It’s not just a matter of altruism or having a heart: Empathy is innovation’s secret sauce.

While many small and not-so-small businesses were roiled, some have seen a windfall with people desperate to hop in their cars and do something, anything, besides cook another dinner at home and watch more Netflix.

Employers have been scaling back their annual holiday parties for years. What will they look like in 2020?

This coronavirus pandemic could mark the biggest shift to the workplace since the adoption of computers. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating both stubborn challenges and surprising opportunities for the construction industry. 

Too much stress costs employers $300 billion a year, according to The American Institute of Stress, as burnout can lead to employee turnover, lack of motivation and dips in productivity.

2.7 million residents live in areas with a high risk of wildfire, and the scarcity of urban real estate pushes construction toward the wooded areas most likely to ignite. Should this be allowed?

Every year, the United States generates around 260 million tons of trash. And no one knows what to do with it. No one, that is, except serial entrepreneur Mike Hart, the CEO of Davis-based Sierra Energy.

Part of this month’s Innovation issue

Welcome to the world of office yoga, a curious merger of yoga and commerce that is proving itself to be lucrative.

Henry Ford dreamed of mass-producing cars. So he started the Detroit Automobile Company … and it flopped. Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first job at a TV station. Before she dominated the world of fashion, Vera Wang failed to realize her original dream — making it as an Olympic figure skater.

I bet you a cup of coffee that you are reading this just before a meeting, or maybe just after. Another bet: You feel that there are too many meetings. A third: This gauntlet of meetings can make it tough — or impossible — to finish your work.  

Sacramento has struggled with its branding for more than a century. Recently, the farm-to-fork movement has raised awareness of the local food scene, but as the region also tries to highlight its growth in business, tech, art and culture, a new brand is in the pipeline.

Art is often dismissed as “nice to have,” a tougher pill to swallow than funding public safety agencies. But culture has been shown to make a city more desirable — and that can have a booming effect on a local economy.

Imagine your boss asking you these questions:

How often do you feel you have nobody to talk to?  
How often do you feel shut out and excluded by others? 
How often do you feel as if nobody really understands you?

There are roughly 50 chambers in the Capital Region, and we counted over 30 led by women. We asked a dozen of these leaders (doing our best to bring in a mix of voices) to tell us where they see the region headed.

Do you find yourself unable to get ahead of your deadlines? Can’t shake the feeling that you do your best work under pressure? Turns out, you might be addicted to procrastination-induced adrenaline.

From the squatters who went up against John Sutter to the 2008 Great Recession, we take a long view of the history of housing cycles in the Sacramento region.

Does the Capital Region have enough capital? One expert estimates there is about a half billion in funding with only have of that invested. So how are local startups getting funded, and is the pool enough to draw more of them here?

The benefits of reading are extensive, and CEOs like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett read at least 50 books a year. Local leaders discuss why they read and, more importantly, how they find the time.

We tracked the routines of six business executives and paired that data with organizational management insights. Here’s how they tame the chaos.

We all have a morning routine, and for 62 percent of American adults it involves coffee. But is it healthy? Our writer Kicked his caffeine habit for 10 days — here’s what he learned. 

Stephanie Stiavetti had an IT job that she liked in Sacramento, managing a company’s servers, mobile devices and computers. Yet her real passion was cooking. She had attended culinary school, designed recipes, dabbled in freelance food writing and had even written a cookbook.

Most of us can’t seem to put down our phones, checking them anywhere from 80 to 150 times per day, and some experts say this addiction is taking a toll on soft skills. 

Women dominate the creative community in Sacramento, with a slew of advertising agencies large and small with females at the helm. The women running them say this means not only more authentic messaging, but a stronger support system for the next generation.

Intelligence might be built into our DNA, but what about creativity and problem-solving? Not so, experts say. So, if it can be taught, how can we learn? We ask some local brainiacs for their tips for inspiring outside-the-box thinking.

The generational divide can wreak havoc on financial management, succession planning and operations. And regardless of where the tension arises, the root of the issue remains the same: control.

What if we’re doing it all wrong? What if instead of trying to do 37 things at once, we just try and do one thing at a time — what some productivity experts call either “mono-tasking,” “mono-focus” or “uni-tasking”— and do the job well?

Art in the workplace is more than cosmetic; it can actually improve employee attitudes, performance, and even the company’s bottom line. This feels almost blasphemous. By definition, we think of “art” and “profit” as two distinct and even clashing concepts, with the unspoken assumption that chasing profits will corrupt art, and that art drags down profits. Conventional wisdom says “art for art’s sake”: Art is not a means to an end, art is the end.

We’ve all been there: You’re waiting to give a big presentation, maybe you dread public speaking, and you feel your stomach twist itself into a pretzel. Or maybe you meet someone new, someone interesting, and when they make eye contact you feel your stomach do a joyful little flip. It happens all of the time. We feel things before we have time to mentally process.

