Seven years. That's how long BlackRock spent bringing its new global headquarters from vision to life. 

In this episode of Get Reworked, Jen Schettino, head of digital workplace and control at BlackRock, shares the seven year journey the company undertook to reinvent not only its physical headquarters, but its digital. The team persevered through the pandemic and other setbacks to bring the headquarters to life in 2022 — which resulted in their recognition as a Reworked Impact Award winner for innovative use of workplace technology.

"Change management was the key to our success and really helping people to understand before they ever stepped foot in that building what they were getting, I think really helped us in the weeks and months that followed. And that has been a huge lesson for us as we think about other technologies we roll out, as we tackle other moves like this," said Jen.

• A discussion of the before and after of BlackRock's workplace.
• Why Jen credits change management for the success of the initiative.
• The employee response to the new face of BlackRock.

If someone asked you to define design thinking, would you be able to do it? 

In this episode of Get Reworked, Andrew Lindsay, global head of enterprise design at KraftHeinz, discusses why that lack of a clear definition is in part why design thinking has been called into question and advocates for why it's more important than ever.

"In the absence of a design practice and design strategist and user researchers, engineers and product teams and business stakeholders are the hippo — the highest paid person's opinion — who drive those types of decisions. And so having that third-party perspective, that nonpartisan view coming from the design team really helps the teams take a step back, lead with data and insights, and then make more informed decisions," Andrew said. 

• What critics of design thinking got right and where they missed the mark. 
• Why Andrew views design thinking is one form of business development.
• What goes into choosing which problem to solve when with design thinking.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@reworked.co.

What does commitment mean in the context of work? From an employee's point of view, it can mean a reduction in stress, increased meaning, as well as the capacity to do their best work. From the employer's side, it can translate into increased productivity and higher employee engagement — which directly impacts their bottom line. 

In this episode, we speak with Andre Martin, author of "Wrong Fit, Right Fit: Why How We Work Matters More Than Ever," about why it's so important to discuss how work gets done in our workplaces so employees — and employers — can find the right fit for them.

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"Hiring managers have got to be more transparent. We have to be comfortable in being able to talk about the madness behind the method. Talk about the places where it's kind of hard to do work here because of these factors and talk about them in terms of we're always trying to get better — but that transparency is going to pay off," said Andre. "... We know that people more and more are looking for transparency, they're looking for vulnerability. They're looking for a place that is human and imperfect. And so my hope is that hiring managers will give talent a little bit more of a view into the company, because then they will find the right person and the people that opt out should have probably opted out."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• What's causing the crisis of commitment today.
• Why Andre wants to see a return to the 20-year career in one workplace.
• The difference between boredom and comfort in a job.
• Why a frank discussion of how a company works should be a critical part of any job interview — for the interviewer and the interviewee. 
• How Andre differentiates between being the 'right fit' and 'fitting in.'

Plus, hosts Nidhi Madhavan and Siobhan Fagan talk with Andre about why the aspirational language companies use to describe themselves often do more harm than good, why he believes there's a company for everyone and why he thinks companies should re-recruit their employees on a regular basis. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

Human resources — and the role of the chief HR officer with it — has been seeking a proverbial "seat at the table" for years now. The difference now is, more of them are not only gaining that seat, they are "helping design the table."

In this episode of Get Reworked, we speak with Don Robertson, EVP and CHRO of Northwestern Mutual about his approach to employee experience and how his previous experience on the business side informs how he operates — namely, with a business-first mindset. 

"Many of the things that we have to do require you to put together business cases to look at the financials, to look at budgets, all these things and if you don't have strong financial skills, if you don't have strong ability to really put together business cases, just like you would if you're the investments team, and you're putting together a business case, to go do an investment to buy a building or do something, you have to have those kinds of skill sets. I can't just go in there and say, hey, we should invest $10 million in a new HR system, because our people will like it better and will have better engagement," said Don.

"No, I have to be able to show: if we do this, we'll get more adoption. If we get more adoption, then people leaders will do what we need them to do. And they'll ultimately develop their people better. And therefore you'll have the talent you need. And these are the kinds of investments you need to make so that you know our engagement goes up or attrition goes down or we get better adoption. And you just start talking about the actual attribution things that you benefit from by doing these things. And I can tell you in a zero sum game and the world we live in with budgets and everything else, you have to be able to make those cases."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• Why data is a modern CHRO's best friend. 
• How Northwestern went from employee engagement in the low 40s to over 80%.
• The role HR business partners play in Don's work.
• How Northwestern approaches the employee expectation-business need balancing act.
• The role he sees HR playing with AI adoption.

Plus, hosts Nidhi Madhavan and Siobhan Fagan talk with Don about why he thinks rolling back on EX efforts is a mistake, how he's consciously developing the skills of his potential successor and why he thinks anyone working in HR would benefit by spending time on the business side. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

Collaboration can be taught and learned. Yet few organizations are actively teaching employees how to master this critical skill. 

In this episode of Get Reworked, we speak with Deb Mashek, founder of Myco Consulting, LLC to learn how companies can move collaboration from a platitude on their office walls to a capability found throughout the organization. 

"if you want to see a lot of collaboration, if you want to have a collaborative culture, first of all, you need to make collaboration possible. That sounds so obvious, but it means that you can't create weird infrastructures where people can't actually contact each other, which we saw when in 2020, a lot of us migrated very quickly from being fully in person to being fully remote, where there weren't a list of people's email addresses or phone numbers and so it wasn't clear even how to contact people. We didn't have a lot of us access to videoconferencing yet," said Deb. "So the modalities the infrastructure wasn't there to actually collaborate. And thankfully we a lot of us were able to onboard that fairly quickly."

• Why organizations aren't teaching collaboration.
• Whether collaborative efforts are ever a waste of time.
• How to hire for collaborative mindset.
• The broader collaborative ecosystem businesses should keep in mind.
• The five questions to establish if your organization is equipped to collaborate.

Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with Deb about how she came to specialize in collaboration, why helicopter parenting stunts collaborative skills growth and how to avoid running your business like a filthy dive bar. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@reworked.co.

Low-code tools promise to put the power of easy process fixes into the hands of employees. But beyond individual productivity improvements, citizen development offers employees a chance to improve collaboration skills, increase their technical know-how and gain visibility for work outside of their typical workplace roles. 

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Shaelyn Otikor-Miller, SVP and head of global digital workplace strategy at Northern Trust Asset Servicing to discuss its thriving citizen developer program and her long-term vision for the program.

"I think that's the one thing in the citizen development community, I probably struggle with is the mindset shift. Right? In the past, we had the formal training, we had the communications and newsletters, everything got pushed out to someone, you're required to take training, or you get locked out of your system or something," said Shaelyn.

