Redesigning jobs to protect workers' mental health

+ the carbon footprint of Amazon returns US Edition - Today's top story: Adjusting jobs to protect workers' mental health is both easier and harder than you might think [View in browser]( US Edition | 14 June 2023 [The Conversation] [The Conversation]( Top headlines - [The risks to national security federal Trump case raises]( - [Modern forensics reveal what Paleo-Americans hunted]( - [The gravestones that gave Black Southerners dignity after death]( Lead story In some regards, U.S. employers appear to be taking their workers’ mental health more seriously than they used to. Counseling benefits, for example, have become pretty common. But are employers doing all that they can, or should? After [sifting through hundreds of studies to answer this question](, management professors Emily Rosado-Solomon, Jaclyn Koopmann and Matthew A. Cronin write that the answer is no. “Employers could greatly reduce the causes of many of their employees’ mental health challenges through basic human resources approaches, such as taking tasks away from someone who is perpetually swamped or providing more job flexibility,” they explain. But employers “rarely make or authorize” those changes. [[Sign up for our weekly Global Economy & Business newsletter, a curated summary of the week’s briefings from academic experts.](] Emily Schwartz Greco Philanthropy + Nonprofits Editor Today's newsletter supported by [readers like you.]( Work doesn’t have to make you feel burned out. Luis Alvarez/DigitalVision via Getty Images [Adjusting jobs to protect workers’ mental health is both easier and harder than you might think]( Emily Rosado-Solomon, Babson College; Jaclyn Koopmann, Auburn University; Matthew A. Cronin, George Mason University Changing workplace culture and the way jobs are designed can stave off depression, anxiety and burnout. Economy + Business - [Inside the black box of Amazon returns]( Simone Peinkofer, Michigan State University Returns are becoming a costly sustainability problem for retailers and the planet. A supply chain expert explains. Politics + Society - [How the exposure of highly classified documents could harm US security – and why there are laws against storing them insecurely]( Gary Ross, Texas A&M University The indictment identifies categories of risk to the United States and its allies due to his alleged mishandling of classified documents. A scholar of intelligence studies examines four of them. - [Refugees are living longer in exile than ever before, with complex consequences for them and their host communities]( Sharif A Wahab, Indiana University As conflicts last longer, the number of refugees and other displaced people is on the rise. Environment + Energy - [Wildfire smoke and dirty air are also climate change problems: Solutions for a world on fire]( Drew Shindell, Duke University So much pollution goes into the air today that even without wildfire smoke, 99% of the global population breathes unhealthy air. Ethics + Religion - [Events in Bolivia and Brazil may signal a turning point for the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse crisis in Latin America]( Matthew Casey-Pariseault, Arizona State University Public outrage over alleged abuse has been muted in much of Latin America for years, partly because the church remains one of the region’s most powerful institutions – but that may be changing. - [Why this year’s summer solstice matters so much for a new religious movement mired in controversy]( Simranjit Khalsa, University of Memphis 3HO was founded in 1969, and SDI followed five years later. What are they, and what is the significance of the 2023 summer solstice for their followers? Science + Technology - [Seeing dead fruit flies is bad for the health of fruit flies – and neuroscientists have identified the exact brain cells responsible]( Christi Gendron, University of Michigan When fruit flies see other dead fruit flies, their life spans are cut short. Other species also undergo analogous physiological changes when seeing their dead. - [Forensic evidence suggests Paleo-Americans hunted mastodons, mammoths and other megafauna in eastern North America 13,000 years ago]( Christopher R. Moore, University of South Carolina A forensic technique more often used at modern crime scenes identified blood residue from large extinct animals on spearpoints and stone tools used by people who lived in the Carolinas millennia ago. Arts + Culture - [How Black Americans combated racism from beyond the grave]( David B. Parker, Kennesaw State University Tombstones that used the honorifics ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’ restored a sense of dignity to people who had been denied it in life. - [Mystique, minimalism and cataclysm: Cormac McCarthy’s fiction was a dark counter-narrative to American optimism]( Paul Giles, Australian Catholic University Cormac McCarthy, who has died aged 89, was a major American writer with a distinctive voice. In McCarthy’s world, war and violence are primordial realities. Trending on site - [‘If you want to die in jail, keep talking’ – two national security law experts discuss the special treatment for Trump and offer him some advice]( - [Linguists have identified a new English dialect that’s emerging in South Florida]( - [El Niño is back – that’s good news or bad news, depending on where you live]( Today's graphic [A chart showing the life expectancy of different countries, including the US, from 1980 to 2021. The life expectancies trend upward overall, but the US life expectancy drops sharply in 2019.]( From the story, [Annual numbers of excess deaths in the US relative to other developed countries are growing at an alarming rate]( - - More of The Conversation Like this newsletter? You might be interested in our weekly and biweekly emails: • [Weekly Highlights]( • [Science Editors' Picks]( • [This Week in Religion]( • [Politics Weekly]( • [Global Perspectives]( • [Global Economy & Business]( Trying out new social media? Follow us: • [Mastodon]( • [Post.news]( • [Instagram]( • [LinkedIn]( - - About The Conversation We're a nonprofit news organization dedicated to [helping academic experts share ideas with the public](. We can give away our articles thanks to the help of foundations, universities and readers like you. 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