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Mary Pieper | November 14, 2023

College Admissions Counseling: An Employee Benefit That Can Boost Productivity

Three years ago, Connie Livingston’s teenage son was going through the college admissions process. Livingston, who had been an assistant director of admissions at Brown University for 14 years, was shocked to learn first-hand just how stressful the process is for students and their families.“I thought, ‘Wow, I could really help them by taking this burden off their plates,’” she told journalist Anna Maltby Patil in a From Day One Webinar about College Admissions Counseling: An Employee Benefit That Can Boost Productivity.So Livingston, who is now the head of counselors, joined Empowerly. The platform connects students worldwide with experts who have a deep understanding of the U.S. college admissions process. Empowerly’s clients include not just individual students and their families, but also an increasing number of companies, both big and small. These employers recognize that offering college admissions counseling to their team members boosts worker satisfaction, which has fallen to its lowest level in two decades. The Challenge of Getting Into College TodayOver the past couple of years, students and families have been spending more than 200 hours working on college applications because the process has become more complex, according to Changxiao Xie, co-founder of Empowerly. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the time and effort needed to prepare for higher education, he said. Even a decade ago, college was nowhere near as expensive as it is now, says Xie. “So, you have to make sure you’re getting into the right program with the right fit for you so you’re not going to switch majors or transfer to another university and pay even more money,” he said.Another factor putting pressure on students and families is today’s complexity around entry-level employment.For example, students who think they might be interested in software engineering as a career need to figure that out early enough in their high school years so they can build their skills to a level where they can get internships at top companies by the time they are a freshman or sophomore in college, says Xie.Journalist Anna Maltby Patil led the conversation between Connie Livingston and Changxiao Xie of Empowerly (photo by From Day One)Making things even more stressful, the competition to get into college is tougher than ever. “Ten to 15 years ago, the average application volume nationally hovered anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000 applications per school per year,” Livingston said. “Now we see schools with 50,000 plus applications per year, some approaching 100,000.”A major reason for the increase in applications is that many colleges and universities have joined the common application, which means students can apply to as many as 20 schools with one application, says Livingston. However, the number of spaces colleges have available for incoming freshmen hasn’t increased.Due to this more selective environment, college admission officers are “Looking for students with a sense of purpose,” Livingston said. “In addition to stellar grades and testing, admission officers are looking at things like, what have you done? What have you accomplished? How have you made an impact? What is unique about you? Have you specialized in something that’s really important to you that you’re passionate about? And how can you bring that specialty to our campus?”In addition to the difficulty of applying to and getting accepted by colleges and universities, students and parents are facing the daunting prospect of qualifying for financial aid, which is more important than ever due to the rising cost of higher education. Families must fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The application process normally opens in October, but a revamped FAFSA will now roll out sometime in December.Empowerly offers not only college admission counseling services, but also assistance with FAFSA and even helps find non-federal scholarship and grant opportunities.Why Companies Offer College Admissions CounselingCollege admissions services might seem like an extravagant benefit to offer employees in an era where companies are tightening their belts, but many businesses say the investment is worth it, says Xie.Whether the economy is good or bad, “people still have kids, and kids will always have to go to college, or at least figure out what they want to do,” he said.And when those employees take advantage of the college admissions counseling their company offers, “this is something that just immediately boosts productivity” because the workers are less stressed by something they are going through in their personal lives, says Xie.“We don’t see this as a one and done benefit that maybe you don’t get much ROI on,” he said. “It’s an investment into the employees’ future, because it’s an investment into their kids’ future.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Empowerly, for sponsoring this webinar. Mary Pieper is a freelance reporter based in Mason City, Iowa.

Carrie Snider | November 13, 2023

Recognizing and Reimagining the Roles of Middle Managers

Who are middle managers, anyway? The off-beat Michael Scott, the droll “Dilbert,” the micro-manager Bill Lumbergh are popular caricatures of this often-misunderstood group. Bryan Hancock, partner at McKinsey & Company, spoke about middle managers from personal experience in a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Philadelphia conference.Middle managers manage people, while upper management decides how the company operates. The corporate-like stereotypes associated with middle managers are not always accurate “Middle managers are more the victims of bureaucracy than the perpetrators of it,” Hancock said. Resolving misconceptions of middle management is why he, along with Bill Schaninger and Emily Field, wrote Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work.“They’re not saying, ‘Gosh, if I could only pack in one more meeting today, that’s what I want.’ They’re looking to motivate their teams to be there,” said Hancock.The idea for the book came from a few things. Hancock and Schaninger host a podcast called McKinsey Talks Talent, and in one episode they talked about the vanishing middle manager. During the pandemic, employees were displaced and felt disconnected. As a result, more was required of managers to keep people working.“There were all of these additional pressures that managers were having,” Hancock explained. “But they didn’t have time to do it.” What happens if a manager doesn’t consistently check in with their people? Distress, low productivity, and high turnover. Turns out, middle managers matter a lot. They always have; it just became more apparent during Covid.The Weighty Burden of AdministrationWhen it comes to reworking the workload, one perhaps less-visible burden for middle managers is administrative work. As companies adopt new technologies, who trains people to use them? Who takes care of the paperwork? Who coordinates with outside contractors to help integrate them into what the company needs? The answer to each question: middle managers.“One of the things that we found through our research is that middle managers, on average, spend half of their time on either individual contributor work or administrative work. And that is squeezing out their ability to do some of the more strategic work thinking through the talent on their team,” Hancock said.“One of the clients that we’re working with now has this idea of a concierge bot,” he added. For some companies, AI could help make life easier for middle managers. “Managers are critical in reimagining what the work of the future looks like.”Some companies also look in the wrong places for managers. Companies value employees who are good at what they do. In order to keep that person, a company will typically increase their pay and give them a managerial role. That can be a pitfall, Hancock says.“Now they’ve got a team. And they may or may not be natural team leaders. We’re selecting them because of what they did great as an individual contributor.” Middle-manager roles and skills are different.Hancock signed copies of his book, Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work, for the From Day One Philadelphia audience.In the book, the authors talk about Waffle House’s approach. The core of the organization is the short-order cook, or “Elvis on the grill.” They cook $5,000 worth of food in one shift. Waffle House recognized that they need to keep those rockstars on the grill, not promote them to managing people and making schedules. These cooks are still advancing and making more money, sometimes more than an assistant manager.“The question I have across the organizations that I work with is, what’s the equivalent for you?” Hancock said. “What is that critical individual contributor role where you want to create a track of increased pay and responsibility for them, but you don’t need to have them be a manager?”On the flip side, when selecting middle managers, search for those who are good at managing and leading people. “We found that organizations that had role clarity, and had managers who were skilled at not micromanaging, but having tough conversations and had good performance rhythms, are the ones that outperform. But it’s a skill.”Empowering ManagersHelping managers do their jobs better helps the entire company, from employees to productivity to operations. But how do you help them succeed? The best thing business leaders can do, Hancock says, is involve their managers in the decision-making processes of the company. Their input is invaluable because they know their people and the day-to-day work better than upper management does. The key is open, effective communication between all levels of leadership.The book includes a story about an employee who clearly isn’t a good fit for a specific team. The manager invests time over a year, offering counseling and feedback. But the person still isn’t a good fit.Come review time, it's time to counsel this person to find another opportunity. Unfortunately, HR needs the paperwork, but the manager never filled out a performance improvement plan. Maybe the manager didn’t know they were supposed to do it. Maybe HR never told them.Notice the breakdown in communication? Companies must figure out how to flip the time of their managers and their HR so they can have more productive conversations and be on the same page, Hancock says.Another way to empower managers is to define a clear company purpose. Available talent ebbs and flows. So how are you going to attract and keep people who have options? They need something beyond a paycheck; they need purpose. And a good manager will help incorporate that into everything the team does.Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner McKinsey & Company, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Carrie Snider is a Phoenix, Ariz.-based journalist and marketing copywriter.

Mary Pieper | November 10, 2023

Elevating the Talent Journey: A Comprehensive Approach

A few years ago, Nemours Children's Health learned through the organization's employee feedback process that some team members wished their benefits package included coverage for fertility treatments. Realizing the irony of a pediatric organization not offering this benefit, Nemours’ leaders added it. “One of our employees was saying she had worked for us for seven years, and she could not conceive and she couldn’t afford the treatment. But with the treatment, she now has a child,” said Peter Adebi, chief HR officer for Nemours, during a panel session at From Day One’s Philadelphia conference.That’s just one of the examples Adebi and the other four panelists gave to illustrate how employers can attract and keep outstanding talent.How to Attract Job ApplicantsHeather Hoffman, chief operating officer of Recruit Rooster, said many employers pay special attention to the homepage of their career website, posting photos, videos, and other content that shows what it is like to work there.However, “Only about 50% of job seekers land on your homepage,” she said. “The other 50% are typically landing on your job description page.”Hoffman recommends that organizations redo their job description pages to “Share a little bit more about yourself as an employer.” She said a good way to do this is to post short videos on topics such as what it’s like to work in that position within the company.One way to entice job seekers is to simplify the application process, according to Krista Gathercole, vice president of talent acquisition for Burlington Stores.“No one really wants to go through that application process,” she said. “It’s formal, it’s arduous, it’s not fun.”Using social media effectively is another key to attracting potential applicants, according to Gathercole. She said Burlington Stores started a program called Boost, in which company leaders asked 200 highly engaged associates to post curated content to their social media networks to spread the word about why the company is a great place to work.A significant current conversation regarding work is whether job applicants need a college education, which often requires them to take out loans they struggle to repay.“I would suggest that experience trumps having a degree requirement on the job posting or the job description,” Adebi said.The panel titled “Improving the Talent Pipeline, From End to End,” was moderated by Lizzy McLellan Ravitch, workplace reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer.For example, one of Nemour’s clinics had difficulty filling an office manager opening because the organization required applicants to have a college degree. Nemour decided to waive that mandate since it wasn’t a regulatory requirement. As a result, the clinic hired an office manager who didn’t have a degree but brought eight years of relevant experience to the role.Lisa Santin, chief human resources officer for Graham Packaging, said the company partners with local high schools and technical schools as part of its recruitment efforts.Graham invites high school students to come to Graham’s plants and learn what working there is like. If the students are interested, they go through the interview process and receive a sign-on bonus if they join the company. And if these new employees decide to pursue education beyond high school, Graham provides tuition reimbursement.After graduating from a two-year tech school, those who join Graham receive a stipend of up to $5,000 a year for three years to help them pay off their student loans because “Technical schools aren’t cheap,” Santin said.Keeping the Talent You Already HaveAttracting new workers is just one end of the talent pipeline. The other is helping those already employed by an organization recognize their skills and how to build on them, according to Carla Garcia Williams, senior director of people analytics consulting for Visier. Managers play a crucial role here, she says.“Most people stay with or leave their organization because of the relationship they have with their manager,” Garcia Williams said. Therefore, it’s essential to “provide those managers with the right pieces of information to be able to have better conversations with those employees that might be most at risk of leaving.”According to Garcia Williams, an employee might be ready to bolt if the company hasn't promoted them in a long time. She recommends that leaders and managers consider what career opportunities are available within the organization.“There might not always be an opportunity to move up, but being able to provide some of the skill set to be able to broaden their abilities, especially among some of the professional workers, we do see that’s a real differentiator in those organizations that are able to retain talent over time,” she said.The big buzzword these days in HR is culture, says Santin. It may be a cliché, but it can make a difference in retaining team members.However, “When we say culture, a lot of times people say, ‘Oh, everybody has to stand together and be nice to one another and sing together,’” Santin said. “And that’s not what we mean. What we mean is, the examples that everybody just offered here are creating a way for people to feel special within your organization, so they want to go the extra mile and deliver for you. It’s about creating a culture of performance. You’re treating people like human beings and connecting with them on an emotional level, while getting the performance and excellence out of them.”Mary Pieper is a freelance reporter based in Mason City, Iowa.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | November 09, 2023

