Journal

Annual survey reveals that ethics, work-life balance, and job security are top of mind for leadership at the best places to work.

Here’s a bit of optimism to brighten your day: Great Place to Work just announced that not only do employees at America’s best small and medium-size workplaces say their companies are treating people fairly and making it easier to integrate work and personal lives, but the businesses are growing. The businesses on the list are hiring new staff nearly seven times faster than U.S. companies overall.

Read Full Story

YouTube Red will let viewers watch YouTube videos without ads—and eventually access exclusive content for $10 per month.

The world’s biggest online video site is going freemium. As widely speculated for some time, YouTube is launching a pay subscription service, on October 28. The premium tier, called YouTube Red, will let viewers watch videos without ads and save videos for offline, among other perks. It will cost $10 per month on the web or Android, $13 per month on iOS due to Apple’s 30% fee.

Read Full Story

When will then be now? Soon.

a.footnote {vertical-align: super; font-size: 0.8em; text-decoration: none;}

In response to geopolitical unrest, Israel’s Ministry of Tourism hopes to entice tourists with discounted vacation packages on Groupon.

In response to a wave of stabbings, lynchings, and rioting, the Israeli government is taking an unusual approach to woo tourists: offering discounted vacations on Groupon. Starting next week, Israel’s Ministry of Tourism will sell discount vacation packages to American tourists via Groupon in a rare example of a government agency directly offering vacation tours via the coupon service.

Read Full Story

Meet Howdy, a trainable workplace bot that can automate boring administrative tasks.

When the professional chat app Slack launched in 2013, the small team at software development studio XOXCO immediately started building integrations. Based in central south Austin with a dozen delicious food trucks within walking distance, team lunches were a point of constant group discussion, so the team developed a Slack bot named “Lunch Bot” that would pipe in with suggestions. “We thought, what are the other kinds of things that are boring and mundane that lots of teams do that can be delegated to a bot?” says CEO Ben Brown.

Read Full Story