The State of DEI: Why Many Efforts Fail–and How Companies Can Overcome the Barriers
BY Emily Nonko May 16, 2023“DEI” is an umbrella term, but not all marginalized groups have benefited equally from this movement. In 1985, women made up 22% of management positions in corporate America, while African-American employees made up three percent. Fast forward to 2020: Women make up 38%—a 60% growth in representation—while African Americans still only represent 3.2%.“It’s statistically insignificant. In 35 years, corporate America was unable to move the needle,” said Robert Perkins, chief global diversity and inclusion officer for Mondelēz International, Inc. He believes that this statistic represents the challenges involved in making progress with diversity, equity and inclusion work, and why corporate America has an extremely long way to go to achieve equity in the workplace.Perkins joined John Simons, executive editor at TIME, for a fireside chat at From Day One’s February virtual conference on the state of DEI. As diversity chief for a global snack maker, making everything from Cadbury to Oreos, Perkins revealed that, since 2020, his company has doubled the number of women in leadership roles and experienced 72% growth in the number of Black managers.Perkins shared a “three-pillar strategy” that’s been adopted by Mondelēz: “First of all, we look at our colleagues; workforce representation, at the end of the day, is in my eyes most important,” he said. “You need to look at your pipeline and how you’re building it.”Robert Perkins was interviewed by John Simons of TIME during the fireside chat (photo by From Day One)He continued, “Our second pillar is culture. We’re very focused on engagement and how engagement drives higher productivity and business results,” Perkins said, stressing research that says leaders give 60 to 65% of capacity on any given day, but more when they feel most connected to organization. “That’s when companies are getting better productivity and results,” he noted.The third pillar is community. “Externally, what are we doing in the communities where we work and live?” Perkins asked. “One of our biggest initiatives is around economic inclusion and supplier diversity.” The company’s goal is to spend $1 billion with women and minority-owned businesses by 2024; they’ve spent over $500 million already.“I’d say this is the most overlooked by all of corporate America,” Perkins said of supplier diversity. “This impacts the economic wealth-building of women and minorities, and it has the larger societal impact of creating gender and racial equity.” Perkins also emphasized the importance of internal education and training to bring employees on board with DEI goals. “My subjective statement is that the majority of leaders across corporate America are not comfortable, confident, or capable of having DEI conversations,” he said. His suggestion is for companies to take these conversations “head on” and to invest in education on matters having to do with equity, equality, and representation. Perkins also called for bold, large-scale change to reach the level of equity to which many companies aspire. “We need creativity and to have difficult conversations,” he said. “Otherwise it won’t happen in our lifetime,” he said. Even though the position of chief diversity officers remains one of the fastest-growing jobs since its peak in 2020, Perkins cited a 60% turnover in chief diversity officers since that year. “That’s largely because of their disappointment with the commitment and accountability to DEI goals, and because they don’t feel like they can accomplish what they were hired to accomplish,” he said. Investments must be made across the company, from leadership down the employee ranks. Short-term goals should be replaced by long-term commitments. “It starts with leadership’s commitment to an articulated and defined strategy and goals,” Perkins said. “And leadership’s accountability to the systems in place for measuring progress against goals.”Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and other publications.
Finding the Future Leaders Who’ll Drive Your Company’s Growth
BY Emily Nonko March 05, 2023As much as companies might hope to avoid attrition, it’s an inevitability that leaders should expect. “Retention should be a part of your overall strategy knowing that you will lose employees –and you’ll want to be intentional, not reactive,” said Gary Blinth, a recruiter with 20 years of experience and head of executive search for Humana. To Blinth, talent leaders need to look past the economic downturn to identify the next generation, as well as invest holistically in their current workforce. He shared his insight with Shana Lebowitz Gaynor, a correspondent for Insider, and author of Don’t Call It Quits: Turn the Job You Have Into the Job You Love, during a fireside chat at From Day One’s January virtual conference on talent acquisition during uncertain times. Blinth stressed that companies won’t attract new talent without investing in their current workforce. “A company with a strong culture over time tends to experience less attrition and has less issues with losing talent,” he said. “How strong is your culture? Is it an inclusive environment? Do employees feel part of the organization?” He suggested different strategies to strengthen the internal culture: offering recognition to employees–from bonuses to shout-outs across the company–as well as providing different routes for internal mobility, acting on employee feedback through surveys, and taking a human approach across the board. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) investments are also an important component. “It should be embedded and operationalized in what we do,” is a quote from a colleague that stuck with Blinth. He added: “It’s not just for HR. It’s across operations so every person understands it’s a part of who we are as an organization.” Moderator Shana Lebowitz Gaynor, journalist and author, left, and Gary Blinth Humana's head of executive recruiting (Image by From Day One) If a company is anticipating attrition, they can also pay more attention to the reasons employees leave and understand what the company can proactively address. “It’s not always about the money,” Blinth pointed out. He shared an example of a potential employee who had prioritized maternity benefits. “It comes back to the voice of the customer: both the folks we are looking to hire and the folks we are looking to retain.” As companies bring on new employees, they should actively transfer and disseminate skills, knowledge and expertise broadly across the organization. “A key part of the strategy has to be understanding, as an organization, your enterprise goals and key initiatives–the key skills that will be required to execute that, and identifying where these skills reside.” From there, companies can facilitate programs like shadowing and mentorship between employees with institutional knowledge and newer employees, as well as education offered by leadership. “There are a number of ways it can be done, it just has to be intentional and something that companies are looking to do long-term,” Blinth said. “And that can also be part of your retention strategy.” Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and other publications.
Global Parity for Fertility Benefits: the Challenges and Opportunities
BY Emily Nonko January 02, 2023Over the past 30 years, the share of U.S.-based multinational companies working outside the country has increased significantly. By 2017, 35% of those companies’ employees worked outside the U.S.–and with the growth of remote work, the number has likely gotten higher. One challenge that comes with that growth–and that is often left out of benefits discussions–is achieving global parity for fertility benefits when employees live in countries with different rules and regulations around fertility care and family forming. “There’s a lot that employers should know about differences in fertility care around the world and how companies can assess whether a fertility benefit is truly global,” said Kirsten Ferro, VP of sales at Carrot, a fertility-benefits provider. In a From Day One webinar titled, “Global Parity for Fertility Benefits: Challenges and Opportunities,” Ferro broke down differences in fertility and family-forming access across Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the U.S. She also detailed what employers should know about cross-border care and offered strategies so employees have access to high-quality care wherever they’re located. There are many challenges to achieving this inclusivity, Ferro says. “For one, every country handles rules and regulations around fertility care differently, or in many cases, very differently,” she said. “What’s accessible in one country might be illegal in another country or might have strict regulations that make it more difficult to access care.” One case she highlighted was gestational carrier (GC) services, commonly known as surrogacy, which is subject to drastically varying regulations in different countries. For example, although compensated GC services are allowed in the U.S., they’re illegal in Sweden. Countries including the UK and Canada similarly only allow for uncompensated GC services. And, from other countries, it’s possible to access cross-border care–meaning you’re working with a surrogate in a different country. Navigating a GC journey with support means step-by-step guidance, help connecting with vetted agencies, including options for cross-border care, and access to legal resources. “It’s so important that the guidance is all staying in line with the laws and regulations,” Ferro said. She also highlighted global challenges related to assisted reproduction (IVF) and fertility preservation (egg freezing). In Italy, for example, assisted reproduction is limited to heterosexual couples. In Austria and Norway, fertility preservation for non-medical reasons is banned. And in the Philippines, there are restrictions on the use of donor materials. “Many restrictions are related to the sexual orientation and the relationship or marital status of the intended parents,” Ferro said. Kirsten Ferro, VP of sales at Carrot (Company photo) Resources that are needed to navigate this include care navigation to help create a step-by-step plan for a complex journey, support finding high-quality clinics, and guidance on cross-border care. “You want to make sure your vendor is vetting for safety and clinical standards, to make sure your employees are well taken care of,” Ferro said. A final example Ferro offered is global adoption, which is regulated by strict laws. Once again, every country has different requirements for adoptive parents, including age, length of marriage, number of children, and income. Parents will need support in finding an accredited adoption agency, guidance on country-by-country requirements, and emotional support on what is often a long and demanding process. Finances are another major factor to consider. “It’s no secret that fertility and family forming care can be wildly expensive,” said Ferro. “Figuring out how to manage the financial side of global fertility benefits is so tough, but employers can work with fertility vendors to ensure your offerings are as equitable as possible across geographic locations.” Questions to ask when it comes to financial parity include: If providing employer-sponsored funds, how will you account for potential exchange rates? How is cost of care in different countries factored in? How will employees pay for care? Tackling all these questions and challenges will benefit your entire workforce. “Fertility care impacts nearly everyone in your organization,” Ferro said. For example, egg preservation has become mainstream. Approximately 1 in 8 different-sex couples face infertility challenges, and 1 in 20 men face reduced fertility. (Forty percent of Carrot members identify as male, according to Ferro.) A solution that fits everyone, wherever they’re located, should include global coverage and parity, localized experience and insight, care navigation tools, and rigorous clinical, financial, and regulatory expertise. “Not all vendors are created equal,” Ferro said, especially when it comes to global inclusivity. “When we talk about important inclusions for this type of coverage, we take it really seriously at Carrot.” Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Carrot, who sponsored this webinar. Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and other publications.