Mapping Career Growth Beyond Upward Mobility

Technology has generated new jobs in every industry. Every company is now a tech company, as they say. Shifting social priorities have created new roles too. Emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion and on environmental, social, and governance matters have introduced corporate fixtures that weren’t common years ago, like chief diversity officers and people analysts. Remote work has opened new jobs and industries to people all over the world.“It’s really hard to answer the classic question, ‘Where do you want to be in five years?” said Megan Wheeler, director of facilitation at leadership training platform LifeLabs Learning. “Things are moving so rapidly that it’s hard to have a window into the future about what kind of linear growth people want.”When it’s unclear what a career will look like in a few years, skills may be a more apt gauge of career growth. Wheeler recommends thinking of the five-year question in a different way: “What are the skills that I have? What are the skills that I’d like to develop or that I need to develop in order to move into other opportunities?”During From Day One’s September virtual conference on giving workers direction on skills and career development, Wheeler was joined by four other leaders in employee development for a discussion I moderated, titled “How Career Growth Can Be a Part of Employee Experience from the Beginning.” The group discussed how skill-building can become part of company operations and how to use coaching to reinforce new skills.Distilling Jobs Into SkillsEmployees want to learn. According to the American Psychological Association’s 2023 Work in America survey, 91% of workers say it’s important to have a job that gives them consistent opportunities to learn. Yet the relationship between learning new skills and internal mobility isn’t always straightforward.The panelists discussed the topic “How Career Growth Can Be a Part of Employee Experience From the Beginning” during From Day One's virtual conference (photo by From Day One)For any job, there is a set of competencies and skills that describe the work. The IT infrastructure firm Kyndryl undertook the task of breaking down all of its different roles into skills. The company identified 19 job families, like HR and technical specialists, for instance, and within those are jobs. Each job was then distilled into 12 to 15 skills, which vary by seniority.These breakdowns are available to anyone in the company, so workers who want to climb the ladder vertically, or scale the lattice horizontally, can see the skills they need to make the move. “It took a lot of work to build that architecture, but it does help us look at how we help people find roles,” said the company’s VP of learning and effectiveness, Mark Cousino. “The reason we made that investment is that we’re a professional services company. We match customer work with the skills of our people. By building that catalog, we also built up our entire job architecture.”Learning the Ropes, InformallyEven without a detailed map of skills, folks can still roam about the organization asking their colleagues what it takes to do their job, it just requires a culture that makes it fine to do so. “One of the greatest things about our culture is that for a very large organization, it can feel really small, because you can ask anyone, ‘Hey, can I hear about your job? Can I hear about a job on your team? Tell me about your career.’ I’ve never been told no,” said Melissa Versino, the VP of leadership development at commercial insurance provider Zurich North America.Without seeing the path, the ambitious are left to fumble around, hoping to be promoted or recognized for their work. “The point is people don’t even know what they need. They don’t find out until their review, they don’t find out unless they didn’t get the promotion or get the job,” said Kristy McCann, and CEO of talent development platform SkillCycle.McCann noted that feedback given in standard performance reviews can be vague – improve your communication skills, for example – and that workers don’t necessarily know where to go to make those improvements or what “improve” means. Further, they’re often not sure how it will benefit them. “If you’re not driving the what’s-in-it-for-me factor and it’s not connecting to their goals and what they want to do in life, then it doesn’t matter what you do, it’s always going to fall flat.”So what about overpromising on career growth? Younger talent, unaware of the work it takes to advance, often expect to be promoted in the early stages of a new job, and some employers are inflating job titles to meet those expectations. Instead, Wheeler recommended being upfront about what the company considers growth. “Speak to it at the interview process and in onboarding, being clear about what it is and what it isn’t,” she said. When what the employee wants and what the company needs are not the same, managers can develop individual development plans that match as much as possible, finding where new skills the employee wants can be “mapped onto” business goals.From Competencies to CoachingFor Versino, competencies are incomplete without coaching on how to enact new skills. “The value of training takes them so far,” she said. “Coaching actually gets them across the finish line. [It reinforces] how to make these strong behavioral changes and how to actually apply this knowledge.”Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, instituted a peer-to-peer coaching program, a valuable means of ensuring career growth at scale. “We’re having senior leaders do the teaching, and so leaders as teachers is one of the programs that we built,” said Heather DeJong, who leads employee experience and leader development for AWS.But with a company so large, quality control can be tough. The training for the trainers ensures that leaders understand the core objectives and the content. “We do a lot of videos to train the trainer on templates. A lot of these leaders want to make it a little bit of their own and bring their own context and learning to that,” she said. Originality can be good for engagement, but can come at the risk of quality. DeJong uses post-training surveys, including a net promoter score, to suss out whether the learners got what they expected and needed.In Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things, organizational psychologist Adam Grant writes about the importance of showing people how to get from A to B. “What we overlook is that when people can’t see a path, they stop dreaming of the destination. To ignite their will, we need to show them the way.” In other words, when workers know what skills they need to grow the careers they want, they’re more likely to commit to learning. “Competencies are very core because it helps drive empowerment,” said McCann. “Because it’s not just what you want them to do, but it’s how you empower them to be able to see where they’re at and where they need to go.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz at Work, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Mary Pieper | November 09, 2023

How Companies Can Do Better at Giving Workers the Right Development Experience

Earlier in her career, Kathryn Coleman took a risk on making a sharp turn in her career–and today she's glad she did. Coleman, the former director of diversity initiatives at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, expected to be in higher education for her entire career. But when an opportunity to take a similar job at SUPERVALU presented itself, she decided to be open to it despite her initial doubts.“I thought, ‘this is going to give me a different set of skills. This is going to give me a different set of experiences,’” Coleman told moderator Romesh Ratnesar during From Day One’s September virtual conference.Coleman is now the senior vice president of talent learning and insights at 3M, where she helps employees recognize opportunities and develop their skills. She said those skills fall into two categories: functional ones, which are constantly changing, and foundational ones, such as problem-solving.“For managers, there is nothing more valuable than a member of the team who can identify an opportunity or a challenge, and at least recommend a path to solution,” Coleman said. Another critical skill that marks someone as a potential leader at a company is business acumen, according to Coleman. This means understanding how a company makes money or how a non-revenue generating function, such as human resources, adds value to the business.A third essential skill is project or process management, which Coleman defines as “the ability to say, ‘This is a win. This is what success looks like, and I have a path to get there.”Identifying Skills and Skill GapsBut how can business leaders communicate to employees the skills they want them to have so workers can demonstrate they have those skills or get help with ones they don’t?“At 3M, we’ve been really focused on upskilling, really looking at the skills that we need to drive the business forward, and enabling a process for employees to express, ‘Hey, here are the skills that I have,’” Coleman said. “That’s important, because as you’re working across teams, you have to be able to talk about the value you bring.”Romesh Ratnesar, Deputy Editor of Bloomberg Businessweek, interviewed Coleman in the opening fireside chat at From Day One's September virtual conference (photo by From Day One)3M encourages employees to ask family members, friends, and co-workers what they are best at. Coleman says it’s important for workers to take note of the skills people say they have, but also what they aren’t saying. This helps employees recognize the skills they need to develop.3M is establishing a taxonomy of enterprise skills. “It doesn’t matter where you are in the organization,” Coleman said. “Everybody needs these skills.” If an employee lacks one or more enterprise skills, 3M has curated self-paced micro learnings they can easily access.3M also focuses on core skills by level, which includes individual, supervisory, and leadership skills. Finally, there are functional skills. “I think the biggest challenge we have is we can’t be inflexible, because functional skills change too quickly,” Coleman said. “We have to be nimble and partner appropriately so that we are providing the right resources for our employees.”New Challenges: Remote Work and AIBesides rapidly changing skills, other challenges today’s businesses face in employee development include remote work and AI. “The reality is a lot of employees now want and expect to work remotely, especially early in their careers,” Coleman said.However, in-person engagement is key to career development, mentoring, and coaching. So, how can companies ensure remote workers aren’t shortchanged?3M is a global company, so employees outside the main office worked from home long before Covid. This means at the beginning of the pandemic, when most everyone shifted to remote work, “it was a bit of an equalizer,” Coleman said.For example, 3M used to take onboarding for granted, according to Coleman. However, when new employees needed to be onboarded in a remote environment, even if they lived in Minnesota, the company became very deliberate in making sure new employees could interact virtually with everyone from top leadership down to their core teams, she said.Although the increase in AI in the workplace can be anxiety-inducing for employees, “AI doesn’t replace people,” Coleman said. In fact, AI can perform essential but routine tasks, freeing up more time for impactful work, she said. Mary Pieper is a freelance reporter based in Mason City, Iowa.

