The Best of This Week
The week’s must-reads for managing in the digital age, curated by the MIT SMR editors.
Topics
Weekly Recap
Why It’s So Hard to Keep and Recruit Employees Right Now
Many people used the pandemic lockdowns as an opportunity to reevaluate their life and work choices and build new habits, like spending more time with their families and avoiding the daily commute. Company leaders need to be prepared as employees increasingly want to retain these changes. Every executive concerned with recruiting and retaining employees should consider these three forces that can help explain the current turbulence in the workforce.
Charitable Donations Can Boost Sales and Customer Loyalty
As brands compete for holiday shoppers, they would do well to learn this lesson: Charitable donations can boost sales and profits — as well as increase long-lasting brand engagement and loyalty. Corporate giving, when done right, is the ultimate marketing incentive, especially when individual shoppers can choose which charity will benefit.
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How Successful Brands Harness Customer Admiration
In this article, the authors discuss the concept of brand admiration — why it’s critical to brand health, and how companies can harness it to withstand the challenges of the current and future business environments. They also explain the three types of brand benefits that customers want — those that enable, entice, and enrich them — which companies and marketers can unlock with these three strategies.
What Else We’re Reading This Week
- What do ESG ratings on “sustainable” stock and bond funds actually measure? (Source: Bloomberg)
- A new alliance of business partners is vowing to help identify and eliminate algorithmic bias in hiring (Source: Fast Company)
- How fast-fashion company Shein beat Amazon at its own game — with a business model that’s environmentally disastrous (Source: Rest of World)
- The rediscovered joy of unplanned run-ins with “weak ties” (Source: The New York Times)
Quote of the Week:
“In a time when no one knew what was going to happen next or how long lockdowns were going to last, it was clarifying to have our customers at the forefront of our decision-making.”
— Tamara Mendelsohn, CMO of Eventbrite, in “How Customer Connections Can Help Drive Decision-Making for Marketers”