How to Get Your Ambitious Project off the Ground: ‘Do It Today’
BY Emily Nonko December 20, 2022It’s almost an understatement to call Kara Cutruzzula a go-getter. Cutruzzula is a widely published freelance writer and editor, a playwright, lyricist, and librettist who pens musicals, the author of the creative productivity newsletter Brass Ring Daily, and the voice behind the podcast Do It Today. How does she keep herself inspired, productive, and bold enough to delve into new creative projects? And what lessons does she have for strivers of all kinds who need a jump start to get ambitious projects off the ground? Cutruzzula captured her infectious energy in two motivational journals: Do It for Yourself, released by Abrams publishers in 2020, and Do It Today, released this fall. Do It for Yourself is a beautifully illustrated, easily digestible journal with creative prompts to stay motivated and make things happen. Do It Today was crafted in light of the pandemic, in which so many people struggled to find motivation. It’s an empathetic, gentle guide with short essays, prompts and open-ended questions to give readers space to dream and plan–even if it just means accomplishing a small goal today. From Day One spoke with Cutruzzula about the wisdom inside both journals, what will resonate with business professionals, and what to expect from a third journal now in the works. From Day One: I’d love to hear about you and what led you to this first motivational journal, Do It For Yourself. Kara Cutruzzula: I had been writing the daily newsletter Brass Ring Daily about work life and creativity for three or so years. I chronicle my creative output–highs, lows, in-betweens, talked about rejections, failures, and how I kept trying–and got a readership from that. Through there, I was connected with an editor at Abrams, and they were looking to do a motivational journal and said that the themes were basically what they wanted to cover in a journal. It’s sort of a roundabout way to publish a book, but I liked that it happened this way. It’s a perfect example of just doing work that you care about, that you are naturally drawn to, and then being recognized for that and having something else grow out of it. The journals take you on a journey and build off themselves. How did you structure them, were you pulling from your own motivations and habits? I feel like every creative or professional work project has all of these different stages. And sometimes we forget that there are stages, and we just think, OK, this is taking forever, or, I have a new hurdle and don’t know how to handle this one. Breaking down projects into different stages was really helpful for me as I moved through my own work. I wanted to share that and outline that for readers and mimic the experience of going through something like this. There’s always this stage of internal motivation: How do you get going? How do you beat back the fear that might prevent you from thinking about your mission statement, thinking about the things you might even want to be doing? Eventually you do move out of that to doing the daily work, like building momentum in the small tasks, the big tasks, creating micro and macro goals. Once you continue to build your project, whether that’s a business or a creative project, you will come across setbacks. You’re looking at that point at your routines, anything you’re procrastinating doing, all of the things that feel really complex and like roadblocks that come up, thinking about how to push past those. Even in talking about these different stages, you could see there’s so many different ways to get stuck. And the whole point of both of the journals is to keep you moving forward. And once you’re finished, it’s about finding a finish line, or creating a finish line for yourself, and then figuring out how to move onto the next one. And then you start the loop all over. The message of the first journal resonated with readers enough to lead to the second journal, Do It Today. What were you trying to communicate through the second journal? I think that people have soured a little bit on the idea of motivation. Five years ago for me, it was much more about “Rah rah, let’s hustle and get motivated.” After going through the pandemic, that message personally doesn’t resonate for me as much. I think if you can make progress on one small thing relating to meaningful work, I think that feels really satisfying. So it’s not looking at a strict, hard, punishing motivation, but more this gentle encouragement with yourself and admitting you might be tired, you might have a setback, you might put a project aside. It’s about not beating yourself up about it. I think that message relates to people a lot more these days. Both journals are beautifully illustrated and very creative. Tell me about working with the illustrators and why that was an important component. We had two wonderful illustrators: Tessa Forrest illustrated the first journal. And Tyler Spangler illustrated the second one. I think there’s been a hole in the market in what’s available to readers that are both nice to look at and can and can provide really tangible, concrete advice about how to move forward. A lot of business, productivity and time-management books feel a little clinical. I just found myself not really drawn to pick that up all the time. I was thinking about what feels good to open, read, and would feel encouraging even if you just have 10 seconds. The idea was to marry concrete advice with something with high aesthetic value that is encouraging that would speak to a wide, universal audience. Much of From Day One’s readership are HR and other business professionals. How do you think they can best utilize the journals? I’ve heard from software engineers, entrepreneurs, lots of professionals who relate to the ideas inside. I don’t think you have to be “creative” to want to move more towards the things that are important to you, and to spend time on the work that is meaningful to you. One of the principles in the book is to start before you’re ready. I feel like that is a mantra that definitely relates to people in business, where sometimes you need to embrace this idea that you’ll never have everything you need to begin, you might not feel ready, but you’ll figure it out anyway. What are other mantras or tips from the journals that have really resonated with readers or that you yourself turn back to again? Two things come to mind. In the first journal, one of the prompts is writing your future Wikipedia entry. It sounds kind of silly, but I think it really forces you to look at what you actually want to leave behind and what will be the main bullet points. I’ve seen a lot of people write their Wikipedia entries and they end up finding that the things that they actually want to do or that they want included in that entry are not the things that they’re working on every day. So where is that disconnect, and why are they not able to do the work that is most meaningful to them? It’s a macro overview of what you want to do, where you want to spend your time, and what you might want people to say about your career 30 years from now. Kara Cutruzzula, author of Do It for Yourself and Do It Today (Photo courtesy of the author) In Do It Today, I have a chapter on rejection and failure, which is a popular topic. One technique I’ve used with my own projects is writing a thank you note to whatever rejection comes your way. Thinking about the risk you took to even approach the thing that led you to failure is incredibly helpful, because you’re reminded again that you’re trying to do something, you actually put it out there, you applied for the thing. Closing that chapter is always so satisfying to me and it allows you to move on. What is your latest project? What are you working on now? I write musicals, books and lyrics for musicals. And that was a very challenging thing to do during the pandemic, when we were all on Zoom. But now that I’m back in person, I started writing a new musical with a collaborator, a composer named Kristoffer Bjarke, about people running a marathon. It takes place physically in the heads of people who are running in a small-town race and the places you mind goes when you’re stuck out there for 26.2 miles. I also have a podcast called Do It Today, which is an interview series where I talk to notable figures and friends in creative industries and non-creative industries about what they’re doing that day and how they’re doing it. I noticed a lot of people coming out of the pandemic with these incredible projects, writing books, musicals, career pivots, all sorts of things. I wanted to know about the micro, day-to-day behind that, so I call people up and talk about challenges they’re facing that day, what’s their biggest goal, and finding advice and habits and things that hopefully listeners can adopt in their own lives. It’s been a very instructive experience to see a lot of these techniques play out in real life. Will there be a third journal? You know, three is a nice number. So we are doing a third coming out in fall of 2023. It’s going to be Do It–Or Don’t: a Boundary Creating Journal. This one is about how to say no to all the things you don”t want to do, and how to create helpful constraints and containers for the work that’s most important to you. Because all the encouragement in the world cannot get you to a finish line if you don’t have the time and space to do the work. I can’t wait to read it and feel inspired in a different way. Thanks so much for this work. Thanks, it helps me. I do it to help me with my own creative work too. I hope people can find things to relate to there, because we’re all just working through it. Just bringing people in and having conversations about these things is always really helpful. Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and other publications.
The Talent Hunt: Learning to Look to Non-Traditional Sources
BY Emily Nonko December 15, 2022While no industry dodged the effects of the pandemic, almost none was impacted as much as leisure and hospitality, which saw its unemployment rate peak in April 2020 at a staggering 39%. “It was a gut-wrenching time,” recalled Jin Ivacic, global head of talent acquisition for Hyatt Hotels. Even as the industry recovers, she added, “We’ve experienced the challenges of uneven supply and demand.” Ivacic joined Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, a business reporter for the Denver Post, for a fireside chat on the evolution of the industry’s talent hunt, which includes looking to non-traditional sources, part of From Day One’s November virtual conference on workforce diversity. “It’s more of a candidates market than we’ve ever seen before,” Ivacic pointed out, so it’s up to companies to step up. The underlying theme of the conversation was the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to the talent hunt. “It truly needs to be embraced at all levels, starting from the top,” Ivacic said. “It should be a company-wide initiative, not looked at as something for HR to do and champion.” As the industry ramps up again, it enjoys the benefit of having many roles that don’t require a high-school diploma. “Our hires have traditionally come from diverse backgrounds and experiences,” said Ivacic. The industry focuses on employee potential, including transferable and adjoining skills. “With additional training we can bring people on board,” Ivacic said. “We’re really looking to see what’s intrinsic within them that has the potential, if you invest the time and energy in what could really become something special.” Two initiatives proved successful for Hyatt in recruiting from non-traditional sources. A fireside on talent acquisition, from left: moderator Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton of the Denver Post and Jin Ivacic of Hyatt Hotels (Image by From Day One) RiseHY is the company’s goal to hire 10,000 “opportunity youth” globally by 2025, defined as people being between the ages of 16 and 24 who are not in school or employed. “We partner with local nonprofit organizations and have had a number of successes over the years–there’s actually very high loyalty and retention among this population,” said Ivacic. The company also set a commitment to hire refugees and piloted a program hiring them for remote, customer-service positions at its global contact center. “Knowing that transportation can often be challenging, we thought this would be a great way to alleviate some barriers,” said Ivacic. “The test was successful and we’re looking to launch more cohorts in the coming months.” When companies recruit from non-traditional sources, and increase the diversity of their workforce, a truly inclusive culture is imperative, alongside liveable pay and benefits. “It’s really non-negotiable and needs to be truly embedded in the company culture and the strategy of the business,” Ivacic said. “If there’s a strong culture that recognizes people as individuals, and there’s a place for them and they are seen, and that they have a voice, they’re more likely to stay,” she added. Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and other publications.
