#65: Americans Financially Stressed (and ready to leave for higher pay), Belgium Makes 4 Day Work Week A Right, Microsoft Says Time To Return To The Office For Some Employees

Are you the nearly half of working parents who have reached your breaking point? Or one of the 54% of employees more stressed about your finances now than before the pandemic?

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1. How are you financially feeling?

   • Feeling kinda like 💩? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

     • According to a Betterment Report:

     • 54% of employees are more stressed about their finances now than before the pandemic

     • 68% would prioritize financial wellness benefits above an extra week of vacation

     • 74% would leave their job for a company that offered better financial benefits—and this number jumps to, gulp, 85% for student loan borrowers

   • Related to financial wellbeing, congrats to Miami for being the most expensive housing market. Is this a preview for other up and coming cities that people fled to during the pandemic?

   • Also insult to injury… mortgage rates are jumping back up and just recently hit 4%.

2. How is your team feeling?

   1. According to Bright Horizons, nearly half of working parents have “reached their breaking point as the pandemic continues, with disruption in child care being a prominent stressor.”

3. Is the solution a four day work week?

   • Belgium thinks so, as workers in Belgium will have the right to request a four-day work week from employers, following new economic reforms intended to give workers more flexibility. 

4. Or is it coming back to the office?

   • Microsoft thinks so as they announced they will start asking some employees to return to offices at the end of this month.

   • Umm…the data is pretty clear, most remote workers don’t want to go back.

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Why hire a freelancer? 👇👇👇

From the voice of our friend Matt (yep, that’s 3 Matts)

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🦮 Luca’s Book Of The Week

Dalio does a great job of quantifying exactly how history rhyme’s economically and technologically.

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🦮 Luca Pic of the Week

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1. Matt and I brought a couple interesting points related to this.

   • First, is that we’re starting to quit the polarizing twitter bullsh** and getting back to needing to make a living.

   • Second, is that this shows the need for personal responsibility, which is both the main ingredient and also the main side effect to the digital transformation. Crypto, freelancing…these all operate on the basis of decentralizing bringing power to individuals. Our parents relied on the company taking care of their financial well being, from insurance, to retirement, to vacation. Companies no longer do this, instead most companies give us layoffs, bureaucracy, and fake corporate cool-aid.

   • Third, it’s a massive opportunity for you as a leader to take care of your teams on all fronts.

2. Related to above, technology is re-writing the social contract between employer and employee. Depending on what you value, you can use technology to write norms that make your teams closer than ever.…