The economy is up and so is job-hopping. How can you attract superior talent to grow and improve your business while holding onto your top performers to refine your business?
85% of employees leave their job because of their manager (SHRM). Over 66% of CEO's say that talent-related issues are their top concern (HBR).
In previous articles, we've discussed how crucial talent retention is to the overall growth and health of a business. As the economy grows and skills become more specialized, the competition for talent is on the rise. This has driven culture, engagement, and leadership to the top of the human capital agenda (Deloitte University Press).
The dynamic nature of the current business environment has become so fast-paced that many workers are unable to find jobs even as companies report that they can't find the people they need. Meanwhile, over 70% of employees are disengaged (Gallup).
The results are stunted growth and stagnant wages. Turnover is high and morale is low. No wonder job-hopping is on the rise...
One of my clients said, "I need to hire better people who will work well within our culture." We mapped out a plan to improve the quality of new hires, retain top talent, look deeper into employee potential, manage poor performers, and create better soil where the best-fits can take root and flourish.
In today's modern workforce, it's time to look beyond the resume and add some dimension and sophistication around hiring and developing talent. There is a science to understanding what motivates people (beyond money).
People have drives. Drives create needs. People behave in ways that meet their needs. When needs are met at work, performance, productivity, and engagement improve. Scientifically valid data and analytics ensure more accurate and informed decisions to improve team dynamics and identify potential.
I've placed over 500 CEOs in my career. I hired based on three factors: head, heart, and briefcase. Most recruiters only check the briefcase (experience, skills, and education) - all of which can be found on the resume. Some will dive deeper into the heart (values, interests, and passions) during the interview.
But how many really measure the head (behavior and cognitive ability)? Skills and values can change, where behavior and cognitive ability are stable over time. Here's the good news, if you can measure it, you can manage it.
The best way to measure the behavior and cognitive ability of your workforce and use that data to create a customized solution is The Predictive Index (PI). PI is one of the most scientifically valid solutions on the market. Nearly 20 million people have used it in the last 60+ years (over 2.5 million in the last 12 months).
Make what you've got work, and then make it better.
Thanks for reading - If you enjoyed this article, please click the Like button above and let me know! (and if you like it, why not share it?)
About the Author:
David B. Nast owns Nast Partners based in the Greater Philadelphia area. David is an Award-Winning Certified Business Coach with over 25 years of experience in Executive Coaching, Leadership Development, Training, Change Management, Career Coaching, Talent Acquisition, Executive Search, and Human Resources. He has coached thousands of CEOs, Business Owners and Executives.
For additional insights from David, visit his LinkedIn Pulse Author Page and follow him on Twitter @DavidBNast. You can also email David at dave@nastpartners.com.
When Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump met for their first debate at Hofstra University last month, it took less than 20 minutes for solar energy to become a topic of the discussion.
“We can deploy a half a billion more solar panels,” said Secretary Clinton. “We can have enough clean energy to power every home. We can build a new modern electric grid. That's a lot of jobs; that's a lot of new economic activity.”
I agree. Fortunately, we’re already on our way.
While renewables account for seven percent of our nation’s electric generation, recent estimates by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that additions of utility scale solar – the large solar farms that power thousands of home and businesses – will exceed those from any other energy source. To put this in context, EIA projects that 9.5 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale solar will be added this year alone, compared with 3.1 GW last year and 9.4 GW total from 2013 through 2015. And, when it comes to homes and businesses, the U.S. exceeded one million installations earlier this year.
A public opinion survey by Pew Research Center just found nearly nine out of 10 Americans support expanding solar.
For many, it’s difficult to fully grasp the extent and speed of the transformation that is happening in the clean energy sector, particularly solar. Costs are coming down at an unprecedented rate. In many parts of the country and the world, we’ve achieved grid parity, which means the cost of solar is equal or less than buying energy off the electrical grid. In a few months, we’ll mark the one-year anniversary of the historic COP21 agreement. This is all good news.
However, the more challenging aspect of today’s solar market is rooted in a few factors beyond industry’s control, including short term disruptions from the recently extended Investment Tax Credit, as well as a supply/demand mismatch.
Our industry has been through a number of ups and downs. I’ve helped navigate our company through many of them over the past 13 years. What makes this period of uncertainty unique is that it comes in the midst of an unprecedented worldwide shift to solar adoption. Five years ago, costs were significantly higher than they are now. A year ago, we didn’t have a commitment on the part of 195 nations that we have today.
