But one corporation has bucked the trend, reportedly giving its employees mammoth windfalls worth more than four years pay as 2022 drew to a close.

Taiwanese shipping giant Evergreen Marine Corp. has been a major beneficiary of the pandemic-era boom in demandand in turn, shippingwith its 2022 revenues expected to exceed $20 billion. Thats more than three times higher than its income in 2020.

On the back of its roaring success, Evergreen Marine is handing out bonuses worth up to 52 months salary, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing Taiwans Economic Daily News. Some employees were said to have received more than $65,000 on Dec. 30.

A source familiar with Evergreen Marines bonus structure anonymously told Bloomberg that the size of the bonuses was dependent on workers level of seniority and function. Only staff with Taiwan-based contracts were eligible for the biggest payouts, the source said.

Evergreen Marine did not respond to Fortunes request for comment, but a spokesperson for the firm told Bloomberg that year-end bonuses had always been based on individual and company performance.

While the company has enjoyed two consecutive years of soaring demand, President Eric Hseih reportedly told investors in October that a strong U.S. dollar and surging inflation could dampen demand in coming quarters.

Elsewhere, ground staff at Evergreen Airline Services Corp.another company under the Evergreen Group umbrellahave also been given payouts, according to The Taipei Times. The news outlet reported on Monday that the firm offered its workers bonuses worth $1,305 and an increase in vacation pay for the Lunar New Year holiday, after they threatened a walkout over pay.

Ever Given stops shipping

Back in 2021, a vessel operated by the Evergreen Marine infamously blocked the Suez Canal, causing huge disruption across international supply chains.

Global trade took a hit when huge container ship the Ever Given became wedged across the major Egyptian waterway, prompting a six-day operation to refloat the ship during which one person was killed. It was estimated that the blockage held up as much as $10.9 billion worth of cargo per day.

Months later, Egypt signed a compensation deal with the ships Japanese owner and its insurers. Terms of the agreement were not made public, but Egyptian authorities had reportedly demanded $550 million in damages.

The Suez Canal, the shortest shipping link between Europe and Asia, is one of the worlds busiest waterways.

On Monday, it was temporarily blocked after a Ukrainian container ship carrying corn suffered technical problems and briefly ran aground. Authorities said the breakdown was only expected to cause minor delays.

Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of todays executives. Subscribe here.

Butch Marion, 82, has been able to quit his job as a cashier at the retailer in Cumberland, Md. thanks to the efforts of creator Rory McCarthy, who posted a video of the worker on Dec. 17, asking his followers to help. McCarthys video received over 3.3 million views. 

Marion, a widower and U.S. Navy veteran, said in further videos that he had been working since he was 11-years old and had spent 10 years in the Navy. 

The donations rolled in at an incredible pace through a GoFundMe page set up by McCarthy, with donors expressing how inspired they had been by Marions story. At the time of writing, the page has raised $123,995; it reportedly received over $50,000 in the first 24 hours. 

While McCarthy originally built popularity online by sharing clips of his life running a bug extermination company, he was keen to use his platform for a good cause. 

On his GoFundMe page, McCarthy explained, I wanted to help this navy veteran to live the remainder of his years traveling to see his kids in Florida Get him off his feet for 8 hrs at a time. And do the things he would love to do that he may not be able to for financial reasons.

As a business owner and knowing how hard its been to try to find good help for my business I was astounded seeing this little older man still grinding working 8 to 9 hour shifts, McCarthy said. 

In a clip published by Fox 5 Washington D.C., Marion was seen leaving the store on his final day, holding balloons amid a crowd of cheering onlookers in the parking lot and then receiving a check from McCarthy. 

Marion has said hed like to use the money to go to Florida and see my kids, and enjoy my last 10 or 12 years Ive got. 

#TikTokWalmartRetiree

Marion is now the third Walmart employee to have received life-changing donations from social media users in recent months in what is quickly becoming a trendit even has its own hashtag: #TikTokWalmartRetiree. 

Just before Christmas, 82-year-old Carmen Kelly from Arizona went viral after she was filmed by shopper Elizabeth Rizzo, who spotted her pushing through her Walmart shift despite having to use a cane while she worked, unable to sit down per the retailers employee rules. 

Kellys reportedly had only $50 in her bank account at the time Rizzo filmed her and had been struggling to pay her medical bills. TikTokers raised over $135,000 so she no longer had to struggle. 

Prior to Kelly, a video of 81-year-old Walmart employee Nola was posted to TikTok on Nov. 3 by Devan Bonagura, who also set up a GoFundMe page. The original clip had over 30 million views and generous strangers raised a total of $186,318 for the worker. 

Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of todays executives. Subscribe here.

The World Health Organization has confirmed that XBB.1.5 dubbed Kraken by biology professor Dr. Ryan Gregory is the most transmissible strain yet.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Friday that the mutation is predicted to make up 28% of cases this week making it the second most prevalent strain in the U.S. having been responsible for 18% last week.

According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Kraken is estimated to double the number of people it sickens every nine days prompting calls for urgent development of treatment and vaccines against it.

However, claims vaccines and boosters are helping the virus get stronger have been slammed as absolute nonsense by health protection scientists.

