Tausi Insider

If your career objective is to climb the corporate ladder, then you need to get recognized as a high-potential employee, or HiPo. HiPos have been tagged as the top performers in an organization and are invited to key meetings, asked for input, offered advanced learning opportunities and given plum assignments. And even when economic circumstances lead to layoffs, they are the ones who don’t just avoid the axe, but always seem to endure without any scars. So what does it take to be recognized as a HiPo? While some of it may be who you know, or luck, there are ways to influence how you and your talents are perceived. If you are deliberate and thoughtful about showcasing your strengths and establishing your workplace value, you can, and will, position yourself as a HiPo. Here are seven things you can do right now to become worthy of HiPo status. 1. Do excellent work Fulfill your current responsibilities. Don’t just perform well, perform exceptionally well. This is your baseline. If you ...

Do women become less “nice” in middle age? It would appear that we think so. And that throws an additional wrench into our efforts to develop more gender-balanced leadership teams. A gender stereotype we hold of is that women are kinder and more warm-hearted, nicer and less aggressive, compared with men. But University of California business professor Jennifer Chatman decided to investigate whether that held as we age, after noticing student evaluations of her teaching became harsher when she entered her forties, even as she felt her teaching was improving. With colleagues, she conducted three different studies of various work situations and found both men and women are perceived as more capable or effective as they get older, but only women are seen as less warm as they age – causing them to be judged more harshly. This is a critical age, of course, as decisions are often being made for top leadership posts. Perhaps this helps some women – no longer blocked for being too nice – but...

An Indian schoolgirl wears a mask of Chinese President Xi Jinping to welcome him on the eve of his visit in Chennai, India, Oct. 10, 2019. R. Parthibhan/The Associated Press Simon Commander is managing partner of Altura Partners and visiting professor of economics at IE Business School. Saul Estrin is professor of managerial economics at the London School of Economics. They are the authors of The Connections World: The Future of Asian Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 2022). Close ties linking Asia’s business dynasties to politicians and political power will derail the continent’s economic success if left in place. This sobering fact runs counter to the common refrain that the 21st century belongs to the Asia, not least its growth beacon, China. From barely 9 per cent of world GDP in 1970 to more than 40 per cent now, Asia has surely been the rising economic force. And as Asian incomes per capita are still low compared with Canada and other advanced economies, the scope for fut...

Tala Abu Hayyaneh, photographed outside a pub in Calgary, says that the social pressure to take part in after-work drinks can result in uncomfortable situations. Leah Hennel After-work drinks has long been the default setting for casual networking in many Canadian workplaces. The act of gathering at a bar or restaurant to consume alcohol is often seen as a way for employees and their bosses to bond, chat and get to know one another outside the pressures of the job. But for women and other marginalized groups, this common social practice is not always inclusive. For Tala Abu Hayyaneh, a Calgary-based millennial working in the public sector, the presumed participation in drinking culture has resulted in uncomfortable situations. As a Muslim woman, Ms. Abu Hayyaneh recalls the social pressure to conform that occurred during her first employee work retreat post-pandemic lockdowns. “This was the only socializing opportunity to network, [and it] was happening late in the evening at a brewe...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tours the damage caused by post-tropical storm Fiona in Port aux Basques, N.L. on Sept. 28. Frank Gunn/CP Eric Bosco is executive director and Annie Levasseur is scientific director of the newly launched Circular-Built Infrastructure Institute at École de Technologie Supérieure. The message coming out of the latest UN Climate Change Conference is loud and clear: Climate change is no longer tomorrow’s problem. It’s happening now, with serious impact to our infrastructure, and the situation is only going to get worse before it gets better. We simply can’t afford to continue building infrastructure the same way we always have. You don’t have to look further than Hurricane Fiona to measure the significant economic and social impact increased severe weather events are having on infrastructure. Tens of thousands of homes and businesses throughout Atlantic Canada were without power for more than a week and the federal government’s fall economic forecast has ea...

The bond market is flashing code red on our economy. It’s a vivid warning of what’s likely to come, and what will likely cut the borrowing costs for millions of Canadians by the end of next year. What we’re talking about here is the yield curve, which has a compelling track record of predicting recession – and falling mortgage rates. What’s a yield curve, you say? Think of it as a graph – one that shows how interest rates, or yields, change based on how long you lend to the government. People looking at the curve often focus on the difference, or “spread,” between yields on 10-year bonds and two-year bonds. Normally, long-term yields are higher than short-term yields (reflecting the higher risk in lending for a longer period). Not today. As we speak, the 10-year yield is almost 100 basis points below the two-year. That’s extraordinary. (A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.) In fact, it hasn’t happened in more than three decades – and the last time it did, in the earl...