No one company or individual is going to shift the world to solar power. Therefore, it’s up to solar industry leaders to help transform the market through what we can control: technology and innovation, the pursuit of IP, the cultivation of talent, and responsiveness to customers’ energy needs and goals. In short, we have a lasting foundation and, for all intents and purposes, the world’s support to lead the way to a clean energy future. Let’s build on it.
For starters, leading companies should continue to innovate by improving the cost of energy, efficiency and ease of use. Today, SunPower holds the world record in the lab for large-area high efficiency silicon solar panels: 24.1 percent (1). Just a few years ago, this number would have been relevant mostly in the laboratory where it was first accomplished. Today, however, it’s about enabling much more energy to be produced in any given space. This is a tipping point for energy and infrastructure priorities broadly.
Equally important, leaders in solar should prioritize the development of Intellectual Property (IP) as central to long-term viability. For decades, we’ve seen the high-tech, semiconductor and biopharmaceutical sectors consistently at or near the top of the list for patent filings, which has resulted in countless inventions benefitting society. Through R&D, innovative partnerships and acquisitions, solar can take a page from high-tech and other sectors that recognize the multi-faceted value of IP. As an example, SunPower has been awarded more than 600 patents over the past 30 years and they’re core to the technology we’re developing every day.
Finally, we must cultivate the innovators of today and tomorrow: namely, employees and customers. The recent growth in solar wouldn’t be possible without individuals who constantly questioned the status quo, as well as the end users willing to take risks and up-end a centuries-old mindset on how to best source energy. Companies and organizations like Apple, Bed Bath & Beyond, Macy’s, Stanford University, and Toyota to name just a few. We’ll only achieve the ambitious goals for the future by seeking out those who are willing to keep looking around the corner for what comes next.
As 2017 approaches, it’s fair to say that solar is undergoing a unique test. I have no doubt that leaders who embrace the core fundamentals will thrive. At that point, a half billion more solar panels won’t just be a worthwhile challenge, but a stop on our way to a billion installed. The world is expecting it.
Tom Werner serves as president and CEO of the Silicon Valley-based SunPower Corporation, which provides clean energy through residential, commercial and power plant solar installations worldwide.
1. Green, M. A., et. al. “Solar Cell Efficiency Tables (version 48),” Progress in Photovoltaics, 2016
The four biggest banks in the U.S. won’t say whether they offer workers the same kind of sales incentives that drove Wells Fargo employees to open millions of accounts for customers without their knowledge.
That scam led to a record-setting fine, congressional hearings and a rare case in which a bank CEO was forced to give up a few million dollars in compensation, with legislators calling for his ouster. California recently announced it would no longer do business with the bank, and Illinois is expected to follow with its own announcement on Monday.
Representatives from Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and US Bank declined to respond when The Huffington Post asked them if they use the same high-pressure, lofty sales quotas that pushed underpaid Wells Fargo employees to rip off customers in an effort to keep their jobs or earn bonuses to enhance their low hourly pay. Along with Wells Fargo, these banks are the five largest in the country, ranked by total assets.
Gary Cameron / ReutersMany are demanding Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf step down in light of the scandal. So far, he is being forced to give up some of his pay.
No one has accused these institutions of pulling off a fraud like Wells Fargo’s. The bank was fined $185 million for the widespread behavior.
Yet it’s notable that none of the banks contacted by HuffPost would be forthcoming about practices within their bank, even as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued a stern warning to financial institutions to carefully monitor sales practices to prevent a Wells-like debacle.
JP Morgan Chase, for instance, declined to talk about incentives and instead referred HuffPost to a press release about its plans to raise bank teller pay to $16 an hour in some high-cost cities.
The CFPB has said it’s investigating other banks to see if the practice is going on there.
Pressuring bank workers to “cross-sell” customers ― industry jargon for convincing them to sign on for more products like credit cards, bank accounts and loans ― is a common practice at U.S. banks, Christman reported in a detailed analysis NELP released this summer.
Indeed, there are signals that Wells Fargo isn’t alone with its fake account problem. Consumers have reported problems with unauthorized credit card openings at other banks since at least 2015. The CFPB has received 638 complaints from people who said they received credit cards they did not ask for since January of that year, according to an analysis the S&P Global Market Intelligence released last week. Just 28 of those complaints were directed at Wells Fargo; 31 were for Bank of America; 59 were about JPMorgan Chase and 83 complaints regarded Citi.
“Those banks that don’t do this [sales incentives] are happy to say so,” Anastasia Christman, a policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, told HuffPost.
That none of these banks were willing to talk about their practices is perhaps a sign of extreme caution in the wake of the penalties levied on Wells Fargo. The bank was forced to pay $185 million in fines earlier this month, including a record $100 million penalty levied by the CFPB.