Wanly Chen | November 09, 2023

Transforming Organizations: Leadership’s Role in Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

In the past year, the corporate landscape faced a whirlwind of obstacles in its journey toward diversity, equity, and inclusion. From political pushback, corporate austerity, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action in higher education, DEI work has been no small task. All these headwinds have prompted some corporate leaders to wonder: should we still be pushing energetically for DEI in the workplace?The answer, simply put, is yes, says Katie Mooney, managing director at Seramount.“There’s enough breaking news right now about DEI having rollbacks and people questioning diversity and inclusion,” Mooney said. “But what isn’t in the headlines is that DEI is very strong right now because there are accountability measures in place, identification campaigns, and ways in which we’re driving this business.”As a company that provides employee-focused DEI and talent solutions, Seramount has the data to prove it. In its 2022 Inclusion Index Organizations report, researchers discovered 89% of companies provide anti-racism training compared with 73% in 2021. Additionally, 90% of companies have percentage goals for diverse representation and 67% of companies compensate for DEI results compared to 57% in 2021.The data shows that companies set more goals and initiatives for DEI than in previous years, supporting an increase in DEI participation. This DEI momentum comes from the value of the true employee experience, Mooney says. “As practitioners, we have to be focused on why DEI is good for all employees. In these volatile times, we have to center inclusion so that all of us have a great place to work.”During From Day One’s live conference in Philadelphia, Mooney and other leaders joined moderator Juliana Feliciano Reyes, a reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer, in a discussion on DEI’s role in the workplace and why it remains vital to a company’s success.The Value of DEI for Employees and CompaniesCompanies benefit from DEI initiatives in many ways. In a study by LinkedIn, researchers found diverse companies earn 2.5x higher cash flow per employee in comparison to non-diverse companies. Companies that focus on diversity also have employees that are statistically more productive, and have higher retention rates.The benefits for both companies and employees are apparent, and companies need to lean into the DEI conversation willingly, David Rhoden, vice president of culture and inclusion at insurance company Chubb, said. He points to recent market research on DEI trends as a source for understanding employees.“McKinsey came out with the Women in the Workplace report and it had a huge focus on the experience of Black women. When that report came out, we began to hear from the Black women in our organization. They wanted to tell us about their experience,” Rhoden said. “So we leaned in to talk about this here at Chubb and we did some listening, surveying, and then we developed the Black Women of Chubb Collective.”The panelists spoke about “Leadership’s Role in Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” at From Day One's Philadelphia event.Creating a safe environment for employees to discuss DEI concerns and issues can also positively impact other conversations in the workplace. These employees may feel more empowered to voice their opinions on business procedures or projects, which contribute to companies making better decisions.“Tying DEI to the business is something that even the biggest naysayers can’t argue. If you have psychologically safe teams that are not afraid to speak out, then they can pinpoint when a procedure isn’t working, or a product isn’t ready to roll out,” Jennifer Brunelle, vice president of talent acquisition of development and diversity at energy company NRG, said. “So if it's not working because of someone’s ability status, for example, we’re missing potential customers.”Getting Over the Fear of Talking About DiversityTalking about diversity may be challenging and uncomfortable for leaders who may not know how to approach the conversation. However, leaders need to lean into that discomfort instead of avoiding it, Kristie Small, vice president of diversity and inclusion at supply chain and logistics solution company NFI, said.“When we talk about why leaders aren’t engaging, more often than not, it’s because they’re afraid of making a mistake,” Small said. “As HR and DEI professionals, we have to give people the grace to try and potentially fail at it and to try again.”Sponsoring ERG groups or supporting DEI initiatives can be a starting place for leaders to get involved in these conversations. From there, leaders need to be visibly involved in leading the charge, Dana Kirwin, director of employer and government relations at Medela, says. As a company that produces breast pumps, products, and support, Kirwin discusses how supporting employees who are parents requires leaders to act on their support as well.“Executive buy-in is so important. If they aren’t bought in, if they don't believe it, if they’re not talking about it, and if they’re not acting on it in their work, it’s so hard for DEI to succeed,” Kirwin said. “For example, if your company offers parental leave, that’s amazing but do the executives take it? You need your leadership team to signal that these things are okay because what you show your workforce matters.”Wanly Chen is a writer and poet based in New York City.

Stephanie Reed | November 08, 2023

The Business Case for Elevating Nontraditional Talent From Within

Anthony Hughes, CEO and co-founder of Tech Elevator, aspires to broaden the scope of talent available for technology companies. From this mission he gained a fresh perspective and approach to business described as “elevating people, companies, and communities.”“There’s an enormous opportunity for America’s corporations to recognize the value of the talent that they have within and see that benefit,” Hughes said. He founded Tech Elevator based on this revelation: promoting nontraditional talent, particularly internally, is advantageous for businesses and the economy.One notable success story Hughes recounts is Amazon’s Career Choice Program, where the company invested $900 million to reskill its warehouse workers despite the potential risk of investing in the careers of these workers, many of whom were temporary employees.Amazon utilized its quality warehouse talent and developed an impressive brand builder, driving the company to reach new heights of sustainable progress. Hughes sees this approach as a natural trajectory for individuals climbing the corporate ladder and optimizing businesses.A Broader Scope of TalentDuring his thought leadership spotlight session at From Day One’s Philadelphia conference, Hughes shed light on employers’ hesitations about reskilling their teams. To that, he shared compelling results from his company, revealing that one of his clients achieved an impressive 100% retention rate over three years after undergoing in-house reskilling.Aptitude assessments predict career performance outcomes more accurately than educational background, years of experience, academic success, or promising interview, according to a study by Frank L. Schmidt and John E. Hunter.Anthony Hughes of Tech Elevator led the thought leadership spotlight in Philadelphia.Hughes discussed the broader implications of these findings on business. “When you come to the realization that cognitive ability is distributed evenly in the general population, and in your incumbent workforce, the territory that you can fish for talent becomes exponentially larger.”Businesses and workers reach new professional heights when they consider talent beyond traditional recruiting. Hughes cites several successful companies in broadening the available scope of talent through advancing nontraditional talent and reskilling.For example, JP Morgan Chase has a Tech Connect program that selects and trains candidates from HBCUs in computer science, chemistry, and biology graduate programs.Companies like Tech Elevator and JP Morgan Chase are finding more talent with the skills to perform by broadening their selection process to directly counteract the imbalance of talent that traditional systems produce in our economy today.“We simply cannot buy our way to acquiring all the talent we need. We must think in the long term about developing strategies to create the talent that we need to compete consistently,” Hughes said.In 2015, in Cleveland, Ohio, there were 8,000 software developer positions, yet only 280 individuals from all of its 4-year institutions held computer science degrees. Tech Elevator contributed to filling the gap of high-potential talent in technology companies by training people from diverse backgrounds and helping clients develop an in-house reskilling program.Investing in Your Community to GrowSome employers feel apprehensive about elevating nontraditional talent from within due to costs and other measures. However, internal reskilling costs companies about $20,000, while traditional recruiting costs add up to $135,000.“Rethinking the Build vs. Buy Approach to Talent,” a study by Josh Bersin, factors onboarding and the average 2-3 turnover cycles over three years in traditional recruiting methods toward higher effort and costs.The advantages of reskilling go beyond this too, by promoting diversity, building an employer brand, and leading to less turnover.Promoting nontraditional talent from within optimizes businesses through efficient time, team, and financial management: companies save time and money by reskilling talent from within, see their productivity quicker without an onboarding process, maintain retention, and get reliable feedback on business development.Companies also have an opportunity to promote diversity by elevating nontraditional talent from within, helping workers loyal to their organizations reach their fullest potential and achieve leadership positions by developing new skills.The business case for elevating nontraditional talent from within is successfully closing the gap between companies and high-potential talent by investing in the myriad of qualified workers within their companies. The foundation of business success remains true today: workers are the most valuable asset.“Everybody here is here because you have worked your way up,” Hughes noted. “You have had an impact in your careers; you have demonstrated that you are worthy of investment.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Tech Elevator, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Stephanie Reed is a freelance news, marketing, and content writer. Much of her work features small business owners throughout diverse industries. She is passionate about promoting small, ethical, and eco-conscious businesses.

Mary Pieper | November 08, 2023

Understanding and Motivating Your Hybrid Workforce

When corporate leaders at Experian were considering how they would handle the return to office following the pandemic, they surveyed their employees and found that nearly 90% chose their homes as their primary work location, where they would spend 50% or more of their working hours.Even some employees who lived just five miles from the company’s headquarters wanted to work primarily from home, said Mary Burke, senior vice president of human resources during From Day One’s October virtual conference.“So, we have doubled down on the power of choice and have observed the return to office mandates that other companies are trying to enforce,” Burke said. “They are achieving a high noncompliance rate.”Burke says people don't come to the office to work, but to connect. Therefore, Experian fostered connecting days such as Collaborative Thursdays, where employees were encouraged to go into the office.During Collaborative Thursdays, employees typically eat together and participate in activities such as celebrating the Lunar New Year, an important holiday for some of the workers at Experian. “What we are trying to do is make that a great experience so that people continue to come in one day a week,” Burke said.The Importance of Human ConnectionAlthough many workers enjoyed working from the comfort of their living room couches during the pandemic, they also realized the need for human connections with their teams. Hybrid work ideally gives employees the best of both worlds, according to Kristen Duffey, head of IT people operation and chief of staff to the CIO at National Instruments.“I think the biggest thing is really making sure that office time is purposeful,” she said. “Do you want to come into the office and sit in a Zoom meeting? No, that doesn’t make sense.”According to Duffey, companies need to determine which activities are better in person, such as workshops.Lydia Dishman of Fast Company moderated the discussion during From Day One's October virtual conference (photo by From Day One)Andrea Osborne, vice president of HR for Genesys, said, “Seeing the workplace become more human-centered and people being able to bring their whole self to work" has motivated her over the past few years.However, she acknowledged it can be challenging to make that human connection in a global company like Genesys, which has 6,000 employees in more than 100 countries.“I have some relatively junior managers that are managing people in four countries, so they’re never with their teams,” Osborne said. “Then we have others who are centered in Raleigh or Indianapolis, where they are together. But for those local teams, half are flexible, while others declare they are not coming into the office on a regular basis.”Genesys has experience coordinators at all its primary locations. Osborne said their job is “About what they are doing to engage the community with those site leaders and owners, so that they are really driving an experience.”For teams that are more distributed geographically, experience coordinators try to encourage managers “To create work events that make sense for their teams to come together, because that connection is so important.”Osborne lives in Colorado, where Genesys doesn’t have a local office. However, 40 employees live in that state, so they can still gather at a non-Genesys site. For example, during the company-wide Community Give Back Day, the Colorado workers can get together to prepare meals for local homeless shelters.Training and Development in a Hybrid WorldThree years ago, when employers were first trying to figure out new ways to work, many learning and development professionals said it might be better for employees to train on their own time from home rather than come to the office for it. However, that view is now changing.“Learning isn’t just what we read,” said Casey Wahl, Founder and CEO of Attuned. He noted that learning from peers is important because it challenges people to get out of their comfort zone and helps them retain knowledge.It’s important to “Get people to learn, experience, and grow together, with other people so you have those shared experiences and get that emotional chemical drop on your brain. The experience is going to stay in there a little bit longer,” Wahl said.According to Duffey, on-site learning events also help employees get to know those outside of their teams. People who don’t usually work together can meet virtually for training, “But if you weren’t ever in the same room with them, it’s much harder to build that connection.”How to Keep Employees Engaged VirtuallyOne of the biggest challenges for managers is making sure everyone feels connected, even on days when they are working remotely.“We will always have virtual town hall meetings, so the experience is the same for all employees,” Burke said.It’s also crucial to use tools such as Microsoft Teams, which has a chat function, says Burke. “There's an ability to send emojis and claps and sometimes seeing all these activities and emojis make it more of an engaging experience, versus just attending a webcast call,” she said.Duffey recommends having someone monitor online attendees during hybrid meetings to ensure they are allowed to participate. She also said it’s essential to have frequent one-on-one virtual interactions with employees who are working remotely and make sure those discussions aren't always focused on work, “So you’re learning about the person and making them feel included.”Hybrid Work is Here to StayWahl said he hopes employers never return to full-time in-office work because hybrid work gives employees the flexibility they crave to tend to their personal lives, including taking care of children or other family members.“So, how can we get more sophisticated in these practices and keep hybrid work so we can have a more enriching life, but also have that in-person connectivity, and that creativity that exists in an office?” said Wahl. “It's probably not going to be something super revolutionary, or it's just going to be slow, steady sophistication as organizations get better at this.”Mary Pieper is a freelance reporter based in Mason City, Iowa.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | November 08, 2023