Thinking of Quitting? There’s a Happier Approach for You (and Your Boss)
BY Emily Nonko October 28, 2022Working as a careers reporter for Insider, Shana Lebowitz Gaynor noticed that one particular story topic always caused readership to skyrocket: why and how people quit their jobs. She wondered if she was playing into the readers’quitting fantasies, and started thinking about other avenues to workplace fulfillment. The result of that curiosity is Don’t Call It Quits: Turn the Job You Have Into the Job You Love, published in August. The book shows that employees have more options–and agency–in their current workplace than they might think. Lebowitz Gaynor joined me for a fireside chat during From Day One’s October virtual conference on continuous learning and career growth to talk about why the book is resonating after several years of workplace upheaval, as well as her biggest reporting takeaways and first steps employees can take to job satisfaction. Our conversation, and the book, started with a disclaimer: this advice isn’t necessarily for everyone. “I hope that many of the insights and advice can help people across the board, regardless of industry or occupation,” Lebowitz Gaynor said. “But at Insider, I generally write for knowledge workers. I think that sometimes the strategies that can help knowledge workers are the same ones that can help people in other segments of the workforce, but sometimes they’re not.” For those who are interested in finding more workplace fulfillment, and are not yet ready to take the plunge into quitting, the book is broken down into three categories: evaluate and reevaluate, take action, and give yourself other options. Lebowitz Gaynor packs each section with insight from experts and seasoned employees like Dean Carter, who for many years led the HR function for Patagonia, but shared with her his experience working for Sears as the company was failing. Author Shana Lebowitz Gaynor “I really appreciated what Dean told me, and sometimes I even think about it and apply it in my own job and career,” Lebowitz Gaynor said. “If you’re in a situation like that, you have to put your head down and focus on the work you’re doing, focus on the work your team is doing and what you are doing for your team. Think about how the work you’re doing now is going to help you in your career, getting your dream job.” Lebowitz Gaynor makes a consistent argument that workers have more agency than they think. “It’s both about that broader sense of feeling that you have agency you can then exercise in your job and career, and also about the day-to-day, like how am I feeling at work today?” We discussed how this book plays into the workplace upheaval caused by Covid-19, which has most recently resulted in phenomena such as the Great Resignation and quiet quitting. Lebowitz Gaynor proposed an alternative to the burnout behind quiet quitting: “You can do what you can at work, and maybe even let your manager know that you’re doing what you can and not going over the top, and stop fixating on your job as the be-all, end-all of your life and your identity.” Lebowitz Gaynor poses a question in her book, “Do you need to find meaning in your work?” She deliberately leaves it open for the reader to answer. During our conversation, she shared some insight from a PR professional who felt like her work wasn’t meaningful enough. After a perspective shift, “she feels like her work is meaningful enough, because it’s allowing her to do something she’s good at and provide for her family,” Lebowitz Gaynor said. “For her, there is meaning in that right now.” Lebowitz Gaynor also pointed out how employees have so much opportunity to define themselves, and find meaning, outside of work. The book talks about workers who have found meaning in volunteering or part-time positions, invest in activities unrelated to work, and take steps to create more space and time away from the office. “In some cases, it’s okay to expect less from your job,” she noted. “Which is to say that your job doesn’t necessarily have to be the place where you earn money, make friends, spend all your time, derive all your self worth, and put all your emotional energy.” As we closed, Lebowitz Gaynor shared her own journey of writing this book while navigating the pandemic, getting pregnant, and giving birth. “I think my relationship to work has changed,” she said of the experience. “And I think the big takeaway for readers is that you have more agency over your work experience than you think, and while there are plenty of things that are out of your control, there's still a lot that's in your control. And that you can change.” Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and other publications.
How the State of the Economy Shapes Our Job Attitudes and Self-Concepts
BY Emily Nonko October 23, 2022When Emily Bianchi attended a job fair as a sophomore in college, during the boom of the late 1990s, companies were vying for students’ attention and offering up swag. When she graduated two years later, after the dot-com bubble popped, it was a different scene. “There were probably only a third the number of companies,” she recalled, “and many were not hiring.” That experience would eventually inspire Bianchi’s professional research as an associate professor of organization and management at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. She spoke at From Day One’s Atlanta conference about how economic conditions in early adulthood influence later job attitudes, self-concepts, and other behavior. “Does it matter if you first looked for work at a challenging time when it was very hard to get a job, and do you hold that with you for a really long time?” she asked the audience. “At this point I can confidently say yes.” Bianchi has poured over years of government data sets, including the cross-sectional General Social Survey, to isolate “how bad the economy was doing when people first entered the workforce, and use that to predict how satisfied they were with their jobs today.” The results are striking. “You do see a real difference,” Bianchi said, between young adults who graduate in boom and bust times, even if they’re just a few years apart. Graduates during a recession experience more instability, are more likely to take whatever jobs are available, and generally navigate more early career challenges. Graduates during a boom find well-paying jobs at a faster pace and higher rate. Both these experiences have longer-lasting impacts on professional careers, she found. “Early adulthood is a very formative time for people,” she said. “You’re leaving your family of origin, making your way in the adult world. The conditions present at that time can shape who you are and who you become.” She’s found that young adults who graduate during recessions tend to be more risk-averse and can have less confidence in their professional life. Bianchi has found positive impacts, too: they tend to be less narcissistic, more humble, and are often loyal and committed to the companies they work for. Bianchi has also studied how economic fluctuations affect us on a larger scale. “I wondered, when you see fluctuations in the economy, do we become even more individualistic during good economic times–because there’s a feeling we can do anything–and more collectivistic during bad economic times? It turns out we do.” This shifting perception impacts everything from what we name our children to what kind of music we listen to. “We see in the data that songs are more ‘I, me, my’-focused in good times, and ‘us, our’-focused in bad times, and we see this across other metrics as well.” Bianchi also found a “dark side,” she said, to increased collectivism and interdependence during economic turbulence in the U.S. through an increase in racism: “White Americans’perceptions of Black Americans become more negative during recessions, and positive during good times.” The research shows that economic conditions impact us deeply. So what can business leaders do with this research, especially when it comes to hiring new graduates? Companies who can hire during down times have an opportunity to find eager, committed employees. “They have an opportunity at that moment to snatch up some really fantastic people,” Bianchi pointed out. “That might not be true in another time, when you’re vying for those people.” Companies and HR leaders should also be understanding of gaps in resumes during economic downturns. “Sometimes those resumes don’t look as fantastic as someone who graduated in better economic times,” she pointed out. “But again that poses an opportunity for organizations to snatch up some really good people who might not have the same kind of experiences they would have had if they graduated in a more fruitful job market.” Bianchi is less sure what to make of our current times, marked by the pandemic, a social-justice movement, the Great Resignation, and quickly-evolving perceptions around work. “There are various factors that have not been present in the data to date,” she pointed out. Even though the economy is stronger than when Covid-19 first hit, “there’s still this pervasive sense of uncertainty that’s just different from other times when the economy is doing well.” It’ll take five to 10 years for the data to bear out how these factors affect young people entering the job market, she said. “I just don’t think we know yet how it’s going to play out.” Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and other publications.
Cultivating a Company-Wide Culture of Well-Being and Inclusion
BY Emily Nonko October 19, 2022It’s the eternal corporate question: Are employee performance and employee well-being inherently at odds? The chief of HR at the legendary life-insurance giant John Hancock has a definitive answer: “To be high-performing, you need your employees to be well-minded.” Julie Law, who also serves as global head of talent management for John Hancock parent's company, Manulife, joined Nicole Smith, editorial audience director of Harvard Business Review, to discuss how to cultivate a company-wide culture of well-being and inclusion. The conversation was part of From Day One’s September virtual conference on “Stress, Anxiety and the Modern Company’s Role in Promoting Well-being.” Law characterized the current moment in the evolution of workplace culture–marked by a return to in-office work, the debate about of “quiet quitting,” and continued conversation about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)–as “the great reset.” She asked, “How are we going to drive a culture where people feel belonging and a sense of connection to the company’s mission and purpose, so they’re not quiet quitting, they’re getting more engaged whether they’re at home, in the office, or a blend of the two?” She shared insight on the responsibility of a company when it comes to employee well-being. “There’s accountability on the organization, the manager, the team and the individual,” she said. “It’s a joint responsibility.” John Hancock’s resources include leader toolkits focused on well-being, an on-site counselor at the office, and inclusive benefits offerings. “We’ve introduced Hurdle Health, which is culturally-sensitive counseling,” she added. There are also specific services for LGBTQ+ cohorts and employees with medical needs like cancer care. Law stressed that a well-being approach should be multi-pronged, with buy-in at every level of the organization. “There need to be checkpoints and connections that are established with a frequent cadence, especially as people are working remotely.” Fireside chat, from left: Nicole Smith of Harvard Business Review interviewing Julie Law of John Hancock (Image by From Day One) Companies can take different approaches to checkpoints and wellness metrics. John Hancock shares an employee survey a few times a year: “It’s a great barometer to understand intent-to-stay. We ask specific well-being questions, and there’s some indicators around if employees are connecting to the organization and the manager.” Other metrics, Law added, are tracking absentee rates, the volume of mental health benefits being used, and simply observing and asking how employees are doing. “It’s about having intentional conversations, like how you’re feeling about being back in the office,” she said. When employees do need help, the organization should have resources ready for them, From assistance in navigating benefits to mental health tools. “People in HR can help support that. There should be candid conversations about how to really support people,” Law said. The big takeaway, Law stressed, is that companies should build well-being into their culture “as early as possible.” She added, “You don’t want to wait for an acute event for it to happen. It needs to be embedded into the culture.” Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and other publications.
