The UAE new weekend

The United Arab Emirates announced  onTuesday it will move its weekends to Saturday and Sunday at the start of the new year. The gulf state has long observed a Friday-Saturday weekend.

The move comes as the oil-rich country looks to strengthen its tourist appeal and attract international business while keeping up with mounting competition from neighboring Saudi Arabia.

#UAE announces today that it will transition to a four and a half day working week, with Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday forming the new weekend.

All Federal government departments will move to the new weekend from January 1, 2022. pic.twitter.com/tQoa22pai9

— UAEGOV (@UAEmediaoffice) December 7, 2021

The announcement was published onTuesday by state news agency WAM.

ABU DHABI, 7th December, 2021 (WAM) -- The UAE Government will adopt a new four and a half day working week, effective from 1st January, 2022.

The move applies to Federal government entities and comes alongside new working hours, with Monday to Thursday workdays now starting at 7:30 am and ending at 3:30 pm, and Friday working hours from 7:30 am - 12:00 pm.

Government staff will have the flexibility to make arrangements to work from home on Fridays, as well as to arrange their working hours on a flexi-time basis.

The UAE is the first nation in the world to introduce a national working week shorter than the global five-day week.

The extended weekend is part of the UAE government’s efforts to boost work-life balance and enhance social wellbeing, while increasing performance to advance the UAE’s economic competitiveness.

Adopting an agile working system will enable the UAE to rapidly respond to emerging changes and enhance wellbeing in the workplace.

From an economic perspective, the new working week will better align the UAE with global markets, reflecting the country’s strategic status on the global economic map. It will ensure smooth financial, trade and economic transactions with countries that follow a Saturday/Sunday weekend, facilitating stronger international business links and opportunities for thousands of UAE-based and multinational companies.

The new working week will also bring the UAE’s financial sector into closer alignment with global real-time trading and communications-based transactions such as those driving global stock markets, banks and financial institutions. The move will boost trading opportunities and add to the flexible, secure and enjoyable lifestyle the UAE offers to its citizens and residents.

The Federal Authority for Government Human Resources proposed the new workweek following comprehensive benchmarking and feasibility studies reflecting potential impacts of the move on the economy, social and family ties and the overall wellbeing of people in the UAE.

From The Washington Post and Wam (edited)

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A pre-holiday Zoom call: 900 people were fired

 

About 900 employees of real estate company Better.com were asked to attend a Zoom call on Wednesday. But rather than offering a holiday message to workers, CEO Vishal Garg delivered a 3-minute speech informing attendees they were "terminated effectively immediately."

He said staff performance and productivity, and market changes lay behind the mass-firing of what he said was 15% of Better.com's workforce. However, he did not mention the $750m cash infusion Better.com received last week from Softbank, the Japanese firm and key investor.

Garg founded Better.com in 2016 with the mission of simplifying the mortgage-buying process

Better is now in the process of going public via a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in a deal that would value the company at about $7 billion.

Soon after the mass layoff last week, Garg held a separate phone call with the remaining staff in which he blamed himself for managerial problems. "Today, we acknowledge that we overhired and hired the wrong people, and in doing that, we failed," Garg said, according to Insider. "I failed. I was not disciplined over the last 18 months.”

It is hard to say whether Garg is a good leader. One of Garg’s emails to his employees was widely criticised for its “rude" nature. It said “You are TOO DAMN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS and… DUMB DOLPHINS get caught in nets and eaten by sharks. SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME.”

There's no great way to lay people off, but there's a way to do it and this wasn’t it.

First, there’s the timing: three weeks before Christmas. And then the whole thing was handled over Zoom. Maybe that was unavoidable, but the process was made even less personal by having everyone crammed into one virtual room for a single, brief meeting.

It could harm the firm as existing employees will look to how the company treats people as a signal to how it will treat them in the future.

Many customers or potential customers are probably thinking: 'Gee, if they treat their employees this way I wonder how they treat their customers?'."

Sometimes bad press is just bad press. And by carrying out one of the laziest, worst-timed layoffs ever, Better.com's executives have everyone talking about their company for all the wrong reasons.

From CBSNews (edited)

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Twitter’s new CEO

Twitter’s new chief executive and former chief technology officer, Parag Agrawal, announced a major reorganization of the company Friday, putting his stamp on the organization following the sudden departure of co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey earlier this week.

The shake-up will bring together employees previously divided by job function — such as engineering, design and product development — on teams organized by what they’re working on, such as consumer product, revenue and core tech.

