Columbia University allegedly protected an obstetrician who assaulted hundreds of patients, and Lyft unveiled a new feature for women and non-binary people, and an architect CEO weighs in on return-to-office. Do you have a wonderful Wednesday?
No one has a better understanding of what's really happening with offices and the effort to get employees to return to them than the people behind those buildings. One of these people is Diane Hoskins, co-CEO of Gensler, a global architecture and design firm, whose projects include airports, sports stadiums and, yes, offices.
Office vacancy rates in the U.S. range from 15% to 15%. But if you take a closer look at which offices are vacant, Hoskins says, it's out-of-date buildings. Businesses are choosing buildings constructed after 2015 in a competition that has resulted in a shift to quality. The number of rents in these buildings is in the single digits, as employers seek better-quality offices and amenities, possibly to soften the blow of RTO. Hoskins says he wants to be able to speak with the president and see what he thinks of the president.
That might seem like a convenient data point for an architecture firm behind some of those new offices. It may indicate which types of businesses are succeeding at RTO and which are struggling to imagine a future in which RTO sticks. Hoskins said that he is confident he will continue to pursue a career in banking and finance. And that's what vacancy rates speak to - how companies are planning for the future, not how many people are showing up to work today. People are over-focusing on the latter issue, Hoskins said.
This isn't the first time Hoskins has experienced business norms change despite rapid societal changes. She and Cohen have been leading Gensler for 18 years. Instead of a unique response to pandemic-era work-from-home culture, today's work-from-home culture is a natural part of an economic cycle, she contends.
The 1980s savings-and-loan crisis in the U.S., she says, led to a focus on workplace flexibility. The dot-com era led to organizational flattening, in physical offices, which meant tearing down cubicle and office walls and creating more visibility on office floors. In fact, she says, co-working came out of the recession era.
Hoskins and Cohen, who co-founded Design for a Radically Changing World, are producing the bookDesign for a Radically Changing World. A culture of quiet. Robert Hadden, a professor of obstetrics at Columbia University, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in July for sexually assaulting patients, 245 of whom have come forward. However, new details show that Columbia frequently undermined the legal process against Hadden and even let him continue his practice-and assault more women-after police showed up to investigate his crimes. Columbia apologized for the pain the patients suffered as a result of [Hadden's] abhorrent misconduct and blamed the doctor for 'purposely working' to evade oversight. The COVID-19 pandemic marked the first time in history that more U.S. women lost their jobs than men, but the number of women in the workforce is already back to pre-pandemic levels. For the third time in history, women have made up half of the labor force. Black women are still recovering more slowly from their deep losses, a source close to home tells Reuters. The name game. A majority of women take their husband's last name during marriage, but some groups are more likely to than others. Women without college degrees, white women, and conservatives often change their names more frequently than their peers. Maternal care revisited. Melinda French Gates is warning that it's still a very dangerous day when a woman goes in to deliver a baby after co-authoring a report this past Tuesday that exposes the damning presence of maternal mortality. French Gates recommends the use of inexpensive plastic bags that can measure blood loss and iron infusions that can treat or prevent severe anemia. Pega hired Jen Pratt as general manager of the U.S. government sector. Suzette Noble, who has served as the Chief Executive of LaGuardia Gateway Partners, has been appointed by LaGuardia Gateway Partners. WSP named Jennifer Gagnier as the senior vice president of health, safety, environment, and quality for the United States. Jana Schuster, deputy president of revenue operations and growth strategy, has been appointed by the department. Maven has named Dr. Hiba Sher Khan, a top medical director in the U.K., as its medical director. The company has named Kirsten Suarez as its chief marketing officer.
Betty Friedan and the movement that outgrew her The New Yorker.
Caroline Suh, co-director of the new documentary Sorry/Not Sorry, on the women who were criticized and forgotten after calling out Louis C.K., returned to comedy less than a year after his scandal.