Wall Street Journal published an article posing the question: Are Vaccines Fueling New Covid Variants? given the spread of the virus in highly-vaccinated areas such as northeastern America.

And although XBB.1.5 is immune-evasive to some extent, this is a normal process of virus evolution explained Dr Christopher Chiu, of the Imperial Network for Vaccine Research.

No evidence that vaccines have made COVID strains more powerful

Speaking to Fortune, the infectious diseases physician and immunologist added there is no evidence to suggest that vaccines have made COVID strains more powerful or that those who have been jabbed are any more likely to get a severe case of infection.

He was echoed by Roby Bhattacharyya, an assistant professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, who told Bloomberg a study he led last year showed that vaccination probably didnt accelerate the initial omicron wave.

New data last week also showed XBB.1.5 shouldnt evade prior vaccines and infections any better than a variant already in circulation, as Kraken is slightly less immune evasive than its parent mutation.

Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead for COVID-19 response at the WHO, added Wednesday that it is unknown if the variant is contributing to a rise in hospitalizations in the northeast U.S.

Professor Paul Hunter, of the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Emergency Preparedness, added there is no clear evidence to suggest just how immune-resistant Kraken is.

He highlighted that hybrid immunity protection for patients arising out of both vaccines and previous infection was the best defense against systemic or severe infection, leading to hospitalizations and potential deaths.

How current vaccines battle COVID variants

There are currently four main vaccines available to people in the U.S.: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson.

Pfizer-BioNTech

Pfizers new bivalent booster is designed to battle both the original  SARS CoV-2 virus and the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5.

Yale Medicine said experts are still establishing how effective the bivalent jab is against more recent mutations such as Kraken, but signposted that a clinical trial in November 2022 by Pfizer showed that levels of neutralizing antibodies in the bivalent booster were around four times higher in people 55 and older than in people of similar ages who got a monovalent booster.

Moderna

In November, Moderna said its updated COVID-19 booster generated significantly higher neutralizing antibodies against the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariants than its earlier shot with all participants having a 15-fold increase in Omicron BA.4/BA.5 antibody levels from pre-booster levels.

Novavax

WHO confirmed a Phase 3 study conducted in the USA and Mexico during a period in which multiple variants (Alpha, Beta and Delta) were in circulation found the Novavax vaccine efficacy against mild, moderate, or severe COVID-19 was 90%.

The company is also developing a COVID-19-Influenza Combination (CIC) with CEO, Stanley C. Erck, saying: We believe that like influenza, COVID-19 will also be seasonal moving forward, and that there is room in the market for new alternatives to provide better protection against the impact of influenza, particularly in older adults, and to explore the potential to combine this with protection from COVID.

Johnson & Johnson

In 2021 data from the Sisonke 2 study confirm that the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 booster shot provides 85% effectiveness against hospitalization in areas where the Omicron variant was dominant.

Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of todays executives. Subscribe here.

Simply put: Managers believe that working from home reduces productivity while employees think it massively increases it. 

Now, new research published in the Harvard Business Research suggests this massive difference in opinion could boil down to very different parameters of what constitutes a working day.

When thinking about how productive their day was, HBRs research shows that employees tend to include commuting time in their mental calculations. Therefore, they counted not having to commute on days working from home as an increase in productivity. Managers on the other hand tend to focus on output and ignore commuting time when thinking about staff productivity.

Could both be right?

Neither side is wrong.

First, take the employees point of view. Imagine a gig economy worker who charges a business a daily rate of $1,000. If they work a nine-hour day and spend an hour commuting, they are charging $100 for every hour they spend on the job. But on days working from home, theyre getting $111 for every hour they put toward the job. They are still putting 9 hours of work into the job but they dont have to dip into their personal bank of time, energy, and money to commute to the office. 

However, from an employers perspective, they are getting less bang for their buckor at least fewer hours for the same amount of money. An increase in productivity would have the employee working during the hour they formerly spent on commuting.

Although these calculations are made up, and of course productivity isnt only measured by the number of hours dedicated to a job, the disagreement illustrates why employees may perceive working from home as a personal productivity win while bosses do not. 

This difference in opinion becomes increasingly important as businesses ask staff to come back to the officeand reflects a need for clarity from employers on where they stand on the matter. 

Employees who opt to work from home in order to increase productivity could be putting themselves at risk of terminationespecially if theyre specifically dodging in-office days. When HBR asked employees, What happens to workers who work from the office on fewer days than requested?, a third responded nothing. However, the majority of managers answered that they risked being fired. 

Changing norms

The HBR research comes as many businesses have started defining their policies on working from home.

Although many companies, including BlackRock, PwC and Aviva, have adopted a hybrid work system, some are scrapping working from home altogether. 

After acquiring Twitter, Elon Musk made it his first order of business to end Twitters work from anywhere policy. Musk emailed the social media giants employees that they would be expected in the office for at least 40 hours a week and that unless approved by their manager, an office no-show would automatically equate to resignation accepted.

While the billionaires actions arent an example of leadership at its finest, it does show that clarity and transparency are key to getting employees in line with managers expectations on productivity and remote working. 

In the end, thousands who werent on the same page as Musk left the business.

Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of todays executives. Subscribe here.