A coach, facilitator, speaker, consultant, author, and the founder of Create WorkJoy, Beth Stallwood has an impressive track record of enabling people to achieve their career and life goals. She's spent 20 years developing her signature practical, passionate approach, and excels at getting to the heart of what's actually going on. Her clients range from global corporations to tech scale-ups, sports governing bodies, charities, and higher education institutions.  

Beth's "WorkJoy: A Toolkit for a Better Working Life", highly commended by the Business Book Awards 2024, is a practical and immediately actionable blueprint empowering readers to take ownership of their working lives and unlock the joy in work again. It is the ultimate guide to help individuals craft their personal WorkJoy, as it is different for everyone.

Social media links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/beth-stallwood-415a0928

https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-workjoy

https://www.instagram.com/createworkjoy/?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/createworkjoy/

Brigid Schulte is the author of the bestselling Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time and an award-winning journalist formerly for the Washington Post, where she was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize. She is also the director of the Better Life Lab, the work-family justice and gender equity program at New America. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with her husband and two children.

Over Work Talking Points:

●      Redesigning Work to have Time for Quality of life. How to more deliberately prioritize quality of life in our hectic day to day lives, focusing on meaningful work, caring for and connecting with others, and time to rest and play?

That's why it's so critical we create smart and effective work cultures. Drawing from the change agents featured in the book, Brigid can show that, while they use different methods to redesign work for more quality of life, there are key strategies that are universal. The first is articulating a vision of a different future and believing it's possible. The second is recognizing that change happens in a variety of ways, and that individuals, organizations, and policymakers all play a role. (With key takeaways for each)

●      Defining what "Good Work" is - a combination of meaning, fairness, and cooperation - and why it's better for everyone – including businesses and the economy.

The U.S., the richest country in the world, ranks 5th among advanced economies in the share of low-wage workers in the workforce – 44 percent. Americans are working harder and harder and feeling like they're falling farther and farther behind. And far from the lazy worker trope, 70 percent of those who receive Medicaid or SNAP benefits work full time. How we can make all jobs good jobs. How one venture capitalist will only invest in companies that provide good jobs. And why, beyond human wellbeing, our economy – and our democracy -  depend on it.

●      Why Americans work such long hours, what it's costing us and how we can change. Are short work hours the answer?

Knowledge workers work around the clock - even on vacation - in one job and low-wage and hourly workers are taking on multiple jobs and side hustles to survive. U.S. laws and policies that make it hard for workers to organize and demand better reinforce the overwork culture. Surveys show Americans choose more work and money over time off, and that we'd work even if we didn't have to.  Brigid can share what she's learned from reporting on efforts to change Japan's work-til-you-die or "karoshi" culture, and how Iceland improved both gender equality and wellbeing - and productivity - with shorter work hours. (Hint: long hours don't make work more productive, time off does.)

●      How addressing 10 psychosocial stressors at work - like long work hours, work-life conflict, and toxic work cultures - will make work and life better for employees and employers alike. Work stress is the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S. and something we all need to be taking more seriously.

Brigid can talk about how short work hours movements are operational excellence missions in disguise and can boost productivity as well as wellbeing and gender equality., and how organizations and the entire country of Iceland have transformed as a result of working shorter, smarter hours.

●      Real Wellbeing at Work, and why it matters. Why workplace wellness programs that focus on the individual as both the problem and the solution aren't working, and why the solution to the burnout epidemic isn't lunchtime yoga or a meditation app, but managers and organizations rethinking the way we work and acknowledging that those "right sizing" layoffs are part of the problem.

Real wellbeing is about systems-level solutions like reasonable workloads, having more choice, control, and autonomy over time, and being rewarded fairly for one's efforts. Brigid can talk about the lessons learned from the pandemic and, beyond the Return to Office fights, can share the strategies that successful organizations are using to remake work so that workers are happier and healthier and work itself is better.

●      Why we need to make room for care at work.

More than 70 percent of the workforce has care responsibilities. Yet caregiving falls most heavily on women, who spend anywhere from 2 to 10 times more time than men on the unpaid work of care and home. More than 2 million women were forced out of the workforce because of care duties during the pandemic. The numbers have been rebounding largely because of the widespread adoption of flexible work and a better understanding of how care is work. There's still a long way to go, but the changes we're making now are making work and life better for everyone - including businesses.