At the time, CFPB Director Richard Cordray put the banking industry on notice.
“This was outrageous conduct. It was a violation of trust and an abuse of trust. It should not have happened, and I guarantee you that we will be seeing that it does not happen again at any bank,” he said in an interview with CNBC. “We will be looking for these types of problems.”
Jonathan Ernst / ReutersCFPB Director Richard Cordray has said other banks should carefully look at their incentive systems to ensure a Wells Fargo-like scam doesn't happen.
Bank workers interviewed for the NELP report talked about the immense pressure to sell more products to customers, who often not only didn’t need a new credit card ― but would likely face financial harm from one.
“If someone’s getting married, tell them to get a credit card. Any life event that happened, you were supposed to say, ‘Get a credit card for it.’ If you heard kids in the background, the answer was a credit card,” a Rhode Island Bank of America service specialist told the organization.
The comprehensive analysis was based in part on interviews with 75 workers currently or recently employed by seven major banks ― including Wells Fargo, Bank of America and US Bank. It was released the month before news of Wells Fargo’s fine broke.
The pressure on workers is amplified by the fact that they’re low-paid. The average wage for a bank teller is around $12 an hour. A stunning 70 percent of the lowest-paid bank workers are women.
Nearly one-third of bank tellers’ families use public benefits ― including food stamps and Medicaid ― according to a 2014 report from the University of California, Berkeley.
One banker reported signing her sister up for a credit card that she didn’t really understand. “She maxed it out, and she still has that maxed-out credit card 10 years later,” this banker told NELP.
A U.S. Bank collection worker said: “There was a constant battle of how you do right for the customer without sacrificing, you know, not paying a light bill or having shoes for the kids going back to school. You can’t make that sacrifice.”
Amalgamated Bank, a small New York-based union-owned bank, is one of the few financial institutions to publicly disclose it does not use sales quotas or incentive pay for cross-selling. The bank announced last year it would pay its workers at least $15 an hour.
Until recently, Amalgamated did offer bonuses to branch managers for reaching certain goals in opening accounts, but the bank plans to discontinue the practice at year’s end.
“We don’t want to have any shred of doubt in our consumers’ minds that we are watching out for their best interests,” Amalgamated CEO Keith Mestrich told HuffPost. He said tellers at Amalgamated often make far more than $15 an hour.
Shannon Stapleton / ReutersUnion-owned Amalgamated Bank says it doesn't have the quotas or incentive systems that other banks employ.
But Mestrich’s bank isn’t public and under the same pressure to increase its bottom line as the largest banks. In the wake of the financial crisis, the nation’s biggest banks have increasingly relied on fees from consumer accounts to keep bringing in money.
“We don’t know if this is going on at other banks,” Dennis Kelleher, CEO of Better Markets, told HuffPost. “We do know that cross-selling products at all the banks is both a priority and highly incentivized and must be policed with care and diligence or we will see more scandals like this.”
“The banks make massive amounts of money in selling their own products to their customer base,” Kelleher said.
For years, low-paid Wells Fargo tellers and customer service representatives were under enormous pressure to cross-sell. These workers, who typically made about $12 an hour, were offered bonuses for reaching their quotas. Some were warned they could be fired for not meeting these aggressive sales goals. The bank said it wanted to sell each customer eight products ― “eight is great!” Wells Fargo said publicly of its cross-selling efforts.
Faced with that kind of pressure, thousands of workers created fake accounts for customers. More than 2 million sham accounts were created, causing all kinds of consternation for customers ― extra fees, lower credit scores, calls from debt collectors on accounts these people did not know existed. And Wells Fargo fired 5,300 bankers for engaging in the practice. It’s not known how many other bankers were fired for not meeting the aggressive quotas.
This article is part of HuffPost’s “Reclaim” campaign, an ongoing project spotlighting the world’s waste crisis and how we can begin to solve it.
In college, a friend gifted me one of those old-school Coach bags that some girls’ mothers and grandmothers used to carry. It’s made of unfussy black leather with brass hardware and a long shoulder strap. I imagine it might look at home in a church pew.
I love this bag for aesthetic and practical reasons, for both its lovely simplicity and its time-tested sturdiness. My own grandmother carried a similar model to mine for most of my life until last year when, due to her Alzheimer’s, she baked it in the oven, where it finally met its demise.
There’s a reason “vintage Coach” turns up so many results on Etsy and Ebay: The company’s classic items last forever.
