Recommended Read While Working from Home

Whilst in lockdown, and working from home, many companies are using this time to try and plan for the future once lockdown ends. The CERB team recommends the following reads which can help responsible businesses in the future:

Crisis Management: Theory and Practice
By Katarina Holla, Jozef Ristvej, Michal Titko

Crisis management is an interdisciplinary subject field represented by theories and concepts, practical activity, people management and the art of quick problem solving. Topics include lessons learned from natural and man-made disasters, crisis communication, information systems in crisis management, civil protection and economics in crisis management.


The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World
By Melinda Gates

This encompasses nearly every indicator under UN’s SDG 5: Gender Equality and helps women find their collective voices and their true potential to succeed in life. The book advocates how women should have access to every kind of job, encourages men to share in household chores, campaigns for paid family leave and no gender biases at workplaces etc. It is not a heavy read as the author keeps it light with snippets of conversations from people she has met all over the world.


Weathering the Storm: Leading Your Organization Through a Pandemic

A paper that was published by the National Defense University in 2006, but whose warnings were so prescient that it feels like it could have been written last week. Organizations looking to adapt to new policies during the current times should definitely give it a read.


Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World
By Macro Linsiti and Karim R. Lakhani

The book looks at how reinventing a company around analytics, data and AI removes traditional constraints on scope, scale and learnings that have restricted business growth for several years and presents a framework for rethinking business and operating models.


Childcare in the COVID-19 Era: A Guide for Employers

As employees try to meet their new work and family obligations during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the loss of childcare options and school closures presents a parallel crisis. This guidance note is a companion to IFC’s Global Guide for Employer-Supported Childcare and outlines ways in which employers can support the care and family needs of their employees during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and fulfill their obligations under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Can be downloaded from here.


Shared Responsibility, Global Solidarity: Responding to the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19

This publication by the UN Coronavirus Communications Team highlights the possible impact the COVID will have on society.

Can be downloaded from here.


The Uninhabitable Earth
By David Wallace-Wells

You think you know enough about the effects of climate change, and that we will get through it somehow. This book is a wake-up call from that comfort. Wallace-Wells explores in depth the different ways climate will affect not just the environment, but also food security, refugees, politics, and almost every other aspect of our social structures. The Uninhabitable Earth is a promising start for companies and individuals looking to understand the real magnitude of the next global crisis awaiting them, and how it can affect their business and lives.