Employees Strike Back: a Look at the New Worker Moment
BY Emily Nonko September 24, 2022How influential is labor becoming in corporate American? A case in point: When the pandemic hit, Sara Nelson, the head of the largest flight attendants’ union, joined a meeting with five airline CEOs discussing how to save the industry. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA chief presented the union’s demands, including a halt on stock buybacks and a cap on executive compensation. “They agreed to those things quickly and we made that happen,” Nelson said. “That was from a union demand.” Nelson told that story during this week’s Fast Company Innovation Festival on a panel titled “Employees Strike Back: A Look at the New Worker Moment.” She was joined by Christian Smalls, the celebrated president of the Amazon Labor Union, and Saket Soni, the founder of Resilience Force, an organization that supports workers who rebuild after environmental disasters. Together they discussed the growing workers movement, how to unionize, why it’s important, and the need to reframe and value so-called “unskilled labor.” So what’s behind the broader worker’s movement? As Nelson summed it up at the beginning of the panel: “Unchecked capitalism is no way to live.” The panelists agreed that the Covid pandemic put a spotlight on the economy’s essential workers and the unsafe, unfair working conditions they often have to navigate. “The pandemic definitely was a catalyst for a lot of these efforts,” said Smalls, who was fired in the middle of the pandemic. “I realized I was disposable after I poured my blood, sweat and tears into this company.” Soni described the process of organizing marginalized workers in the disaster-recovery industry. “The organizing happens deep in disaster zones, often in parking lots or falling-down buildings, and it’s slow work with people who are in the margins of labor law,” he said. “But these are the people who are at the center of recovery and believe they are the white blood cells of America’s preparation and recovery.” When it comes to popular sentiment about worker rights and protections, Smalls pointed to a Gallup study released this summer that found that 71% of Americans approve of labor unions, the highest figure since 1965. “The numbers don’t lie,” he said. Speaking on labor, from left: moderator Morgan Clendaniel of Fast Company and speakers Sara Nelson, Christian Smalls, and Saket Soni (Photo by Emily Nonko for From Day One) The panelists talked about engaging corporate CEOs and what they want executive leadership to know about the movement. Nelson asserted that unionizations can “bring power back to CEOs” who have increasingly lost it to the demands of shareholders. Smalls offered a different perspective, saying that “CEOs should expect that workers will fight back.” Soni stressed that executive leadership needs to revisit how it deems certain workers “unskilled.” Disaster recovery workers, he said, “are highly skilled, deeply responsible workers.” Nelson boiled it down for the audience: “It’s about who made the mess, and who does the cleanup,” she said. “It’s time for women, people of color, and young people to lead.” The panelists called for more white-collar workers to get involved the movement. “Tech workers have a direct line of communication to upper management, as opposed to what we have in the warehouse,” said Smalls. “For them, it’s even more important that they speak up when they see us complaining about what’s happening in the warehouses and the working conditions.” The movement needs more government buy-in to support and advance unions, the speakers said. “There’s an incredibly low bar, we’re only able to have some grounding to move forward [in the Biden Administration] as opposed to having the administration completely against us,” said Nelson. “But this administration, franky, is risk averse, and we need to make the CEOs and the billionaires risk averse.” When it comes to the climate crisis and disaster recovery, Soni added, “We live in a calcified country that is not prepared and not adaptive to the future,” he said. “What it takes to be adaptive to the future are the kind of workers I represent, resilient workers, and they’re hanging by a thread.” He proposed a 1-million-person strong resilience force, with full working protections and liveable wages in place, working to make homes and infrastructure resilient and secure. The discussion ended on an agreement of the importance of workers realizing their power–and taking action to organize at a propitious moment. “Unions are a check on everything,” Nelson said. “If you’re tired of pension defaults from mainstream stock buybacks, build your union. If you believe health care is a human right, build your union. If you believe women are equal with men, build your union. And if you just want to tell your boss to kiss your ass, build your union.” Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and other publications.
How to Focus Employee Coaching to Get the Best Results
BY Emily Nonko September 06, 2022Historically, workplace coaching has been reserved for senior leaders, managers, and employees identified as high potential. That’s starting to change. There’s a growing call for coaching to be accessible to all employees and viewed as a tool that can strengthen the workplace as a whole. “It’s about providing equitable access to everyone,” says Sarah Sheehan, co-founder and president of Bravely, which provides company-wide coaching. “Every single employee has access to coaching, as opposed to a select group of individuals.” Sheehan was among the expert speakers in a From Day One webinar titled, “Focusing Employee Coaching to Ensure the Best Results,” which explored how employers can make sure they define coaching thoughtfully and differentiate it from other important practices, including mentoring, training, and therapy. They discussed coaching’s specific role in the workplace, the importance of collaborative relationships between the coach and the employee, and what coaching strategies have the most impact. Moderator Anna Maltby, a journalist and editor, kicked off the discussion with a straightforward question: “What is coaching?” As TeNita Ballard, a global diversity and inclusion leader for Intel Corp., put it, there’s “a fine line between the many different ways” in which employees can be supported in their career development. One common thread, Ballard noted, is that the relationship should offer two-way benefits. “As a trainer or a coach or mentor, when you’re in that seat, I think you always need to be open to experiences because someone can show you something about yourself. Yes, you're coming in as the expert, but another person's perspective can help you with your teaching or learning down the way.” “Often when we’re working with a mentor, you’re going to them because it’s where you want to be–it’s very tactical around the skills you need to get to that level,” said Sheehan. “Coaching is very much about, what is your why? What do you want to do and how will you get there?” Exploring the fine points of coaching, top row from left, Joanne Mallia-Barsati of Penguin Random House and Michele St. Clair of Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits. Middle row: moderator Anna Maltby, Mike Dallas of Manulife Financial, and TeNita Ballard of Intel. At bottom: Sarah Sheehan of Bravely (Image by From Day One) Mike Dallas, global head of employee experience for Manulife Financial, categorized it as “skills refinement and development where everybody is, so it becomes an inclusive topic around performance.” Coaching at Manulife, he added, is “about trying to connect people with one or two jobs ahead of them in their career path, as opposed to someone far removed.” Joanne Mallia-Barsati, a global talent management VP for Penguin Random House, brought up performance management. “We’ve flipped the script on using performance management using coaching as a baseline We’re using coaching to allow the employee to be in the driving seat of the conversation,” she said. Employees having agency in their career choices emerged as a core component of coaching. “People can get feedback and use it to apply to what they want to do, as opposed to coming in and saying that I need to build a formal program,” Dallas said. Michele St. Clair, who handles digital business operations for Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, stressed that “it’s very important to meet people where they’re at.” Another important theme was the need for diversity in coaching. “What do your coaches look like?” asked Ballard. “Representation matters.” When it comes to building a coaching team, Ballard stressed “representation, intersectionality and personality.” What makes for a successful coach? “The formula we’ve seen translate,” said Sheehan, “is the ability to build trust at the beginning of the relationship.” She added that Bravely introduced the option for employees to be matched with a coach of a specific background. “When you’re talking about members of under-represented groups, it goes a long way and there’s safety there.” Maltby asked how companies should track the impact of coaching. St. Clair said it could be as easy as tracking the growth of a new employee, as well as tracking internal hires in which employees are moving into leadership roles. “There should be clarity around the goals upfront and what success looks like,” said Mallia-Barsati. That can be followed up with surveys, facilitated feedback, and follow-ups after coaching sessions. “You can take an assessment in the beginning, you can survey in the middle, and you can look at exposure, if people promote it, and what their overall experience is,” Ballard said. “Everything should tie back to the goals.” Bravely presents employees with structured questions after coaching and also collects anonymized data from the coaches. After one session, according to Sheehan, the research shows that 92% of employees learned a skill and over 90% felt better about their situation. “These are all really powerful data points,” she said. Each panelist talked about their own impactful “coaching moments”–and most said that coaching isn’t so much about the “ah-hah” moment as it is about incremental change. “A coach really holds you accountable to looking at yourself and thinking about your role,” said Sheehan. “That has been invaluable to me to how I react to things, how I treat other people, and how I show up to work everyday.” Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and other publications.