But times change, and so did Coach bags. They became more detailed over the years, their designs more complex and, in some cases, downright tacky ― and they just didn’t hold up against wear and tear like their vintage cousins did.
Around 2000, the company shifted its offerings from simply designed, neutral-toned leather purses to bags made of mixed materials ― that is, leather paired with canvas or nylon ― available in an array of colors and logo prints.
These days, the company says it’s trying to move away from such designs. But even as it begins to offer more basic, vintage-inspired products, Coach’s website also sells new designs with intricate embroidery, contrast stitching, studs, fringe and bright patterns.
These products have never come cheap. In 1989, when my simple “Court” bag debuted in stores, it retailed for $176, or about $342 in today’s currency. Prices for Coach bags today remain around $225 to $550 for midsize designs.
Customers who can afford these luxury items should rightfully expect them to last a long time. And though Coach’s complex designs might look good for a while, embellishments can easily suffer damage, and canvas or nylon can’t take a beating nearly so well as solid leather.
CoachCoach designs in leather and canvas or nylon from 2005, 2007 and 2006 (left to right). These so-called mixed material bags aren't as sturdy as the company's solid leather offerings.
“When you have intricate designs, sometimes you may suffer in durability,” Chris Moore, owner of Manhattan handbag repair shop Artbag, told The Huffington Post over the phone.
Coach seems to have realized this is a problem.
Last year it began offering a collection of “Icon” bags, which are intended to look “familiar to the millions who grew up with Coach bags,” according to a statement from the company. Made from solid leather instead of a combination of materials, many of the bags in this new line are throwbacks to the simple, sturdy designs the company sold for decades ― the ones that lasted for decades.
Still, some of the new Icon bags feature delicate embellishments. Moore pointed out that plain bag designs are “not very attractive” to many women these days. Bags with complex designs are just more popular, even though they might wear down more quickly.
Tony Pecorella, owner of repair shop Modern Leather Goods in Manhattan, said that bags combining canvas and nylon with traditional leather add up to a product that simply can never be as durable as solid leather.
But he was also quick to defend Coach’s previous attempts to sell such items, saying that mixed-material bags, as well as the newer all-leather items with embellishments, are “where the styles have gone” in the fashion world.
CoachSome of the latest Coach styles: “Saddle” in Western design, $595; “Saddle” in olive, $395; “Dinky” with tea rose applique, $595. Each of these is part of the Icon line. The center bag most closely resembles the classic bags. The other two feature embellishments that might not hold up so well against general wear and tear.
Styles, though, are fickle things, and they’ve caused Coach plenty of recent suffering.
Fast-fashion retailers like H&M and Zara have made keeping up with trends a hobby for the masses, turning runway styles into affordable goods in mere weeks while shortening the period of time before clothing and accessory designs appear outdated.
Meanwhile, Coach’s customers have actually started turning away from the mixed-material, logo-centric designs the company peddled ― very successfully ― throughout the 2000s. Sales over the past two years declined by $200 million, and Coach’s fluctuating stock prices are fueled by uncertainty over the brand’s future growth.
Coach, in turn, is backing away from those in-your-face fabric “C” prints which, as of January, make up less than 5 percent of store sales. Furthermore, the company promises that its new Icon bags will “burnish and get better with time,” which sounds like a welcome change from its troubled experiments with flimsier products.
Coach credits its creative director, Stuart Vevers, for the shift away from less resistant designs.
“When Stuart Vevers joined the brand in 2013 he looked to reinvent Coach with a modern luxury point of view yet staying true to our roots in leather craft,” the company said in a statement to HuffPost.
But as Coach struggles to compete in a fast-fashion world and attempts to return to its roots, it’s tried not to completely turn its back on the people who bought one of its bags that broke down too soon.
As of 2015, the company’s handbags and leather goods now come with a one-year warranty, the industry standard. Repairs for “manufacturing defects” are free within that timeframe according to the company’s website. Other repairs, including general maintenance on bags after the first year, can be completed for “set fees.”
Coach’s previous repair policy never offered free maintenance: For $20, you could send your bag away at any point in its lifespan for a fix-up. While this might have made sense at a time when bags were super durable, it no longer applies to every Coach bag.
And apparently these detail-rich bags require more effort on the part of the company’s repair people. In fact, Pecorella, one of the independent leather repair specialists we spoke to, recalled wondering how Coach had managed to keep pace with repair requests over the years.
Coach more or less admits this, saying in a statement to HuffPost that its “policy was updated a year ago to allow for Coach to accommodate more intricate work by our in-house craftsmen to ensure the highest quality and customer satisfaction with the repair.”
