The New Way We Work

The company’s director of finance explains how her job goes well beyond accounting. Tina Hetzer, director of finance at Pink Lily, is one of the rising financial stars who are helping to bring their businesses to the next level. She built Pink Lily’s finance team from scratch and has helped the company become one of the fastest-growing retailers in the country. In this podcast, part of the SAP-sponsored Growth Agents series, Hetzer discusses the cash-flow challenges unique to fashion retailers and explains how working at a smaller, founder-run company can fuel greater collaboration across the organization.  

The housing crisis in the U.S. continues to get worse, with the highest mortgage rates in a generation currently and rents outpacing inflation by more than 40%. And the problem isn’t just in cities like New York and San Francisco. It’s affecting many other places where tourism is a major industry or high-cost areas that have unique jobs (like being a ski patroller), which don’t pay enough to actually afford the rent there. ‘Fast Company’ writer Pavithra Mohan has been interviewing people in a variety of occupations about the real-life struggles of being priced out of housing in the place where your job requires you to be.For more, check out our ongoing series of firsthand accounts on the topic:I make $60,000 working in the Hamptons. Here’s how the other half livesWhat it’s like to be a ski patroller in an expensive mountain town

If your boss is constantly checking up on you, looking over your shoulder—literally, figuratively, even virtually—here are some strategies for creating a better working relationship.

Duolingo’s freemium subscription model, beloved brand and strategic investments have allowed it to execute its educational mission and become a cultural touchstone. Matthew Skaruppa, CFO of Duolingo, is one of the rising financial stars who are helping to bring their businesses to the next level. Since he joined the company in 2020, Duolingo has grown its base of monthly active users by more than 80%. Each month, 75 million users hone their language skills on the Duolingo app. In this podcast, part of the SAP-sponsored Growth Agents series, Skaruppa discusses how his analytical background has allowed to him to be a more strategy-oriented CFO. For him, that has meant balancing big aspirations and finite resources, and turning the uncertainties of tomorrow into action today.

A couple of weeks ago, the U.S. went over the “childcare cliff” as billions of dollars of pandemic-era federal funding for childcare expired. But childcare providers have been struggling since well before the pandemic, with rising costs and little recourse but to raise their own prices. The chain reaction now for providers, children, and parents could mean a large decrease in women in the workforce and lower wages for workers. Fast Company staff writer Pavithra Mohan explains why the childcare industry has been so difficult to unionize, and what new efforts are starting to emerge.

It's nerve-racking to negotiate your salary, especially with a new employer! Here's how to reframe the conversation and ask for what you want.

Mitch Reback, CFO of Sweetgreen, is one of the rising corporate financial stars who is helping to take their companies to the next level. When he started, Sweetgreen had 25 stores; today, there are more than 220—and Reback says the company is still in its “infancy.” In this podcast, part of the SAP-sponsored Growth Agents series, Reback takes a deep dive into his role as a growth agent. Capital is the engine that drives growth, and Reback says his job is to make sure the company has adequate capital to grow as well as determining how best to allocate it, including investments in stores, marketing, staff, and technology—or, as he puts it, to push innovation forward in a way that’s capital efficient.

When the Supreme Court ruled in June that race-based affirmative action practices in college admissions was unconstitutional, it not only sent universities scrambling, but it also caused a lot of confusion within companies. What would it mean for diversity, equity, and inclusion departments and initiatives? It didn’t help that as soon as the decision was issued, opponents of DEI efforts capitalized on the confusion with fear-mongering and misinformation. So, how does the affirmative-action ruling actually change both hiring and DEI initiatives at companies? LaFawn Davis, senior vice president of Environmental, Social, and Governance at Indeed, helped to parse out exactly what the ruling changes . . . and what it doesn’t.

We’re in an era where employee fulfillment and purpose are essential, but have management principles caught up? Today’s episode was recorded live at the Fast Company Innovation Festival last week in New York City, with Rachel Korberg, founder and executive director of the Family and Workers Fund, and Sarah Kalloch, executive director of the nonprofit Good Jobs Institute. We talked about the science behind what makes a good job, how that meaning has changed, and why getting employee satisfaction right is so important right now.

Find it difficult to focus at work? Is the environment the problem, or is it our own brain? In this special conversation from LinkedIn Audio, Fast Company's Work Life team breaks down what’s really behind our inability to focus, how to deal with distractions and train your brain to concentrate, and how to find motivation in your work.