In addition to paying attention to employee work-life balance issues, you must do more to promote the positive mental health of your remote workers. Employees who are working remotely might experience mental health issues, including loneliness, mourning the past workplace, missing daily co-worker interaction, and concern for their job and economic future.

The Mercer study found that nearly 37% of companies surveyed said that employees were experiencing mental health issues due to social isolation and economic anxiety.

Employers can help combat these mental health issues in the same ways recommended to reinforce their culture of caring, empathy, consideration, and gratitude. They should encourage their workers to use employee assistance programs (EAPs), check in frequently on how they are doing, and allow them to take mental health days for rest and relaxation when they feel they need time to regroup.

Paraphrasing is an essential skill for college students and professionals alike, and this is because it is the core skill needed to write brilliant papers. You cannot write a brilliant college paper without proper paraphrasing of the ideas or the information you find in the credible sources you discover during research. It is a skill that helps you craft coherent research papers, term papers, dissertations, thesis papers, and other assignments in class. It is an alternative to quoting, which entails copying the words from a text verbatim and using quotation marks and the right citation within the paper.

When the annual World Happiness Report was released in March 2024, it was no surprise to see Scandinavian countries like Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden continue to top the list. But in a surprising trend, a new set of countries has seen its rankings quietly, but steadily, march up the ranks.

Over the past three years, Central and Eastern European countries have overtaken some of their Western European neighbours in overall happiness, according to the survey. For the first time, the Czech Republic and Lithuania have cracked the top 20 this year, placing 18th and 19th respectively, with Slovenia closely chasing behind at number 21. (For comparison, the UK is ranked 20th, Germany is 24th, Spain is 36th and Italy is 41st)

What's especially interesting is that, in many of these countries, the bump is directly attributable to the growing happiness of younger residents. In fact, Lithuania ranks at number one in the report's Happiness of the Young report (as measured by respondents younger than 30), with Serbia at 3, Romania at 8, the Czech Republic at 10 and Slovenia at 15.

Leaders of AI companies often argue that AI products will handle mundane tasks, freeing people up to be more productive and creative. And there are few tasks more mundane than taxes. An individual American taxpayer spends roughly 13 hours and $240 out-of-pocket costs just to prepare and file one annual tax return, according to one 2022 study—an estimated 1.15 billion hours collectively spent on tax preparation.

So it’s not surprising that tax companies have begun rolling out AI-powered tools in an effort to make filing easier. AI-powered tax software, these companies argue, can automate repetitive tasks like data entry, cull through patterns in order to find relevant tax breaks, identify potential compliance risks, and answer tricky questions that filers may have.

But like a lot in the world of artificial intelligence at the moment, the promise of AI tax tools is more compelling than the products currently available. This year, AI chatbots have given out wrong answers to straight-forward tax questions, a dangerous proposition especially for filers who depend on refunds to pay bills. Tax experts contend that taxpayers should not rely exclusively on AI tools to file this year. However, some still predict that AI will have a major impact on both the way people file and the entire tax industry in the years to come.