Harnessing the Power of Workplace Community

How to create a real sense of belonging in a workplace? Creating a communicative relationship between executives and workers is a requisite step. But it’s hard to form a community at work, and it’s especially hard when your executives are sitting at HQ and employees are spread around the world. That calls for innovative ways of getting them together. This was one of the lessons from an expert panel during From Day One’s October virtual conference on how HR tech can connect, motivate, and recognize hybrid workforces. If you want people to feel like they belong to a community at work, they need to know that company leaders want them there and value them as contributors, said panelists during a discussion titled “Harnessing the Power of Workplace Community,” which I moderated. Feeling like one belongs to a community really matters. People who have a sense of community at work are more likely to thrive (both inside and outside of work), more likely to be engaged, and they’re more likely to stay with that organization long-term.“We’re still the same social animals we were in 2019, with the same needs,” said Raphael Crawford-Marks, founder and CEO of employee-recognition platform Bonusly. “There is a ton of organizational psychology research showing that you have much better outcomes for companies, and for employees, when you have friends and positive relationships and mentorship at work. And all of those things, to a lesser or greater extent, have become harder to come by in a remote environment.”For early-career employees trying to build their first professional networks and find mentorship, remote work can be an obstacle. It’s also a challenge for managers who need to engender camaraderie among employees, said Crawford-Marks. “I think a lot of companies have come to use [digital communication tools] as a crutch. Tools like Slack are really helpful when you have a lot of synchronous, high-fidelity, in-person communication going on, but when it becomes the only or the main form of communication, you start to really feel the effects of losing tone and expression in the written communication.”Panelists encouraged managers to call employees rather than messaging or emailing them all the time, have impromptu video calls, and look for excuses to bring people together in person.But creating a community at work is not as easy as ordering workers back to the office. Return-to-office mandates have inspired resentment from many workers happy with remote arrangements, and ultimatums aren’t exactly community-building mechanisms. Managers have to make in-person interactions clearly beneficial to the worker, not just the apparent whim of executives, said Ray Stevens, global head of talent management at investment firm State Street. He noted that although the company’s employee-engagement survey indicates being in the office has improved engagement for the company, he acknowledged that requiring workers to return to the office can be seen as overstepping. “It has to be positioned to show that there’s value in coming together. Here’s what’s in it for you,” he said.It helps if employers call workers back to an office with a visible, reachable leader. Some panelists recommended sending executives out to global worksites on a regular basis, while others described going as far as permanently relocating theirs.Investing in Employee Resource Groups Wind-turbine manufacturer Vestas is a multinational organization, spread across 37 states and 10 Canadian provinces. “We have office employees, we have remote employees, we have service technicians who are at the service sites, climbing the turbines repairing them, and we have two factories that manufacture the products,” said Michelle Gessaro, the company’s VP of people and culture. “Culture can be a challenge.”At Vestas, employee resource groups (ERGs) have been useful for giving workers agency in their work environments, and for creating a channel of communication between employees and executives. For instance, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision on abortion in 2022, one of the ERGs came to her and asked about benefits for those who need access to health care where it had been cut off. “We already had travel benefits for other types of procedures, and we just needed to expand them to cover all employees for reproductive care,” she said. “It was a pretty quick and easy thing that we could make adjustments to on our end, then I was able to give the feedback to the ERG.”Running and operating an ERG is a great deal of work, but employers can make it worth the effort by being responsive to the members’ needs and concerns. “It shows the employees that you value their voice,” said Gessaro.Leaders should be both visible and accessible, said panelists. Otherwise, employees won’t feel that their own presence matters or that their input is being considered and acted upon.“I think leaders need to be more visible, and sometimes that involves traveling,” said Stevens. “The leaders really set the tone. What they do, first and foremost, the organization will follow.” Smaller in-person gatherings can make those events feel more beneficial and less anonymous.Communities Made Possible by Artificial IntelligenceOther lessons emerged during the conversation, most notably about the community-building capabilities of artificial intelligence. “When used thoughtfully, it can greatly enhance human communication and collaboration,” said Sheila Jagannathan, the global head of learning and capacity building at the World Bank. For one, automation can create free time by streamlining routine tasks, time that can be used for building connections among colleagues. Another creative application is office design. “AI can analyze how physical space–like conference rooms, collaborative spaces, and breakout rooms–is used, and offer insights and guide office design and layout, ensuring space fosters interaction, collaboration, and community,” Jagannathan said. Some organizations are already using AI for sentiment analysis to identify the mood across the organization, and AI also has implications for diversity, equity, and inclusion. There are “bias-detection tools, AI tools that analyze hiring processes, promotions, workplace interactions, and detect potential bias,” she said. Building the Relationship Between Executives and EmployeesTo feel like they belong to a community, workers need to feel like their input is seriously considered. “We tell them that they have a voice, but then we have to make sure that we hear them too,” said Jacqueline Fearer, who leads culture and engagement at global information-management company Iron Mountain. After the company’s annual employee engagement survey last year, Fearer learned that workers considered it a waste of time. Some asked: Where was the company’s response to their feedback?This year, to make the exercise a relational one, the the company added one question: “If you could tell the executive team one thing, what would you tell them?”Management got close to 10,000 responses. Some of the problems identified were small things, but ones that needed to be addressed, like poorly lit parking lots or perennially empty office coffee stations. Bigger matters take longer to change, but smaller items can be addressed immediately, just to show workers that you’re reading the comment cards. “Sometimes it’s those little things that really matter,” said Fearer. “Because everything else seems so huge and vast, immense and strategic, sometimes it’s just about getting more coffee in the kitchen.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz at Work, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.(Featured illustration by Aelitta/iStock by Getty Images)