For the record, in 2012 I sent out my vintage bag for repairs under the old policy. One of its brass D-rings had worn out and, for $20, it came back in six weeks looking great. In 2016, I had the same problem, and the company fixed it for me again, this time for $40. That price hike for the same work was annoying, but it was certainly a better alternative than buying a whole new bag.
That Coach continues to offer repairs is handy, since independent leather repair specialists are expected to decrease in number over the next decade.
In the meantime, fans of old-school Coach can hope the company continues to remember its heritage.
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We've all been on the receiving end of a scathing email, as well as its mysterious, vaguely insulting cousins. You know the messages I'm referring to. They don't need exclamation points or all caps to teem with anger and drip with sarcasm.
Dressing someone down via email is tempting because it's easy -- you have plenty of time to dream up daggers that strike straight to the heart, and you lack the inhibition that's present when the recipient is staring you in the face.
This type of email is known in cyberspace as "flaming," and all such messages have a single thing in common -- a complete and utter lack of emotional intelligence (EQ).
Email has been around long enough that you'd think that we'd all be pros at using it to communicate effectively. But we're human and -- if you think about it -- we haven't mastered face-to-face communication either.
The bottom line is that we could all use a little help. The five strategies that follow are proven methods for keeping your emotions within reason, so that you don't hit "send" while your emails, tweets, comments, and virtual chime- ins are still flaming. 1. Follow Honest Abe's First Rule of Netiquette
I know what you're thinking: How could someone who died more than a century before the Internet existed teach us about email etiquette?
Well, in Lincoln's younger years, he had a bad habit of applying his legendary wit when writing insulting letters to, and about, his political rivals. But after one particularly scathing letter led a rival to challenge Lincoln to a duel, Lincoln learned a valuable lesson -- words impact the receiver in ways that the sender can't completely fathom.
By the time he died, Lincoln had amassed stacks of flaming letters that verbally shredded his rivals and subordinates for their bone-headed mistakes. However, Lincoln never sent them. He vented his frustration on paper, and then stuffed that sheet away in a drawer. The following day, the full intensity of his emotions having subsided, Lincoln wrote and sent a much more congenial and conciliatory letter.
We can all benefit from learning to do the same with email. Your emotions are a valid representation of how you feel -- no matter how intense -- but that doesn't mean that acting on them in the moment serves you well. Go ahead and vent -- tap out your anger and frustration on the keyboard. Save the draft and come back to it later when you've cooled down. By then you'll be rational enough to edit the message and pare down the parts that burn, or -- even better -- rewrite the kind of message that you want to be remembered by.
2. Know the Limits of Virtual Humor
Some people show their displeasure with words typed in ALL CAPS and a barrage of exclamation points. Others, however, express dissatisfaction more subtly with sarcasm and satire. The latter is no less of a breakdown in the core emotional intelligence skill of self-management, and it can be even more dangerous because it's harder to detect when you're doing it. The sender can always convince him or herself that the spite was just a little joke.
While a little good-natured ribbing can sometimes help lighten face-to-face interaction -- interaction with an arsenal of facial expressions and voice inflections to help you to convey the right tone -- it's almost never a good idea to have a laugh at someone else's expense online.
Online your message can too easily be misinterpreted without your body language to help to explain it, and you won't be there to soften the blow when your joke doesn't go over as intended. In the virtual world, it's best to err on the side of friendliness and professionalism. For those times when you absolutely cannot resist using humor, just make sure that you are the butt of the joke.
3. Remember That People Online Are Still People
While entranced by the warm glow of a computer monitor, it's sometimes difficult to remember that a living, breathing human being will end up reading your message. People who are communicating online experience a "disinhibition effect." Without the real-time feedback between sender and receiver that takes place in face-to-face and telecommunication, we simply don't worry as much about offending people online.
We don't have to experience the discomfort of watching someone else grow confused, despondent, or angry because of something that we said. When these natural consequences are delayed, we tend to spill onto the screen whatever happens to be on our mind.
Averting such messages requires you to be intentional in applying your social awareness skills. Without being able to physically see the other person's body language or hear the tone of his/her voice, you must picture the recipient in your mind and imagine what (s)he might feel when reading your message as it's been written.
In fact, the next time you receive a curt or outright rude email, put the brakes on before firing back a retort. Taking the time to imagine the sender and considering where he/she is coming from is often enough to extinguish the flames before they get out of control.
Could the sender have misinterpreted a previous message that you sent to him/her? Could (s)he just be having a bad day? Is (s)he under a lot of pressure? Even when the other party is in the wrong, spending a moment on the other side of the monitor will give you the perspective that you need to avoid further escalating the situation.