In a companywide email, Agrawal said that he will focus on “clear decision-making, increased accountability, and faster execution,” and added he was “making a number of organizational and leadership changes to best position us to achieve our goals. … We’ve all discussed the critical need for more operational rigor and it must start from the top.”

The reorganization is the first clear sign that Twitter’s new leader intends to overhaul a culture that has been considered slow to innovate and face internal conflict.

Dorsey, who announced his resignation from Twitter unexpectedly on Monday, was viewed by many as a hands-off leader. He had faced pressure to resign from investors and was criticized, along with the leaders of other social media companies, for failing to control the spread of misinformation and other harmful content.

Agrawal, 37, was chosen unanimously to succeed Dorsey by Twitter’s board of directors. He has an engineering background and rose through the ranks over a decade at Twitter. He is tasked with making Twitter a faster-paced company but will also face intense scrutiny from lawmakers intent on regulating social media.

Dorsey will continue to remain CEO of Square, which he renamed Block this week to highlight a focus on cryptocurrency. Despite his absences, he was known as a charismatic and visionary leader who represented the company during years of controversies over bullying and harassment. He was the first leader of a tech company to limit the speech of President Donald Trump when the company slapped a warning label over his tweets last year.

 

From The WashingtonPost (edited)

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Venice will be wheelchair-friendly

 

Venice's bridges make it insurmountable for many visitors with mobility issues

(CNN) — Its 403 bridges, canals and pretty cobbled streets have made Venice one of the world's most beautiful cities. But it is near impossible for wheelchair users to navigate.

Now though, all that will change. Venice authorities will make the city's main sights accessible to all, with a wheelchair-friendly route from the city's main entry point to the iconic St. Mark's Square.

To kick off the project, the council has announced the construction of six ramps at heavily trafficked parts of the city: four on the route to St. Mark's, and two at other crucial points for locals. The scheme will cost €900,000 ($1.6 million).

Francesca Zaccariotto, councilor for public works, says the aim is "to build at least one route that will allow people of all ages to go at least from Piazzale Roma - the gateway to the Italian mainland - to St. Mark's without barriers."

The new route will not only be wheelchair accessible. "We have widened the plan so that everyone can do it without problems, including blind people, which wasn't in the original plan," said Zaccariotto."We are making steps easier to climb and adding non-slippery surfaces."

Venice is a tricky city to update, she said, because of strict rules around changing its cultural heritage. But, she said, the aim is to become "an example of accessibility for people with mobility issues. It will be a huge message to other places which fail to address access -- they will be left with no excuse."

From CNN (edited)

Photo credit: Marco Piraccini/Mondadori Portfolio

Courtesy Comune di Venezia

 

Venice will charge tourists

 

Venice plans to charge visitors for access and set entrance quotas from the summer of 2022, according to newspaper Stampa.

The Italian city, one of the world’s top tourist destinations, will also require prospective visitors to reserve access in advance, according.

Turnstiles will be installed at the main access points of the city’s historical center.

This year, with travel slowly resuming, the restrictions are back on the agenda, as global tourism hotspots try to restrain mass arrivals and improve the quality of the experience for both visitors and residents.

Last month, Italy banned large cruise ships from the Venice lagoon to protect the site from over-tourism. This might be just a first step in the plan to reinvent and regulate mass tourism.

Entry into Venice will cost anything from 3 euros ($3.5) to 10 euros, depending on the season and on how many tourists are expected on that day. Locals, relatives of residents, and tourists who have booked in a Venice hotel will be exempt from the entry fee. 

Charging visitors remains controversial. City councillor Marco Gasparinetti said it will turn Venice into a “theme park,” and proposes to restrict access only for particularly crowded areas, like San Marco square.

 

From Bloomberg (edited)

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UK red public phone booths

A traditional red telephone box stands in the village of Priston near Bath, in Somerset, England

Ofcom, the U.K.'s phone regulator, will keep thousands of the nation's famous red public phone booths in service, despite a sharp drop in calls from the boxes.

The U.K. currently has around 21,000 public call boxes that are still vital in case of emergencies and in areas where cellphone users can't get a reliable signal.

Under the regulator's new criteria, a call box will need to be used at least 52 times over a 12-month period to stay in service. Anyway, if a kiosk is in an area identified as an accident or suicide hotspot, it can't be removed.