Katie Chambers | November 08, 2023

Adapting Recognition and Engagement in a Changing Work Landscape

In a modern workplace forever changed by a pandemic, social reckoning, and a new emphasis on flexible employment options, half-hearted company pizza parties are no longer enough to satisfy workers hoping for authentic, personalized recognition and engagement. Employees want to be seen, heard, and appreciated in ways that mean the most to them, and when they feel recognized and engaged, a workplace culture that supports productivity, loyalty, and overall organizational success is built.How can leaders effectively implement programs that go beyond financial incentives to ensure employees feel valued and appreciated? What are some innovative approaches to boost employee engagement, especially in remote or hybrid work environments, and how can leaders measure the effectiveness of these initiatives? The answer is more complex than simply ‘no more pizza parties.’ Panelists at From Day One’s recent Philadelphia conference tackled these pressing questions and more.Employee Listening to Develop a Recognition StrategyThe first step in building out a recognition strategy is understanding what employees value most. Trevor Bogan, regional director, Americas, at Top Employers Institute, which surveys over 4,000 organizations annually, cites a study that found that 45% of employers don’t have an employee listening strategy.With employees scattered far and wide in remote working environments, organized listening is more important than ever, since casual face-to-face interactions or quick temperature checks can be harder to come by. And their experiences and desires are becoming more personalized than ever before. “What we're finding is you have to be more person-centric than people-centric, because everyone’s different. What I value in my life is going to be different than what you value,” Bogan said.Listening is key to not only understanding what employees need, but also showing them respect. “Sometimes as leaders, we really love to hear ourselves talk, to talk about ourselves and what’s going on [in the company],” Bogan said. “But the more we listen to our employees and give them that free space to be themselves – that's truly impactful.”Listening to employees connects directly with recognition, as it allows leaders to learn the methods of recognition that will be most meaningful and impactful to their team members, Bogan says. “The next hurdle,” added Elaine Becraft, head of human resources, diagnostics at Siemens Healthineers, “is to act on what they tell us.” Making employees feel heard, she says, can be just as important as making them feel happy.A Changing Workplace’s Impact on Employee EngagementIn 2020, Becraft states, “We were all ripped away from each other in such a sudden way” and forced to find ways to say thank you for a job well done through email or Zoom rather than in-person. And with that extra layer of technology came an additional layer of distance. Kate Feather, SVP, head of employee experience & talent development at Lincoln Financial Group concurs. “We had employees telling us, ‘I feel like my contributions and the work I'm doing isn't being seen anymore,’” Feather said. “That's why we elevated recognition up on our list of priorities.”The panelists discussed the topic “Building Upon Workplace Culture Through Recognition and Engagement” at From Day One's Philadelphia conference. In addition to the changes wrought by the pandemic, the political and social unrest of that period also changed the ways employees engage with one another in the workplace, says Geneva Campbell Brown, head of office of corporate secretary and lead counsel for corporate governance, Shareholder Engagement and Community Engagement at The Cigna Group. “The murder of George Floyd forced people to be thoughtful about what was happening in society at large but also in communities close to them,” Campbell Brown said. “Now we’re in the habit of bringing more of our personal selves to work and employees are looking for a space where they can be authentic.” The line between work and family life has blurred, and employees need to find ways to recognize all of these additional challenges that employees bring to work with them, Campbell Brown says.Recognition Can Build a Stronger WorkplaceEmployee recognition is a powerful tool for encouraging positive behaviors, such as adherence to company values or exceptional organizational practices. “I'm a huge believer in what gets recognized, gets repeated,” Feather said.It can have an enormous impact on retention. Feather says that in studies of employees that left Lincoln voluntarily, 75% of them had not been recognized in their employee recognition program. “There's a higher proportion of people who are choosing to opt out if they’re not being recognized.” In turn, it can also help with acquisition, making your company more attractive to prospective employees who hear about the good energy and positive environment the culture of recognition is generating. “Your employees are walking billboards,” Bogan said. “They’re going to talk about your leadership, talk about your HR initiatives, and that word spreads fast. Saying ‘thank you’ costs nothing. And taking the moment to do it – the return on that investment is huge.”Innovative Approaches to Employee Engagement and RecognitionPanelists offered several examples of how their own organizations have implemented employee engagement and recognition programs with an eye toward personalization and authenticity.VolunteerismWhen Campbell Brown’s organization found that DEI committees were not really moving the needle, she and her colleagues took a beat to listen to what actually resonated with employees. “One thing that we found just through listening is that people were so invested in their local communities, and they wanted to get together with their colleagues and do something good,” Campbell Brown said. Their desire for team building activities that also gave a purpose to their workday inspired the implementation of employee volunteer outings. This unexpected alignment of corporate social responsibility and employee engagement led to increased in-person attendance, even from normally remote workers. “If we had a volunteer event, people were more likely to show up for that than they were to show up if there was a town hall,” Campbell Brown said.Point SystemsThrough engagement surveys, Feather’s organization discovered that employees didn’t always feel appreciated and that processes were inconsistent from department to department. The company found success through a rewards system that is partially financial and partially points-based, with benchmarks aligned with the company’s core values. Employees can trade in points to support their favorite charity, take trips to Disney World, or buy merchandise. The system also recognizes personal employee milestones, such as buying a house, having a baby, or getting an advanced degree. This in turn helps workers integrate their personal and professional lives.Employee Resource GroupsEmployee resource groups (ERGs) help colleagues connect one-on-one and support each other across levels and functions, both personally and professionally. Especially in larger corporations, this can help build a sense of community. “In my ERG, I'm getting to chat with people from other departments that I wouldn't ever get to speak to otherwise,” moderator Ximena Conde, reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer said. Bogan notes that it’s important to “think beyond diverse status,” meaning having groups not based simply on marginalized identities like race or gender, but also other areas like veteran status, disability, or caregiving. “In the hope of being inclusive, we don’t want to exclude people,” Campbell Brown emphasized.Leading With Empathy and AuthenticityAs companies hone their recognition and engagement strategies, they need to do so with an eye toward compassion. Leadership coaching programs that incorporate education on unconscious bias and empathy training, says Feather and Bogan respectively, are becoming the norm, paving the way for employees to feel more comfortable bringing their full selves to the workplace without fear of discrimination or ridicule.And as a leader, bringing more of yourself to work encourages others in your organization to do the same. “It's so freeing if you can find a way to communicate around topics that are difficult, and allow people to really start to share,” Campbell Brown said. By setting the tone and providing the proper infrastructure for engagement, leaders can help employees feel more connected to and appreciated by their workplace.Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost, Honeysuckle Magazine, and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, and CBS New York.

Carrie Snider | November 07, 2023

How to Take a Multi-Dimensional Approach to Mental Health and Well-Being

Even for a proactive company like NTT DATA, a rapidly changing world meant they’d need to give their employees something more. And in order to figure out what the employees truly needed, they’d have to do something very important: listen. Terri Hatcher, chief diversity and inclusion officer at NTT DATA, spoke of employee mental health at the From Day One September Virtual Conference in a fireside chat session moderated by Denver Post business reporter Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton.A 2021 study by the National Institutes of Health found that nearly half of Americans surveyed reported recent symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder. The numbers weren’t a huge surprise, only a year coming out of a global pandemic. But it left many companies wondering, what do we do now?Aside from displacement from the office or changing how work is done, what about employee mental health? Global companies especially had to zero in on this. NTT DATA, which operates in 45 countries, had already focused on employee mental health, but due to the pandemic, it was time to put an even bigger spotlight on it.The company launched its Stronger You program, which helps team members get connected with each other and get mental health support. In addition, Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) have been game changers with employee engagement. Specifically, NTT DATA launched its Lift ERG which focuses on mental health.“That launch event was over twice as big as any ERG launch we’ve ever had, so that tells you something,” Hatcher said. One key to the success of the Lift ERG has been working across all company ERGs to reach diverse populations, such as Veterans ERGs, Pride ERGs, and more, because mental health impacts all groups, Hatcher added.For many companies, it’s not just about “getting through” increased mental health needs so that things can go back to how they were before. The world is different, and people are different, so there needs to be a new solution. Addressing employee mental health is the new normal. For NTT DATA, initiatives become part of the fabric of the company to help foster a sense of belonging.Ulu-Lani Boyanton and Hatcher kicked off the From Day One virtual conference about “Building a Healthy Work Environment.” (photo by From Day One)“It starts with setting the tone for our employees around the type of company that we are,” she said. “We do that through education and awareness, teaching our team members about our values and the culture that we’re continuing to build and the one that we want to sustain, and more importantly, modeling.”It must go top-down. CEOs, managers, everyone must be trained to be more empathetic. One-on-one conversations, really knowing your team and their needs, is how to offer the best support. Sometimes, it’s not so obvious, but in the end it’s how the employee can be more mentally healthy at home and at work.“One team member told me that she really needed a vacation but was just feeling overwhelmed and really had no time to sit down and plan a vacation,” Hatcher said. “She called our Employee Assistance Program, and they helped her plan a vacation. So you never know what people need.”Aside from offering resources for employees, an important step is ensuring they know how to access them. It’s up to company leaders to continually educate leaders so they can point their team members in the right direction. At NTT DATA, employees can talk to their managers, but they also have an anonymous hotline so they feel there is always someone they can go to.But then more challenges come as employees work with people outside the company. As a service provider, NTT DATA’s team members regularly go out into the field and work with clients in new environments where they have little control. Sometimes, that client may not share the same values, which can put employees into challenging situations.Hatcher mentioned a story where a manager reached out, reporting that a client wasn’t treating the team well for some time. Hatcher called the Employee Assistance Program, which brought in a clinical psychologist to talk to those team members to help them understand how they could operate in the most productive way possible in that environment.“We really needed to address things for our employees,” she said. “You have to know what you can control as an employer, and your employees need to know that you are there to support them, that you’re listening, and you want to help and support them.”To be truly innovative, Hatcher said they need all types of talent. But to attract all types of talent, they need to create the environment that is going to attract and retain a truly diverse workforce. That means education and training.“One of our values is teamwork,” she said. “We expect everyone to be able to collaborate. And to do that, you have to be a good listener. You have to be an inclusive listener.”An effective leader needs to make sure all viewpoints are being pulled in and considered, she added. Employees need to feel comfortable sharing and speaking up. They need to feel valued and heard.When considering productivity, Hatcher said you can’t have productivity without good mental health. So that’s why training leaders to be empathetic is essential to company culture that helps employees get what they truly need.“People need to know that they’re cared about and that they are supported so that when they get there, they can innovate there. You’re trying to free them so that they can be creative and give you their ideas and collaborate and come up with the best solutions possible.”Carrie Snider is a Phoenix, Ariz.-based journalist and marketing copywriter.

Wanly Chen | November 07, 2023

How Talent Leaders Are Adapting to a Changing Market

In a post-pandemic workplace, the task of attracting and retaining talent is far from easy. With new challenges and tools, leaders are actively listening and adapting to both external and internal factors to provide employees with the work environment they need.During From Day One’s Manhattan conference, moderator Lydia Dishman, senior editor of growth and engagement at Fast Company, led a conversation with leaders on strategies for attracting and retaining talent in a changing market.Keeping an Active Pulse on Cultural ConversationsRecent social movements sparked a conversation for companies to recognize their stance on political and societal issues. Taking a stance was important not only to consumers, but to their employees as well.Navigating these conversations properly was a large feat for HR leaders, says Ramcess Jean-Louis, global chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer at Pfizer. “From a diversity equity inclusion perspective, we were heroes because we were helping our organizations and companies navigate a very complicated situation. From a social standpoint and corporate standpoint, our colleagues and employees were holding us accountable for speaking up.”When companies recognize the need for DEI leaders to navigate the conversations, DEI leaders become an influential and important part of a company’s survival. “There was a period where DEI and HR professionals were pulled into some conversations that we weren’t traditionally pulled into, such as investor relations meetings and meetings with shareholders,” Jean-Louis said.Companies choosing to make a public stance on political issues haven’t been without its drawbacks, however, with boycotts occurring from both ends. Americans are divided on companies taking public stances on political and social issues, with 48% believing companies should and 52% believing companies shouldn’t take stances, showing that the decision hasn’t always been simple for companies to make.The panelists discussed the topic “Stepping Up Their Game: How Talent Leaders Are Adapting to a Changing Market” at the Manhattan conference. However, shifting views from the public is a part of continuous conversation for some political and social stances, and companies shouldn't stray away from them, according to Singleton Beato, global executive vice president and chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at McCann Worldgroup.“When it comes to how businesses are going to be able to generate revenue and be profitable, they tend to focus on what is crisis and critical. And then everything else [like DEI initiatives] tend to fade out of focus and are put on a shelf for a little while,” Beato said. “But what took ten years to a social uprising, then five years to a social uprising is now going to be more like 18 months. And so what will happen is those business leaders will say, “There is racism in America, we cannot believe this and we need to address it and need to do it now.” But they won't be able to say that in time for next time because the next time is coming in short order.”A study shows that 74% of Asian adults and 72% of Black adults believe businesses should take a public stance on political and social issues, showing the greater need for allyship from companies. To support a diverse workforce, companies may need to shoulder the responsibility of being involved in social conversations surrounding these issues, Beato said.“What we are seeing now is what we’ve seen many times throughout our lifetime. There are culture shifts and ebbs and flows to a lot of the issues that continue to plague us in this space, particularly as it pertains to equity in this country and as it pertains to people of color,” Beato said. “It expands from there to underrepresented groups all finding their voice in that moment to say so many of us are in this situation and we need to hold businesses and business leaders accountable.”Hiring Based on SkillsIn a recent analysis by LinkedIn, nearly 20% of job postings do not require a degree, showing a gradual increase in skill-based hiring from 15% in 2021.With different methods of education emerging from the pandemic, companies need to embrace how future employees are developing their skills. Sivona Blake, vice president of campus diversity recruitment and global talent acquisition & people insights at Citigroup, reflects on how they have embraced skill-based hiring in their practices.“A lot of times when we get into these roles, we’re re-learning everything anyway, so we’re not really using a lot of our degree to even do these roles,” Blake said. “At Citigroup, we meet early career workers who are not getting the traditional four-year degree and partner them with various organizations and expose them to work through that route. That has been how Citigroup has been deemphasizing the degree requirement, and I think it's a great opportunity to do so.”For foreign-born workers, skill-based hiring removes traditional barriers like college degrees and language, which can make a difference when seeking an opportunity. At Pfizer, Jean-Louis shares the impact of removing the four-year degree requirement.“We’ve taken out the four-year degree at our organization as well and that's helped us in so many different places. That's helped us with our military hiring because you want to approach that differently when you’re looking at bringing in these very senior leaders that will do an outstanding job within your organization,” Jean-Louis said. “It has also helped with our refugee leadership initiative. Some of the refugees that we had from Afghanistan don't even have proof of their credentials. Oftentimes, they come with the clothes on their back, and not even a suitcase. So again, we’re taking all of that into consideration.”Embracing Fractional EmploymentThe pandemic not only opened opportunities for remote and hybrid work but for fractional employment as well. Fractional employment allows companies to hire specialized or high-quality talent for a part of their workweek, a concept that can be a win for both parties, Michael Morris, CEO and co-founder of Torc believes.In developing an online network for remote developers, Morris shares how fractional employment can provide higher job satisfaction for employees and higher quality employees for companies.“I encourage a lot of my customers to start with 20 hours for a talent. They may not have the full-time need for them, but the quicker companies and organizations adopt this fractional, on-demand talent model, the better they’re going to be, and the happier the talent will be,” Morris said. “Talent can be picky. If they’re great at what they do, they should be choosing opportunities that utilize their skills and the industries they want to use them in. If you don’t use talent in the way they want to be used, they’re going to leave, and that's not good for anybody.”Wanly Chen is a writer and poet based in New York City.

