Oxford MBA Receives Emmy Nomination for Amanda Knox Documentary
Learning about the business side of filmmaking isn’t one of the more common reasons to pursue an MBA, but it’s exactly why Stephen Robert Morse attended Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. It was through this experience that Morse went on to produce the 2016 Netflix documentary Amanda Knox, which explores the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, as well as Knox’s resulting imprisonment, retrials, and eventual acquittal. For his work, the film has been nominated for an Emmy award in the category of Best Documentary or Nonfiction Special. Continue reading…
Sloan Startup Uses Data to Out-Design Bottled Water
Bottled water is a problem, but how can you “out-design” it? Sean Grundy, Frank Lee and Eliza Becton, a trio of MIT Sloan 2013 alumni, recently earned another round of investment funding for their smart water cooler company Bevi, which uses data to tap into the bottled water market.
Inside the McCombs MBA Classroom: The Power of Information Technology
One of the best ways to get to know an MBA program is to sit in on a class. While the classroom is just one aspect of the business school experience, a class visit offers a valuable preview of the learning environment, instructor expertise, student interaction and quality of discussion.
Unfortunately, not many MBA candidates have a chance to attend a course before landing on campus. That’s one reason that the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business began offering a detailed write-up describing one of their popular MBA classes. Continue reading…
The “Unlimited” Vacation Is Real, But Will It Take Off?
For most employees, the number of vacation days—if they’re lucky enough to get any—is set early in the year. Despite it, however, Americans have developed a propensity of skipping part of their vacation days or not using them at all.
According to a recent survey from the U.S. Travel Association’s Project Time Off, a staggering 55 percent of U.S. employees do not use all of their requisite vacation days at work. These figures are the highest they’ve ever been since the statistic has been followed. On average, this amounts to nearly four less vacation days taken compared to 1993, as shown in the Project Time Off graph below.
Financially, this means that U.S. employees are skipping a mammoth “$61.4 billion in forfeited benefits” nation-wide with 658 million unused vacation days. The survey indicates that over 200 million of those days cannot be rolled over to the following year, leaving them virtually worthless.
With the trend of used vacation days steadily slipping, a left-field solution has begun to emerge, although rather slowly: unlimited vacation days.
The notion may sound borderline-Utopian, but a small number of companies like Netflix and LinkedIn are already coming on board. The reason? Getting rid of set days may incentivize flexibility.
Peter Cappelli, the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, spoke on the subject recently.
“I believe the idea of ‘unlimited’ vacation is in part a way to shift the workplace culture from a sense of entitlement when it comes to days off to one that says, ‘I’m going to look after you and you look after me, and if you need to take a day off here or there, take it, and we’ll all understand,’” Cappelli writes.
The reality of more companies joining LinkedIn and Netflix, unsurprisingly, isn’t quick to develop. According to Fortune, only around 1 percent of companies offer vacation policy like this. And there is a concern that some employees would abuse this kind of system.
Cappelli takes this into account and argues, “But the statistics suggest that the opposite is true. We are not even getting people to take the vacations they are allowed to take or in certain instances, being told to take. So we’re seeing the opposite issue right now.”
Cappelli discussed the issue alongside co-host Dan O’Meara, a labor attorney and Managing Director of the Wharton Council on Employee Relations, on their SiriusXM show In The Workplace. O’Meara was less of a fan.
“Certain employees will barely want to take advantage of it and others will want to push for time off, all of the sudden,” O’Meara declares. “Because there’s no two or three week cap, you’ll deal with people who will want to make that work for them. It’s hard to imagine there won’t be employees who get annoyed when their peers can get away with it. There could be issues of equity.”
Cappelli further acknowledges that “this type of policy is clearly more suited for some workplaces than others.” So if it is a viable solution to the U.S. vacation dilemma, it likely won’t be universal any time soon.
In The Workplace airs live, 5 p.m. on Thursdays on SiriusXM Business Radio, powered by the Wharton School, channel 111.
Drucker School EMBA Alum, Netflix Executive Tawni Cranz Honored by AACSB
Claremont Graduate University Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management (Drucker School) EMBA alumna Tawni Cranz was recently recognized for her exemplary leadership skills by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).
AACSB announced its Class of 2016 Influential Leaders at its Annual Accreditation Conference in Minneapolis on September 19th, 2016.
Netflix Exec and Ryan Seacrest Productions President Headline Drucker Day
Claremont Graduate University’s Drucker School of Management announced speakers for its annual Drucker Day event, which will take place on November 14, 2015. This year’s Drucker Day features talks with leaders who will share their experiences in training and managing top talent within creative industries.
In a press release Dean Tom Horan said, “We will hear executives across industries share their stories, and discuss how [to] prepare yourself and others to manage the unique challenges of thriving in creative organizations and the broader creative economy.”