"With these tools. It is all about the individual. And that's what I love, right? So it doesn't matter. It helps diversity, it helps equality. It helps just reskilling, upskilling staff want to shine and get more exposure and visibility, the only thing driving it is their own willingness to learn and dig in and be self starters."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How the citizen developer program first came into being.
• Why citizen development requires a change in mindset.
• How she's built the program using a hub and spoke model.
• How citizen development feeds upskilling and reskilling efforts.
• Where employees find value in citizen development, beyond low-code process fixes.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Kate Cox talk with Shaelyn about generative AI, why citizen development is nothing new and how generational differences help feed the demand for low-code platforms. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@reworked.co.

How does the world's largest professional network help its own employees build connections?

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Laurel Dzneladze, employee communications, digital platforms leader at LinkedIn about the community-based approach to employee communications at the company and how it feeds into the broader employee experience.  

"Some of our work focus has been on that — how can we make this flexible work, work?" said Laurel. "We're creating a virtual experience for our remote employees. But we're also creating these in-person experiences, or even driving the desire to go to an office by surfacing community-based content that would make somebody go to an office or attend a virtual event."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• Why Laurel and her team focus on amplifying employee and leader voices.  
• How community building is central to their approach.
• What channels and tools she uses to get the messages out.
• How to help people participate in community, whether in person or working remotely.
• How she measures the success of these efforts.

Plus, co-hosts Kate Cox and Siobhan Fagan talk with Laurel about why she's on team 'no newsletter,' how LinkedIn still sees itself as a scrappy start-up, and how to reuse, repurpose and recycle content. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

Applications of quantum computing in the workplace may still sound like a theoretical future, but the need for workers capable of working with quantum is immediate and real.

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Bradley Holt, program director of workforce development at IBM Quantum, about what the company is doing to close the quantum skills gap and why it's focused on getting younger generations interested in quantum computing now.

"There are an estimated 27 million classical software developers in the world today," Bradley said. "So that's a very, very different workforce, right, 3,000 people actually applying their skills in the field of quantum compared to say, 27 million classical developers. So we're getting there .... I don't think we need to go and really trained tens of millions of quantum developers overnight. But over the next decade or two, we're likely going to see a really significant increase in demand for quantum developers."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How to get started exploring quantum in your organization.
• Whether widespread access to quantum computers is realistic in the near-term.
• How colleges are responding to the demand for quantum skills. 
• The different roles preparing for the quantum future.
• Why policymakers should be part of the learning cohort. 

Plus, co-hosts Kate Cox and Siobhan Fagan talk with Bradley about his quantum computing pitch for an 8-year-old, why IBM is partnering with HBCUs on quantum education and quantum scientists' popular pet names. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

Delivering a digital workplace that works for multiple teams, in multiple locations, all with different end goals is challenging to say the least. But sometimes it comes down to communications and training as much as it does to the tools themselves.  

In this special episode of Get Reworked, recorded live at the J.W. Marriot in Austin, Texas during the Reworked CONNECT conference, Dante Ragazzo, senior director, digital workplace at Tapestry discusses the work he's doing to simplify and remove friction from the digital workplace at Tapestry. 

"So I think that if you are not only improving your experience, but showing that you're improving your experience, I think it goes a long way toward employees. I think employees are actually really forgiving, and they understand what's different when you're a consumer. 'Well, you want to get my money. So you should do everything you can to impress me.'

"When you're the employee, it's like, 'Well, the more money you spend on other niceties to make me feel good is less money that we have to invest in our business, bonuses and everything else.' So I think employees have a certain understanding like they don't want to just see the coffers wide open and spending frivolously," said Dante.

Highlights of the conversation include:

• What causes some of the digital friction
• The many definitions of the digital workplace
• How he approaches shadow IT
• How to balance diverse team needs with the desire to create a cohesive digital workplace
• The digital workplace discovery tour he now runs at Tapestry 

Plus, co-hosts Kate Cox and Siobhan Fagan talk with Dante about the differences between customer experience and employee experience, how we can't live in a magic kingdom, and why sometimes you have to accept that good enough is good enough. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

Generative AI is the latest shiny toy in the workplace technology toolbox. The difference in this case is the bar to use it is very low. Anyone with an internet connection and a computer can access it.

In this episode of Get Reworked, employment attorney Peter Rahbar discusses the potential risks of generative AI to the workplace and why organizations need to create guardrails around employee use. 

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"I think it's very important in this moment, where we have a potential transformative technology, for the company to really take the lead on how it's introduced and used in the workplace. So I think an effective policy would not only describe what platforms and technologies are being governed here, but what type of information should and shouldn't be used with these platforms," said Peter.

Highlights of the conversation include:

• The risks — and rewards — generative AI creates for employers and employees alike.
• How generative AI adds to existing employee fears of being replaced.
• Why companies should create policies on generative AI use now, not later.
• Why we need a debate on the use of AI in HR.
• On where we are and where we need to be with AI regulation.

Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with Peter about the importance of transparency around AI use in the workplace, the different effects of internal vs. external use, and whether or not he is indeed Peter Rahbar. Listen in for more.

When we hear the word "erosion" we tend to think of nature: water erosion, soil erosion, wind erosion. But much like the natural elements, daily stressors can wear us humans down too.  

In this episode of Get Reworked, Karen Dillon and Rob Cross, co-authors of the book, "The Microstress Effect: How Little Things Pile Up and Create Big Problems — and What to Do about It," discuss how the incremental stresses we absorb every day are impacting our performance at work, our relationships and our lives.  

"It just means that none of us are able to be our best selves. And we accept that we don't even think there's an alternative. That's what Rob's talking about with those interviews. The high-performers were successful from the outside perspective, but a lot of them were hanging on by a thread internally, and that cannot be the best performance," said Karen.

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How we're all having our frog in the boiling water moment
• The three categories of microstresses
• How our workplace habits are adding to microstress
• What managers can do to minimize microstress for themselves and their teams
• What we can all do to reduce the impact of microstresses in our lives.

Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with Rob and Karen about how our networks are part of the solution and how sometimes you just have to rise above. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

What makes a company irresistible?

That's the question behind Josh Bersin's most recent book, "Irresistible: The 7 Secrets to the World's Most Enduring, Employee Focused Organizations." And what it comes down to is a focus on their employees.

At a time when some companies are rolling back recent improvements to the employee experience, Bersin joins Get Reworked to explain why an investment in employee experience is an investment in the long-term health and success of an organization.

"In reality, investors can sell their stock, they're not that committed to the company, they can leave. Customers can leave too, customers will give you all sorts of input, but they can just buy another product. Employees are deeply committed to your company, because they voted with their lives and their families to work for you. And when they have problems and they speak up, you need to listen to them first, not last, and don't sacrifice the employees on behalf of the customers.