●      What would it take to create lives of work-life enrichment, rather than work-life conflict, and changing our focus from time scarcity to time serenity?

Brigid can share stories of how work is changing in Scotland and other countries seeking to create "Wellbeing Economies" and measure their success by how happy and healthy their people are at work and in their lives.

●      What does the future of all work look like?

In a rapidly changing future of work, when AI, automation and technology will destroy jobs, create others and where there may not be enough work to go around, how will humans survive – and find meaning? Three possible futures, and why it's critical to redefine what work itself is, and how it shapes our identities. (The key is tying it to the common good and how we make the world a better place – which was the point of the Protestant Work Ethic from the outset.)

Social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brigid.schulte

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brigidschulte

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brigidschulte

Roberta Matuson, The Talent Maximizer®

Matuson Consulting

LinkedIn Top Voice in Workplace and Leadership

For more than 25 years, Roberta Matuson, president of Matuson Consulting, has helped leaders in highly regarded companies, including General Motors, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and Microsoft, and small to medium-size businesses, achieve dramatic growth and market leadership through the maximization of talent. She's the author of seven books including, the newly released, third edition of Suddenly In Charge: Managing Up, Managing Down, Succeeding All Around, a Washington Post Top 5 Business Book For Leaders, Can We Talk? Seven Principles for Managing Difficult Conversations at Work, and Evergreen Talent: How to Seed, Cultivate, and Grow a Sustainable Workforce.

Literally two books in one, Suddenly in Charge provides all of the tools necessary to be successful at managing up and down the line of any organization. With a foreword by Alan Weiss, bestselling author of Million Dollar Consulting, this handy little book is a must-have resource to help the new manager truly shine from day one.

Social Media:

·      LinkedIn

·      Facebook

·      X

Jessica Calarco is a sociologist and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an award-winning teacher, a leading expert on inequalities in family life and education, and the author of Holding it Together: How Women Became America's Social Safety Net (Portfolio/Penguin, June 2024). Jessica has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and CNN. She also blogs at ParenthoodPhD and is a mom of two young kids.

Book synopsis:

Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women. Holding It Together chronicles the causes and dire consequences. America runs on women—women who are tasked with holding society together at the seams and fixing it when things fall apart. In this tour de force, acclaimed Sociologist Jessica Calarco lays bare the devastating consequences of our status quo.

Holding It Together draws on five years of research in which Calarco surveyed over 4000 parents and conducted more than 400 hours of interviews with women who bear the brunt of our broken system. A widowed single mother struggles to patch together meager public benefits while working three jobs; an aunt is pushed into caring for her niece and nephew at age fifteen once their family is shattered by the opioid epidemic; a daughter becomes the backstop caregiver for her mother, her husband, and her child because of the perceived flexibility of her job; a well-to-do couple grapples with the moral dilemma of leaning on overworked, underpaid childcare providers to achieve their egalitarian ideals. Stories of grief and guilt abound. Yet, they are more than individual tragedies.

Tracing present-day policies back to their roots, Calarco reveals a systematic agreement to dismantle our country's social safety net and persuade citizens to accept precarity while women bear the brunt. She leads us to see women's labor as the reason we've gone so long without the support systems that our peer nations take for granted, and how women's work maintains the illusion that we don't need a net.

Weaving eye-opening original research with revelatory sociological narrative, Holding It Together is a bold call to demand the institutional change that each of us deserves, and a warning about the perils of living without it.

Questions/topics of discussion:

·       What is a "DIY society" and how does it differ from a society with a safety net?

·       How does women's labor maintain the illusion that we don't need a social safety net?

·       Why shouldn't we celebrate the fact that mothers are back at work in a post-pandemic world?

·       Why won't advising women to make traditional "good choices," like obtaining a college degree, securing a job with a high salary, or working in STEM, help solve the gender pay gap?

·       How does denying women access to paid leave, and affordable, reliable childcare force them to stand in for a safety net?

·       How do women keep the economy from crumbling?

·       How would businesses benefit from universal paid family leave and universal childcare?

·       What would a robust safety net actually look like?

