Employers intent on lowering headcount but hesitant to announce layoffs are instead imposing policies like stricter remote working rules, performance reviews, restructuring and forced relocation in hopes more employees to resign. Such moves do come with a risk, however, as consultants and advisers note it can lead to the loss of high-performing employees who can easily find work elsewhere.

Kickstarter, Panasonic and ThredUp are on a list of 15 employers offering a four-day workweek in an effort to attract and retain staff members and support employee wellness. Kathy Gardner of FlexJobs says employers implementing a shorter week should be clear about job expectations and how individual performance will be measured, and they should make sure their overall culture is conducive to work-life balance and mental wellness.

Overthinking and rumination can prevent people from being present in the current moment, but licensed clinical social worker Steph Tuazon says that focusing on one thing at a time can help. "Being present means slowing down, bringing awareness to the moment that's currently happening versus engaging in the unrelated thoughts that may appear," Tuazon says.

Employers tend to divide into three groups when it comes to handling open enrollment: Those that still use paper-based manual processes, those that have a data collection system in place but haven't automated it to share information with human resources, payroll and insurance carriers, and those that have successfully automated to keep data flowing continuously. Companies in the first two groups should start planning now to update their processes.

Watching sports -- from yacht racing where the boss is always in charge, to baseball where skilled professionals do their individual part to create a winning team -- can provide leaders with a study in which form of organization fits their company the best, writes Henry Mintzberg, a professor at McGill University in Montreal. A lesson Axios co-founder and CEO Jim VandeHei says he learned from Brad McCarty, the head coach of the men's soccer team at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pa., is how focusing on excellence over success can push teams to hone their craft to produce sustainable skills and not be satisfied with mediocre results.