4. Know How the Internet Feels ;-) :-( :-o
Emoticons have a mixed reputation in the business world. Some people and even organizations believe that smiley faces, winks and other symbols of digital emotion are unprofessional, undignified, and have no place outside of a high school hallway.
When used properly, however, emoticons can effectively enhance the desired tone of a message. For those leery of dropping a smiley face into your next email, I'm not suggesting that you smile, wink, and frown your way through every email you write. Just don't be afraid to peck out a quick :-) the next time you want to be certain that the recipient is aware of your tongue planted firmly in cheek. 5. Know When Online Chats Need to Become Offline Discussions
Managing online relationships will always be a somewhat difficult task for people built to communicate in person. However, managing critical email conversations is even more difficult for those programmed to communicate via email. Significant, lengthy, and heated email exchanges are almost always better taken offline and finished in person.
With so much communication via email these days, it can be hard to pull the trigger and initiate a face-to-face conversation when you sense that an online interaction is becoming too heated or simply too difficult to do well online. Online technologies have become enormously useful for increasing the speed and efficiency of communication, but they have a long way to go before they become the primary source for creating and maintaining quality human relationships.
Bringing It All Together
Email is a challenging way to communicate strong emotions. I look forward to reading about your experiences and strategies in the comments section.
First, he banned tipping. Now, famed restaurateur Danny Meyer is giving all workers at his New York restaurants eight weeks of paid parental leave, according to Eater.com.
The policy is particularly notable in the service industry, where the pay is low and the benefits mostly nonexistent.
Meyer is CEO of the Union Square Hospitality Group, which owns 13 popular Gotham haunts, including Blue Smoke, Gramercy Tavern and The Modern. He also founded Shake Shack, which went public last year and isn’t affected by the new policy.
Full-time employees of Meyer’s New York City restaurants will get four weeks of parental leave at full pay, and the next four weeks at 60 percent of base pay.
Brendan McDermid/ReutersDanny Meyer, restaurateur and the CEO of the Union Square Hospitality Group, introduced a tipping ban at his restaurants last year.
Everyone who’s worked at the company for more than a year is eligible ― from busboys to cooks to servers to bartenders. The new policy starts in 2017 and covers all new parents, male or female, adoptive or otherwise.
Meyer’s move is a sign that the restaurant industry, for which even paid sick time is a rarity, is feeling the pressure to step up benefits for its workers. Only 48 percent of workers in the service industry get paid sick leave, according to the Labor Department. Far fewer have access to paid parental leave. The U.S. is one of three countries in the world that has no paid maternity leave policy.
If any restaurant chain was going to provide this benefit, it was going to be Meyer’s. He sent ripples through the industry last year when he announced his tipping ban. (Instead of tips, a service fee is included in the price of eating at his restaurants.) Other restaurants in New York and elsewhere have followed Meyer’s lead.
“We applaud [Union Square Hospitality Group] for being a pioneer on paid leave in the restaurant industry, as it has been on pay,” said Ellen Bravo, the executive director of leave advocacy group Family Values @ Work, in a statement. “The policy will allow their employees to be more productive while being better providers and caregivers to their families.”
What’s worse than feeling constipated? Feeling constipated at 30,000 feet for 14 hours.
But much like how you snake around luggage-fumbling fellow passengers who crowd the aisle during boarding, you can outmaneuver the most common self-inflicted afflictions of the international air traveler, bloating included. We’ve teamed up with United Polaris to gather the science on why you don’t feel so hot in the air, as well as what you can do to mitigate discomfort. Read on to see if you’ve ever been one of these five cranky airline passengers, then take note of our doctor-approved tips to ensure you never have to be them again.
Seat 7G: The One Who’s Bloated
fizkes via Getty Images
Before the flight attendant can clear the silverware from the dinner service, this passenger senses an uncomfortable pressure in his stomach. He knows the human body is about 60 percent water. At the moment, however, his feels more like 99 percent gas. You see him rifle through his briefcase then abruptly stop ― must have forgotten to replace the emergency antacids. And now he’s booting up his laptop, Google Translating “constipation” into Mandarin. They’ve got to have good natural remedies in Beijing, right?
“Your body is borrowing from Peter to pay Paul,” Dr. Wanda Filer says of that unmistakable backed-up sensation. “It moves the fluid from the gut into the regular circulatory system.” According to Dr. Filer, a past president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, cabin pressure is a contributing factor to bloating, but the real culprits of constipation are a lack physical activity and proper fluid intake. Drink extra water and try a few yoga moves while waiting for the lavatory, and you just might be able to forgo a painful midnight search for Chinese bismuth after you land.
