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Q: I am a real-estate agent working in a relatively active market. Unfortunately, market conditions mean I often am delivering bad news to buyers: houses go off the market before I can arrange a walk-through; my clients’ offers often are countered very aggressively or rejected outright; and sellers may not be willing to agree to my clients’ terms. I have noticed that delivering bad news to my clients can sour our relationship; they seem to like me less. It is important that I have a pleasant and trusting working relationship with my clients. What can I do to prevent clients from “shooting the messenger”?

Automated negotiations are just around the corner, Facebook research suggests.

Q: I’m the head of human resources at a medium-sized company. We are piloting a program in which we will offer employees increased ability to self-schedule their hours and work from home. We’re trying to figure out whether this is something that employees really value and, if so, whether we should bring this up in our compensation negotiations.

When negotiating, we aim to get the best deal that we can for ourselves. In the process, we sometimes lose sight of whether the other party will perceive that he or she got the short end of the stick. That’s an oversight in any negotiation but may be especially risky when making deals with those who are financially well off, new research suggests.