Removing Obstacles to Improve the Employee Experience
BY Emily Nonko August 27, 2022Carly Ackerman, the director of customer experience for VIP accounts at Eightfold.ai, a talent-intelligence platform, works closely with talent leaders across many different fields. The most common question she fields from them: “How do I break a longstanding culture of talent hoarding? That’s one of the big challenges that I’m hearing today.” Even though employees in distributed workforces have a variety of resources at their disposal, many of them face obstacles to collaboration and talent-sharing. These obstacles–which can include caregiving responsibilities, disabilities, and other situations–risk disempowering employees by stifling chances for growth and advancement, as opportunities to take on larger projects or lead teams are largely collaborative in nature. So how can leaders respect the privacy of their employees, while also providing resources and expertise to create equity when it comes to internal mobility, collaboration, and talent distribution? These questions were tackled in panel discussion titled “Removing Individual Obstacles to Improve the Employee Experience,” part of From Day One’s virtual conference on Strategies for Communication & Collaboration in the Hybrid Workforce. Moderator Lydia Dishman, a senior editor at Fast Company, kicked off discussion with the question, “What really influences the quality of collaboration?” Communication emerged as a priority. “There needs to be a culture of communication–communication is the foundation of trust that we establish as peers,” said Peter Sursi, head of finance modernization for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Opening up communication can be as simple as showing up to Zoom meetings a few minutes early to ask incoming employees how they’re doing, to checking the weather in their location and following up on it. “It’s a cheap trick, but it really does work,” Sursi said. Speaking on employee experience, top row from left: moderator Lydia Dishman of Fast Company, Rapti Khurana of the NFL, and Carly Ackerman of Eightfold.ai. Bottom row: Alicia Cafarelli of Blueboard, Erica Reynolds of City of Hope, and Peter Sursi of the FBI (Image by From Day One) Alicia Cafarelli, VP of client experience for Blueboard, a platform for employee rewards and recognition, stressed intentionality. “We did an assessment of all our meetings, whether they were team meetings or one-on-one meetings or leadership communicating to the company, and it allowed us to come up with a better schedule to understand the different layers of communication,” she said. “It was also to make sure of that intentionality–that we had agendas.” Ackerman, with Eightfold.ai, provided a new definition of engagement that resonated with her. “Engagement is a measure of the energy, involvement and focus that is exhibited in work attitudes and behaviors,” she said. Ackerman recommended measurements of energy and focus among employees, as well as conducting regular pulse surveys and identifying helpful measures that can be done with minimal effort, like canceling a meeting that employees find unnecessary. The topic of psychological safety came up too. Erica Reynolds, VP of enterprise learning and talent development for the health care center City of Hope, stressed “compassion and collaboration.” She said, “Compassion is important because it is empathy in action. Not only do I recognize what you’re going through, I’m going to take action.” Rapti Khurana, VP and head of talent engagement and development for the National Football League, added: “It’s about giving people grace. When we give people grace, how do we give people grace? That’s a key element of physiological safety, but it is easy for leaders to forget this new language when dealing with people.” Cafarelli said companies shouldn’t be afraid to acknowledge issues outside work, including political issues. “When something happens, we will literally just acknowledge it in Slack or a company-wide meeting, and let people take care of themselves,” she said. Yet managers can go a step further. “I think for the positive, what Covid has done for us is it broke down the fourth wall. Like, you know, business and work don’t mix. But in reality, of course they do. We’re all human. I think it gave us the opportunity to acknowledge that.” Ackerman suggested that companies help employees build agency over time to establish their own goals, which can be supported through proactive wellness check-ins at team meetings. “It’s collaborative and is shifting away from talking about a crisis you’re currently having,” she said. The conversation turned to focus how individual and team goals can translate to larger company goals. Reynolds suggested setting metrics around engagement, collaboration, and compassion. Sursi emphasized clear communication from leadership on how the day-to-day work of employees translates to company goals. “Employees are not always in a place where they’re seeing the same things we’re seeing, so we have to make that happen for them,” he said. Khurana echoed the sentiment. “We’ve taken enterprise-level, strategic priorities of the organization and really sat with each department head to say you have to create your own department goals, and that has to be cascaded with no exceptions,” she said. Cafarelli pointed out that in her company’s 2022 workplace state-of-connection survey, 77% of people surveyed said they want to feel connected to their workplace through purpose. “Something we’ve done is tie back to your values as a way to do some measurements,” she said. “As long as your values are clearly defined, and people understand how they exhibit behaviors within those values, it becomes a self-fulfilling cycle with beautiful synergy.” Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and other publications.
How Managers Can Learn to Talk About Mental Health
BY Emily Nonko August 02, 2022It’s increasingly clear that the workforce is not okay. More than 40% of adults are reporting diagnosable mental health conditions and an estimated 50 percent of people with depression never seek help. Managers, who are often the first point of contact for these employees, are rarely trained on how to identify, talk about, and address their mental health. Managers, however, are the missing piece of the puzzle when it comes to workplaces holistically addressing those needs. They just need to know what to do. “First and foremost, it’s okay to talk about it,” said David Malmborg, the VP of marketing for Nivati, an employee mental health and well-being platform. “Something that managers really need to understand is that it’s okay to talk about mental health.” (When onboarding new clients, Nivati will distribute stickers that say “Therapy is Okay” and “Self-Care Isn’t Selfish,” along with other messages promoting conversations about mental health.) Once managers are given permission to have these conversations, there are concrete strategies to ensure these conversations lead to meaningful care across the workplace. Secure Buy-in From Leadership There’s increasing buy-in from companies to invest in mental health: according to a 2022 State of the Workplace Mental Health report, 92% of companies said providing mental health support for their people became a higher priority for their company in 2021. “HR really wanted more mental health benefits but the C-suite was not ready to invest in that,” said Amelia Wilcox, founder and CEO of Nivati. “But it’s been going on long enough that now the C-suite is concerned.” Yet leadership support has to go beyond investment. “Executive teams need to lead the charge and lead with empathy,” said Malmborg. At organizations where leaders embrace mental health practices, talk about these issues openly, and are candid about their own mental health needs, Nivati has seen that employees utilize its well-being platform at levels three times higher than companies where CEOs don’t engage. “Executives can be a huge catalyst for conversations that go on in the office,” Malmborg said. “And I recommend you bring your executives to the table when having that conversation about mental health.” Trust Your Employees Both executives and managers might need to shift their perspective as they enter these conversations to fully trust employees as they open up about mental health. Leadership teams don’t question physical health concerns, but often don’t treat mental health needs the same way. When an employee confesses they’re unable to get out of bed because of anxiety, managers need to trust them and give them the space to care for themselves, just as they would for a physical health issue. Amelia Wilcox, founder and CEO of Nivati (Photo courtesy of Nivati) Understand the Signs and Symptoms It’s important that managers understand the different signs and symptoms of poor mental health. “You don’t need a mental illness to experience burnout/stress/anxiety/hopelessness,” said Haeli Harris, the lead mental health clinician at Nivati. She pointed out that mental health struggles can impact our emotions, thoughts, behavior, and physical health. They can result in difficulty concentrating, exhaustion, and other symptoms. And they results in an estimated 200 million lost work days per year due to anxiety and depression. Harris suggests that managers learn how to recognize the common signs of depression, anxiety and ADHD, the three most common mental health issues in the workplace. Be Sensitive to Communication About Mental Health Once managers pay attention to the signs and symptoms, they should be prepared on how to talk with struggling employees. To start, managers should understand that confidentially is crucial to establish a position of trust. Addressing the topic should also be treated with care, so that the worker’s feelings are validated, but not necessarily their assessment of their situation, which could be colored by those feelings. “Validation is important, but there’s a difference between validating the person and validating the scenario,” said Malmborg. “Training on validation, and how to validate the person and not the scenario, is incredibly important.” Finally, the Nivalti team recommends affirming talking points. For example: “How are you coping?” or “Has work been stressful for you lately?” or “What is concerning you today?” They should avoid accusatory or dismissive statements such as, “Why don’t you snap out of it?” or “It’s in your head” or “Look on the bright side.” Know Your Resources Managers should also receive training on the resources available at their workplace. “This is one of the most important things to know–we don’t want managers giving solutions or advice, but they need to know where they should be pointing people to,” said Malmborg. This might be an Employee Assistance Program, an employee-wide wellness program, or a specific staff member. “Every company is different,” Malmborg said, and as leaders fine tune the company’s resources, they must keep managers in the know. Encourage Mental Health Best Practices and Tools “Always encourage everybody in the company, but especially leaders and managers, to have mental health best practices,” Harris emphasized. Wilcox adds that talk therapy is only one solution and that employees have diverse needs. Nivalti’s platform also offers resources on life coaching, meditation, yoga, fitness, massage, nutrition, sleep, and personal finance. “The idea is to offer holistic mental health solutions,” Wilcox said. Other tools, Harris said, include following mental health resources like the Nivati blog, the Anxiety & Depression Association of America, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and Psych2Go. Employers could also facilitate regular one-on-one sessions between managers and employees. Prioritize Self Care and Mindfulness Beyond workplace resources, managers can encourage their employees to regularly practice self-care and mindfulness. Self care might include exercising, relaxing, journaling, or turning off the phone to unplug. A mindfulness practice can include breathwork, meditation and yoga. “We know that when employees regularly practice mindfulness they have reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety,” Harris said. Perhaps one of the most important components to this practice is a workplace that encourages its employees to set healthy boundaries. “This can really come from the leaders, setting boundaries between you and work and creating that healthy home/life/work balance,” said Harris. She recommends setting a schedule and creating a routine; turning off notifications during off hours; keeping at least one day a week work-free; making a “commute,” even if it’s just a walk after the work day; and working and resting in different spaces if you’re at home. Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner who sponsored this story, Nivati. Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and other publications.