Katie Chambers | November 07, 2023

Developing a Talent Marketplace Inside Your Company

Watching football on Sundays isn’t just a great way to unwind, the game also provides an important takeaway for employers. Robert Gulliver, chief talent & capability officer at Prudential Financial, knows this firsthand, having previously served as head of human resources for the NFL for nearly a decade.“I saw world-class Hall of Fame coaches really make a difference on the field with the power of coaching,” Gulliver said. “I wanted to be able to impart that power of coaching and bring that to Prudential. So, we've been doing a lot of work to democratize access to coaching, leveraging it, and working to bring the power of coaching to our employees at scale.” In both a sports and a business setting, coaching goes far beyond tactical management, it’s a form of inspirational leadership that encourages team members to be the best versions of themselves.During a fireside chat at From Day One’s Manhattan conference, Gulliver discussed how Prudential Financial is making coaching accessible to all levels of employees through its internal digital platforms. As the chief of talent for a 150-year-old company with 40,000 employees, Gulliver develops workers with a combination of technology, coaching, and a culture of listening. The goal: creating a democratization of opportunity.How Technology Impacts the Hiring ProcessMore and more, employers are turning to the digital world for talent cultivation, including online job listings. “The wonderful thing about online applications is that it democratizes access to opportunities,” Gulliver said. “It continues to be an important source of candidates that we’re investing in.” From the employer perspective, online job postings can bring in a wide, diverse selection of candidates to choose from. But for the applicant, the number of competing applications on an online platform can be daunting and demoralizing. With hundreds, or even thousands of other resumes and cover letters in the mix, it’s easy to feel lost in the shuffle.Since online applications work well for employers, though, they are not going anywhere. Gulliver suggests a few crucial steps to get yourself noticed among the applicant pool. He encourages candidates to set email or app notifications so they can be the first in the queue to apply as soon as an appropriate position becomes available, as early applicants tend to have an advantage over the rest. And while online applications are the way of the world now, personal connections can still make a difference. Gulliver suggests attending recruiting events and job fairs to get face time with hiring managers and learn more about the application process.The Ever-evolving Labor MarketJamie Heller interviewed Robert Gulliver in the grand finale fireside chat at From Day One's Manhattan event.After several years of turmoil amidst the Great Resignation, when employee turnover numbers were at what Gulliver calls “an all-time high,” employee retention has now evened out. “There’s not as much movement in the labor market as we had previously seen,” Gulliver said. And despite doomsday talk of artificial intelligence coming to take our jobs, Gulliver says it’s not something to fear. “Technology is going to become an enabler,” Gulliver said, and there will be “More of an emphasis on talent that can work with this technology.”Moderator Jamie Heller, business editor of The Wall Street Journal, notes that the AI conversation tends to be lumped into a broader conversation about efficiency, with companies asking themselves as an employee exits, “Do we really need to even fill this job? Maybe we can find a way to spread it out among other people, or have computers take care of it.” Gulliver says that while efficiency may be top of mind, it’s always in service of generating the best product or service possible. That can include leveraging technology or “Looking at our organizational structure to make sure that we continue to evolve and be more nimble as an organization.”With many companies, especially in the tech space, eliminating mid-level management positions and flattening the corporate structure in the name of efficiency, opportunities for promotion might seem slim, Heller posits. Gulliver says that in turn there is a renewed focus on skill-building as the mode of career advancement. “We have been taking a skills first approach, as we think about really what's going to be the currency of the future for our employees,” Gulliver said.Developing an Internal Talent Marketplace to Grow LeadersIn order to facilitate employee growth through professional development, upskilling, and even opportunities for new roles internally, Prudential Financial was one of the first corporations to create a talent marketplace, what Gulliver calls a “digital destination” rich with content to help employees grow and evolve.Gulliver shares an anecdote about a colleague who used the talent marketplace to develop his skills in compliance, and then also found an opportunity posted within the marketplace itself that allowed him to leverage those skills in a brand-new role. Having an internal marketplace helps employees feel valued and respected, with the opportunity to grow professionally within the company. And of course, by pairing that upskilling with what is essentially an internal job board, it also helps the company retain top talent so that they don’t automatically take those skills elsewhere. The organization plays multiple roles within one individual’s career journey.Prioritizing Talent as the Key to Sustainability“Our strategy is to make sure that we've got the right talent in the right roles with the right skills,” Gulliver said, whether that skilled talent ultimately comes from the internal marketplace or external sources. No matter the state of the labor market, be it a boom or a bust for employers, a company’s success will ultimately be driven by the people that it hires. Prudential Financial is a fine example. “You don't get to be a 150-year-old company without wonderful employees, employees that are continually reskilling and upskilling and are there for the transformation,” Gulliver said.“When we talk about continuing to evolve as an organization, our employees and their skills journey goes hand in hand with talking about how we are evolving as a company.” With its internal talent marketplace, the organization is positioning itself for the next 150 years and beyond.Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost, Honeysuckle Magazine, and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, and CBS New York.

Wanly Chen | November 06, 2023

Retention Reinvented: Enabling Managers to Drive Employee Engagement

One in three employees is planning to leave their jobs within the next 12 months, research by people engagement software Leapsome discovered.As co-founder and co-CEO of Leapsome, Jenny von Podewils recognized this statistic could cause severe consequences for companies and required a closer look at why employees were leaving and where change could be made.At From Day One’s October virtual, von Podewils shared Leapsome’s research and how technology can assist in retaining top talentFostering an Inclusive Workplace CultureStudies show that a toxic workplace culture can be a strong predictor of turnover and is ten times more important than compensation in predicting turnover. In Leapsome’s research, von Podewils discovered similar results.“Workplace culture is a key reason why employees end up leaving,” von Podewils said. “You might want to ask yourself questions such as, have you been able to generate a sense of belonging for your people and do people feel recognized for their work? Are you able to generate enough transparency so that people feel they're part of a bigger picture?”Building an inclusive workplace culture begins with strong employee engagement, von Podewils said. This requires companies to create a culture of listening and making actionable changes that can be measured through AI tools and systems.“First, listen to your employees on what works and what needs to be improved through engagement surveys, regular pulse surveys, and hone in on that data,” von Podewils said. “Turning that data into actionable next steps and action plans that get it from an intelligent system can help you to focus on the elements that ultimately have the biggest impact in your specific organization.”Building a Career Path for EmployeesIn a study on the impact of professional development, researchers discovered 92% of employees believed that professional development was important to their careers.Jenny von Podewils of Leapsome led the thought leadership spotlight session (company photo)This finding was also apparent in von Podewils’ research. Companies need to be able to develop clear career paths for employees through personalized development courses and promotion processes, von Podewils said. To do so, managers need to spend more time evaluating the performance of their employees and provide effective feedback.“Running effective 360 feedback just makes sure we add a different perspective and generate a holistic picture around the strengths of an individual, and to provide a competency framework that is relevant in the context of a particular role or company,” von Podewils said.Creating a framework of achievable goals and milestones can help employees stay on the right track to developing skills needed for career growth, von Podewils said. “This is why personalized career paths are so important to ensure that we connect the dots and provide directions, but also provide actionable support to how someone can move on to that next step of their career paths,” von Podewils said.Cultivating Healthy, Strong Manager RelationshipsWith the most direct relationship with employees, managers play a significant role in employee retention. Poor managers can have a negative impact on employees, with 82% of employees stating they would potentially leave because of a bad manager.To build stronger relationships, companies need to make sure managers have the support and resources they need, von Podewils said. Here, von Podewils points to AI technology like Leapsome’s AI copilot that managers can lean on to help write effective feedback for their employees.“When managers have to write development or performance feedback, [our AI copilot] builds upon the existing feedback that they've previously given to help the managers craft good feedback,” von Podewils said. “It makes that process much easier for them so that they are focused on being better prepared in the actual conversation with your employees.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Leapsome, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Wanly Chen is a writer and poet based in New York City.