"And that's what the EX thing is all about. It's creating a real focus on what can we do to take this workforce we have and make it really better for them, for our customers, for our product, for our operations, and so forth."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• What separates employee-centric organizations from others.
• The qualities that define an irresistible organization.
• Why constant learning in part defines successful organizations.
• How leaders need to change from controllers to coaches.
• Why team-centric work sets thriving companies apart.

Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with Josh about a memorable performance review, why becoming an irresistible organization is challenging for leaders and employees alike, and why the long-term success of a company rests on its ability to unleash human potential. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

Compassion isn't typically a focus of board-room discussions, but maybe it should be. 

In this episode of Get Reworked, Dr. James Doty, neurosurgeon, author, founder of the Center of Compassion and Altruism Research at Stanford University and founder of Happi.ai joins me to discuss the research behind the creation of his mental health avatar and why companies should learn the science behind why compassion in the workplace pays off for everyone.

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"The reality is that there are many corporations which are functioning on an old paradigm, which is motivation through fear. And when that is the paradigm, it leads to several negative aspects. One is it decreases productivity, it decreases creativity, it increases healthcare costs, and it has a negative effect or increases, if you will, human resource costs. So if the corporate entity in and of itself is not a compassionate place, that will dramatically increase problems related to mental health issues," said Jim. 

• Why an identified need for self-compassion in part drove the creation of Happi.ai, a mental health avatar.
• The scientific and financial argument for why compassion matters in the workplace.
• How technology can both help and harm our efforts to build connections in the world and the workplace.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@reworked.co.

Between 10% and 20% of the world's population is considered neurodivergent, according to Deloitte. Yet companies still default to one-size-fits-all approaches to management, which rarely suits anyone.

In this episode of Get Reworked, John Abel, technical director, office of the CTO at Google Cloud discusses what businesses can do to support and help neurodivergent employees flourish — from reducing friction via technology, to increasing leader's listening skills, to asking the right questions, to communicating in multiple ways to reach all employees. 

"Someone said to me the other day, how do I know if I'm doing diversity well as a leader? And I said, the only way I can tell you is from my personal experience. You should feel exhausted. And what I mean by that is, we all are struggling with obtaining the next generation of talent. And for me, the talent starts much younger, well before career. And actually, you've got to make them excited about your industry or your business, before they're well into the employment process. Because inherently, if you don't, you're going to get one type of employee," said John.

Highlights of the conversation include:

• What being a flexible leader means.
• How technology advances have improved daily work for many.  
• How leaders can help employees learn through listening and self discovery.
• Why simplifying things, not adding complexity, is the trick to getting things done.
• How employees can help their managers manage them.

Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with John about how to help everyone use their full skillset, the connection between neurodiversity and creativity, and why fail fast is an inadequate term. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

Although employee experience is a relatively new term, the concept behind it isn't: support your employees to do their best work and they will support your business in turn.

In this episode of Get Reworked, World Wide Technology's executive vice president of global human resources, Ann Marr shares lessons learned delivering award-winning employee experiences over her 25-year career with the company. Ann was the recipient of Reworked's 2022 Employee Experience of the Year award.

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"I've been such an advocate of parents who work to make sure that there's a balance there. And that pendulum can swing, maybe, you know, if you're working on a really important project, you maybe have to spend a lot more time at the office. But on the same pendulum, maybe you have a sick kid, or maybe you have a kid who's in a sporting event and you want to see them compete in a sporting event, you have to balance that," said Ann.

Highlights of the conversation include:

• What it takes to create a consistent employee experience across 15 locations around the world.
• How WWT approaches onboarding.
• Where career development fits in WWT's employee experience.
• What to do to ensure employees remain engaged.
• How supporting employees who are caregivers pays off for everyone in the long run.

Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with Ann about how employees can gauge if an employer is a good fit for them, where supplier diversity fits into the company's EX strategy and how she feels on her 25th anniversary at the company. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

Back to office advocates have used corporate culture as an argument for why employees need to return to a central location. But corporate culture isn't defined by a physical place. Ideally, it's a combination of behaviors, practices and processes.

In this episode of Get Reworked, Udemy chief learning officer Melissa Daimler discusses what an intentional approach to building culture looks like and why it benefits organizations — and employees — in the long-run. 

"So many people that I have talked to throughout my career have said, 'Why are you getting in the way of culture just happening organically?' And my response to that is, it is happening already, whether by design or default, so we might as well design it, and be more explicit about things that we want to see and things that we don't want to have be part of our culture," said Melissa.

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How to define culture.
• The strong relationship between learning and development and culture.
• Why businesses need to reassess culture on an ongoing basis.
• What it takes to turn a toxic culture around.
• How to make culture work in the hybrid workplace.

Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with Melissa about Twitter now vs. Twitter 10 years ago, what employees can do to help shape culture and why vibes alone aren't enough to create a corporate culture. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

At a time when the number of available workplace tools is exploding, how can a company meet employee demands for technology while not overwhelming them with choice?

In this episode of Get Reworked, Tope Sadiku, global head of digital employee experience at The Kraft Heinz Company discusses how she takes a human-centric approach to delivering personalized digital experiences to the multinational food company's employees. 

"Really, for me, it's less of a tools focus .... I don't want to have a conversation really, when I'm trying to scope something out, about tools and capabilities so specifically, where someone's saying, 'OK, I like the visual of this. I'm used to this, I've used this in a previous team, a previous company.' It's less about that. It's more about, what are we actually trying to achieve? And then we can say, OK, what's the best way to achieve that goal?" said Tope.

Highlights of the conversation include:

• What a delightful digital employee experience looks like.
• Striking the balance between offering employees technology options and decision fatigue. 
• How Kraft Heinz ties ESG into the digital employee experience.
• How regular tool audits fit into tool acquisition discussions.
• How Tope moved from a career in finance to leading digital employee experience.

Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with Tope about how to reduce friction in workplace technology, how pizza toppings relate to digital personalization and whether hot dog flavored popsicles are a good or bad idea. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

How can a company communicate with employees who are distributed across multiple locations, roles and time zones? More importantly, how can companies ensure these communications are two-way and not a top down broadcast?

In this episode of Get Reworked, Maren Waggoner, VP of People, End-to-End Operations, U.S. at Walmart gives us an inside look at how the company communicates with — and hears from — the 1.2 million associates working in U.S. operations. 

"Part of listening isn't just what might not be working, we definitely want to have an eye to that and an ear to it. But also, we want to have an ear to what are the great ideas that our associates are seeing every day in their day-to-day work. And we have an application, or a kind of a channel, that we've established called me@ideas at Walmart. And so any associate at any time can go into this channel and submit an idea of maybe something we should consider doing or a better way of doing things," said Maren.

