And I think we've learned over the last year that while there's
a tremendous amount of benefits to working remotely.
There are employees, who don't love it.
They like, being in the office and so, you know, to your point,
we do have to understand that. Everybody works differently in
different environments. Hello and welcome to another
episode of the restart from. Aiga, the professional
association for design. My name is Li Shan Wang Fine
education manager here at aiga and host of the design future.
Now podcast, the restart is a Content series that features
conversations with design leaders, researchers and
Educators to explore the new now.
And next, in our ever-changing world, in this episode, I
explore human resource lessons from the last 18 months of the
pandemic with Nicole Ballina Field, Services director at
Sherm. The society for human resource
management. If you're an employer or people
manager this Nation will help you start making sense of what
we've gone through and how to continue adapting as we move
forward. Uh, Nicole Belinda, I'm a field
services director with sure more the society for human resource
management. I have been with Sherm part of
our staff for the last two years or so I consider it a second
career if you will. I was an HR practitioner for
almost 20 years before joining the Sherm staff and this is sort
of the next phase in my career, if you will.
So it's been just a real treat to go from being an HR
practitioner from Day-to-day into an organization that really
helps frame the workplace and support not just HR
professionals but we're places in general, people managers and
really addressing all things that have to do with the work
worker and the workplace. So Nicole for our listeners, and
our viewers who are not familiar with sure.
And could you tell us a little bit more about the organization?
Yeah. Absolutely.
So Sharm is a Professional Organization based In
Alexandria, we serve a membership of over 300,000 HR
and Business, Leaders globally. And in 165 countries, Sherm
impacts the lives of more than 115 million workers and families
globally. And so as this organization that
has its view on the pulse of HR issues across different
Industries, you have been doing Search over the course of many
years. But focused today, our
conversation on the pendulum as the last 18 months to two years
or so you've recently published a report on some lessons learned
for managers, can you tell us more about that report?
Yeah, absolutely. So 2020 really was a challenging
year to say the least and it's now 20 21, right?
And so, it's gone beyond a year, and we're looking back at 18
months. If You will have just a really
really challenging time within the workplace and Beyond of
course. But you know, when it comes to
what, people managers have been dealing with and the Lessons
Learned, there's sort of three factors that come into mind,
which is communication, resilience and empathy.
You know, these are traits that we've seen are really important
in the workplace as we Forge ahead and continue to face.
New challenges. We've got the dealt variant that
we're looking at today, right? And how these traits can help us
move forward and continue to elevate our workplaces and
really do the best provide, the best support that we can for for
workers you know, in our teams. So you have your pulse on like
various aspects of different workplaces that that sort of
macro level. It sounds like, obviously from
our names society for human resource management, at our core
HR, Human Resources is a big focus, of course, but in recent
years, especially HR has really gone beyond a function and a
role. And really has been seen more as
a part of the larger strategy and a lot of organizations.
And so, going back to Beyond HR and and into every every part of
the workplace, it really digging into the organization in a much
broader way. In terms of the learnings, we've
obviously we've been linked to this pandemic contacts to your
Also touches upon some of the political issues than racial
unrest those happening last year but it's kind of ongoing and so
could you tie those issues together in terms of like how
people managers should be approaching these issues?
Yeah absolutely. I think in the past you'd often
hear that politics, you know, things like that religion had no
no place in the workplace but now it's inevitable.
And so managers were dealing with With things, I mean,
obviously tackling challenging issues like covid, a delicate
economy. They may have been handling
layoffs, but they were also having to address these really
intense political divides as you mentioned.
And so it really challenged managers to have to handle
Communication in a very different way.
But wasn't just, you know, we don't talk about this in the
workplace but, you know, it kind of shifted to say, how do we
talk about these Topics in the Because they are very real and
their issues that were impacting workers coming to work every
day. There were employees who were,
very, very impacted by the murder of George Floyd.
Very, very impacted by, you know, the Insurrection at the
Capitol and so, you know, being able to create an open space and
have a civil dialogue within the workplace, it was needed, being
able to facilitate those conversations.
And say, look, you know, we may not see eye to eye but we have
to be respectful of each other's viewpoints and their
perspectives, you know, at the same time, sort of figuring out
how, you know, understanding how workers were impacted by, these
different scenarios of civil, unrest, and understanding, you
know what they need to move forward, you know, to continue
to focus on. I mean, the reality is, they do
have To come back to work every day, right?
We do ultimately come, we're in the workplace to continue
working and be productive. So there's that balance of
understanding, the viewpoints having healthy communication and
then also kind of refocusing employees and saying, like what
do you need to get back on track as well?