A Recruiter’s Guide to Hiring and Retaining Veterans
BY Emily Nonko July 13, 2022When it comes to successfully hiring and retaining veterans within your company, there are two phrases you should get familiar with: “military friendly” and “veteran ready.” Being “military friendly” is fairly common–companies make blanket statements about the importance of hiring people with a service background. Being “veteran ready,” however, is a different ballgame. It means integrating the needs of vets from recruitment to promotion and weaving that work into deeper diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. “Companies that take the time to create a veteran-ready culture are the ones that are able to retain more people and show them there’s a career path,” said Brad Bentley, president of Fastport, a company building partnerships and digital products to accelerate businesses and launch careers, with a focus on veterans. Bentley and Fastport executive Dave Harrison joined From Day One for a webinar I moderated about the most effective ways for employers to hire veterans, as well as retain them. Harrison has long been invested in ensuring workplaces are welcoming to vets. He and Bentley pointed out that the push for hiring people with military backgrounds came about a decade ago, when unemployment rates for vets were high. “When I first engaged in a robust effort of veteran hiring–this was about 2014–a lot of organizations were doing good things but not working in concert with each other: silos everywhere,” Harrison said. “As things have changed in the modern workforce, and it’s less about education components and more about the soft skill sets, veterans’ value has risen dramatically for a lot of reasons.” Some companies have misconceptions about hiring veterans: that their skills don’t translate to business applications, or that they necessarily have trouble with adapting to civilian life. But Bentley and Harrison emphasized that veterans, with the right support from employers, are typically outstanding employees. This workforce, he said, “can be trained, are very adaptable, and will be extremely loyal if you’re loyal to them.” So what does the right support system look like? Companies should start with basics, like their web presence. “Your web presence will often tell people if you’re veteran-ready or not. If you’re putting up pictures in a military uniform, find someone to vet that, who knows what the hell they should be wearing,” Harrison said. Speaking in a webinar on veterans, clockwise from upper right: Brad Bentley and Dave Harrison of Fastport, with moderator Emily Nonko (Image by From Day One) Once they’ve hired vets, employers need to regularly check in with them, which can be aided with a military-hiring platform that identifies the vets in the workforce. Early engagement is important. “The first six months, they’ll get disenfranchised if the employer didn’t bother to mentor them through that window,” Harrison said. “But if you keep them past six months, the retention rate is insanely high.” Employee resource groups (ERGs) for vets that include a mix of vets and non-vets are also a crucial tool. Both Harrison and Bentley stressed the importance of apprenticeship, as Fastport helps companies develop apprenticeship programs with veteran support in mind. “Apprenticeship is nothing more than an earn-while-you-learn model that serves recruitment and retention needs as well as performance and safety means,” Harrison said. “It’s about creating a culture and training people in the way you want them to be trained.” Engagement and retention data is often high for apprenticeship grads. “For people that go through a registered apprenticeship program, the retention numbers are much higher than the general workforce,” Bentley said, adding that 91% of employees that go through such a program are still with the same organization. If a program is designed well, it can easily expand. “Apprenticeship gives you a vehicle for a whole lot of things you’re not getting and it can usually be scaled very quickly, with little oversight and without re-inventing the wheels you already have,” Harrison noted. Apprenticeship is drawing significant investment by the federal government, with a recent commitment by the Biden administration. “The number has now hit $1 billion,” said Bentley, “And regardless of what you’re in, the great news is that there are resources out there for you and there are intermediaries for your particular industry.” After apprenticeship, there’s still an important role to play for leaders in guiding their veteran employees. Managers should have regular check-ins with their employees to understand the support they need, and also be aware that vets are often accustomed to different leadership styles than what’s in the workforce. For example, military members are often given significant autonomy and responsibility, compared with the micro-managing that can occur in some workplaces. Another important component is highlighting career paths and opportunities to grow. “People may have to come into an entry level job and this is tough for people coming out of the military, especially if they’ve been in for several years,” Bentley said. “It’s important to highlight the career paths and what they can do–it will definitely affect retention.” Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner who sponsored this webinar, Fastport. Read here for more stories on Fastport’s initiatives. Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and other publications.
Taking a Human-Centered Approach to the Digital Workplace
BY Emily Nonko July 07, 2022The pandemic forced many employees to work from home, but that hasn’t necessarily resulted in thriving digital workforces. In many cases, the ecosystem of digital tools has become more complex and time consuming. Statistics, in fact, show that many companies use seven different tools for messaging and file sharing and most workers toggle between apps ten times per hour, which translates to 32 days per year of lost workplace productivity. “Our systems are not set up for remote work,” according to John Brownridge, Deloitte’s digital workplace leader. He joined Courtney Sherman, a workforce experience leader for Deloitte, at From Day One’s May conference in Brooklyn for a Thought Leadership Spotlight on how to build better, human-centered systems. “The goal is to identify things that enable an enhanced employee experience while also delivering business outcomes and benefits,” Brownridge said. Deloitte, a global company where employees have long worked in a hybrid model, has its own example with DeloitteNet. “It’s our digital workplace and we’re always improving it,” he said. “But companies need something [else] that is going to fit their needs.” John Brownridge, Deloitte’s digital HR strategy and solutions leader (Photos by Alyssa Meadows for From Day One) So where should companies begin? “Human-centered design is the key,” Brownridge told the audience. Sherman went on to emphasize that human-centered design means that companies prioritize their workers and design for them as customers, and that they address the workforce experience holistically. One question she presented to the audience: “What are the shared values and aspirations of the people in my ecosystem?” “Customers and workers–we should be thinking of them one and the same,” Sherman said. “Human-centered design starts with truly understanding the needs, desires, and behaviors and motivations of your talent. It’s not just annual surveys, or quarterly pulse surveys. It’s how we understand both passive and active data of how people are feeling about our organization, what’s working, what’s not working, and actively listening,” she said. “From there,” Sherman continued, “it’s identifying the problems that matter most, co-creating with your workers to design solutions that they'll already buy into because they’re helping to design them and it solves their problems.” Testing, iterating, and trashing ideas that don’t pan out are also key. Deloitte believes that eight factors inform an employee’s experience: the people I work with, the technology I use, the places I work, the sense of belonging I feel, the work I do, how work affects my life, the organization I work for, and how I grow as a human. “We’re looking at this holistically,” Sherman said. “Digital in the hybrid world impacts almost all eight of these simultaneously.” Brownridge then outlined a digital workplace approach that begins with identifying business outcomes to achieve and the workforce experiences to enable. Understanding the workforce experience, defining capabilities and solutions, and building a roadmap to reach the intended goals are all next steps. “The biggest mistake clients and organizations make is that they ask what technology they should use to solve X problem,” he said. “What we believe is really what the companies are trying to achieve–the business outcomes, big ones and small ones.” Courtney Sherman, a managing director for Deloitte Returning to the employee experience, soliciting employee feedback, and being open to adaptation are key, both Brownridge and Sherman stressed. “It’s an ongoing process, it’s a forever thing that organizations need to do–be sure they’re delivering and always improving the experience for employees,” Brownridge said. Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Deloitte, the title sponsor of our Brooklyn conference and presenter of this Thought Leadership Spotlight. Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and other publications.
How One CEO Broke Capitalism—and How We Can Fix It
BY Emily Nonko July 04, 2022In his role as the Corner Office columnist for the New York Times from 2018 to 2022, David Gelles interviewed hundreds of CEOs. In those interviews, one name consistently came up: Jack Welch, who served as chairman and CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001.“They would bring up his name unprompted, sometimes as an example of everything they thought was wrong with the economy, and that alone was telling because it suggested he was a reference point for people trying to create a different kind of economy,” Gelles said in a fireside chat at From Day One’s May conference in Brooklyn, where he spoke with fellow Times reporter Emma Goldberg about his new book, The Man Who Broke Capitalism: How Jack Welch Gutted the Heartland and Crushed the Soul of Corporate America–and How to Undo His Legacy.If that title sounds epic, so has been the rise and fall of Welch’s standing as a corporate role model. Back in 1999, Fortune magazine named him “Manager of the Century,” explaining, “Welch wins the title because in addition to his transformation of GE, he has made himself far and away the most influential manager of his generation.”In his book, Gelles explains how this came to pass. Welch produced uncanny financial results, which held Wall Street in thrall. “When Welch took over, GE was worth $14 billion. Two decades later, the company was wroth $600 billion–the most valuable company in the world,” Gelles writes. “All that material success obscured darker truths. Welch was not, as he would have liked us to believe, a patrician steward of sound business judgment and good character. ... Rather, he was hungry for power and thirsty for money, an ideological revolutionary who focused on maximizing profits at the expense of all else.”Gelles was interviewed at the conference by Emma Goldberg, who reports on the future of work for the New York TimesBefore Welch came along, that wasn’t the prevailing ethos, either at GE or Corporate America in general. While capitalism before Welch was hardly equitable, it was a very different ballgame than the one played today in terms of winners and losers. “If you look at a GE annual report from 1953, they proudly talked about how much money they were paying their workers. It was a good thing. The more money they paid their workers, the better,” Gelles said in the fireside chat. “They talked about how they were investing in their communities, and trying to make the cities where they operated their factories better, more wholesome places. And they even talked about how much money they were paying the government. They were proud to pay their taxes.”Welch introduced different tactics that would completely reshape GE and the rest of the American economy, a process Gelles called “relentless, ruthless, deliberate.” Welch embraced three core components: massive downsizing, outsourcing and offshoring, and stack ranking of employees, which utilizes bell curves to rate and rank employees based on performance and is used to cull low performers from the workforce.These tactics are still practiced by corporations today, Gelles pointed out. WeWork relied on stack ranking even as it was raising billions of dollars; Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has sought for “transactional” relationships with warehouse employees; and companies like Chipotle are regularly sued for labor violations. Gelles, who reported extensively on the root causes of the fatal crashes of two Boeing 737 Max jetliners, said they were the result of a corporate culture that prioritized profits over safety.After the downfall of GE, which was tied heavily to the financial crisis of 2007-08, Welch went on to spread conspiracy theories about President Obama and support President Donald Trump. “Into his retirement, he started essentially being an internet troll,” Gelles said. A seminal moment was both Welch and Trump got behind a 2012 job reports conspiracy.Even though Welch kicked off a decades-long, strategic dismantling of worker’s rights and well-being, Gelles believes that capitalism can still be saved. “Creating an alternative that’s viable and still allows companies to thrive and prosper and be profitable–because I’m a capitalist too–is going to take a long time. We are, though, at this moment where something seems to be shifting in the ethos of business,” he told the crowd.The last chapter of his book outlines what could come next: a commitment and actual action from business leaders to take care of workers, communities and the environment, as well as legislation designed for a more equitable economy. Gelles takes hope in a culture shift that’s beginning to acknowledge that Welch’s idea of capitalism isn’t sustainable: “It’s been a shift in tone and messaging that is long overdue, of course, but we didn’t even see ten years ago.”Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian and other publications.
