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In a compelling post for Fast Company , Shawn Parr tells us it is time for companies to stop looking at fostering a strong workplace culture as "touchy-feely," and recognize that the conditions that build a vibrant culture also build profit and sustainability. He points to some of the usual standouts like Southwest Airlines, Costco, and Zappos as models: A vibrant culture provides a cooperative and collaborative environment for a brand to thrive in. Your brand is the single most important asset to differentiate you consistently over time, and it needs to be nurtured, evolved, and invigorated by the people entrusted to keep it true and alive. Without a functional and relevant culture, the money invested in research and development, product differentiation, marketing, and human resources is never maximized and often wasted because it's not fueled by a sustaining and functional culture. Look at Zappos, one of the fastest companies to reach $1 billion in recent years, fueled by an electric and eclectic culture, one that's inclusionary, encouraging, and empowering. It's well-documented, celebrated, and shared willingly with anyone who wants to learn from it. Compare that to American Apparel, the controversial and prolific fashion retailer with a well-documented and highly dysfunctional culture. Zappos is thriving and on its way to $2 billion, while American Apparel is mired in bankruptcy and controversy. Both companies are living out their missions--one is to create happiness, and the other is based on self-centered perversity. Authenticity and values always win. Read Culture Eats Strategy For Lunch here .

NPR's Morning Edition is airing a series on "flex work" this week. In the first installment, Jennifer Ludden reports that more employers are moving away from a traditional, 9 to 5 workday, and finding that "loosening the traditionally rigid work schedule pays off," in increasing their retention rate. And, she reports, the driving factor comes from younger, single workers as much as it does from workers trying to balance family duty with their jobs: You may have heard that millennials in the workplace are lazy and "entitled," but [University of Minnesota sociologist Phyllis] Moen says that's a bad rap. She says young workers simply don't want to wait decades until retirement for their quality of life — an attitude that has been reinforced by the recession, as they've seen parents and boomer relatives lose their jobs. "They no longer believe in the myth that working in rigid ways for long hours necessarily pays off," Moen says. "That's a real change." Another change is the degree of mobile technology young workers have grown up with. "This generation is completely untethered. They have laptops in grade school," says Jody Thompson, a co-founder of Culture Rx, a consulting firm that promotes a completely flexible work style. Thompson says young people today are used to getting stuff done — on their laptops, cell phones, iPods — wherever they are, whenever they want. "Then we bring them into the work environment and we say, 'Here's this 6x6 square you're going to work in, with a desktop computer,' which to them, by the way, is a gaming computer," Thompson says. "'And here's your phone with your cord. You come in at 8 and you leave at 5, and between 10 and noon, that's when we're creative.'" Thompson says young workers simply can't relate to such a system. Take a listen to part one of the series: Update: Part two is now available online. The subject: a radical flex work experiment in Minneapolis. Ludden reports: Hennepin County is practicing what's called a results-only work environment, or ROWE, which gives everyone in a company the freedom to do their job when and where they want, as long as the work gets done. The state of Minnesota signed a contract for the program last year as part of a campaign to reduce rush hour traffic on 35W in Minneapolis. Nationwide, 3 percent of businesses now say they have a ROWE, though as far as participants here in Hennepin County know, theirs is the first public agency to adopt it. Many are ecstatic at the way it's working so far. Listen to part two here: Read more about the series at the Morning Edition page on NPR.org, here .

Sometime early this year, the Economist asserts, "women will cross the 50% threshold and become the majority of the American workforce." The Economist notes that this is one of the most significant economic stories of our times and a cause for celebration, but there is still a long way to go: Women’s economic empowerment is arguably the biggest social change of our times. Just a generation ago, women were largely confined to repetitive, menial jobs. They were routinely subjected to casual sexism and were expected to abandon their careers when they married and had children. Today they are running some of the organisations that once treated them as second-class citizens. Millions of women have been given more control over their own lives. And millions of brains have been put to more productive use. Societies that try to resist this trend—most notably the Arab countries, but also Japan and some southern European countries—will pay a heavy price in the form of wasted talent and frustrated citizens. This revolution has been achieved with only a modicum of friction (see article ). Men have, by and large, welcomed women’s invasion of the workplace. Yet even the most positive changes can be incomplete or unsatisfactory. This particular advance comes with two stings. The first is that women are still under-represented at the top of companies. Only 2% of the bosses of America’s largest companies and 5% of their peers in Britain are women. They are also paid significantly less than men on average. The second is that juggling work and child-rearing is difficult. Middle-class couples routinely complain that they have too little time for their children. But the biggest losers are poor children—particularly in places like America and Britain that have combined high levels of female participation in the labour force with a reluctance to spend public money on child care. Read the full article, Women and Work: We Did It! here .