Social media:

·       Twitter: https://twitter.com/JessicaCalarco

·       Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jesscalarco/

·       Threads: https://www.threads.net/@jesscalarco

·       LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-calarco-93085928/

Website: https://www.jessicacalarco.com/

Website: www.haileymagee.com

Hailey Magee is a certified life coach who helps people around the world stop people pleasing and find their power. Her refreshingly nuanced perspectives on boundary-setting and self-advocacy have captured the attention of millions on social media, and her public talks and virtual workshops have welcomed tens of thousands of participants. Certified by Erickson Coaching International, Hailey is dedicated to offering clear, research-supported strategies for change, helping recovering people pleasers rediscover not only their power and agency, but their pleasure, joy, and sense of wonder. She lives in Seattle, Washington.

Book: Stop People Pleasing and Find Your Power

A viral life coach offers a practical, empathetic, and inspiring guide to breaking people-pleasing patterns that can harm our careers, relationships, physical, and psychic health.

For most of Hailey Magee's life, people-pleasing came so naturally to her that she didn't even have a word for it. When somebody wanted something from her—even a stranger—she gave it, no matter how uncomfortable, exhausted, or resentful she felt inside. People-pleasing, she learned, was a coping mechanism that had kept her physically and emotionally safe in the past, but wreaked havoc on her life in the present—and she was committed to breaking the pattern once and for all.

The solution that social media and self-help shelves gave her was to "Advocate for yourself! Speak up! Set boundaries!" But after years of ignoring her feelings and needs, Magee needed more than boundaries; she needed to reconnect with the "self" who was supposed to be doing the advocating. You can't express yourself if you're cut off from your feelings. You can't fight for your needs if you don't know what they are. And you can't set boundaries with others until you believe you're worthy of more than the bare minimum. Radically reconnecting with herself gave Magee the confidence and self-respect she needed to stand up for herself in her relationships. As she experienced a freedom she never thought possible, she became a certified life coach with the mission of helping others do the same.

Stop People Pleasing explains how anyone can break the pattern by learning their own feelings, needs, values, and desires; ending cycles of enmeshment and codependency; overcoming guilt; developing physical and sexual agency; and more. It is a refreshingly nuanced guide, exploring fundamental questions like:

·      How can I tell when my genuine kindness veers into people-pleasing?

·      How can I set boundaries while maintaining my empathy and generosity?

·      When is it appropriate to compromise on my needs, and when is it not?

Combining social science, psychology, and hands-on coaching exercises, Stop People Pleasing teaches you how to connect with your own feelings, needs, and dreams; courageously advocate for yourself in your relationships with friends, family, and colleagues; soothe yourself through the growing pains of healing; and dive headfirst into pleasure and play. With fresh insight, heartfelt empathy, and a keen personal understanding of the pitfalls of people-pleasing, Magee helps you say what you need and get what you deserve.

People-pleasing is a coping mechanism that kept us physically or emotionally safe in the past⁠, but wreaks havoc on our lives in the present. Hailey Magee will teach you how to break the people-pleasing pattern and master the art of self-advocacy.

STOP People Pleasing and Find Your Power shows you how to break the pattern by learning your own feelings, needs, values, and desires; setting empowered boundaries with friends, family, and partners; ending cycles of enmeshment and codependency; overcoming guilt; developing physical and sexual agency; and more.

STOP People Pleasing is a practical, inspiring, and nuanced guide for recovering people-pleasers who are ready to find their voice, speak their truth, and build the vibrant life that they deserve.

Social media:

Instagram - @HaileyPaigeMagee

Link to Instagram videos: https://www.instagram.com/haileypaigemagee/p/C35F50BPIMA/

Cynthia L. Bentzen Mercer, PhD, MBA, BCC, SPHR

Founder / CEO, Bentzen Performance Partners, LLC

Co-Founder / Managing Partner, The Zeal of the Heel, LLC

Strategic Executive, Sociologist, Servant Leader, Speaker, Author, Board Certified Coach

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen Mercer is an elite talent and organizational development strategist, social

psychologist, and author with three decades of experience transforming company culture through her nationally recognized approaches to identifying, unleashing, and actualizing human potential. She is a leading authority on premier workforce cultivation rooted in integrity, passion, service excellence, and diversity. Cynthia's unique ability to inspire professional growth galvanizes a flourishing culture of innovation and discovery. Known as a visionary in organizational design, succession planning, leadership advancement, and executive coaching, she assembles top-tier teams with deep, balanced bench strength.

A stalwart professional, Cynthia's experience traverses domestic and international, public and private, for-profit and not-for-profit, start-up, and aggressive growth companies within the real estate, gaming, hospitality, and healthcare industries. She has been recognized as one of Ingram's 50 Missourians You Should Know, among Becker's 143 Women Leaders of Hospitals and Health Systems to Know, a St. Louis YWCA Leader of Distinction, and one of St. Louis's Most Influential Businesswomen.