How Career Growth Can Be Part of the Employee Experience From the Start
BY Emily Nonko June 25, 2022It’s increasingly acknowledged that the traditional career ladder is dead. With that begs the question: What should career growth look like and when should it start? “My focus at this point is to literally catch them young,” said Rapti Khurana, VP and head of talent engagement and development at the National Football League. Career growth can blossom with young employees from the first day of employment, she believes, a priority that will make companies stronger. Khurana joined a panel of experts at From Day One’s May conference in Brooklyn to talk about changing attitudes around career growth and how companies can adapt. Surveys show that employees are hungry for opportunities. According to moderator Lydia Dishman, a staff editor at Fast Company, employees who see good opportunities to learn and grow are nearly three times more likely to be engaged with their workplace than those who don’t. For 91% of employees, it’s very or extremely important for managers to encourage learning and experimentation, while 84% of managers believe this can help close the skills gap. Panelists discussed how companies can adopt a culture of early learning, flexible growth, and personalized pathways of opportunity. “The challenge with talent management processes in general is it’s really subjective,” noted Ben Colvin, founder of Coaching Works NYC. “What we focus on with our clients is to start to create a level playing field.” The full panel, from left: moderator Lydia Dishman of Fast Company, Judith Heller of Northwell Health, Ben Colvin of Coaching Works NYC, and Khurana, Carter, and Rebholz “Where we’ve seen success is ensuring where there is leadership accountability as part of scorecard metrics: understanding where you’re importing and exporting talent, what’s the makeup of that talent, what’s the retention,” said Carrington Carter, VP of talent acquisition and internal mobility at TIAA, the financial-services organization. Panelists agreed that opportunities and support for growth need to be democratized across the company. Judith Heller, VP of physician recruitment for Northwell Health, noted that the company allows all employees to sign up for its High Potential Development Program. “You can put together what you think your next skill traits can be, and you can also be selected for it, and I think those go hand-in-hand,” she said. Laurie Rebholz, managing director of global leadership and performance solutions at Citi, added that “for leadership development globally, it’s for all of our employees–whether high-potential or not–because we want them to have as much growth in different ways.” Citi moved away from a “core leadership curriculum” to a “lab-and-modular format” that better took into account individualized needs for growth, and responded to employees who’d be going through job changes. Panelists also stressed the need to support soft skills development, especially as technical skills more frequently become outdated. “For us, we prioritize it at the very front, because some of the other skills we can help provide,” said Carter. “If we inject learning agility into the business and the function, that’s where the magic happens,” added Rebholz. “Coaching has to be integrated into other efforts; it can’t be a standalone effort,” said Colvin Colvin noted that coaching can be a powerful tool to help employees in their career journeys, if implemented the right way. “Coaching has to be integrated into other efforts; it can’t be a standalone effort,” he said. “How you create that personalized conversation with employees will help them build out what skills they have, the innate traits you have that will support you as you continue to rise up.” The panel ended on that increasingly common question: What’s the state of the career ladder today? Colvin pointed out that organizations are still hierarchical and employees must navigate that. “Whether it’s through coaching or talent management, there has to be some level of personalized connection and support around navigating that disconnect,” he said. Rebholz compared the modern career journey to a game of Chutes and Ladders. Carter said, “The reality is that it’s about horizontal growth and expanding your base of knowledge about all things soft and technical skills.” Khurana said she draws on lessons from her own career mentor: “Own your career. It’s really your career, and you see the critical experiences you need to develop yourself.” Emily Nonko is a Brooklyn, NY-based reporter who writes about real estate, architecture, urbanism and design. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, Curbed and other publications.
Building a Culture of Resilience in Your Workforce
BY Emily Nonko June 16, 2022Stress, burnout, overwork—no worker has been immune over the last few years of the pandemic. Many employees, in fact, have hit a wall and are quitting their jobs en masse. So how can you build a workplace, and a workforce, able to respond to these challenges? More companies should be thinking through a lens of resiliency, according to experts from BetterUp Care, a comprehensive mental health solution combining the interests of employee engagement, productivity, and business growth. Karen Phillips, regional VP for BetterUp Care, joined Sarah Greenberg, director of clinical design and partnerships for BetterUp, for a From Day One webinar on “Building a Culture of Resilience in Your Workplace.” “Over the past eight years, what we’ve seen time and time again, is just how critical a resilient, healthy mind is to this work,” Phillips said in her introduction. “We also found that the majority of the workforce is in a state of languishing, where employees are really not functioning at full capacity.” Phillips and Greenberg spoke from experience when it comes to building a culture of resilience. BetterUp, the parent company of BetterUp Care, has partnered with more than 400 organizations around the world, has a global network of more than 3,500 coaches, and has completed more than 1.5 million coaching sessions to date. “Over 71% of those sessions are considered amazing or life-changing,” Phillips said, “So when we talk about building resilience, we’re really seeing an impact across our members and partners.” So what is resiliency? “The definition of resilience is actually a nice image to think about as a rubber band,” Greenberg said. “We can experience stress like a rubber band: we can stretch, and then we bounce back. And not only do we bounce back when we experience digestible or manageable stress, we actually grow larger as a result—we grow stronger over time.” Without resilience, she added, we’re more like a pencil, rigid to change and snapping under pressure. Speaking on resiliency, clockwise from top right: Sarah Greenberg and Karen Phillips of BetterUp Care and moderator Emily Nonko, freelance journalist (Image by From Day One) Greenberg stressed that “resilience doesn’t happen in a vacuum —it doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s truly an interaction between the individual and the system.” So while a person can be individually resilient, it’s important that they also are part of resilient organizations. A resilient workplace, for example, “can experience and can acknowledge the stressors as they’re occurring, but then they actually come through stronger,” Greenberg said. “It reminds me of the phrase that ‘crisis is what makes a leader.’” Non-resilient workplaces result in employees who are languishing, a term used to describe high levels of disengagement, difficulty with focus and prioritization, struggles around the work-life balance, and resistance to change. To support resilient workforces, BetterUp focuses on what the company calls Mental Fitness Coaching. “It’s really the proactive work that we do to prepare our minds for the many challenges that life presents us,” Phillips explained. “Think about it as an ongoing practice, a proactive and preventative approach to building mental health in a similar way that good nutrition and exercise or prevention works in the world of physical health.” In providing the coaching, BetterUp combines personalized, human-led coaching with AI and machine learning. The idea is to be responsive to individual need, “to really help employees understand why it’s so important for them and what building mental fitness can do for them personally and professionally,” she continued. (In a survey of more than 185 employees, BetterUp found that overwhelmingly people wanted coaching on how to increase their confidence.) Phillips and Greenberg shared other strategies companies can utilize to increase resilience. Greenberg introduced the idea of “inner work,” which is to understand your own personal needs around resiliency issues like work-life balance, and feeling confident enough to ask for support. Phillips built off the concept: “It’s to ask yourself, Where am I right now? What thoughts do I have? Am I being fully present in this moment? And it’s really important to know that resilience happens in the moment. Mental fitness is the practice of helping you understand and ground yourself in the moment.” This can translate to daily workplace practices, like holding check-ins and groundings at the beginning of meetings or one-on-ones. Phillips also said employees should feel comfortable in setting boundaries and that boundaries should be respected. (Her own boundary was scheduling all phone notifications to be turned off after working hours.) “Creating boundaries really creates the space to be in the moment so that we’re not constantly being pulled in every direction, and really becoming burnt out.” Coaching impact is measured by both clinical and performance-based outcomes, with a particular focus on adaptability. Adaptability, Greenberg explained, is “the capacity to manage our thoughts and emotions, so we can focus on what matters most to us as we define it.” BetterUp has found an 18% increase in adaptability within a few months of coaching. In measuring impact, Phillips stressed that the decision to invest in a more resilient workforce often has ripple effects. Thriving employees, according to research by BetterUp, have 56% fewer missed days due to health reasons, are five times more likely to be rated a top performer, have 25% higher productivity and 34% higher engagement. “It’s connected to almost every single business outcome that we really care about at work,” Phillips said, “Like productivity and performance, leadership, collaboration, belonging, and our ability to grow, innovate and change.” Editor’s Note: From Day One thanks our partner who supported this webinar, BetterUp Care. Emily Nonko is a Brooklyn, NY-based reporter who writes about real estate, architecture, urbanism and design. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, Curbed and other publications.
Silicon Valley’s Congressman Calls for ‘Dignity in a Digital Age’
BY Emily Nonko June 05, 2022What does dignity mean to Ro Khanna, the Silicon Valley member of Congress and author of the new book, Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us? “Dignity means respect for someone, their agency, their ability to do things, to lead fulfilling lives,” he believes. It also relates deeply to economic security and citizenship: “In an economic sense … it’s about giving people agency, how they’re going to be economic actors and build wealth in this digital age.” As for citizenship, “A robust public sphere shouldn’t be just talk for the sake of talk, it has to influence government action.” Khanna joined Brian Bennett, the senior White House correspondent for Time magazine, at From Day One’s May conference in Washington, D.C., to offer a vision for democratizing digital innovation, empowering workers, and embracing a new kind of “progressive capitalism” to build economically vibrant and inclusive communities. Much of that argument is woven into his new book, which imagines how the digital economy can create opportunities for people across the country without uprooting them. Throughout the conversation, Khanna broke down the different ways that “globalization has not worked, modernization of the economy has not worked” for people outside his district of Silicon Valley. His book points out that of the 25 million digital jobs that now exist, 90% are concentrated in five cities. Not only has this contributed to intensified economic inequality, the dominance of tech and social media–alongside the lack of representative governance–has threatened democracy and public discourse. “One of the reasons I think people are on Facebook and Twitter is almost a disempowerment, because they think it’s the only way they’ll get attention,” he said. “A robust democracy requires citizen opinion that shapes government action, and I’d argue that link is broken and people know it’s broken.” Khanna was interviewed by Brian Bennett, senior White House correspondent for Time magazine Khanna offers solutions to repair this broken link, starting with regulation in the tech industry. “It can’t be just left to tech companies, there needs to be regulation,” he said, including laws around privacy and antitrust. “We need to have rules of the road, which have been critical in the broadcast space and the media space that’s allowed journalistic ethics to emerge.” With regulations in place, he believes that tech leadership must “have a responsibility of what the mission of the social-media company is, and then think critically about the guidelines, what we’re trying to achieve, and our responsibility to democracy.” To provide more economic opportunity, he called for better alignment between the tech industry, government and education. “How can government support people in doing this, and how can the educational institutions design curriculum with the private sector?” he asked. Khanna pointed to a Google pilot program at Carl Sandburg College, in which the company will pay students $5,000 to take an 18-month course, which includes a mentor from the company and will result in being hired for a well-paying job. “There’s no reason we couldn’t scale that if we got the land-grant institutions, HBCUs, government and the private sector saying, How we could get 1 million folks preparing for these digital jobs?” Tech companies also must be more intentional in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. “You can’t outsource the responsibility of diversity as a CEO or as a leader,” Khanna said. “You have to have that tied to a CEO’s performance and metrics.” In bringing back women to the workforce after the pandemic-induced child care crisis, for example, he listed initiatives like flexible workplaces, child care benefits and paid family leave: “We need to rethink work.” Wrapping up the conversation, Khanna took the long view about society’s adjustment to the digital age, pointing out that the printing press also caused great societal upheaval. It took about 100 years to build institutions around it, leading it to become widely seen as a public good. “Social media has just started,” he said. “We need to do a lot more to build the digital institutions to get us to that place.” Emily Nonko is a Brooklyn, NY-based reporter who writes about real estate, architecture, urbanism and design. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, Curbed and other publications.