As we get older and become more at risk for Alzheimer’s, a certain type of diet can boost our cognitive potency. Decades ago, science proved food can impact our heart health. Why should the brain be different?

The oldest members of gen Z (born in 1996) are now graduating college, flooding offices across America with their cheery, five-screen-watching, can-do spirit.

In some ways they might already be an economic force. A 2014 study from the ad agency Sparks and Honey estimates that the average gen Z receives $16.90 per week in allowance alone, which tallies to an annual $44 billion in spending power. So who are these kids, anyway?

AB 908 increases the amount of paid family leave (PFL) benefits an employee can receive from 55 percent of earnings to either 60 percent or 70 percent of earnings, depending on the employee’s income,” effective Jan. 1, 2018? (Mark your calendars.)

Fifty-one percent of professionals have had a workplace romance, according to a 2015 survey from Vault.com, a career resource website. This includes couples like the Obamas and the Gates. In an online poll of Comstock’s readers, 80 percent admitted to having mixed business with pleasure.

While many of us are blissfully unaware of depression’s prominence in the workplace, those in HR, who are on the frontlines and can see the disease’s broader impact, have a more clear-eyed perspective.

 You probably need a vacation. Most of America does. Between 1976 and 2000, the average worker took roughly 20 vacation days annually, according to data from Project: Time Off. But as the economy buckled in 2008, so did our desire to flock to the beach, and in 2015, the number plunged nearly a full week lower, translating to 658 million unused vacation days.

How did Nagle, now 62, go from weed-puller to angel investor? He shares his maxims of leadership, including how he somehow reads 300 emails a day, makes work an obsession and why he feels soccer is the future of America.

No job is only a job. You are paid to be competent and to get your work done, sure. But there are countless social interactions that shade the way you’re evaluated: chit-chat on the elevator, poise in a meeting, even the stories you tell (or don’t tell) over happy hour. Connections are the key to raises, promotions and job offers.

Of the four largest private employers in the region, three of them are health systems — Kaiser (10,000 employees), Sutter (9,000) and Dignity Health (7,000). And whether it’s a new trend, a bit of gender-equity karma or just a wonderful coincidence, in this critical sector of the economy, all four of the region’s health centers are led by female executives.

For more and more investors and would-be funders, nonprofits need to have more than a worthy cause and a compelling mission: They need a plan. Specifically, they’re now being asked to showcase the same mindset that’s required of for-profit organizations, meaning that spreadsheets, metrics and core competencies can matter just as much as pulling the heartstrings.   

Thanks to a growing pool of financial apps, we can now review our budgets, tweak our investments and work toward retirement — all while waiting in line for a coffee.

Imagine a world where you’re hooked to a system of electrodes that scans your skull, hunts for patterns, and then scores your IQ, emotional intelligence, ability to communicate, capacity for judgment and potential to be a good leader. Then imagine that the therapist says, “The bad news is that your score should be higher. The good news is that I can get it there by helping you physically change your brain.”

Thirty years from now, we all might be getting some sort of neurofeedback. Scientists are now using this cutting-edge method — a way of scanning the brain and giving it course corrections — to treat a battery of conditions that range from ADHD to depression and seizures.

Big data can have real benefits, but it can also undercut common sense, frustrate employees, alarm customers and come with some hidden costs

“In order for a company like VSP to be around for 60 years, we’ve had to be innovative — to change who we are,” says incoming CEO Jim McGrann, who used to be the company’s Chief Technology Officer. Plenty of companies like to toss around buzzwords like “innovation,” but it’s usually just an empty slogan. VSP has spurred innovation by creating The Shop, launching their Project Genesis, and supporting a 90-day rotational program that lets everyday employees — no matter what division they work in — pitch new ideas and brainstorm new products.

Studies show that the problem isn’t bad workers as much as bad bosses, who aren’t just a nuisance — they’re expensive. They cost a company productivity and turnover. Yet for some reason they’re being hired again and again. So why are we so rotten at hiring leaders, and how can we change?

You live a crowded life. We all do. You probably looked at your smartphone before you rolled out of bed. You immediately checked your email, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Maybe you glanced at your phone on your morning commute. Your job demands multitasking, so at work your computer has 25 open tabs — Outlook, Excel, Word, Powerpoint, and on and on and on.  As you read this article, the odds are good that you’re also kind of doing something else.

Meditation is sort of a pain in the ass — especially when you’re a newb. If you are very early in your meditation journey check out these 5 common challenges beginners face and ways how to overcome them.

There’s an old saying about family businesses: Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. Grandpa hustles and creates the business,Dad takes the baton and then Junior goes down with the ship. According to the Family Firm Institute, just 30 percent of family businesses survive into their second generation, and only 10 percent make it to their third. Why do these firms fail?

Economists refer to it as the agency problem: The incentives of executives are misaligned with the incentives of the company. If you have stock options that vest in five months, who cares what happens in five years?