Carrie Snider | November 06, 2023

Boosting the Role of Belonging in Leadership Development

On the outside, Brian McGrath appears to be a typical lawyer. Male, white, suit, briefcase. The thing is, not everything about a person is visible. And when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), assumptions can be damaging. McGrath and four other panelists spoke about DEI and workplace belonging at From Day One’s Manhattan conference in a session moderated by Kadia Tubman, managing editor for DEI at Insider. Until you get to know him, you wouldn’t realize that McGrath is in an interracial gay marriage. Like many in underrepresented groups, he’s been in work places where he hasn’t felt like he could truly be himself. Which is why he was so passionate about building a diverse firm of 120 lawyers where he’s a partner at Hinshaw & Culbertson, but also creating an environment where they feel like they belong.When he goes to work, he feels free to be who he is, and so do others. It’s important to work on DEI initiatives at your organization, but it’s another thing entirely for employees to feel they truly belong. How can leaders bridge that gap?“We can't let the pace and press of business get in the way of something as important as DEI, because at the end of the day, if you fail in DEI, you're going to be less successful in the business,” McGrath said.That’s not just talk: there are actual numbers behind McGrath’s point. This data is what DEI departments must share with the rest of the company. “We have almost zero attrition, which in a law firm world in the last four years is almost unheard of,” McGrath said. “We have lost less than a handful of attorneys in four years, because we are diverse, because we have bought into belonging.”McGrath continues, “If you get to know your colleagues, you can laugh with your colleagues, you can bring your whole selves to the office, and together, you spot issues and develop better work products.”Leveling the Playing FieldOne important aspect of DEI is giving each employee what they need to succeed. And if they feel valued and successful in the workplace, there will be a sense of belonging. Panelist Corey Smith, head of diversity & inclusion at LVMH, says that one person may need Excel training, but others may need help with pivot tables. But equity is even more than that.“Getting someone communication skills training, that's equity, but you know what,” Smith said. “So are gender neutral bathrooms, and lactation rooms. All of those things create, ultimately, an environment that is belonging, because I know that my individual needs are going to be taken care of when I show up to work.”At a quarterly meeting with regional presidents, Smith put up a slide of two images of their brand ambassador, rapper Jay Z. On one side was young Jay Z looking clean cut, and on the other side was a more recent photo with grown out hair in freeform dreadlocks. “I said, which one of these two images would you rather do business with?” he said. “I reminded them that at the same time, we have employees with dreads that feel as if they can't show up to work because of their hair.”Point is, you can’t judge a book by its cover, otherwise you can’t create a sense of belonging in the workplace. He added: “I can show up, and I can contribute and I can have value. And I can make this organization more profitable, if you will allow me to be me.”Kadia Tubman of Insider moderated the panel session about “Boosting the Role of Belonging in Leadership Development.”Progress Over PerfectionIt’s important to keep things in perspective. DEI is still in its beginning stages, so many are still figuring out how to accomplish it.“We’re in some new space here. And we have to be open to where we’re going in order for us to get different results,” said panelist Gemma Toner, CEO and founder of TONE Networks.The important thing is to get to a place where people feel comfortable taking risks. “When it comes to being your authentic self, it does take courage,” Toner said. Change must start at the top. Company leaders need to be willing to make changes, which can be hard.“It is easier to not take risks. It's easier to do the same program. It's easier to do the same thing year after year. And, you know, logically if you’re not where you want to be, then you would stop doing it, but it's very hard to make that change.” Leaders need to be willing to take risks and work on new initiatives to get to a different place.Share the DataDespite the importance of DEI in the workplace, it has to make business sense as well. Collecting the data and sharing it with leadership is imperative for showing them that DEI has value in every way.Panelist Ezinne Okoro, global chief inclusion and diversity officer at Wunderman Thompson, said we must understand the data points and how to best utilize them to build a strategy that will lead to better DEIB outcomes.“A CFO can’t come to a meeting without the numbers that show how the business is doing,” she said. DEI must be woven into the fabric of the business, because it’s best for the employees. If data isn’t shared, and workplace belonging isn’t integrated, you run the risk of losing people. As Okoro says, people are your biggest asset. Retention is the biggest piece of that. Talking to your people is essential, but the environment of the conversation is also important. “You have to have belonging to allow for that type of conversation where someone can be vulnerable.” Panelist Natoya Brown, senior vice president of people experience at Universal Music Group, agreed. Honesty, authenticity, and intentionality are paramount, she says. “Belonging is an output of all of the investment, and all of the considerations that we take about each individual employee and ultimately, how they work together as a team,” said Brown. Carrie Snider is a Phoenix, Ariz.-based journalist and marketing copywriter.

Wanly Chen | October 31, 2023

How an Authentic Culture of Well-Being Can Boost Productivity

When Andrew Gold started at the mailing and shipping company Pitney Bowes, he couldn’t help but recognize the company culture was ahead of its time.In the 40s and 50s, “Our CEO at the time wanted to hire people from our communities in the right match of what our communities look like,” Gold said. “He took a sales conference away from a hotel because they would not let our African American employees in. We’ve always had a really good, inclusive culture.”Today, as senior vice president and chief human resource officer, Gold continues to build on the company’s strong work culture while improving the employee experience.“We started looking at better onboarding, and making sure we have our benefits coming out in multi-language magazines for our employees,” Gold said. “The general culture for us has been good and we are trying to keep that because that has been a differentiator for us. It is one of the reasons I stayed along with ongoing development and opportunities.”To maintain an authentic culture of well-being for employees, HR leaders like Gold must hold true to company values while adapting to changing times. At From Day One’s Manhattan conference, Corinne Lestch, associate editor at Forbes, spoke with leaders in a conversation on ways they have adapted to provide an authentic culture of well-being for their employees.Listen First, Then ActCompanies who listen to their employees can reap many benefits. In a study of employee listening, researchers found employees who felt their voice was heard were 74% more likely to be engaged and effective at work.Andrea Cooper, chief people officer at online therapy company Talkspace, reflects on the value of listening to employees as an HR leader and the benefits it could yield in ensuring employees’ continual engagement.The panelists spoke about “How an Authentic Culture of Well-Being Can Boost Productivity” at the Edison Ballroom in Midtown, Manhattan. “Listening to our employees is not that kind of paternalistic role where we say, “We’re HR, we know what you need and we’re going to give it to you,’” Cooper said. “[Listening] says “Tell us and let’s design together and let’s make adjustments.” These adjustments might be big ones or little ones, but listening gets us much better outcomes from a creative solution perspective.”Listening allows companies and leaders to understand what employees’ thoughts and concerns are and can provide valuable data on what may be needed to create a better work culture. From listening, companies need to make actionable changes that resolve employee’s issues and concerns, Kumud Sharma, chief people officer at money management company Betterment, said.“If you’re listening to your employees through engagement surveys or employee’s 360 reviews, there are nuggets of knowledge in there and as long as you take them and address them head-on, you will have a great culture and a great environment,” Sharma said. “You ask employees three times how they feel about the manager or the company, but if you do nothing about it, you will never hear from them again. So, make sure that not only are you asking the right questions, but when you are given the answer, you do an actionable thing with that information.”Creating a Safe Work Environment Through ExampleIn cultivating a healthy and safe work environment, researchers found that 88% of employees appreciate it when their leaders talk about their own mental health, suggesting that vulnerability and relatability may be qualities that employees seek from a manager when asking for help.Normalizing these types of conversations should be something companies should strive for, Cooper said. “I think we need to normalize having these conversations and having leaders at all levels model that behavior..”Through leadership examples, employees may find it easier to discuss their own mental health concerns and needs. This can help build an authentic culture where employees can show up as their whole selves, Cooper says.“There’s a readiness and openness for mental health conversations. There is this drive to be real and bring who you are to work in a way that does not feel like you are punished or negatively impacted if you speak to it,” Cooper said.Tailoring Work Environment to Fit Employees’ NeedsWith over 12,000 employees across the globe, Sumita Banerjee, chief human resource officer at KDC/one, recognized the need to have a work culture that was tailored to each region and its cultural nuances.“It is understanding the needs of our people wherever they may be in the world and meeting where they are. In Mexico, for example, we have about 3,500 employees, of whom 70% are women, and 50% of the leadership team is made up of women. So, there we are thinking about programs that women are interested in like talks on gender discrimination or women’s empowerment,” Banerjee said.With a more personalized work culture, Banerjee said this can help to create a more authentic environment for local workers. Recognizing each culture as its own when cultivating a work culture can also aid leaders in developing ways to best support their workers.“We need to think about how we are communicating differently. For example, we need to surround our teams with flexible ways of working but also think about childcare differently or think about how we are incorporating the families,” Banerjee said. “It is having a holistic approach for our people to see what they are experiencing outside of work and where they need support.”Removing Barriers to Help54.5% of the U.S. population have employment-based health insurance showing the large responsibility companies have in providing health care access to their employees.At a time of a crisis or health issue, companies need to be able to quickly and effectively provide the help their employees need. To reduce delays in services or treatments, companies should provide upfront or easy-to-access tools for employees to utilize, Carrie Maltese, senior vice president of corporate HR at NBCUniversal, said.“At the time of a crisis or a mental health concern, it’s too late to have to fill out 75 forms and talk to ten different people, so we try to cut out all of that noise,” Maltese said. “If an employee comes to us and says, “I'm experiencing some depression,” we allow them to go out on short-term disability leave, and it is approved automatically for 30 days, which gives them 30 days to work with or find a doctor. The other thing we did was offer ten free counseling sessions. Hopefully, the employees do not have many, but every new situation provides ten more free sessions with a qualified counselor.”Wanly Chen is a writer and poet based in New York City.