So really, really not an easy environment for even the most
seasoned manager. So, You know, but it's the
reality you know, that really is the reality, you know.
And we see in today's workplace that how workplaces handle these
situations that really means something to employees, you
know, whether they can feel comfortable, you know, having
different different opinions and Views and you know, bringing
those those viewpoints to work, respectfully, you know how?
An organization responds to the civil unrest that we saw over
the last. You know, we've seen different
at different points over the last 18 months that makes a
difference you know. So I think there's the sort of
day-to-day people manager aspect of it of, how do I work with my
team and talk them through this but then there's the larger
organization response of, you know, as an organization, what
is our stance on some of these topics and challenges?
And how do we get our organization collectively?
Moving forward? Yeah.
One of the key takeaways that I got from that as an inside and
an actionable strategy, there was pointing out that due to
some of these sensitivities like some black employees might not
be comfortable talking to a white manager about this, but
there's the suggestion in the report about suggesting, maybe
like a group conversation with other employees who are by POC
or or whatnot to address. This issue starts both about the
manager and direct report relationship but also thinking
about the broader culture in an organization and these employee
kind of peer-to-peer relationships.
Yeah. Absolutely.
You know and that's a I guess a positive that has come out of
some you know some of the civil unrest is we are forced to
address our differences right at work and so you know many
organizations have shifted their focus or Or put more resources
into focusing on being more inclusive, workplaces, you know,
focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion and to your point,
you know, how can all employees feel comfortable with these
challenges that, you know, with these concerns, with these
stressors outside of work, you know, how can we make them
comfortable? And so, you know, to your point,
we did see, you know, things more formal like organizations,
creating a diversity equity and inclusion Council, right?
And it over see these efforts. But then, you know, on a more
kind of tactical approach, you know, creating these these
employee run groups where they can have these dialogues.
Whether it's a coffee chat or, you know, some sort of
facilitated discussion to have those open conversations.
Yeah. So pivoting back to more of the
pandemic angle. You're talking about these More
human connections. Both whether these employee
coffee chats with the back to the people manager, direct
report kind of relationships. We've had this interesting
Paradox play out with the forced transition to remote work for a
lot of office workers, where there's been both more and of
humanity, and intimacy root because you see people's pets
and their kids and their their nephews bedrooms, if I case
their own bedrooms. But then there's also this
Distance. Right?
Because we haven't physically been able to connect in a lot of
cases or this talk to somebody yesterday, whose organization
nearly doubled in headcount over the last 18 months and they
haven't met in person because they haven't been able to.
So have there been any lessons, they're going forward.
Even if we can meet in some cases again but in others,
there's going to be remote work and going forward or some
hybrid. It going forward.
What are some of the things we've learned there about
relationship building and zoom, mediated spaces?
Yeah, you know, any time I sort of think about how
Communications evolved over the last 18 months.
I think about, you know, the first couple weeks of the
pandemic, you know, when we thought that we did this, it
would be temporary, right? Like we'd only be working from
home for a couple of, you know, a couple of weeks, maybe a month
and everybody was having these virtual happy hours and you know
my calendar for a couple weeks. Like I had these virtual happy
hours or coffee chats like almost every single day on Mike
and I was, I had Justin said, how my social life is busier now
than it was a month ago. But then you know, people kind
of quickly, tired of that, right?
And so it's like we immediately wanted to sort of ensure that we
were making connections. Me over real most kind of
overdid it. Right.
But you know, I think that there the lesson to be learned is, you
know, connecting, we know that connecting over soon over, you
know, virtual platforms, can be difficult and we need to find,
you know, a balance and be intentional about our
communication. And the time that we spend with
our teams together, you know, I think that, you know, there's
Managers have learned that they need to when they are online,
you know, meeting with their teams, they have to be focused
on being present, you know, being there listening being
really, really good listeners. But also, you know, learning to
ask the right questions. You know, again, I'll go back to
making good use of the time together.
So asking clarifying questions, you know, taking the time to
provide maybe any background. On the information or add
additional context about activities going on within the
organization, giving progress updates to offer insight and,
you know, figuring out how to be transparent because it's that
delicate balance of being connected without being over
connecting. No a connected, you know, but
then also kind of breaking down those barriers.
So people aren't feeling alone when their remote, you know, and
how, you know, and being transparent about what's going
on. On, you know, those sort of
informal waves in the hallway or you know, quick conversations in
the hallway. We I think we realized over the
last 18 months, we took those for granted.
