5 things / holiday spirit
I was immediately put in the holiday spirit this week when I watched this video. St. John Properties, a real estate development company in Maryland achieved a major milestone, then surprised all 198 employees with shares of a $10 million bonus. At the holiday party, each employee received a check averaging $50,000. Can you imagine? What an amazing gift for these hard-working employees!
Here are some of the other best practices and good news I learned this week:
The restaurant Sweetgreen now offers 5 months of paid parental leave for all employees, including hourly shift workers in restaurants. Corporate employees also can choose to contribute small amounts from each paycheck to The Family Fund, an emergency fund for hourly restaurant workers.
Comcast Xfinity now has customer service and technical support available in the 4th most used language in the U.S. - American Sign Language.
Citing a 313% increase in searches for this word, Merriam Webster Dictionary has declared the singular "they" as Word of the Year. "They" is a pronoun commonly used by folks who identify as non-binary.
YouTube has updated its harassment policy to take a tighter stand against hate speech, including veiled or implied threats. They also will now ban content that maliciously insults someone based on protected attributes (such as race and sexual orientation).