16A: The One With Tight, Red Skin
Izabela Habur via Getty Images
Every 20 seconds, her fingers dig into her cheeks, chin or forehead. Even from where you’re sitting you can see how tight and shiny the skin is ― her face bears an unfortunate resemblance to a red mylar balloon.
The airplane cabin’s ambient humidity can be much lower than that of your office or home, which can cause skin problems, says Dr. Barney Kenet, an attending dermatologist at the New York–Presbyterian Hospital; his travel-friendly skincare products are featured in thousands of Hyatt Hotel rooms worldwide. “If you’re in a dry environment, the surrounding air pulls moisture from your skin through osmosis ― water moves from a higher concentration to a lower concentration,” he says. “Therefore, your skin gets dried out.”
Dry air can also cause skin to look red and inflamed, which coffee, alcohol and salty food exacerbate. Avoid 16A’s fate by employing Dr. Kenet’s simple fix: Ziploc a washcloth with a few cubes of ice and a splash of milk, which acts as an anti-inflammatory agent. After you board and settle into your seat, apply the cool compress to your face (or these wipes, if you don’t have time to grab a Ziploc), promptly following up with a fragrance-free moisturizer to lock in moisture while the skin is still slightly damp.
Just remember, drinking water isn’t a substitute for a solid skin care routine. “I recommend drinking water [on a plane] for a lot of other reasons, like blood clots,” Dr. Kenet says. “But I’m totally unimpressed with that for skin. The aesthetic impact of hydrating that way … is less than [that of] a cool compress and moisturizer.”
24B: The One With A Toothache
Bellurget Jean Louis via Getty Images
There’s only two more hours until the plane touches down in Johannesburg, but by the way the passenger in 24B is moaning, that might be two hours too many. At some point between his second helping of vanilla ice cream and third glass of pinot noir (hey, it’s called a “cheat day” for a reason), he began to wince. What started as a pinprick has now transformed into an unrelenting throbbing through his entire jaw.
“A drop in cabin pressure will cause air trapped under loose fillings or in cracks to expand, and that can be very painful,” says Dr. Sivan Finkel, a dentist at The Dental Parlour in New York City. He recommends getting a dental checkup before an upcoming flight if you’ve felt any recent sensitivity in your teeth. If you’re already on the plane and need immediate relief, avoid ice, hot and cold drinks, and stay hydrated. Once you’re on the ground, a hotel concierge can connect you with a local dentist that can treat your condition. (Help for the sweet tooth, however, should be sourced elsewhere.)
3K: The One With A Huge Pimple
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The captain is telling passengers on the left side of the plane to look outside their windows for a glimpse of Mt. Fuji. But not to worry if you’re sitting on the right ― Mr. 3K has the eighth Wonder of the World blooming smack in the middle of his forehead. Of course this would happen the day before his keynote speech at the annual company conference in Tokyo.
“Your adrenal glands respond to emotional and physical stress,” Dr. Kenet says ― stress that includes the fatigue involved with traveling. These glands make cortisol that then increases the oil production in your sebaceous glands, found throughout your skin. The result? Oily skin and pimples. Use meditation and deep breathing ― Dr. Kenet is a fan of Ujjayi Breathing ― to curb stress-related oil production before it starts. And if you’ve already started breaking out, “buy Visine, put it on a Q-tip, and dab it on the pimple,” Dr. Kenet recommends. “It will literally get the red out.”
12E: The One With Bad Breath
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This woman’s got a stale, fuzzy taste in her mouth, but it isn’t until she expels a quick test breath into her palms that she’s able to confirm it: Eau de Swamp Monster. When a flight attendant asks if she’d like another beverage, 12E speaks softly and into her hand, determined to catch the radioactive puffs. The attendant is a lovely person with a full life ahead of him who doesn’t deserve to go out like this.
“A dry mouth can cause bad breath,” Dr. Finkel says. “Saliva has some antibacterial properties that counteract acidity. We’re more prone to cavity-causing bacteria and the destructive effects of the acidity of the food that we eat.” Opt for lots of water and pass on the alcohol. You’ll keep your mouth hydrated and ensure that innocent flight attendants remain free of contamination.
United Polaris is United Airlines’ all-new business class service, featuring a reimagined, built-from-scratch experience that prioritizes sleep and rest with the goal of making jet-lagged business travel a relic of the past.
When restaurants and grocery stores end up with scraps and other leftovers that cannot be donated to food banks, what happens to them?