"Some of the call boxes we plan to protect are used to make relatively low numbers of calls," said Selina Chadha, Ofcom's director of connectivity. "But if one of those calls is from a distressed child, an accident victim or someone contemplating suicide, that public phone line can be a lifeline at a time of great need."

Ofcom will take a phone booth out of operation only if its service area is covered by the U.K.'s four mobile networks.

Local communities can adopt a red phone kiosk under a plan that lets governments or organizations buy the call box for just £1. According to Ofcom, "more than 6,000 kiosks have been converted to a range of different uses, such as community libraries, or to house life-saving public defibrillators."

Red call boxes that meet the new protection criteria will have to update its analog telephone network. With the old phone system set to be turned off by the end of 2025, red call boxes that survive the cut will have to be upgraded to Internet Protocol standards.

A red phone box in Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, was converted into a village library.

Photo Credit:Daniel R Jones/Getty Images

From NPR (edited)

Paella - an icon of the Mediterranean diet

 

Paella, one of Spain’s best-known dishes has been given protected cultural status on the grounds that it celebrates the “art of unity and sharing”.

On Tuesday, the government of Valencia – the region where paella originated – declared the dish an item of cultural significance, detailing its history and virtues in an eight-page announcement in the official gazette.

“Paella is an icon of the Mediterranean diet, because of both its ingredients and its characteristics as a representation of Valencian culture. All the ingredients used in its preparation – such as fish, meat, vegetables, the justly famous and healthy olive oil and the complete grain that is rice – are part of the Mediterranean diet.”

Its protein, vegetables and carbohydrates, it added, “make paella one of gastronomy’s most balanced dishes”.

The regional government said the new status will help promote study and research into the dish and will safeguard “the survival of this cultural item and ensure it is passed on to future generations”.

The declaration noted that paella must be protected from the “distortions that could result from mass tourism”. It also included a series of helpful do’s and don’ts.

Heat sources are important: make sure your fire’s not too smoky and check the heat is distributed evenly.

Perhaps the most important rule of all: never stir the rice while it is cooking. Any spatula incursions will release too much starch from the rice and leave you with a sticky paella.

The government pointed out that the dish is “the symbol of a Sunday family lunch … and represents a feeling of identity and continuity that we need to protect, maintain, and pass on”.

 “Tradition dictates that a paella should be eaten with a spoon (in the past they were wooden), although it’s true today that that custom has changed and each diner may choose for themselves.”

The dish was developed over the course of several centuries after the Arabs brought rice to Spain and the saffron trade began to flourish.

“The first reference to paella – or ‘Valencian rice’ – is to be found in an 18th-century recipe manuscript, which explains how it should be prepared and notes that the rice should end up dry.”

From The Guardian (edited)

 

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Portugal 'game changer' remote work law

 

Remote workers in Portugal will see a healthier work-life balance under new labor laws approved by the country's parliament.

The new rules approved on Friday are a response to the explosion of home working as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Portugal's ruling Socialist Party said.

Under the new rules, employers can now face fines for contacting workers outside of their normal working hours. But the amendments to Portugal's labor laws have limits: they will not apply to companies with fewer than ten employees.

Employers must not monitor their employees while they work at home.

However, a proposal to include the so-called "right to disconnect" - the legal right to switch off work-related messages and devices outside office hours - was rejected by Portuguese MPs.

Companies must also now contribute to expenses that workers have incurred as a result of switching to remote working. This can include bills for electricity or internet, but not water. Employers can write off these costs as a business expense.

The new rules are also good news for parents of young children. They now have the right to work from home without having to arrange it in advance with their employers, up until their child turns eight years old.

Portugal was the first European country to alter its remote working rules as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic in January this year. The temporary rules made remote working a mandatory option - with a few exceptions - and obliged employers to provide the necessary tools for getting the job done at home.

But while remote working during the pandemic brought new flexibility to many employees, issues such as unequal access to IT equipment showed the need for the government to step in, Portugal's Minister of Labor and Social Security, Ana Mendes Godinho, told the Web Summit conference in Lisbon last week.

"Telework can be a 'game changer' if we profit from the advantages and reduce the disadvantages".

Building a healthy remote working culture will also bring other benefits to Portugal, in the form of foreign remote workers seeking a change of scenery.

"We consider Portugal one of the best places in the world for these digital nomads and remote workers to choose to live in, we want to attract them to Portugal," Mendes Godinho told the Web Summit audience.

 

From Euronews (edited)