If AI isn’t coming for your job, it’s certainly coming for your office space. Diane Hoskins, global co-chair at Gensler, and John Santora, CEO of WeWork, explained during this year’s panel at Semafor World Economy how offices are changing, and what employees want from them.

US workplaces are still feeling the ripple effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Hoskins. While many workers were happy with remote arrangements in 2020, others were dissatisfied. The sweet spot, she said Gensler found from many employers in the US, was three days a week in the office.

“The come back to the workplace was not necessarily a come back to utopia,” she said. “There’s been a real, honest dialog about what it takes to do great work and what are the environments that are needed.”

Employees needed more space for collaboration, as well as quiet spaces to focus. Essentially, workspaces need to be individualized. “It is incumbent upon us as leaders…to make it worthwhile for the people that come to work,” Santora added.

Keep reading for more on how office spaces are adapting and evolving.—KP

The Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued a proposed rule that seeks to establish a blanket standard for determining when multiple businesses are considered a “joint employer” of a group of workers.

The proposed joint employer standard, which would apply to the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, seeks “to address the dearth of departmental regulatory guidance,” on this matter, per a DOL press release published on April 22.

HR compliance teams have been operating without a federal joint employer standard since 2021, when the Biden administration rescinded a DOL rule issued during President Donald Trump’s first term.

Business groups have applauded the proposed rule, as it’s expected to make it harder for companies to qualify as a joint employer, thus making multiple parties liable for labor violations that affect workers in their purview.

So what does this mean for HR? Keep reading here.—CV

Hold on to your wallets: A recent report raised concerns that the human aspect of mergers and acquisitions is being left by the wayside.

M&A offers opportunities to rapidly grow revenue, but in a March research report, professional services firm RGP found what it called “The Human Value Gap in M&A.”

The report was based on a survey of 120 CFOs across technology, consumer products and retail, financial services, private equity, and healthcare, most at companies with more than $500 million in annual revenue. The research also included in-depth interviews with 15 CHROs from global enterprises.

A key finding: Intangible assets like culture, talent, and knowledge were noted as critical to a deal’s success by a large majority—81%—of the CFO respondents, but only 18% said they felt their organization protected these things effectively.

The value of human capital has long been a topic of discussion among CFOs, but with the rise of AI and other rapidly advancing technologies in the last several years, firms like RGP are raising similar warnings for M&A deals: that people are just as vital to a deal as the highly quantifiable assets on a balance sheet.

For more on HR’s role as a “strategic enabler,” read the full story on CFO Brew.—DL

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