And so, you know, managers have had to be much more intentional
about the use of their time and the communication they have with
their teams. Yeah, that's a really great
point about intentionality. And also, we were talking about
earlier of how maybe some of the measures.
That we were using an adopting early on in the pandemic might
not work anymore right? Because it was great to do these
virtual happy hours. I went to so many Zoom birthday
parties and even like Zoom Fitness classes and now like the
last thing I want to do because I'm on video conference all the
time for work is to like do a social event.
That's also unzoom. Yeah.
Right. But then there's other
Alternatives like I've rediscovered the joys of just
talking on the phone without the video conference with friends,
right? Or Even like a synchronous
things, like at AGA, we have our staff slack and there's a
Channel about like to people's pets and cute animals or a
channel on like art that we're interested in.
That doesn't all have to be work related but it right is
replicating some of that coffee talk kind of stuff.
Yeah. Synchronously yeah.
Yeah we do a few of those things that Sherm as well and you know,
one of our members share that they actually It offering a
stipend for their employees for you know, things like the cam
app or the headspace app where you know, they could do some
guided meditation you know and just or I know other
organizations have done, you know, fitness challenges like
walking, you know, step challenges, things like that.
Where again you can kind of be connected but maybe not be
online together. Quite as much.
Yeah, we're like you're doing similar things but it doesn't.
Not necessarily have to be synchronous or connected to
people. Rent, if you're all meditating
on your own with the same app, but you still have a shared
experience or common reference point, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
You know, there's another Dynamic that I've noticed with
the remote work, which is that if you have an in-person
meeting, you know, usually people's start trickling into
the conference room with the physical conference room, maybe
a few minutes early and there is that kind of like okay we're
getting set up. There's some Small Talk should
chat that sort of human connection that happens and then
you launch into the meeting. Whereas with zoom, you're either
in the zoom room or you're not in the zoom room but it's not
the same as the kind of Milling into the conference room, kind
of dynamic. So back to this word
intentionality I've seen what works is when people have been
more intentional about like okay, well the meeting was
supposed to start at 9 a.m. but we're just going to chat for a
little bit and then go into the thing that we were meeting.
Four verses before works. Like a couple the chitchat
happened before official start time, right?
So these little tweaks and just kind of surfacing these as more
explicit. Yeah, do you have any thoughts
on that? Yeah, you know, I, you know, I
absolutely agree. I, you know, if I lead a call or
a meeting, I typically, will if my schedule allows, I'll log in,
you know, five minutes earlier whatever.
So, that way we do allow for you, if people can join earlier,
there is some time for kind of you know small talk if you will
you know I think the other piece of it too is taking time you
know to kind of end conversations or meetings on a
high note and focusing on on recognition and so it may not be
you know formal recognition but again kind of going back to you
know just celebrating some of the little things you know, the
small wins and Igniting those different teams successes you
think those that can go a little of that goes a long way too.
Yeah, so on the point of restart on the topic of this series and
we are kind of hopefully optimistic or cautiously
optimistic about what's going on right now with an increase in
vaccinations. But also concerns about Delta
Lambda and all of these variants.
But we do know that some Of hybrid work situation will be a
norm going forward. So can you tell us about some of
the findings that firm has found in terms of what the best
practices are? Maybe just advice things to try
for different hybrid situations going forward?
Yeah, you know, I think there's certainly a hybrid work
environment will certainly continue to challenge managers,
you know, I think it's as we earned just leading in a
different in a different way. And, you know, really leading
teams in general, you know, you always have to understand that
personal, you know, personalizing your coaching and
understanding your team and what, what makes them tick and,
you know, how you can motivate them and, you know, how your
messages really resonate with them.
And so, you know, as we continue to work in that hybrid
environment, I think we're looking Beyond sort of Is
one-size-fits-all Solutions. And so, you know, people
managers really will have to dedicate more of their time to
be leaders, you know, to say to some extent again, we go back
to, you know, that communication, how can you stay
connected to your team? That is remote, let's say, and
then you may have part of your team that's in the office, or,
you know, sometimes it switches back and forth where nobody's
ever in the same place. And so, I again, going back to
being intentional with the communication understanding that
flexibility is important. And so, you know, maybe it's
things like, you know, highlighting with the team, you
know what, some of the remote team players are doing, you
know, continuing some of these virtual.
I mean, you know, about finding balance with virtual meetings
and an in person. But, you know, I think we one
thing that we've learned Is that initially, you know, I think
everybody was very excited about being remote, many sort of top
company organizations would promote remote work as a
benefit, you know, it's sort of a competitive Advantage when
they're attracting top talent. And I think we've learned over
the last year that while there's a tremendous amount of benefits
to working remotely, there are boys who don't love it.
