Like Billy Beane in Moneyball, HR leaders are always coming up with new and better ways to measure and demonstrate the success of their talent strategies—especially as CEOs, board members, and investors have become increasingly interested in assessing the strength of a company’s culture and the quality of its people pros.

Among outside stakeholders, “we’re seeing a lot of interest in how [metrics] can be applied to HR and people management for our clients,” Traci Mabrey, general manager of Dow Jones Factiva, told HR Brew, adding that there is “certainly a big amount of return-to-the-workplace conversation and planning, and [about] how that is impacting both retention and hiring.”

After the roller-coaster ride that was the last three years, it’s no wonder top leadership is now taking a greater interest in HR—one that was previously reserved for product, finance, and revenue functions.

While some leaders may see good products as the key to success, they’re forgetting that people make those products, as Techstars CEO Maëlle Gavet told HR Brew.

“It’s about building businesses for the long term,” Gavet said. “Building the best product possible is critical, but the only way you’re going to be building the best product possible is to have the best people.”

HR leaders should think of this data like their GPA: It’s important for them and for stakeholders who use it to determine organizational health.

The foundation. Gavet recommended that HR should monitor workers’ progress through the various stages of the employee lifecycle, from recruiting and onboarding to departing. This should include measuring headcount, voluntary and involuntary turnover, and diversity data, as well as pay raises and promotions—including how many employees receive them and their demographic breakdowns—as these are key drivers of retention and inclusion. Keep reading here.—AK

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Working from home can be frustrating. Employees have to restock their own coffee pods, wash endless amounts of dishes, and fix their own broken printer or computer. Still, many workers prefer the minor inconveniences of remote work over having to commute to an office. And if their Q3 earnings are any indication, commercial real estate companies seem to have gotten the memo.

There may be rough times ahead for the real estate market, but experts say that office space is still needed, while acknowledging that employers may opt for smaller spaces with different amenities.

Rough quarter. Office space vacancy reached 12.4% in Q3, up slightly from 12.3% in Q2, giving it “the highest vacancy rate across all sectors of the commercial real estate market,” according to the National Association of Realtors.

There was a record amount of office sublease space available nationwide in July, indicating that businesses may have been trying to offload much of their real estate, according to a study from CoStar reported by the Wall Street Journal. In fact, Meta, Lyft, and Salesforce have all cut back on “millions of square feet of office space,” according to reports.

According to a paper from NYU Stern School of Business and Columbia University, office space occupancy in major US markets has experienced something of a rebound, hitting 47% in September, up from a pandemic-era low of 10% in March 2020. But it’s still significantly lower than the 95% tracked in February 2020. And companies that do sign leases are now looking to sign shorter ones than they did pre-pandemic.

Don’t destroy the printers…yet. Colliers, a commercial real estate firm, signaled that office occupancy rates are expected to rise incrementally, with occupancy remaining higher in suburban areas than in dense CBDs. Keep reading here.—KP

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The job stresses that lead to burnout, Christina Maslach, emerita professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, told HR Brew, can feel like pebbles in your shoe: “They are there all the time. They’re high frequency.” Before the day even starts, burnt-out employees are exhausted and cynical. They can feel overwhelmed by the tasks at hand, physically sick, and disillusioned with their jobs.

They’re also likely to feel alone as they try to cope.

Maslach, cocreator of the widely used Maslach Burnout Inventory, and her research partner, organizational psychologist Michael Leiter, often hear from employees who are desperate for solutions.

“There’s people contacting us and saying, ‘All we get is…‘Take care of yourself! Self care! Self care! Self care! Is there anything else? [Because] it’s not going very far here,’” Maslach said.

But Maslach and Leiter don’t believe workers can reverse burnout by taking PTO, setting work–life boundaries, or turning off notifications at night. Burnout, they argue in their new book, The Burnout Challenge: Managing People’s Relationships with Their Jobs, is not a disease—it’s a stress response. And coping, Maslach said, requires environmental changes.

The authors spoke with HR Brew about what job factors most often create high-burnout environments and how HR professionals can address them.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Why should we think about burnout in relation to a work environment?

Maslach: If we’re really going to help people live a healthier and a more productive life and have things work better in the workplace, we need to be looking at why [burnout is] happening...How do we fix both the job and the person so that there’s a little bit more of a supportive environment to help them thrive and grow and do well?

What are some of the job factors that can contribute to burnout? Keep reading here.

What book should HR pros read next? Click here to let us know.

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: 52% of freelancers are expected to remain part of the gig economy until they retire. (Yahoo)

Quote: “I’ve never seen this kind of report be publicly published. It’s extremely comprehensive. It provides a model for other companies to follow.”—Natasha Lamb, managing partner at Arjuna Capital, on the firm’s proposal, which outlines new sexual harassment policies for Microsoft (the Seattle Times)

Read: The Biden Administration’s proposed changes to hiring independent contractors could change the nature of gig work. (Forbes)

Accessibility matters: Assistive tech ranges from captions to a modified mouse, but many employers don’t know how to request these accommodations for their team. HR Brew learned how to change this. Sponsored by Leapsome.*

IT can be easy: We teamed up with Electric to survey 500+ tech decision-makers about the challenges and solutions to scaling in today’s environment—and how they’re leveraging the right tools to alleviate common pitfalls for good. Read their insight here.*

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