Katie Chambers | October 30, 2023

Leading Across Generations: How to Build Openness and Trust

When Millennial Gloria met with her Baby Boomer supervisor Kenji over Zoom for a simple check-in, things went south fast. Each shared their weekend activities: Kenji did extra work, Gloria binged Netflix. While Kenji implied that Gloria’s choice of relaxing over working was lazy, Gloria was buried in her phone. When Kenji asked if he could see the first draft of Gloria’s report now, Gloria stated she would have it for him the day of the stated deadline, and he was not happy. Shortly after, Gloria asked about promotion opportunities. She desperately needs them in order to pay her bills. Kenji, who thinks Gloria is technically qualified for leadership, expressed concern that she doesn’t have the right attitude.This fictionalized workplace scenario came about through an improvisational exercise between professionals in a From Day One webinar titled, Leading Across Generations: How to Build Openness in Trust. The program was led by experts from IBIS Consulting Group, which for 30 years has been an internationally recognized leader in diversity, equity, and inclusion and change management. They believe that significant lasting change requires a dual focus on individual awareness and behaviors and on an organization's systems, and offer interactive training sessions, e-learning, assessments, and consultations.In the scenario of Gloria and Kenji, neither person was right or wrong, but both were held back in their ability to work effectively thanks to a breakdown in communication caused by wildly different styles and generational misunderstanding.The IBIS team offered key takeaways for how organizations can achieve equity and opportunity through the power of diversity and inclusion, build inclusive environments, and address systemic disparities for employees working across multiple generations.The Importance of a Multigenerational Workplace“The workforce has more generations working together now more than ever,” said Matthew Finkelstein, training associate at IBIS, with members of the Silent, Baby Boomer, Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z generations now working side by side. Finkelstein shared a study from Deloitte showing the need for age inclusion in the workplace as well as a marked lack of preparedness among organizations to address this trend. “70% of national executives surveyed said leading multigenerational workplaces is important or very important for their success over the next 12 to 18 months,” Finkelstein said. “But only 10% say they are ready to address this trend.”Shilpa Pherwani, CEO of IBIS Consulting Group, led the webinar alongside colleagues and actors (company photo)Age is often overlooked in the conversation about diversity and inclusion, where racial and gender identities may take center stage. “Less than 50% of organizations actually include age diversity in their DEI initiatives,” said Shilpa Pherwani, principal and CEO at IBIS.Enin Rudel, senior consultant at IBIS, notes that among the four dimensions of diversity that impact one’s workplace personality – primary, secondary, organizational, and cultural – age and generational identity is within the primary sphere, having a trickle-down effect that impacts all the others.Age is imperative to consider when addressing workplace issues from an intersectional perspective. “The cross-section of our respective identities can often exasperate already challenging workplace conditions,” Rudel said. “Any of these identifiers could present as a challenge and or barrier to me with respect to securing an equitable workplace environment. But awareness of our respective intersectionality can also create an opportunity for establishing commonalities between us.”How to Bridge Intergenerational DifferencesEstablishing an environment with inclusive leadership is an important starting point for bridging intergenerational differences from the top down. “Inclusive leadership is defined as the intentional effort on behalf of leadership policies and practices to treat everyone respectfully and make sure their perspectives are valued,” Rudel said. “This results in the creation of a sense of belonging by acknowledging and celebrating the strengths that exist within our collective differences in multiple identities, which allows all teammates to thrive that work by bringing their full selves. This is a critical component of equity, in the sense that it provides everyone with the same access regardless of how one identifies or what groups they are a part of, and or not a part of.”For managers, this translates into a need for awareness around the ways in which generational differences can impact the employee experience. “Sometimes we attach stereotypes or have biases against groups of people for the way they exist in the workplace. It's not even always done with ill intent, but it's there. This can unintentionally create barriers to achieving inclusive leadership, because of the consequences this has on practices or policies within the workplace,” Rudel said. “Inclusive leadership across generations equates to focusing on our collective commonalities as a foundation for new policies and practices while honoring and acknowledging the uniqueness that we each bring to the table.”Best Practices for DialogueIBIS offers a ‘flex’ communication model, Rudel says, “creates an opportunity for reflection, both internally and externally as well as an opportunity for dialogue geared towards establishing a basis of shared understanding.” Managers are encouraged to do the following:Focus withinLearn from others Engage in dialogueExpand the optionsFollowing the flex model helps develop an inclusive leadership strategy. “As leaders, it is important to take into account what we may need to intentionally be doing as people managers, or as an organization to recognize differences, unintentionally address imbalances in order to provide access to the same opportunities for all,” Rudel said.Tools to Create and Build Trust and OpennessEach step of the flex model can be applied to creating better lines of communication within a multigenerational working community.Focus WithinEmployees are encouraged to recognize their own generational bias, stereotypes or misconceptions about the behavior, work ethic, or habits of people based on their generational identities, which can impact feelings of belonging among teammates. Combat generational bias through:Self-knowledge – Recognize that you may have generational bias.Self-awareness – Actively check yourself in meetings and ask questions rather than make assumptions.Authenticity – If a colleague reacts to a comment made about their identity, be receptive and shift the language.Learn from OthersConfirmation bias comes into play here, the tendency to search for, interpret, and recall information in a way that supports what we already believe, which can lead to groupthink within an organization. IBIS offers three strategies to mitigate this: Curiosity – Seek out different ideas and perspectives and stay open to new approaches.Cultural intelligence – Consider how different cultural norms may show up in the workplace. Humility – Openly receive feedback and work to modify behavior when needed.Engage In DialogueKeeping the lines of communication open can help reduce association bias, the hidden assumptions in which we associate people with certain categories, ultimately making some people feel that they don’t belong. Through dialogue, colleagues can break down barriers, build bonds, and reduce their natural assumptions through the following:Trust – When you are notified about a breach of trust, affirm how your colleague feels. Model this language for them. Transparency – Name any policies or practices that may affect the way a colleague shows up to do their best work without making any generation-based assumptions. Collaboration – Encourage different ways of thinking across your team and give them language for respectfully naming any discomfort. Expand the Options Finally, by expanding the options for inclusivity, a leader can develop allyship, in which they work to facilitate the development of and improve the experience of all people, in particular those who are underrepresented or from marginalized groups. Colleagues can become allies when they:Examine – Look at not only differences but also similarities among a multigenerational workforce. Explore – Discover ways to center these similarities to team cohesion. Experiment – Test out new ways of functioning as a team and see if it works.Building a Culture of Mutual Understanding and RespectUltimately, managers are best served by staying open-minded, self-aware, and mindful of the language they use to describe other employee’s experiences. And don’t make assumptions. “It's really important to understand that oftentimes, our perspective can extend far beyond the scope of our birth years,” Rudel said.For example, when Kenji in the opening example saw Gloria on her phone, he assumed she wasn’t paying attention to him when in fact, she was searching for the document he was actively asking her about. He should not have assumed, and she should have been more communicative, explaining why she was using her device in a one-on-one meeting. By noting what both of their generational biases might be in that scenario, each can bridge the communication gap in future interactions.And while awareness of differences is key to inclusion so, ultimately, is a celebration of similarities. Finkelstein shares that he and Rudel, despite being Zillennial (Millennial/Gen Z hybrid) and Gen X respectively, immediately bonded at work over a shared passion. “We both have a love for classic scary movies,” Finkelstein said. “It was great that that got to open the door into our working relationship. And it's been amazing so far.” By recognizing their shared humanity, workers of all ages can come together to build a more inclusive community.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, IBIS Consulting Group, for sponsoring this webinar.Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost, Honeysuckle Magazine, and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, and CBS New York.

Wanly Chen | October 27, 2023

Fostering Meaningful Discussions on Women's Health in the Workplace

Dr. Leslie Saltzman, chief medical officer at family health benefits platform Ovia, knows a woman’s journey at work is far different than their male counterparts. From monthly cramps during menstrual cycles to life-changing events like pregnancy and menopause, women often endure changes that traditional benefits fail to account for.“When we think about women’s health, it’s important to think about it from an intersectional lens. There are the obvious things that fall into that OBGYN bucket like reproductive health, breast health, fertility, preconception care and pregnancy postpartum,” Dr. Saltzman said. “But we also have to think about mental health, menopause and general women's health, particularly thinking about the diseases that affect women differently or are more common in women.”To best support women employees, companies need to provide comprehensive health care benefits that encompass these different life stages of women as well as health care issues that heavily affect women, Dr. Saltzman said. In a recent From Day One’s webinar, Dr. Saltzman sat down with Siobhan O’Connor, chief content officer at Atria Institute to discuss women’s health and the role companies have in investing in women employee’s health.Increasing Menopause AwarenessThe average American woman can spend approximately 30% to 40% of their life in menopause, yet few specialists and doctors receive in-depth education on it. This can vastly affect the conversations in the workplace, in which leaders and colleagues may take menopause concerns lightly, Dr. Saltzman said.“Why do we treat this differently than we do any other health condition? Menopause is much longer, and it can be much more intense, and people can experience the symptoms every single day,” Dr. Saltzman said. “We need to talk about menopause and make sure that people feel comfortable talking about it by having conversations with it in your workplace or bringing in experts to talk not just to the people that are experiencing it, but also their managers and the people on their teams.”Siobhan O'Connor interviewed Leslie Saltzman during the From Day One webinar titled “Why Women's Health Benefits Are Essential to Retention” (photo by From Day One)In a 2022 study, four out of every ten women reported that menopause symptoms have interfered with their work performance or productivity weekly, with 17% of women employees having quit a job or considered quitting due to menopause symptoms. Employers can support women employees going through menopause by offering flexibility and accommodations in the workplace, Dr. Saltzman said.“This is where we need to think about how we can be more creative to make women who are experiencing these symptoms feel more comfortable in the workplace,” Dr. Saltzman said. “Can they work from home or shift the hours that they’re working? Can they have some more control over the thermostat in the office setting or can they move their desks so they’re not having the sun shine on them that can trigger hot flashes?”Reducing Costs Associated with PregnancyPregnancy and delivery are the single largest group of diagnoses of cost for employers providing health insurance benefits, with unintended pregnancy rates amongst the highest cost burdens. Employers can help reduce these costs by teaching preventive measures and supporting healthy pregnancies.“Helping support healthy pregnancies is the area where you see high cost savings. Preventing preterm birth and preventing avoidable C-sections are all areas where people can see cost savings,” Dr. Saltzman said.The impact of Covid has also had a noticeable difference in U.S. maternal mortality rates, with 2021’s U.S. maternal mortality rate of 32.2% deaths per 100,000 live births, showing a steady incline from 2018’s mortality rate of 17.4%. This shows women aren’t going into pregnancy healthier, which can also cause costs to increase, Dr. Saltzman said.“Supporting people through pregnancy even before they conceive, so they can optimize their health before they become pregnant can help save money in the long term,” Dr. Saltzman said. “For example, the average cost of preterm birth is about $100,000 in the U.S. and about 10.5% of births are preterm. If you can prevent a portion of those, there is a real cost savings associated with that.”Moving Work Culture ForwardOffering comprehensive health benefits is only a part of the equation in supporting women employees, Dr. Saltzman said. Companies also need to create a work culture that recognizes the needs and changes of women employees.Conversations surrounding menopause and periods shouldn’t be just limited to the women employees experiencing it. Leaders and people managers should also be invited to participate in the conversations to increase the knowledge base, Dr. Saltzman said.“Don’t make these conversations women’s group conversations,” Dr. Saltzman said. “It can't be a divided thing as if this only applies to the people that are experiencing it because that is part of the reason why there's a stigma,” Dr. Saltzman said.While these conversations may be difficult to have or participate in, having these conversations can help move the work culture forward, Dr. Saltzman said.“Let everybody feel their own sense of being uncomfortable when we start talking about the pain that women experience when they have their menstrual periods or changing their pads or tampons every two hours,” Dr. Saltzman said. “We’re so disconnected from having these conversations, but the one thing that gives me promise is younger people do feel more comfortable having these conversations.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Ovia Health, for sponsoring this webinar. Wanly Chen is a writer and poet based in New York City.