They like being in the office and And so you know, to your
point we do have to understand that everybody works differently
in different environments and you know so finding that balance
will be the trick to moving forward and you know I think you
know another piece of it is organizations kind of
re-evaluating their benefits for a hybrid workplace.
So organizations have many organizations took a look at
their benefits you know? And you're sort of typical
medical dental vision and sadly. They found things that were that
their employees really, really, valued over the last 18 months.
Whether it's telemedicine, you know, additional mental, health
support, you know, some people still.
Now that things are, you know, kind of reopening some people
want that in-person membership. Other people want, you know, a
stipend to continue with to put towards their Peloton app
members. Ship on a monthly basis.
And so, you know, I think there's going to have to be some
flexibility about really sort of tailoring these solutions to the
needs of their workers. Yeah, the word intentionality
that keeps coming up and being deliberate about it is something
to highlight but also trying to figure it out, right?
Because I think we have these pre-pandemic trends that have
now sort of swung away on the pendulum right?
Whether it was the perks, like the fancy coffee machine or the
snacks, or The first file table or whatever those things are and
it seems like we're still figuring out what some of these
remote benefits might be that attract Talent.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think another,
another point to is being intent, you know.
I'll go back to intentions but looking at, you know, we've got
a hybrid Workforce looking at, you know, working hours, right?
So communication. Across different time zones and
if you have someone who has the flexibility, you know, if you're
sort of you have this work-life integration and you know that's
really a big Focus for us at Sherm is not work-life balance,
but work-life integration. So what does that look like?
And, you know, there may be people who, you know, will take
time out of their day, to bring their children to summer camp
or, you know, care for another family.
Number during the day, bring them to doctors appointments or
whatever, whatever the case may be.
And then they ought to work in the evening, right?
So there is that flexibility, but at the same time, you know,
understanding that if you're working at 8:00 at night, you
can't necessarily Demands a response.
You know where expect a response from the rest of the team.
Other members of the team who, you know, maybe they started the
work day at 6 a.m. right on the East Coast, you know.
So I think again, you Can't there's I think blanket policies
or you know what works for one person has kind of shifted
right? Like you really do have to think
through and be have a tremendous amount of flexibility to yield
some some great results from your team and and really allow
them to feel comfortable and kind of be authentic when they
come to work every day. Yeah, so to wrap up a bit
focusing on Nicole Bellona of today of August 2012.
One. If you could send a message in a
time machine back to Nicole of March 20, 20 just before
everything went down or shut down.
What advice would you give to your past self based on what
you've learned through this 18 months or so?
Yeah, you know, I think gosh, flexibility and being agile goes
a long way. And so, you know, For me,
personally, I'm someone who I'm a planner, right?
Like, I like to plan out my day, you know?
Like, I love my calendar. I really like to plan out my
time, both personally and professionally and you know, if
we've learned anything over the last 18 months is nothing's
guaranteed. And you know you can plan all
you want and you can come up with a great plan you can come
up with a back-up plan but Might need like Plan D, right?
And so you know for me personally I think a big lesson
for me is being flexible and I certainly have learned to be
resilient and over the last you know, 18 months for sure.
And so just knowing that I can't.
You know, you can only control so many things, right?
You can control your outlook, you can control, you know, the
communication and the care and civility that you have between
your co-workers between you and your co-workers and your team's.
But there's a lot of other factors that we cannot control
is human beings. Right?
Well thank you for sharing that. Are there any final thoughts
that you wanted to share with our viewers today?
yeah, you know, I think again, kind of look reflecting back on
the last 18 months, you know, I really think that as people
managers as, you know, organizations you should if you
haven't take a look back and you know, do it a check and see and
really Recognize how resilient you have been, you know, as an
individual as a manager as an organization.
You know, I think that we have realized that there's more to us
than than I think we could have ever imagined and you know the
last 18 months were truly truly challenging but I think you
know, we've seen that, you know many managers have given the
feedback that while incredibly challenging, you can be more
effective, you know, you your Versatile of a manager.
You're more confident leader than you were 18 months ago and
so you know celebrating those successes and really being
reflective of your challenges. I think is a is what I hope you
know managers and leaders will take away from the last 18
months. Monica Coble in a, thank you so
much for sharing your insights your learning but also helping
us to end on this high note about celebrating successes and
learning and growth that people managers and pretty much
everyone working through. This has been dealing with
during this time. So thanks again for your time.
Great. Thank you.
It's a pleasure. Thank you.