Highlights of the conversation include:

• What the company means by tech-enabled, people-led.
• How employee listening scales from the local to the corporate level.
• How Walmart uses tools like natural language processing to establish employee sentiment.

Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with Maren about creating feedback loops for employee suggestions, how the company balances technology and in-person channels for communications and where she plans to focus her efforts in the year ahead. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

Please note: The conversation was recorded before the mass shooting at a Walmart store in Chesapeake, Va. in November, so the events of that day do not come up in the discussion.

Our workplaces hit a milestone in recent years: it was the first time on record that five generations shared the workplace. While there's been no shortage of articles on the needs and desires of individual generations, not much has been paid to the benefits the mix of generations produces — both for individuals and organizations. 

In this episode of Get Reworked, Ramsey Alwin, president and CEO of the National Council on Aging, shares how age diversity in the workplace benefits everyone and what we lose when ageism goes unchecked. 

Highlights of the conversation include:

• The benefits of having multiple generations in the workplace. 
• What we can learn from New Zealand and Iceland about building age-inclusive workforces.
• How HR leaders can best promote age diversity in hiring and retention.
• The outsized impact layoffs has on older workers.
• How we should rethink careers as longevity increases.

Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with Ramsey about the differences in advocating for change at the government level rather than the organizational level, what retirement means if we live till 150 and AARP marketing practices. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

Diversity efforts typically fall under HR's remit, and for good reason. But talking about people and culture will only take a company so far. To move the needle on DEI efforts, organizations need to follow the money.

In this episode of Get Reworked, Eloiza Domingo, Allstate's VP, Chief Inclusive Diversity & Equity Officer, Human Resources explains how the American insurance mainstay incorporates diversity into every facet of the organization. And it all starts with how it spends its money. 

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"So I would encourage companies as they think about their diversity efforts, not to just look at the people and culture — that certainly is one thing. But where are you actually putting your money? Where are you investing your money?" said Eloiza. "How are you supporting, again, systemic bias and racism in the United States and kind of helping to reverse that in some way, by the way that you're investing and spending your money."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How DEI has changed over the last 20 years.
• How companies can hold themselves accountable to DEI goals.
• What a "diversity identity" means.
• How companies can navigate a complicated political landscape.
• How Allstate uses data to ensure its accountability.

Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with Eloiza about the part employee resource groups play in the company and why Allstate rebranded them. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

What causes burnout? So often, conversations around burnout center on the effect — the burnout itself — rather than the cause. It is only when the conversation focuses on the chronic job stressors at the root of burnout, can organizations begin to tackle the problem. 

Because at its root, burnout is an indication of a misalignment between people and their jobs. By identifying where these misalignments occur, organizations can make adjustments which improve employees' relationships with their jobs.

In this episode of Get Reworked, Christina Maslach, pioneer of research on workplace burnout, creator of the Maslach Burnout Inventory standard assessment tool and author of "The Burnout Challenge," shares the key factors that influence whether we have positive or negative relationships with our jobs. Christina has studied the relationships people have with their work and what organizations can do to improve those relationships for over four decades.

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"If we're going to do anything about why burnout occurs, as opposed to focusing on who is getting it, we need to focus on what's causing it, we need to prevent the impact of those stressors, reduce them, or have them be better managed, so that they don't occur as often all of these kinds of things," said Christina.

Highlights of the conversation include:

• Why burnout and stress aren't synonymous.
• Why vacations and self-care are only short-term solutions.
• How burnout is more than an individual issue.
• The importance of networks and community in alleviating burnout.
• The six areas where organizations can focus to improve alignment between people and their jobs.

Plus, host Siobhan Fagan talks with Christina about hustle culture, the upsides and the downsides of a daily commute and chardonnay burnout. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

The ongoing debate between return to office or work from home misses the point. The question isn't where we work, but how.

Over the last two and a half years white collar workers have taken part in a grand experiment which upended many of the long-held norms of the workday. Business leaders now have the choice of what to do next: embrace this new way of work or try to return to how things were in 2019.   

In this kickoff episode to Season 3, Sheela Submramanian, co-founder of Future Forum and VP at Slack, and co-author of "How The Future Works: Leading Flexible Teams to Do the Best Work of Their Lives" shares why leaders need to move past the debate around physical location of work to embrace a much more flexible approach to how work gets done.

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"It's really critical for leaders to think about flexibility when it comes to choice in both where and when people work, rather than setting mandates in terms of the number of days they need to come back into the office," Subramanian said. "There's an opportunity for us to shift the conversation from power to trust, because power reflects the command and control model that we had for so long."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• The dangers of confusing presenteeism for performance.
• The outdated ideas around professionalism we've shed in the last few years (and the ones we still should lose).
• Why working from home increased a sense of belonging in employees of color.  
• Why the future of work comes down to two things: flexibility and trust.
• What leaders' top concern today should be.

Plus, we talk with Sheela about why we should all be in touch with our inner two-year-olds, why we need alternate career paths outside of management and where to find the best bagel in Oakland. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@reworked.co.

How do you stay positive in the middle of a tragedy?

It's a question that became all too real for our next guest, who found himself at the scene of the mass shooting at an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Ill. that left seven people dead and scores wounded.

In this episode of Get Reworked, Howard Prager, executive coach and author of "Make Someone's Day" shares how times of trouble are exactly when we need to focus on the needs of others and tells us what exactly we can do at work to make each others' lives better.

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"Negativity just breeds more negativity both within us and with others," Howard said. "I believe that when we can make others feel better, I know that we too feel better because of our mirror neurons creating what I call the boomerang effect."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How to stay upbeat amidst tragedy and bad news.
• Why we need more kindness in the workplace.
• How to practice gratitude and recognition at work.
• How leaders can make time to make others' days.
• The role of recognition in hybrid and remote work.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Howard about bringing your whole self to work, if nice people do indeed finish last and why the tuba is the most underrated musical instrument. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

100,000 employees, 15 intranets and who knows how many individual department SharePoint sites.

That’s the challenge that Chris Harrer and his team at Comcast faced when tasked with bringing this fragmented digital ecosystem together into a seamless digital employee experience with the relaunch of the company’s intranet, ComcastNow. 

In this episode of Get Reworked, Chris, former AVP of digital internal communications at Comcast and IMPACT award winner gives us an inside look into how he and his team untangled the fragmented digital ecosystem that was ComcastNow, the company's intranet, to deliver an unified digital employee experience.

"We did a lot of research. We did surveys, obviously, and we did many individual stakeholder sessions. I think we did 36 stakeholder sessions, and that went from everywhere from literally the CIO, the CHRO, all the way down to department heads. We did end users in general, all the way from the frontline all the way up. Everyone's a user in the end," said Chris. 