Before starting Bentzen Performance Partners, LLC, and The Zeal of the Heel, LLC, Cynthia was executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Mercy, overseeing human resources, government relations, community relations, philanthropy, and other support functions for the ministry. A true catalyst for change, Cynthia launched Mercy's first diversity, equity, and inclusion program and advisory board. With a passion for advancing women's careers in business, she founded Mercy Women in Leadership. Before Mercy, Cynthia served as chief human resources officer for Ameristar Casinos, Inc., a national gaming and hospitality organization; vice president of human resources for The Cheesecake

Factory restaurants; and vice president of international human resources for Oakwood Worldwide.

Book: Now, Near, Next: A Practical Guide for Mid-Career Women to Move from Professional Serendipity to Intentional Advancement 

For some women, mid-career feels like a merry-go-round. You begin your career eager to jump on. You pick the pink pony and hold on tight. You might move to the purple pony during the first stop. Look, Mom, no hands! However, a few years later, you look up and are still belted into the same saddle, on the same ride, following behind a new group of riders, going in circles. You need a bigger amusement park and a more challenging ride! A must-read for all women trying to find or fight their way to what is possible. The methodology outlined in Now, Near, Next debunks the myth that just putting your head down, enjoying the ride and working hard is the best way to realize your fullest potential.

LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
www.zealoftheheel.com

www.nownearnext.net 

https://youtu.be/EUihG4cziQI

Rebecca Ahmed is an award-winning speaker, business consultant, and an Energy Leadership IndexTM Master Practitioner (ELI-MP). She is also a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation (ICF). Rebecca advises companies of all sizes on how to create a motivational workplace culture by transforming the energy and enthusiasm of their teams. Her new book is, The Energy of Success: Power Up Your Productivity, Transform Your Habits, and Maximize Workplace Motivation (Wiley, April 23, 2024). Learn more at energeticimpact.com.

·      https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccaeahmed/

·      https://www.instagram.com/rebeccaeahmed/https://www.tiktok.com/@rebeccaeahmed

Breaking Free of Destructive Energy towards Work

This segment is about how to feel inspired and motivated about work rather than defeated and frustrated.

The Big Idea: Legions of workers consider their work monotonous or meaningless, and are just punching the clock. It's no wonder that organizations are having a hard time attracting and retaining Gen Z workers. The most recent State of the Global Workforce Report found that less than one-quarter of the U.S. workforce is engaged at work. Lack of motivation leads to a loss of productivity and is reported to cost the economy over $8.1 trillion globally. Traditional methods to engage workers clearly aren't working. But a NEW approach that looks at workplace engagement from an energetic perspective will not only enhance current employees at work, but will attract future talent and decrease turnover.

The So-What: Within the spectrum of workers' positive to negative energy levels, the effects are directly associated with constructive and destructive attitudes. Destructive energy derives from stress or having a victim mentality. Constructive energy fuels growth, motivation, and fulfillment. The energy and vigor workers bring to their job directly correlates with their engagement and performance in their role. Whatever the situation, one's connection with work is similar to one's personal relationships — both require energy to keep the relationship exciting and stimulating. Everyone has the ability to employ specific energetic principles that will enable them to take back their power and remake their work into something that inspires and motivates them.

Key Messages: Rebecca Ahmed draws from an extensive career in People Services (HR) to reveal the practical steps that improve energy and transform workplaces. She addresses:

·      How to create energetic shifts that increase your own energy, as well as the energy of those around you

·      How to leverage five energetic success principles to propel you into higher levels of energy

·      How to shift your employees' focus from dwelling on challenges to innovating and communicating solutions

·      How to help your company attract and retain the talent that will catapult you into the future

·      Where to complete an assessment of your own, your team's, or your organization's energy level

The Source: Rebecca Ahmed is an award-winning speaker, a business consultant, and an Energy Leadership IndexTM Master Practitioner (ELI-MP). She is also a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation (ICF). Rebecca advises companies of all sizes on how to create a motivational workplace culture by transforming the energy and enthusiasm of their teams. Her new book is, The Energy of Success: Power Up Your Productivity, Transform Your Habits, and Maximize Workplace Motivation (Wiley, April 23, 2024). Learn more at energeticimpact.com.