Vicky Blogs: COVID-19 (& beyond)

On February 16, 2020 New York's Attorney General Letitia James sued Amazon, 'claiming the massive e-commerce company's "flagrant disregard for health and safety requirements" during the coronavirus pandemic put the lives of workers and the general public at risk.'  This quote comes from an NPR article  that was published yesterday. This lawsuit follows one filed by Amazon trying to prevent the attorney general from suing.  Amazon argued that 'federal labor and safety laws take precedence over New York laws', meaning Letitia James would not have the authority to sue Amazon over workplace safety violations.  Amazon, of course, denies the charges, stating that the suit does not accurately represent 'Amazon's industry-leading response to the pandemic'. This whole investigation by James started back in March of 2020, around the time that Christian Small was fired from Amazon.  James had received multiple complaints from both former and current A...

On February 4th, Microsoft entered the employee experience space with the release of their new product, Viva .  This might be a turning point in the industry as one of the tech giant's openly acknowledges the importance of integrating caring for your employees into everyday life.  You can watch an overview of Viva   here .  I'd like to spend a little time exploring how the platform will work and what this might mean for the future of corporate wellness.   This product, built on top of Microsoft Teams and is made up of four distinct modules.  They are as follows: connections, insights, topics, and learning.  The first, connections, is touted as a 'digital campus' where employees can find information on their benefits, company policies, social communities and other resources.  Josh Bersin wrote that this module could be a company's 'mobile employee interface' to all sorts of applications going forward.  The second, insights, uses a a comp...

  The Worksite Wellness Council of Massachusetts ( WWCMA ) recently hosted their 2021 virtual conference.  As part of my marketing work with the council, I was able to attend this two day event.  One session that stood out to me personally had to do with the concept of recognition.  This session, hosted by Workhuman , spoke about how companies can thrive through human connection. As we are now almost a full year into the height of this COVID-19 pandemic, I feel like it is important to acknowledge that while we have done our best as a society to adapt, this outbreak has dramatically impacted all of us.  We all still must have a heightened sense of concern when doing anything outside of our homes.  Individuals have done what is necessary to survive during this time, but we still need to be looking out for each other.  In fact, it is my belief that we should always be looking out for each other, whether in a pandemic of not. Remote work has been a hot top...

I tried a different type of Peloton class today, HIIT and Hills.  For those who don't know, HIIT stands for high intensity interval training.  This type of training involves bursts of intense effort with short recoveries in between.  Hills on the bike are similar, but normally involve strength pushes with high levels of resistance instead of speed.   In the past this class would have been right up my alley, but today it was unnerving.  I was struggling to keep up with my own expectations and also grappling with the feeling that if I pushed too hard, I would reinjure myself and increase the pain in my back and leg. For those of you that have read more of my blog, you know that I'm a few months past the one year anniversary of my microdiscectomy back surgery.  Before deciding to have the surgery, I struggled for two years with trying to heal myself conservatively with physical therapy, needling, epidural injections, changing my lifestyle and dealing with...