• The unexpected challenges that came up during the project.
• The response to the relaunched ComcastNow.
• What Chris wishes he knew when he started that he knew when he ended.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@reworked.co.

The word friction typically carries negative connotations, seen as an abrasive or discordant force. Yet the right kind of friction can also inspire feelings of belonging, engagement and meaning.

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Soon Yu, author and international speaker, about how introducing good friction in your workplace can inspire employees to do more, give them a greater sense of purpose and inspire them to experiment.

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"Good friction in the work environment is actually asking more of your employees. And part of what you're asking more of them is to co-create the culture, to have ownership and the ability to influence what happens," said Soon. "And it's not just a top-down situation where the senior leader has a vision and states the values and everybody just follows that, you're actually asking for this idea of feedback, loop engagement and collaboration at all different levels."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• The difference between good and bad friction.
• Why asking employees for more effort can build a sense of ownership.
• Why employees should identify if their workplaces support autonomy, mastery and purpose. 
• How hybrid workforces can introduce good friction.
• Why thriving brands introduce good friction to promote loyalty, belonging and more.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Soon about boxed cake mixes, the seven virtues of good friction, and why Soon thinks working retail is harder than any white-collar job. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

Mention LEGO and most people will immediately picture building and playing with the company's famous multicolored bricks. But there's another whole level of design that goes into building an office where employees can't wait to come to work.

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Tim Ahrensbach, head of workplace experience at The LEGO Group, about how the Danish company completely redesigned the corporate office to be a place that is more than just a place to get work done. It's about encouraging play and building the connections that bring people together.

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"We've done that in a really exciting way that makes our colleagues, when they come into LEGO campus, realize there's a reason why I've gone into the office today," Tim said. "I'm not just doing it out of habit or because there's this policy."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• Lessons learned from the April opening of Lego's new 600,000 square-foot campus.
• What workplace experience looks like at LEGO.
• LEGO's outlook on the hybrid workplace.
• What employers can learn from the hotel and hospitality industry.
• What makes an office worth coming to.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Tim about go-to karaoke songs, what makes co-working spaces good, and Tim's all-time favorite LEGO set. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

Human resources has come a long way since its days as the personnel department. Yet tensions remain between organizations that view HR as a strategic partner and those that still see HR people as paper pushers and party planners.

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Dr. Marie Harper, Dean, Dr. Wallace E. Boston School of Business, American Public University System. Marie's professional path started in a personnel department, but hasn't stopped evolving since then. She believes HR professionals who don't view themselves as change agents will "be destroyed."

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"Every time there's a problem, you can't say, we will train people," said Marie. "Rather, you should look at what is going on in the system, do I need to change employees do I need to change policies, procedures, the systems that we use, and that's how you make change in the organization. I truly believe in that, you have to look at the big picture before you try to assist and help individuals."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How Human Resources moved beyond administrative work.
• The risk of burnout among HR professionals and why some organizations still aren't addressing it.
• Why people should think in terms of personal growth and not careers.
• What gives Marie hope about the next generation of HR leaders.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Marie about important skills for HR professionals, why she hates the word 'career,' how a Philadelphia mayor's election loss spurred her into HR and Mickey Mouse as a potential cure for burnout. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

In any ecosystem, it's the balance that is important. Too much of one thing can lead to negative consequences for the whole. It's a concept that carries through to the digital workplace.

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Aaron Kim, senior director and head, digital workplace solutions, at Toronto-based Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). When it comes to the tools for a digital workplace, it's important to not get too comfortable with the status quo. A healthy workplace ecosystem depends on balancing the familiar with innovation and experimentation.

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"When things change, people tend to long for what they lost or they miss the old days," Aaron said. "By doing that, they fail to see the new opportunities in front of them. There's a whole new world that probably has more opportunities than the previous one had."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How a biology student transformed into a digital workplace executive.
• Thinking about the organization as a multiverse with multiple realities.
• How to focus on the big picture while ensuring local teams have the tools they need.
• Balancing competing priorities and navigating workplace conflicts.
• How to use enterprise search to surface content relevant to employees.
• The enduring legacy of Web 2.0 in today's enterprises.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Aaron about Web3 hype, Elon Musk's bid to takeover Twitter, hockey vs. soccer, and the enduring appeal of vintage 1960s Batman. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

There's no single recipe when it comes to internal communications. But one thing that's consistent is the importance of employee feedback.  

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Judy Whitcomb, senior vice president of organizational strategy and effectiveness at Vi, a Chicago-based operator of luxury senior living communities across the US. Throughout her career, she's worked in HR, learning and development, marketing and communications. The pandemic and its aftermath put all that experience to the test. 

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"One thing we learned early on was that we had to be thoughtful and we had to be intentional about our communication strategy," Judy said. "And we couldn't share information with residents without sharing things with our employees at the same time, so we understood the necessity of communicating concurrently about what was going on."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How Vi adapted employee communications to the challenges of the last two-plus years.
• The keys to effective internal communications, whether it's in a crisis or normal times.
• The role of HR in employee communications.
• How to ensure that all voices are heard as part of an employee listening program.
• Why the company decided to rollout ViHive, its new internal communications app.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Judy about learning management systems, how useful it is for HR to think like marketing and whether it's better to be an HR generalist or specialist. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

For many companies, remote work was just a stopgap measure to address a temporary disruption to business as usual. For others, it's a way of life. 

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Betsy Bula, all-remote evangelist at GitLab, about how and why her company came to embrace all remote all the time, and what others can learn from their example. GitLab has collected the lessons learned in a publicly available guide to remote work that runs to the thousands of pages. Despite that experience and documentation, it remains a work in progress.

"Even still, this has been a journey," Betsy said. "We're always iterating and making changes. Even for a company that's been long remote like GitLab, it's not a thing that always remains the same."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• Just how successful remote work has been throughout the pandemic.
• Why GitLab decided to go all remote and how they overcame objections.
• How remote work is a constantly evolving set of practices.
• Whether or not a company should hire a head of remote work.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Betsy about North Carolina basketball, the legacy of Duke's Coach K and why hybrid work as an operating model is overrated. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

For many people, talking about pay is one of the most difficult conversations they have at work. One reason is that it's so tightly tied up into their perceptions of their own self worth and value. 

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to David Turetsky, vice president of consulting at Salary.com and host of the HR Data Labs podcast, about pay transparency and why companies should be more open about what workers get paid. More often than not, secrets lead to deals that are ultimately bad for business.

