Is your company’s return-to-office (RTO) plan driving employees away, or is it the driving itself that is causing added stress? New commuting trends may hold the answer. Most companies (90 percent) are forging ahead with RTO mandates so that workers are in person three to four days each week by the end of the year. There are already fewer people working from home in the U.S. today than just three years ago. In 2022, 15.2 percent of U.S. workers were engaged in remote work compared to 17.9...

During the last presidential election, Caroline North worked as a cashier at a store in western New York state. The cashiers frequently had time to “chew the fat,” and politics was a frequent topic. “I would often be helping a customer and would walk up in the middle of these loud and often obnoxious debates” between customers and her co-workers, she said. “This was extremely stressful.” The store owner banned political discussions at the front counter, but the debates continued. If North...

Last year, the U.S. experienced its hottest summer on record. Globally, the three-month period was the second-warmest recorded, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It’s a trend the National Weather Service Prediction Center foresees continuing in 2024 due to the likely impacts of the weather phenomenon La Niña. Rising temperatures, higher heat indexes and dangerous air quality levels from wildfire smoke are becoming the new normal and will create...