy now, pay later” services including Klarna and Affirm were beginning to pop up at more retailers to soften the blow of spending.

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X Will Donate Ad Revenue To Gaza Aid Groups And Israeli Hospitals, Elon Musk Says - Forbes

Elon Musk announced Tuesday his social media platform X will donate revenue from “advertising & subscriptions associated with the war in Gaza” to hospitals in Israel and aid groups in Gaza—a decision that comes as Musk and the platform formerly known as Twitter have faced criticism for antisemitic content.

Elon Musk announced Tuesday that X will donate to aid groups in Gaza and Israel after the platform ... [+] faced days of criticism for allowing antisemitic content. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Musk didn’t provide any details on how X will donate the funds, or how much it will donate, but said in a follow-up post the company will track how funds are spent through the Red Cross and Red Crescent to ensure it doesn’t end up with Hamas.

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20,000 Amazon workers in Spain set to walk out on Cyber Monday - Fortune Europe

Spanish union CCOO on Monday called on 20,000 warehouse and delivery workers at Amazon’s local unit to stage a one-hour strike on each shift on Nov. 27, a date known by retailers as ‘Cyber Monday’, and the same on the following day to demand better wages and working conditions.

“It is symbolic, but it is a first move and we will consider other kind of actions in the future,” the union’s secretary general for Amazon, Douglas Harper, told Reuters.

CCOO, the largest union at the U.S. retailer in Spain, wants the company to improve labour safety and acknowledge workplace risks in Spain, boost human resources staff and raise wages, arguing that the pay does not reflect the volume of workload.

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