Note: This is part of our “best hits” and a replay episode from Season 1 of the Podcast.

Dave Fano is the CEO and Founder of Teal, a company that provides thousands of employees tools, skills and recommendations to accelerate job searches and help people grow their careers. During his time as Chief Growth Officer at WeWork, Dave became aware of the lack of tools and infrastructure to support career professionals and started Teal to help solve that challenge.

During our conversation, we spoke to Dave about why he decided to found Teal, how it helps job and career explorers, and his own observations about how employees view jobs and careers as a result of his work. We also covered some of the changes and trends in today’s workplace, the changing view on careers, and what Teal hopes to accomplish in the future by serving professionals.

Links

• Teal
• Dave Fano’s LinkedIn
• Dave Fano’s Twitter

• The Edge of Work Newsletter: linkedin.com/newsletters/the-edge-of-work-7051281049510686720/
• McKinsey Study: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/gen-what-debunking-age-based-myths-about-worker-preferences?utm_source=pocket_saves 
• Al’s Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsaldea/

Leslie Neiztel is the Chief Human Resources Officer at Carrot Fertility, a leading global fertility platform for women+. After leading people/hr teams at a number of organizations including Pendo and SAP SuccessFactors, Leslie came to Carrot to head up the HR/people function and scale their business. 

During our conversation Leslie spoke about how the workplace and workforce is changing, and how as a result, how Carrot Fertility is helping create a more diverse, inclusive and human workplace by helping companies provide fertility benefits and care support to all. 

Leslie also spoke about building and growing a distributed and remote first organization, and how she and her team are building a strong and connected culture in a remote and distributed organization.

Links

• Carrot Fertility: https://www.get-carrot.com/
• Leslie Neitzel’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslieneitzel/

Christina Wallace is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, an HBS MBA Graduate, entrepreneur and author.

In her most recent book, The Portfolio Life: How to Future-Proof Your Career, Avoid Burnout, and Build a Life Bigger Than Your Business Card, Christina reminds us that employees are multi-dimensional individuals,  and can reframe their relationship with their job and career, and to use portfolio and diversification theory to de-risk and explore multiple paths and opportunities. 

During our conversation, Christina spoke about how living her own version of a Portfolio life gave her the idea to start researching the book, and why we need a more expansive mindset around how employees can navigate their lives and careers in a more expansive and modern way that accounts for the complexity, opportunity, and pace of change in today's world of work.

She also makes the case, for how in the future of work, The Portfolio Life can can be a more expansive way for employees to manage their career in today’s modern world of work, and how employers can benefit and bring out the best talents and skills in their employees, while improving their ability to attract talent and drive business results.

Nick Goldberg is the CEO of EZRA Coaching, a digital coaching platform that provides executive and leadership coaching to companies. After serving in a number of learning and development companies, Nick started his own company and got coaching for his employees, and began to see the power in how it helped employees unleash their leadership skills to drive results. 

Now, as the CEO of a leading executive and leadership coaching platform, Nick works with Chief Learning and Talent Officers around the world and has a sense of the challenges leaders are facing, as well as the opportunities that exist to help companies build leaders with the skills needed to thrive in today’s modern workplace.

During our conversation, Nick spoke about the benefits of working with a coach, and what we can learn from athletes and performers about finding opportunities to “practice” in the workplace. 

Nick also shared some of the learnings and challenges Learning, People and Talent leaders are facing, as well as some examples of key leadership skills that today’s formal and informal leaders can develop to be effective

Links:

• EZRA Coaching: https://helloezra.com/ 
• Nick’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goldbergnick/

Steve Cadigan is an Author, Speaker and Talent Strategist. He is the former CHRO of LinkedIn, and the author of Workquake, Embracing The Aftershocks of COVID-19 to Create a Better Model of Working. Prior to the pandemic, Steve began noticing fractures in the world of work, and began researching and preparing to write a book. 

Before he could finish, the pandemic happened, and he began to look more intently to figure out why our model of work was failing, and what we could think and do differently in order to make a better workplace for people. Drawing on his experience as the former CHRO of LinkedIn as well as an HR leader at many organizations, Steve published his book and spends his time advising organizations on talent strategies.

During this conversation, we spoke about the observations Steve made about the challenges with the workplace prior to the pandemic, and how we need to think differently and more expansively about what work can be. 

We also spoke in depth about the challenges and limitations of the ways and words we use to talk about work, and why we should be thinking more expansively about the words we use to describe what work can be, in order to create a better world of work. 

Links:

• Website: https://stevecadigan.com/
• Book: Workquake: Embracing The Aftershocks of COVID-19 To Create a Better Model of Working

Jennifer Reimart is the SVP of Consulting at Workhuman, a leading employee engagement and performance software company.  In her role, Jennifer spends a lot of her days working with HR and People leaders around strengthening workplace cultures especially as many of these leaders are adapting to this new world of work.

During our conversation, we spoke about what’s happening in the workplace today and some of the key trends and issues that Jennifer spends her time talking to people and HR leaders about in her work. She also shared some of the benefits of the power of recognition-based cultures, and her ideas for how we can make the world of work better for humans.

Links:

• Workhuman: www.workhuman.com 
• Jennifer's Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-reimert-ccp-68a69/
• Workhuman Live Conference: https://www.workhumanlive.com/americas/

Noah Rabinowitz is a VP of Learning and Development at Moderna Research, and The Head of Moderna University. As a company with a mission to impact the lives of people through medicine and with an organizational culture that values thinking and doing things differently, learning, and creating a culture of learning is the fuel for innovation at Moderna.

As a result, Noah and his team are taking a unique approach to learning, from everything from creating Moderna University, to looking for ways to make their knowledge accessible and open to the public, and making time and space for employees to learn ast part of their jobs.

During our conversation, Noah spoke about the role that Moderna’s culture plays in fostering this culture of learning at Moderna, as well as why they decided to build a university, and how that is fueling their own learning and outside the organization

Links

• Noah’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahgrabinowitz/

Jen Collins is a learning strategist, and currently the Senior Director of Client Experience at Learn In. As a passionate talent and learning facilitator, Jen uniquely understands the importance of meeting learners where they are, and providing them with opportunities to learn and grow. In her current role at Learn In, Jen partners with leading edge companies who want to invest in their talent by providing them with programs to learn and grow, and ultimately, drive business results.

During our conversation, Jen spoke about the importance and emergence of employee talent academies, and how they help employers upskill talent, and employees develop and grow the skills they need to be successful in their roles. Jen also shared some of the observations she’s made about companies who are prioritizing investing and thus retaining talent, as well as sharing her advice for how leaders can prioritize the development and growth of their people

• Jen’s LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/learningwithjen/
• Learn In: https://www.learnin.com/
• Betterwork Labs: https://betterworklabs.com/ 

Melanie Naranjo is the VP of People at Ethena, a global compliance training platform based in the United States. As the VP of People at a fast-growing startup, Melanie and her people team have made career development a critical priority of the company, and have codified a definition along with programs, resources and support for career development that helps their employees identify opportunities for career growth as the company grows. 

During this conversation, Melanie spoke about how reviewing the employee engagement survey date gave her and her team an opportunity to really dig into employee’s challenges with career growth to identify how they might be able to come up with a solution.

Melanie spoke about how she and the team were able to work with the rest of the organization to articulate and define a definition around topics like career development and growth, the types of programs and systems they’ve put in place to make it happen, as well as the responsibilities of key people in the career development process including employees and managers.

Links:
- Melanie's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanie-naranjo/
- Ethena: https://www.goethena.com/post/career-development-employee-satisfaction