
Alexander is a writer, traveler, and serial digital entrepreneur. He’s the founder of the Tushi, the Gen X personal growth newsletter Further, and offers small business advice at Unemployable.

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Director and Chief Evangelist

Alexander Hipp


Anil is a content-obsessed marketer who loves driving organic traffic for outstanding companies. He is also the creator of Hack the Content, co-host of The Runner, and owner of several digital commerce sites.

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Anil Vugels


Monika is a writer, musician, and content strategist with a passion for language. When she isn’t helping clients, you can find her writing songs, hiking in a northern forest, or furiously journaling.

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Ann Monika


Robert is a creative writer who loves learning new skills, and helping others. He’s the author of several novels, and in his free time, you can find fim swimming, reading, or baking.

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Robert Britt


It’s no secret that the covid pandemic has had a huge impact on the way that businesses are run - but there’s also been a switch in the way that people, and HR leaders, approach work. Employees have had time and space to reassess their lives and a lot of them have found they much prefer the work-life balance that remote models have created. Some of this attitude is at the core of the ‘Great Resignation’ trend that we’re seeing creeping closer to our shores. 

As we start to see the pandemic in our rear-view mirrors, and return to a version of normalcy looks imminent, it’s time to assess what HR has learned from the last two years - and how we integrate that into leadership moving forward.

“As a business, I don’t think we will ever go back to that traditional model of nine-to-five, five days a week,” Robert Stone, chief people officer at global marketing agency Wunderman Thompson, told HRD. “People have assessed what’s important to them in life, and that’s work-life balance and wellbeing.”

The marketing and advertising industry has a turnover percentage in the mid to high thirties. Wunderman Thompson is tracking significantly lower than the industry standard over the timespan of the pandemic – something Stone is certifiably proud of. 

### Through this situation
“Through this situation, I think employees saw the true colour of businesses, of how they treated their people,” he added. “Employers that may not have handled it the right away are still feeling the repercussions. We had to re-educate our managers to think, it’s all new - how do we work through this? In the beginning, a lot of people tried to remotely replicate culture from what was in an office environment. However, we eventually had to look at things in a different way and redefine what culture is to a workplace.”

The traditional nine-to-five work schedule is becoming increasingly obsolete as more companies adopt flexible, remote work policies. This shift away from the traditional workday has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced many companies to adopt remote work as a necessity.

One approach that companies are taking to replace the nine-to-five schedule is the implementation of flexible work arrangements. This can include options such as remote work, flexible hours, and job sharing. These arrangements allow employees to work from anywhere and at times that best suit their needs, which can lead to increased productivity and job satisfaction.

Without even reducing the 40-hour work week. Time is money, right?

The nine-to-five Is Dead. Here’s What to Replace It With


Here is a fun fact to stick in the back of your mind for trivia night or to use as an interesting ice breaker: the Amazon River has no bridges. None. Zero. Zilch. That is in spite of the fact that the Amazon is 4,345 miles long.

The Amazon has a river basin that covers 2.7 million square miles. It has the highest flow and discharge rates out of any river on Earth. It runs through multiple countries and dumps into the Atlantic Ocean. In all of that there is not a single bridge that crosses the river at any point. You cannot drive over the Amazon River, even if you wanted to.

Why is it that the Amazon has no bridges when other smaller rivers have dozens or even hundreds?

### Geography and Economics
The Amazon River is one of the most remote rivers on Earth. It plunges from a source that is nestle high in the mountains at nearly 18,000 feet and then runs through one of the largest and thickest jungles found anywhere. The result is, there are not very many paved modern roads that run along the Amazon.

In fact, if you take a quick glance at the map, there are only a handful of towns and cities that are even large enough to register that are located on the banks of the Amazon.

So the Amazon is remote, so are a lot of other rivers. Why not just one bridge? A single bridge.

### Current and Future Projects
There are a couple of bridges that span Amazon tributary rivers. One such bridge is located in Manaus, the largest city along the Amazon. But the bridge doesn’t cross the main expanse of the river. There is another bridge crossing a large Amazon tributary in Peru.

President Bolsonaro of Brazil has repeatedly said he wants to build a bridge over the Amazon but detractors say it would be for his legacy and serve no real purpose. No progress has been made on the Brazilian Amazon bridge proposal.

In fact, every bridge proposal targeting the Amazon has stalled and gotten nowhere. No one has even attempted to break ground which shows how stiff the headwinds are to such a project. Many bridges has been dreamed up but so far none have become reality.

It is odd to think that in 2022, over a hundred years since people dug out the Panama and Suez Canals, no one has managed to build a bridge across the Amazon.

### Conclusion
Resistance to bridging the Amazon can be summed up in this way.

* Too remote

* Too expensive

* No public support

And that is it.



Here is a fun fact to stick in the back of your mind for trivia night or to use as an interesting ice breaker: the Amazon River has no bridges. None. Zero. Zilch. That is in spite of the fact that the Amazon is 4,345 miles long.

Alexander Hipp

Alexander Hipp

The nine-to-five Is Dead. Here’s What to Replace It With

There Are Zero Bridges Across The Amazon. Here Is Why