"Bargains are bad," David said. "People shouldn't be offered bargain deals. When recruiters hire people, they should be recruiting them for the job at the pay they're going to pay other people. And there shouldn't be this secretive back-and-forth."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• Why it's so hard to talk about salary in today's workplace.
• How pay transparency can lead to greater pay equity.
• Why opening up with employees about pay won't lead to bad results for business.
• The role of regulation and legislation in making pay more transparent.
• Why basing pay on location is short-sighted in today's market.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with David about universal basic income, the importance of a realistic minimum wage, and what it will take for them to open up about their own salaries. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

A craft circle may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about how to bring a dispersed workforce scattered across the globe together. But it might just be the answer you're seeking for the complex management challenges facing today's organizations.

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Molly Anglin, community manager at Valtech, and the firm's former chief strategy officer, Freek Bijl, about how and why they focused on communities of practice — what they call "craft circles" — to bring people together at the global consulting firm. After a period of rapid acquisition-fueled growth followed by a pandemic-forced move to remote work, craft circles became the way they wove a community out of separate global fabrics.

"It was really important for us to have some kind of flexible system where it prioritized continuous learning support, finding people, sense making, and knowledge management without a really heavy handed kind of top-down approach," Molly said.

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How Valtech created a community-based approach to management and knowledge sharing.

• Why historical approaches to knowledge management and intranet design are too static for the way work is done now.

• How leaders can support community development and sustainment.
• How to get employee buy-in when starting up a community of practice.

• Why a community-based approach to work is right for this moment

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Molly and Freek about whether web3 is overrated or not and bartending as the way to understand human psychology. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

The reason why employees decide to quit is often not very complicated. But that doesn't mean the solutions are easy, particularly as the Great Resignation has legions of workers looking for the door. And with more and more companies heading back into the office, nearly every corporate decision is under a microscope.

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Beverly Kaye, career expert and author of multiple books on employee engagement, talent development and performance management including "Up Is Not the Only Way" and "Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go." Retaining your best people during times like this starts with knowing what employees are feeling, and then taking targeted actions based on that understanding.

"Leaders have to know that people are coming back either burning, churning or yearning," said Beverly. "Burning meaning, 'I can't wait to get back and meet with my colleagues.' Churning meaning 'I'm coming back kind of half-heartedly. I don't know if I really want to.' And yearning, meaning 'Well, maybe now it'll be different."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• Why the issues underlying the Great Resignation aren't new, but the scale is different.
• How to respond in situations where employees have the leverage.
• What managers can do to hold on to their people, and what to do when they can't.
• Why you don't need AI and advanced technology to boost employee retention.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Beverly about the power of stay interviews, what it means to be "loose in the saddle," and whether bonuses and incentives are effective retention tools. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

In many ways, the leaders organizations need today are exactly the ones they're most likely to overlook.

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Jennifer Kahnweiler, leadership expert and author "The Introverted Leader," about the strengths that introverts bring to the workplace and how organizations can tap into them during this particular moment at work. What's needed is a closer look at how we communicate and collaborate at work.

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"We have a world that's structured for extroverts. It's very fast-paced [and] it's not getting any slower," Jennifer said. "So much is geared towards teamwork, which really is not necessarily the strong suit of the introvert all the time. So some of the forces that we have actually in work structures and organizations really don't lend themselves to the sweet spots of the introvert."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• The difference between shyness and introversion.
• Why work structures are biased toward extroverts.
• The strengths introverts bring to the disrupted workplace.
• How to balance introversion and extroversion in teamwork.
• What organizations should do differently as they head back to the office.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak out themselves as introverts, talk with Jennifer about the viability of workplace personality assessments and engage in some introvert-friendly awkward silence. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

Think back to your first day at work. You met your new colleagues, learned about the corporate culture and maybe got some branded company swag. But did you get the tools you needed to actually accomplish your job? 

In this episode of Get Reworked, Spencer Mains, head of digital workplace experience at Pacific Gas & Electric shares how he and his team pushed tech enablement onto the orientation agenda after witnessing how long it took for some of their colleagues to receive their work computer. 

Listen: Get Reworked Full Episode List

"A year ago, we had people coming on board, and it could take an average of five days before you are actually connected to the network with your equipment. And that's a bit of a shame and kind of an embarrassment. It's not right for our ratepayers, it's not right for their colleagues. So we quantified that as lost productivity. We showed the numbers, it was in the millions of dollars of lost productivity, we have people who were actually sitting idle. And we changed that," said Spencer. 

• Why IT needs to be part of orientation.
• Why Spencer uses joy as a key metric.
• Why IT leaders need to practice breakthrough thinking to support their colleagues.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@reworked.co.

The future of the metaverse may be the topic of the day for many tech pundits, but the reality is that it's already here. The virtual reality, that is.

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Derek Belch, CEO of virtual reality firm Strivr, about how VR is being used to train employees right now and what potential it holds for the future. We've entered a new era of VR technology, he said, and the recent buzz around the metaverse is only going to accelerate its use in the enterprise.

"The effect on the human brain is so real," Derek says. "If VR is done well, the brain can't tell the difference between a virtual simulation and real life. So I think that's the difference is we're in that cheaper, lighter, faster era. And this technology that used to be very cumbersome, very expensive, very heavy ... that's all gone."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How an aspiring football coach turned into a VR training entrepreneur.
• When VR training is a good option for companies.
• The difference between VR and augmented reality.
• Why organizations that don't invest in emerging technologies like VR and the metaverse will be left behind.
• How Walmart used VR training to prepare employees for Black Friday and why he's bullish on its use for soft skills.
• What companies need to get started in VR for employee training and development.

Co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak also talk with Derek about his career as a college football player at Stanford, how the end of his coaching career was just the beginning he needed, and why he's both a tech optimist and realist. Plus, Siobhan's got jokes! Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

The current moment is a powerful opportunity to reshape and remake work. But getting it right is both relatively straightforward and fiendishly complex. 

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Alan Pelz-Sharpe, information management expert and founder of advisory firm Deep Analysis about the road ahead. Organizations are poised to make giant leaps forward, he says, with powerful and useful tools to manage information and deliver better customer and employee experiences. But it's going to take a lot more than writing a check.

"If people aren't prepared to make bold moves to get rid of decades of junk, if they're not prepared to be honest about how miserably inefficient some of their processes are and get rid of them, or completely rethink them, then it's limited," Alan said.

Highlights of the conversation include:

• The problem with information management in companies today.
• Why it's long past time to clean out the digital junk in your data closet.
• Why you should approach customer experience and employee experience as one challenge.
• The No. 1 reason most business applications fail.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Alan about the metaverse and web3, his side career as a DJ and what his photography background teaches him about digital transformation. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

Many organizations have been serious about diversity and inclusion work for decades, so why has so little progress been made?

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Cynthia Owyoung, vice president of inclusion, equity and belonging at Robinhood and author of the new book "All Are Welcome: How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion That Delivers Results." Cynthia shares insights and practical advice from her two decades of experience in a wide range of companies. The bottom line: If you're just making it an HR initiative, you're missing the point. 

