Much time and effort has been devoted to researching the mental health benefits of flexible work environments, but can the ability to leave work early to watch your son’s soccer game, or arrive at the office a bit later in the morning in order to see to some personal matters, have physical health benefits besides making you feel a bit relaxed?

According to new research published in the Cochrane Library Database of Systematic Reviews, it seems so. In a review of 10 previous studies examining the health effects of unfixed work conditions for more than 16,000 people, researchers from the U.K.. Durham University and University of Newcastle, as well as the University of Montreal, found that flexible work schedules, for instance, when employees can shift their starting times, were associated with improvements in a person’s overall health. In addition, perhaps, unsurprisingly, in all of the studies included in the review, researchers found no evidence for negative effects of more flexible work schedules.

This initial analysis was intended to throw light on the potential health benefits of flexible work options, which are increasingly popular throughout Scandinavia, and have recently gained some ground in the U.K. For example, last April, the British government implemented a policy that allowed parents of children aged six and under to request flexible work arrangements to include parents of children aged 16 and younger. In the U.S., the phenomenon is a bit slower to catch on. Yet, the economic slowdown of recent years may have contributed to growth in workplace flexibility—as companies unable to reward employees with bonuses or raises may turn to other forms of compensation, Reuters reported early last year.

Original analysis too, of course, indicated the benefits of flexible work environments toward positive mental health outcomes. And while these latest findings are promising, the researchers stress that more study is vital to understanding the detailed relationship between flexible work and improved health outcomes. To truly grasp the benefits of flexible working conditions, the researchers say, additional study analyzing health outcomes among a wide range of workers—from high-ranking executives to hourly employees – is critical, which helps to gain a deeper understanding of the issue, and to shape future workplace policy.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In today’s world, most workers are highly specialized, but this specialization can come at a cost — especially for those on the wrong team. New research by Harvard’s Growth Lab uncovers the importance of teams and coworkers when it comes to one’s productivity, earning potential, and stays of employment. The research analyzed administrative data on the 9 million inhabitants of Sweden. It found that to earn high wages and returns on education, workers must find coworkers who complement(互补), but not substitute, them.

The research offers a tool to assess the right and wrong coworkers in fields of expertise. The right coworkers are those with skills you lack, yet needed to complete a team. The wrong coworkers are those who replicate(重叠) your skillset and eventually lower your value to the employer. For example, those with a degree in Architecture are best assisted by workers with engineering, construction, or surveying degrees, and negatively impacted by those with landscape or interior(室内) design degrees.

“We tend to think of skills as something personal that individuals can market to a company,” said Frank Neffke, Growth Lab Research Director. “However, this vision of skills is too simplistic. One person’s skills connect to another person’s skills, etc., and the better these connections, the more productive workers will be, and the more they will earn.” Neffke adds that the benefits of working with complementary coworkers are not the same for all workers. Those with higher levels of education seem to benefit much more from working in complementary teams than workers with lower levels. Over the past 20 years, workers with college degrees or higher have been increasingly able to find better matching coworkers.

Complementarity also drives careers. The research shows that people tend to stay longer in organizations with many complementary workers and tend to leave those with many workers who substitute them. These results hold true for up to 20 years of one’s career.

The research also supports several well-known facts, such as cities and large firms pay higher wages. Workers are more likely to find better fitting teams in cities, and large firms often allow workers to specialize.

People choose to become entrepreneurs( 创 业 者 ） for a wide variety of reasons. One important reason is, of course, financial reward. If you own your own business and it becomes successful, you can reap huge financial rewards. And as an entrepreneur, dependent on how much your boss decides to give you; ifs limited only by the success of your business. And speaking of bosses,   not   having   a   supervisor   is   another   major   advantage   of   becoming   an        entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs are often independent thinkers who want to be in charge of projects, rather than having others tell them what to do. They often have big dreams that that they want to pursue rather than making someone else’s dream come true. For many entrepreneurs, starting a business is a way of solving a problem or helping people receive something they need. It’s a way to change the world for the better.

Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy, however, nor is it always fun. Entrepreneurs often have to work long hours, especially early on when they’re trying to get their businesses off the ground. that’s the reason entrepreneurs need to have a strong work ethic( 伦 理 ).Employees can work 40 hours a week and then stop, but for an entrepreneur, there’s no end in sight.

That’s why another feature of successful entrepreneurs is passion; they have to be excited about what they’re doing to be willing to work hard for it. Entrepreneurs also need good communication skills to pass on that passion to others. That’s important for finding investors, getting people to buy products and attracting employees.

Entrepreneurs also need to be creative people who are able to find solutions to problems they encounter. This is important from the very beginning, when the entrepreneur comes up with an initial concept of a business. But even after that initial step, creative thinking is continually necessary to adapt to changing situations and to solve problems that come up.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The hardworking and never-give-up attitude of Malaysian badminton star Lee Chong Wei has won many people’s hearts.

The 36-year-old player is already a veteran of the badminton world. Despite this, he doesn’t want to call it a day. At the moment, nose cancer is keeping him out of the game.

At a press conference earlier this month, Lee said that he hopes to return to badminton next year and to compete in his fifth Olympic Games held in Tokyo in 2020. “It’s going to be tough to fight for the gold medal, but I will try my very best because it’s always my dream,” he said. Although Lee is one of the world’s greatest players, he has never won a badminton world championship. So if health permits, he will continue to compete because he wants an Olympic gold. Besides his great determination, his other drive is his passion for the sport. “One of the most important things in life to him is badminton,” Lee’s coach Misbun Sodik told the New Straits Times.

After two months of cancer treatment that caused eating and sleeping problems, recently Lee began a little training.