NOW of Work

If we’ve learned something in the last 18 months, it’s the power of technology to connect people, not divide them. It doesn’t replace human relationship, but it can help form community, create interaction, drive conversation, fuel experiences. If we do it right. We talk a whole lot about Artificial Intelligence in terms of automation, but is it playing the right role in driving connection and creating cohesive relationship? Or getting in the way?

Chief Joy Officer. Have you ever heard of a better job title?  

We don’t use the word often enough when it comes to work, job satisfaction, candidate experience, and certainly not when applying for a job.

Symphony Talent's mission is to change that: to bring JOY back to the process of finding, interviewing, and applying for a job. Connecting incredible talent to inspired employers should spark JOY, too. Too often, the job of “processing” candidates (what a terrible word) is taxing, mundane, and duplicative. The whole thing begs for innovation.  

Jess Von Bank was overjoyed to have this podcast chat with Debbie Tuel! The Great Resignation means employers who do a better job finding, hiring, and nurturing available talent will have a massive leg up. In that case, JOY seems like a good goal to have.   

Take a listen to Jess & Debbie on our latest NOW of Work podcast episode.

There's 50 days left in 2021! Have you taken a moment to check in with your employees? What do they think is missing within the different layers of your organization? Jason Averbook digs into this topic on today's Digital Meetup, with a special guest host.

Come with questions. Leave with strategy!

Women want a 'no-a$$holes' rule when it comes to work.   

Does that surprise you? Just one finding in a massive Leapgen study of nearly 3,000 working adults in the U.S. This timely research data is RICH because we were bold enough to EXPLORE: race, gender, income level, job function, employment status, age, and the usual, of course. But also whether you manage others, how long you've been in your job, how big your company is, and whether your household has multiple streams of income. 

The workforce is complex; people are complex; organizations need to be willing to explore those complexities if they are to deliver a meaningful, personalized, relevant and truly people-first culture. One that will keep people.  

Jess Von Bank, Head of Marketing and Brand Strategy for Leapgen, and Kristin Penney, General Manager of Leapgen's Luminate practice and Research Director for this study, break it down and issue BIG CHALLENGES to address the BIG QUIT. 

Know your people just like this, be prepared to act, and equip managers to better support people. TAKE A LISTEN

It's a candidate's work world and recruiters are in demand. But recruiters are also running on empty in a fragile labor market that's recovering from the pandemic, and challenged by The Great Resignation. Speed to talent is critical to business performance. 

More great content every Tuesday and Friday, thanks for being a loyal listener. 

Representation is a problem when it comes to work. Until we solve it, we’re shortchanging people, business, and customers. Every business - EVERY. BUSINESS. - should be intensely focused on creating environments of belonging, a thriving and humble culture, and empathy-driven leadership. All done in a way that helps people feel brave, valued, and an integral part of building impactful business.   

Jess Von Bank was thrilled to talk to tech co-founder Katharine Zaleski, President of PowerToFly. They dug into why the diversity recruiting and retention platform made a strategic decision (hint: a human decision) to broaden their focus to help more than women, how they help employers tackle massive diversity recruiting goals at scale, and how her career led her from the world’s most impressive newsrooms (Huffington Post, NowThis, The Washington Post) to creating inclusive workplaces.   

POWER EPISODE ALERT. Listen up

Employers are struggling to make work matter -- matter enough to keep, inspire, engage, and attract incredible talent. That means WORK needs to feel incredible.

How do employers create incredible workplaces? Do new realities of remote, hybrid, distributed, digital work help or hurt efforts to create an inspiring, connected, even addicting workforce experience?

In this episode, Jess Von Bank and Jason Averbook dig into these pressing questions with Brandon Miller, CEO of 34 Strong, which provides human development solutions to organizations, and has built the best places to work since 2013. They not only believe that everyone deserves a great place to work, they believe that any workplace can be great!

When an organization focuses on building an employee's strengths, data shows that they become 3 times more engaged at work. Engagement is not only linked to well-being and customer satisfaction, it also strengthens retention.

Feel free to rewatch the recording to see Jess & Jason's epic Halloween Costumes!

Connect with Brandon:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-miller-873a6bb/

34 Strong: 

https://34strong.com/

Last week we talked about signals in the Now of Work. How we receive them, what they mean, how to take action. The signals keep coming FAST & FURIOUS; every organization who was squarely focused on proactively and thoughtfully improving employee experience is suddenly focused on REACTION & RESPONSE again. This time to sweeping vaccine mandates in the U.S., what it means for labor supply, and the impact on….you guessed it, EXPERIENCE.

Thanks for tuning in!

What would you be able to predict if you paid attention to signals? Probably a lot. Signals are everywhere; whether or not they mean anything relies solely on our ability to receive them, take note or make sense of them, and discern what they might mean.

We could have predicted the labor shortage, right? Or these supply chain issues? Remote work? The social justice outcry of 2020? Would you have predicted The Great Resignation based on signals we’ve been seeing for months?

Forget crystal balls and predictions; on today's Digital Meetup, Jess Von Bank and Jason Averbook will talk about ACTUAL SIGNALS. Markers. Indicators—what they mean, where we see them, and what to do about them as leaders in today's world.

Thanks for tuning in. 

Shaun Peet and Mike Metcalf believe that speed in business is the careful result of intentional culture that inspires human brilliance. The athletes, authors, and business leaders build high-performing teams on the principles of DIVERSITY, EFFICIENCY, CULTURE and KINDNESS. They're the founders of DECK Leadership and co-authors of 12 Second Culture. 

They're also pit crew coaches for the most diverse pit crew in NASCAR. They assemble and train 5 HUMANS to change 4 TIRES and add 2 CANS of fuel in a race car in 12 SECONDS, so they know a thing or two about the effectiveness of speed. 

It doesn't matter if you're changing tires, making widgets, delivering professional services or IT systems. You can't build the fastest, highest-performing teams on the planet without learning how to BECOME a team — and then become MORE than a team.

Ryan Malkes and Jess were thrilled to welcome Shaun and Mike as guests on today's episode.