Germany’s largest trade union, IG Metall, agreed a 2.3% wage increase, to be paid either in full or as part of a switch to a four-day week, in a key industrial region, setting the benchmark for 3.9 million metal and engineering workers nationwide.

Accountancy giant staff can choose the hours they work and mix home and office following pandemic.

To the surprise of the average workaholic American, the French government legally forbade employees from eating lunch at their desks for years. But just recently, in an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19, France’s Labor Ministry changed its labor code to allow folks to consume their midday meals at their work stations. Specifically, employees found eating lunch at their desks will no longer be at risk of incurring a fine.

You can yak all the time on Slack, Teams, or Google Chat — or get real work done with email.

Use of virtual reality headsets for workplace meetings could "snowball", a business group has said, as firms try to blend home and office working. "We're likely to see it really take off quite quickly," Joe Fitzsimons of the Institute of Directors told the BBC's Wake Up To Money programme.

In an ironic twist, companies still enjoy a tax benefit for providing office space for employees, despite many workplaces sitting empty as those same employees work at home.

Work from home expert Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economist, says office space will get more collaborative, and you’ll still be working from home (just not as much).

Many U.S. office workers are approaching a year of working from home. While vaccine distribution is accelerating and the number of new U.S. COVID-19 cases are falling, companies are taking a cautious stance on getting back to the office, with executives telling Yahoo Finance they’re targeting a September return date.

Feeling like you’re swimming against a current. Lack of energy. Constantly longing for the end of the day and never feeling like you’ve got enough time. These are all signs of burnout, and they can happen to anyone.

This pandemic shifted how we work, and for most organizations, it has completely changed how they function. There has been a push to make work from home permanent from some staff. Out of 1022 professionals surveyed, 30% said they would resign from their position if they had to return to their office after the pandemic. Scary yes, but don’t rush the process.

In February 2020, we were just realizing we'd need to work from home for a while. We had no idea just how drastic the change would be. Now, a year in, thanks to the Coronavirus vaccines, we're beginning to think about returning to the office. Or, are we?

On Friday, the National Labor Relations Board rejected Amazon’s attempt to delay a union vote set to begin on Monday, February 8. For many, the online giant’s bid was seen as a stalling tactic, including a motion to demand votes take place in-person — a clear health risk, as the COVID-19 virus still poses a major threat in the United States and globally.

Maria Fernandes died at the age of thirty-two while sleeping in her car in a Wawa parking lot in New Jersey. It was the summer of 2014, and she worked low-wage jobs at three different Dunkin’ Donuts, and slept in her Kia in between shifts, with the engine running and a container of gasoline in the back, in case she ran out. In the locked car, still wearing her white-and-brown Dunkin’ Donuts uniform, she died from gasoline and exhaust fumes.

Even if they seem remorseful, research finds their behavior is unlikely to change.

The work world has changed. Regardless of how quickly we conquer Covid-19, many of us will not be returning to the office. Here's what that new work from home world will look like.

Although the pandemic forced employees around the world to adopt makeshift remote work setups, a growing proportion of the workforce already spent at least part of their week working from home, while some businesses had embraced a “work-from-anywhere” philosophy from their inception. But much as virtual events rapidly gained traction in 2020, the pandemic accelerated a location-agnostic mindset across the corporate world, with tech behemoths like Facebook and Twitter announcing permanent remote working plans.

Phil, an IT worker in the Midlands, has worked a four day week for two years. "I fit my 36 hours into those days, which works very well," he said. "The biggest bonus is being able to schedule personal chores - those 'must be done on a week-day jobs' for the Friday, so I don't have to waste precious holiday on them."

In army of robots now scrub floors, grow microgreens and flip burgers. Due to advances in artificial intelligence, computers will supposedly take over much more of the service sector in the coming decade, including jobs in law, finance and medicine that require years of education and training.

Do you like your job? Maybe you do, but I think you should reevaluate. At the very least, I think you should be uncomfortable with the fact that you live in a system that compels you to have a job, particularly if that job is neither necessary for your own well-being nor the well-being of others.

Working time reduction has always been used as a way of distributing available work and reducing unemployment. In our era of crisis, we need to fight for a four-day week.