A lot end up in landfills, contributing to the already massive amounts of food waste that emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as it breaks down. But a growing amount is being used to feed farm animals.
As the EPA’s Food Recovery Hierarchy specifies, this strategy is one of the most effective ways to deal with food waste that cannot be used to feed people.
The practice is an age-old one that fell out of fashion in the 1980s due to a number of disease outbreaks that were linked to animal feed.
Today, however, it appears to be having a comeback as interest in food waste reduction efforts is rising dramatically, evidenced by a range of efforts across the food industry.
In general, this is how it works: Leftovers such as kitchen scraps and plate waste are collected, treated and processed into an oat-like consistency, then are fed to livestock such as pigs and cows. Even zoo animals can benefit from this type of feed.
Darden Restaurants is among the companies getting on board.
In 2014, Darden, which owns national chains including Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse and The Capital Grille, launched an organics recycling pilot program. The company sends scraps and other food waste that cannot go to food banks to be converted into animal feed, and composts other waste through the program.
The nascent program still represents just a small percentage — 0.53 percent, according to a company report — of Darden’s overall recycling efforts and is only taking place in a limited number of locations, the exact number of which a company spokesman declined to disclose.
Still, Darden appears to be alone in its food recycling efforts (the company has also been accused of underpaying and discriminating against workers.)
Some university dining halls, like facilities at Rutgers and University of California at Berkeley, have also instituted similar programs. Rutgers diverts about 4 million pounds of waste from landfills per year this way, saving the university’s dining services division about $100,000 annually in waste-hauling costs.
Grocery stores have also embraced the concept.
Quest Resource Management Group helps grocers and other companies reduce the amount of waste they generate. The largest portion of Quest’s business comes from its work helping grocery stores reduce their food waste, mostly by donating scraps to farms.
According to Hatch, the company helped divert over 600,000 tons of scraps from the waste stream last year, 60 percent of which was used to feed animals, while 35 percent was composted and another 5 percent was converted into a renewable energy source by going through anaerobic digestion.
“Those tons, before we came along, were all going to the landfill,” said Ray Hatch, the company’s CEO. “Everything went in the dumpster.”
The company works with four of the top 10 national food retailers, including Walmart, and three large regional chains, according to Vanessa Lepice, its vice president of marketing and new business development.
All told, they are working with about 6,000 grocery stores throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. They train partnering stores’ employees how to properly separate scraps that can be donated to local farms and processed into animal feed from types of waste that are not safe for the animals to eat, like plastic packaging and raw meat.
It appears to be working. The amount of food waste the company has diverted has grown fivefold since the program was first rolled out in 2010, including about 20 percent each of the past two years, Quest said.
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But perhaps it’s not growing fast enough. The practice still hasn’t caught on in a way that would make a more significant dent in the 60 million tons, or $218 billion worth of food, that the U.S. wastes each year.
Zhengxia Dou, a professor of agricultural systems at the University of Pennsylvania, believes she knows why progress is lagging. She, along with several colleagues, explored the topic in a paper published earlier this year in the academic journal Global Food Security.
According to Dou, the strictness of health-related regulations concerning the practice is a big factor. Federal law mandates that scraps must be heated to 100 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes before being fed to pigs, for example. An incompatibility with the precision feeding techniques typically preferred on today’s farms, particularly larger ones, is another.
Technological innovation will be necessary in order to overcome these barriers, Dou said. She hasn’t seen much evidence of that happening quite yet.
“As an academic, I don’t know much how to make it happen, from an idea to a feasible technological solution and to a successful business,” Dou said in an email.
Another likely reason is that the regulations concerning the use of food scraps as animal feed vary widely from state to state.
A new report from Harvard University and University of Arkansas researchers published last month aims to address any confusion about the practice by laying out all of the federal- and state-level rules and suggesting best practices for safe and effective implementation.
“We want to show people that this is what you can do and this is how you do it, to encourage people to start this process again,” said Christina Rice, a clinical fellow at Harvard’s Food and Policy Law Center and one of the report’s authors.
Rice believes that the practice will continue to become more common, and as that happens, she is confident many current obstacles will dissipate.
“This got taken out of the conversation for a while, but it can happen again,” Rice added.
Lepice agreed, pointing out that states like Minnesota and California have instituted tougher commercial recycling regulations, which will encourage firms to get more creative in addressing their waste issues.
They may, she believes, turn to animal feed diversion as a solution. She expects consumer pressure will aid in that progress.
“Consumers are driving this, too. They’re asking what companies are doing with food waste,” Lepice added. “I firmly believe we’re on the right path.”