The Role of Coaching and Listening in an ‘Inclusion Revolution’
BY Emily Nonko May 20, 2022The terms diversity, equity and inclusion have been blended together so many times that many people don’t know the differences between them. Daisy Auger-Domínguez, chief people officer for Vice Media Group, has a way of clearly break them down and telling you the role each value needs to play in the workplace. “Diversity asks, Who is in the room?” said Auger-Domínguez, referring to a framework originally designed by the professor Dafina-Lazarus Stewart. “Equity asks, Who is trying to get in the room, but can’t? And inclusion asks, Have everyone’s ideas been heard? While equity responds, Whose ideas won’t be taken as seriously, because they’re not in the majority?” Auger-Domínguez has worked two decades in the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); most recently she published Inclusion Revolution: The Essential Guide to Dismantling Racial Inequity in the Workplace, designed to equip managers with the knowledge, skill set, and courage necessary to build lasting change. She joined TIME magazine staff writer Raisa Bruner for a fireside chat at From Day One’s May virtual conference on coaching and recognition to talk about her book as well as explain why “support scaffolding” is crucial to overcoming racial inequities in the workplace. Inclusion Revolution, Auger-Domínguez emphasized, was designed for managers. “There wasn’t a book that spoke to the employee life journey, and tried to be practical in the day-to-day, but also inspiring, bold, and get up and do something.” Author and Chief People Officer Daisy Auger-Domínguez, right, in a fireside chat with Raisa Bruner, staff writer for TIME magazine (Image by From Day One) How can managers build such “support scaffolding” within workplaces? The first step: listen to employees. The second step: take accountability for change. “When you ask why there’s not enough diversity in the workplace, you’re placing it on individuals as if that scarcity is someone else’s job,” she said. “When you ask, What are the conditions we’ve created so it’s a predominantly white institution?, you take on that responsibility for yourself.” Consistent questions from leaders to the people they manage–like, “What is holding you up right now?” and “How can I help you overcome those challenges?”–are crucial, Auger-Domínguez said. And white leaders have to get used to conversations that might make them uncomfortable at first. She spoke to her own experience at Vice Media Group, which she joined two years ago following reports of workplace sexual harrassment. In her effort to rebuild the culture, which coincided with the murder of George Floyd and the racial reckoning that followed, she and Vice CEO Nancy Dubuc conducted a listening tour among hundreds employees. “We went boldly into what we were asking, we talked directly about white supremacy,” she said. Employees strongly desired pay equity and more career-path clarity, they told the two leaders. Employees with marginalized identities wanted to feel less isolated, and more protected, by the company. Auger-Domínguez rolled out a “people and culture strategy” including a pay-equity study, which led to a redefinition of the company’s compensation philosophy and recurring “compensation health checks.” The company made an investment in upskilling managers to better support their teams, as well as building “global job architecture” to bring transparency to different roles and career paths. Finally, a DEI Dashboard was made easily accessible for employees to check on ongoing projects, the company’s DEI philosophy, and four pillars of the work. The progress, including the growth of the female workforce to 56% of the staff, has been noteworthy. Auger-Domínguez emphasized that “managers have the power to drive change.” The more they embrace DEI, the more it’s normalized within the workplace and contributes to a larger culture shift. “It should be integrated into our recruitment, interviews, onboarding, project management,” she noted. “Building inclusion—it’s not like this magical unicorn that’s going to show up at your door one day,” she said. “It’s just about doing the work every day.” Emily Nonko is a Brooklyn, NY-based reporter who writes about real estate, architecture, urbanism and design. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, Curbed and other publications.
How Employers Can Support Workers in Their Caregiving Roles
BY Emily Nonko April 27, 2022In 2014, Liz O’Donnell’s parents both received a diagnosis of terminal illness. Looking back at what came next, “working and caregiving was the most difficult career challenge I’ve faced, ever,” she reflected. Her experience led to a book, Working Daughter: A Guide to Caring for Your Aging Parents While Making a Living, and the Working Daughter support community. The community O’Donnell built speaks to a larger issue across the workforce: While employees face many types of caregiving demands, they’re not often talked about, accepted, or prioritized. “Elder care,” as O’Donnell pointed out, “is still invisible in the workplace.” O’Donnell joined four other women thinking about caregiving and the workplace, alongside moderator and journalist Lydia Dishman, for a From Day One conversation titled, “How Employers Can Support Workers in Their Caregiving Roles.” They not only discussed the challenges but also the opportunities as the Covid-19 pandemic has forced employers to rethink how employees show up at work and deal with demands at home. Dishman kicked off the conversation with a pre-Covid statistic: as of 2020, about 45% of employees were also caregivers. Now, she said, “as we collectively experience the so-called Great Resignation, employees have more leverage than ever to get specific needs met both personally and professionally—and among those needs is the ability to care for our loved ones.” What does it mean to prioritize caregiving in the workforce? The panelists stressed the need for flexibility, unique approaches to meet different needs, and compassion. At Northwell Health, that meant listening to employee resource groups and survey responses that stressed the need for flexible benefits. “It’s not the cookie-cutter benefits,” said Diana Witkowski-Grubard, Northwell Health’s director of HR. Over the past two years the company has introduced backup child care, backup elder care, and partnered with a group to provide subsidized child care, which also has an elder support component. “We’ve taken another approach in terms of our education,” Witkowski-Grubard added. “With our financial well-being aspect, we’ve added a caregiving component so we often have caregiving seminars.” The company also set up a caregiver support fund, where employees can donate or fill out an application to request funds. Speaking on caregiving, top row from left, Lindsay Jurist-Rosner of Wellthy and Kerstin Aiello of Synopsys. Middle row: Sara Ahlfeld of Sanofi, moderator Lydia Dishman of Fast Company, and Liz O’Donnell of Working Daughter. Bottom: Diana Witkowski-Grubard of Northwell Health (Image by From Day One) Synopsys, an electronic-design automation company, worked with a partner company to offer support systems for employees supporting people with neurological differences. “The materials online, really any parent could use them,” said Kerstin Aiello, the director of North America benefits. Aiello also started a sick and emergency backup program for employees, which quickly took off and is being continued. Sara Ahlfeld, the head of benefits in Canada for Sanofi, a global health care company, is just beginning to expand the company’s caregiving support. Although there were company concerns about the cost, Ahlfeld has been able to secure backup childcare and eldercare at reasonable rates the company can discount for employees. “We were able to find providers that were able to offer discounts,” she noted. Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, the chief executive of Wellthy, which provides personalized support to help tackle the logistical and administrative tasks of caregiving, stressed that “what we saw through the pandemic is that families were struggling to get care infrastructure—to get care, period, and not backup care.” She pointed out that there have been massive shortages in day care, elder care and special-needs care. “I think backup care is helpful but we’ll continue to see employees struggle just to set up that care infrastructure.” Panelists also discussed how leadership and managers should make space for caregiving. Synopsys provided guides and questions on “exactly the questions to ask,” according to Aiello, for employee needs, as well as needs within the household and what kind of flexibility would best fit. At Sanofi, training will help managers navigate those conversations. “We want to say it’s okay to get personal, without overstepping the boundary that the employee is comfortable with,” said Ahlfeld. Jurist-Rosner recommended that leadership teams make a larger statement on the topic. “To say that the company sees caregivers and wants to support caregivers, it opens up the dialogue and normalizes the discussion,” she said. “It makes a huge impact for managers and team leaders to feel comfortable to have conversations about caregiving and find solutions for their own needs.” As O’Donnell put it, her wish for managers is that “they had the courage and the strength to just listen, and not be afraid of me.” Centering, listening to, and supporting caregivers should be looked at as a value proposition, the panelists agreed. A focus on frontline workers is also key. “I would argue that caregiving support is more important for those workforces, because of the fact they don’t have flexibility,” Jurist-Rosner said. “One critical thing is to provide benefits that have different modalities of engagement.” It emphasizes the need for companies to be responsive to unique caregiving situations across the board. “We’re looking for vendors who can meet all the needs,” Aiello said. “It shouldn’t be just one thing— there should be something there for every type of family.” Emily Nonko is a Brooklyn, NY-based reporter who writes about real estate, architecture, urbanism and design. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, Curbed and other publications.