As vaccination efforts ramp up nationwide, businesses are figuring out how to plan a return to the office for employees who have worked from home over the past year. Office-sharing giant WeWork is partnering with the Chambers of Commerce for the five boroughs of New York City to help ensure companies make a smooth transition back into the office.
"So if somebody's a member of one of the chambers, what they do is they apply to us, and we're able to give them some enhanced terms to be able to participate in our spaces," said Shyam Gidumal, chief operations officer at WeWork. "That's a central part of people being able to get back into the work environment."
Gidumal said WeWork has developed programs in other cities and has plans in development for national programs. He added that the company has the tools to make spaces safe and comfortable as workers also do their part in making their way back to workplaces.
"I think what we are also starting to see is a real pick-up as the vaccines have rolled out and people have become a little more accustomed to wearing masks and doing the basics that the CDC and the like have been recommending, that people are becoming much more comfortable coming back into the offices," he told Cheddar.
WeWork also has collaborated with businesses on new office layouts and designs, implemented distancing between workers, and installed sanitizing stations.
While companies consider their future work models as they try to get reacclimated to office life, Gidumal said the hybrid option, part work-from-home, part in-office, could be an option. A unique feature about WeWork's offerings is the flexibility it can provide businesses when it comes to in-office operations.
"For us, we solve all of those needs. So if people want to bring back their employees in a big way, that's great. We have space for them. If they want to create flexibility, they want to have flexibility so that people can come into the office part-time, that's fine," Gidumal said, explaining that WeWork's All Access program will allow people to work from any of its locations.
Meanwhile, as businesses recognize International Women's History Month in March, WeWork, in partnership with SoftBank, has launched the Women for Tomorrow campaign and has carved out a special program for women-run companies that will allocate $5 million among businesses, throughout the Americas, to provide flexible workspaces.
"Women, in particular, have been hit hard and differentially hard by the pandemic and the impact it's had on the workforce. So one of the things that we really wanted to lean into was to provide some support for them, and I'm really proud of what we've been able to put together," he noted.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