According to research conducted by Gartner, worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services increased nearly 19 per cent in 2022. pcess609 Cloud services were originally billed as a more cost-effective way to manage information technology (IT). As a rising number of companies flock to them it’s becoming clearer that, left unchecked, cloud costs can accumulate quickly. According to research conducted by Gartner, worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services increased nearly 19 per cent in 2022, and it is projected to grow an additional 20.7 per cent in the year ahead. In another recent study from Toronto-based cloud-managed services provider Aptum, 73 per cent of IT decision makers said cloud computing has resulted in higher-than-expected costs, up from 57 per cent last year. Sixty-five per cent admit to having wasted money on cloud-related inefficiencies. “We are beginning to see the kickback, where customers are starting to say ‘wait, this isn’t working the way I thoug...

Empty chairs at an office in Toronto. Adetona omokanye/Tausi Insider Is remote work keeping inflation down? And if that’s the case, should we make sure it survives a downturn in the labour market? Those seem to be the questions posed by a U.S. study this year on working from home, and they seem particularly relevant when the Bank of Canada is talking about driving the unemployment rate up as a way to rein in price pressures. The study comes from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Trying to get an idea of the correlation between wages and remote work, the researchers asked businesses whether they were using more opportunities to work from home as a way to keep workers happy and moderate wage-growth pressures. Thirty-eight per cent of respondents said yes, they were indeed dangling work-at-home options as alternatives to offering more money. Looking for a more precise way to quantify the impact, the researchers used the data to calculate that expanding remote-work opportu...

People shop at the Eaton Centre in Toronto on Nov. 22. CARLOS OSORIO/Reuters As disturbing as the past year has been in personal finance, 2023 threatens to be worse. A huge wave of interest rate increases hit this year. Next year, they really sink in. The cumulative impact of higher payments on mortgages, credit lines and floating rate loans will challenge households to maintain their lifestyle without incurring more debt, and slow the entire economy. Stress Test podcast: Recession-beating tips for the job market, housing, investing and cost of life One way to ease your way into 2023 is to keep a firm grip on your holiday season spending. You won’t find the religion of frugality preached here. Ya gotta live, I say. But there are ways to stay in control of your spending so that you don’t spend January regretting December. Here’s a 10-pack of ideas for you: Avoid BNPL Buy now, pay later is an option that many retailers and some credit card issuers offer where you pay for a purchase wit...

A person walks by a lit up sign during the COP15 conference in Montreal, on Dec. 7. ANDREJ IVANOV/AFP/Getty Images Canada’s negotiators at the COP15 conference say business groups and financial institutions have a role to play in preserving the planet’s biodiversity. Basile van Havre, co-chair of one of the Montreal conference’s working groups, says the private sector is looking for rules and certainty on the environmental effectiveness of its investments. He says it’s part of a larger push for performance standards that companies and investors can use to measure their activities against. The conference, which is bringing more than 190 nations together, is entering its second day of hard talks on hard targets for saving the world’s biodiversity. What’s on the agenda at the UN’s COP15 nature summit in Montreal? Negotiators hope to reach an agreement on how to protect 30 per cent of Earth’s land and water, as well as a deal on how to pay for that conservation. Van Havre says business g...

Crude oil tanker New Vision, carrying Kazakh oil, at the Dardanelles Anchorage off Sarkoy near Tekirdag, Turkey, on Dec. 9. YORUK ISIK/Reuters The Group of Seven countries’ price cap on Russian oil is not responsible for a queue of tankers waiting in the Black Sea to pass through Istanbul’s Bosphorus Strait on the way to the Mediterranean, the European Commission said. The number of vessels queuing in the Black Sea increased on Friday to 20, according to the Tribeca shipping agency, amid talks to disperse the build-up. Since the start of the month, Turkey has required vessels to provide proof of insurance covering their transit through the Bosphorus strait or when calling at Turkish ports, which is causing a logjam. The queues have coincided with the introduction of a plan this week by G7 countries and the European Union to stop insurers from helping to export Russian oil by ship unless it is sold at a capped price, in an attempt to reduce Moscow’s oil revenues. “This situation is no...

It wasn’t until the 1970s that a narrative started to build around finding interest and fulfilment as a centrepiece of career decision-making. Cecilie_Arcurs/iStockPhoto / Getty Images Career advice books published in the 1950s and 1960s typically advised workers to find a stable, well-paying career and gradually learn to enjoy the work itself. The prevailing wisdom at the time suggested that fulfilment would come from mastering a craft, but made little mention of aligning career ambitions with personal interests. It wasn’t until the 1970s that a narrative started to build around finding interest and fulfilment as a centrepiece of career decision-making, says Erin Cech, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Michigan. “Having work that is interesting and meaningful is of central importance to workers at least since the early 1980s,” says Dr. Cech, author of The Trouble With Passion: How Searching for Fulfillment at Work Fosters Inequality . Around that time, employm...