Listen: Get Reworked Podcast Full Episode List

"When we view this work as primarily an HR initiative or something that only sits within talent, I think we're missing a huge opportunity," Cynthia said. "And we're also not addressing the broader influences and context within your business ecosystem that is actually going to make or break your success in this space." 

Highlights of the conversation include:

• The evolution of diversity and inclusion to incorporate equity and belonging.
• How DEIB work can go beyond HR to be a driver of business and growth.
• How leaders can overcome their discomfort to be an advocate for DEIB work.
• The future of DEIB work in the hybrid world of work.
• Why the Great Resignation is an opportunity to really make a difference in this work.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Cynthia about diversity quotas, algorithmic bias and why businesses should stop hiring for culture fit. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

Could your TV be the answer to the challenges of the Great Resignation? It just might be, in part at least.

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Meredith Sadoulet, vice president of talent, strategy and experience at Comcast, about the story behind the development of Xfinity X1 Career Center, a job search destination launched on the Philadelphia-based company's cable platform in 2021. Meredith led the small entrepreneurial team within Comcast to launch this new consumer-facing job search tool. 

Listen: Get Reworked Podcast Full Episode List

"I can remember in the earliest days having some conversations with folks who said, 'I can't imagine that anyone would ever want to think about something serious like job search when they're watching TV,'" Meredith said. "Yet we had some market research and frankly, we had anecdotes. And we also had a gut feeling that there was an opportunity here based on what we were seeing with employment trends and a need for disruption." 

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How Comcast discovered TV was a search destination for job seekers.
• What the Career Center does and how the company built it.
• How companies like Walmart are using the platform to meet their recruiting and diversity and inclusion goals.
• The effects of the Great Resignation on recruiting and job search.
• Lessons learned from operating as a startup within a larger company.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Meredith about whether 5G is overrated or underrated, the enduring allure of business travel and bicycle racing as a form of relaxation. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

Before COVID pushed many workers into remote work, collaboration consumed as much as 85% of people's work time. In the post-pandemic world it's gone even higher, adding five to eight hours to the average work week.

We're collaborating more, which is a good thing, but we've entered overload territory.

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Rob Cross, professor of global leadership at Babson College and author of "Beyond Collaboration Overload," about what that means and how companies can make sure they're collaborating in the right ways. As companies ponder their return-to-office strategy, understanding internal networks and identifying who your organizational super collaborators are is critically important. 

"They're in my mind the really big flight risks that a lot of the organizations are using the network analytics to understand," Rob said, "because if you force them back what you're doing is not just losing a person, you're losing that network too. And so the impact is quite, quite significant."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How Zoom fatigue is different from collaboration overload.
• How to drive better innovation from collaboration.
• The role of purpose and intention in building effective collaboration.
• How to build high quality relationships in remote and hybrid work.
• Who should take ownership of collaboration inside the organization.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk to Rob about how actor Kevin Bacon is a model for the kind of networked connections we should be aiming for in organizations, and the pluses and minuses of New Year's resolutions. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

Remote and hybrid work is a golden opportunity to make real progress toward diversity and inclusion goals, but only if companies handle it right.

In this episode of Get Reworked, we talk to Joan C. Williams, professor at University of California Hastings School of Law and author of Bias Interrupted: Creating Inclusion for Real and for Good, about that opportunity and the role organizations can play in interrupting bias at work. Here's a tip: Just having a conversation about it isn't enough.

"If you had a problem with sales, you wouldn't respond to it by having a conversation about sales, and then expect anything to change," Joan said. "You would analyze the sales process, figure out what's going wrong, develop metrics to establish baselines and measure progress, and then keep trying evidence-based strategies to achieve your goals. You wouldn't have a sincere conversation about sales and designate National Celebrate Sales Month and expect anything to change."

 Highlights of the conversation include:

• Why diversity, equity and inclusion programs in many organizations fail to solve the challenge of bias.
• The places where bias in organizational systems show up and how that harms women and people of color.
• How to design hiring processes, performance evaluations and succession planning to be more equitable.
• Why change needs to come from the top and the bottom of the organization.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk to Joan about why she has made studying and interrupting bias her life's work and talk about their bi-weekly live conversations with audience members on Twitter Spaces. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

Employee experience has become a primary objective for organizations as they look to retain pandemic-fatigued employees and recruit in-demand talent. But it's easy to get it wrong.

In this episode, Tom Dewaele, global head of employee experience at Unilever, shares how the London-based consumer goods maker creates a unified employee experience for 150,000 workers across 190 countries.

The journey can easily end up with efforts fragmented across functions and multiple competing departmental initiatives. The end result is frustrated employees.

"That's what triggered the thinking of starting to look at it in a different way, in a more end-to-end way and bring those different functions together under one single umbrella called employee experience," said Dewaele.

Dewaele, the winner of Reworked's 2021 Employee Experience Leader of the Year award, shares what others can learn from Unilever's journey over the last few years. Highlights of the conversation include:

• The importance of having a single, unified vision for employee experience across the organization.
• How Unilever started on its employee experience journey.
• What employee experience leaders can learn from customer experience.
• How to balance priorities across regions and departments and still find space for experimentation.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Tom about Belgian fries vs. their French counterpart and urge listeners to get their award applications ready for the coming year. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

Hybrid work is the order of the day for many companies as they ponder their future. But what does hybrid work actually mean and how do you design it to work for both employees and the organization?

In this episode of Get Reworked, Jim Kalbach, chief evangelist at digital whiteboard company MURAL, talks about how the current moment is an inflection point for designing places where people actually want to work.

"I don't think it's a change in work that we've experienced during the pandemic," he said. "It's a change in lifestyle that we've experienced and because of that people kind of got a flavor of a different way of living and working. And I don't think they're ready to give that up."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• Why you have to be intentional about how you design hybrid and remote work.
• How to use small moments within meetings to create a positive culture.
• How user experience and design thinking can be used to create effective hybrid work experiences.
• The 5 P Framework for thinking about hybrid work, and why policy and practice should drive your approach.
• ​Why now is the time to reinvent how you engage with teams and embrace a playful mindset.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk about the oeuvre of Nicolas Cage movies and how the journeyman Hollywood actor just might be the panacea for what ails the digital workplace. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

The past year-plus has been one giant, often unwanted and unanticipated, experiment at work. From emerging collaboration tools and AI-fueled bots to new working models like hybrid and remote work, organizations large and small had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. New ways of thinking and working are a reality from the frontline to the C-suite.

It's also quite obvious that it's still a work in progress. In this kickoff episode to Season 2 of Get Reworked, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak take a look back at some of what's happened and review their own podcast experiment. 

The past year has seen dizzying advancements as well as consistent reminders that it's often the management basics that have the most dramatic effect. Highlights of the conversation include:

• Big workplace themes from the 2021 Digital Workplace Experience series.
• Why the basics are so important in the workplace of the future.
• Favorite episodes from Season 1 of the podcast.

Plus, Siobhan and Mike renew their debate about whether or not raisins in cookies are a good thing. That and more hard-hitting commentary on what's next from the upcoming season of the Get Reworked podcast. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

From established tools like Slack, enterprise giants Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace, and emerging whiteboard tools like Mural, we have more ways to collaborate at work than we've ever had before. But that doesn't mean it's all sorted out.

In this episode of Get Reworked, Angela Ashenden, principal analyst in the workplace transformation practice at CCS Insight, shares why the technology is important but it's the human element that is perhaps the most tricky in the new world of collaboration.

"There is this increasing requirement on managers to learn new skills in order to cope with the changes in the way that teams work today and the way that people work," Angela said. "And as we go into this kind of hybrid work environment, then there's a number of new things that come into that picture as well."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How collaboration is changing inside organizations in response to technology innovation.
• The ways management needs to change its approach to collaboration in hybrid and remote work environments.
• When asynchronous collaboration makes sense and when it makes sense to collaborate in real time.
• The critical importance of workplace agreements and policies that spell out collaboration expectations.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Angela about her skepticism about the rise of mental wellness apps and reflect on their takeaways from the first season of the podcast. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

Conflict is an unfortunate truth in life, society and the workplace. Some might call it a necessary evil. But is it really that bad? Without healthy tension, diversity of thought and spirited debate, we can’t have innovation, growth or change within our organizations. 

Karin Hurt, CEO of Let’s Grow Leaders and author of the book, “Powerful Phrases For Dealing With Workplace Conflict,” joins the podcast to discuss what she’s learned about addressing conflict with care-filled words and building brighter, bolder cultures in the office.

“If you both care about something really passionately, you're gonna have conflict. It's how you manage the conflict, and so care filled words can make all the difference. And that's really why we wrote powerful phrases for dealing with workplace conflict, so that you can have more productive conflict up, down and sideways in your teams.”

Highlights of the conversation include: 

• The four dimensions of productive conflict.
• The role that building human connections plays.
• How hybrid and remote work have reshaped our approaches to conflict.
• What can be done at the organizational level to normalize disagreements between teams and colleagues.

Plus, hosts Siobhan Fagan and Nidhi Madhavan chat with Karin about why traditional approaches to providing feedback (“I” statements, sh*t sandwiches) don’t work, the G.O.A.T phrases to use instead, and overcoming physical barriers in a remote environment.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Send it to editors@reworked.co.

In February 2020, Delta Air Lines was celebrating a record year for travel and looking forward to a 2020 that would potentially surpass even that. Thirty days later, nearly all of that business was gone.

In this episode of Get Reworked, Brandon Carson talks about the experience of living through that moment and how it's opened up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redefine work. Until recently, Brandon was head of learning at Delta, one of the world's largest airlines, and recently took on a new role as vice president of learning and leadership at Walmart. He's also the author of a new book, "L&D's Playbook in the Digital Age." It's that learning and development focus that has him feeling more hopeful, not less so, about the future.  

Listen: Get Reworked Podcast Full Episode List

"We've got all these opportunities to connect to each other and learn from each other," Brandon said. "So it's an opportunity that is unlike anything we've had in the past."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• What he learned about leadership and learning through lockdown.
• How companies can reset and rebuild their leadership bench for future success.
• What exactly is different about how companies approach employee development in the digital age.
• Why a learning strategy needs to be the business strategy.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk with Brandon about AI, digital natives, 70-20-10 and the enduring magic of Whitney Houston. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

Corporate social responsibility gets thrown around a lot in business today. Organizations regularly tout the steps they take to make the world a better place and how they're endeavoring to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

How much of that is real? In this episode of Get Reworked, Malia Lazu breaks it down for us. She's a diversity and inclusion strategist, founder of consulting firm The Lazu Group, lecturer on innovation at MIT, and a former banker and community organizer. Suffice it to say, she sees the issue from many perspectives.

"Right now, I think a lot of what we're seeing is performative," Malia said. "And you know, that's great. Performative is a start, but it's not going to be enough to actually have an impact. We have to move from intention to impact. And once we start doing that, I think we can all take off our skepticism hat a little bit. But right now, there's no reason to."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How to know when a company is serious about making a real impact.
• Why equity is the workplace standard that companies should measure themselves against.
• Why CSR and diversity and inclusion work takes practice.
• The Three L Process (listen, learn and loving action) for how to make a difference.
• The power of employee resource groups and how to ensure women don't continue to bear the brunt of the remote work downside.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk about why corporate social responsibility is top of mind for businesses today. Listen in for more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at editors@simplermedia.com.

The shift to remote and hybrid work is just the tip of the transformation iceberg. To make the most of the massive investment in digital workplace technology over the last year-plus, we need to think much more deeply about digital transformation.

In this episode of Get Reworked, Anh Nguyen Phillips, global CEO program research director at Deloitte Consulting and co-author of "The Transformation Myth: Leading Your Organization through Uncertain Times," tells us why people are the linchpin in successful digital transformation. 

"They have the creativity, the ingenuity, the passion," Anh said, "and all of that feeds in to creating the most impactful, innovative, life-changing kinds of technologies that we have, and that we will have going into the future. But we can't tap into that creativity and that innovation without focusing on the human element."

Highlights of the conversation include:

• Why we need to focus on enterprise transformation, not just digital transformation.
• Why having a higher purpose is essential to making the most of digital technology.
• How digitally mature companies approach leadership and organizational culture differently.
• The five traits of organizations that get transformation right.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk about their own underwhelming pandemic lockdown-inspired achievements. Listen in for more.

There is no status quo when it comes to skills. New technologies, new realities and new challenges are arriving at a rapid-fire pace, leaving many previously skilled and experienced people on the outside looking in. That's why many organizations are embracing the need to reskill and upskill their workforce. But what exactly does that mean?

Shelley Osborne, corporate learning executive and author of "The Upskilling Imperative," explains and tells us why the ability to learn is the essential skill every organization and every individual needs to succeed. Interestingly, it's not about a specific skill. Rather, it's about creating an environment where learning can happen. 

"When we do it well, and when we create these incredible learning cultures, and set people up to be growing and developing and upskilling, we make the best organizations — the most innovative, creative, interesting, amazing places to work," Shelley said.

Highlights of the conversation include:

• How upskilling is different from reskilling.
• Why a learning mindset is the key to the future of work.
• The core tenets of a successful learning culture.
• How to avoid letting the mistakes of the past define how companies deliver learning in the future.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak share what teachers influenced them the most and come up with a new business idea.