As the world transitions out of the pandemic, women executives are entering a changed workplace. Being a great leader in this space means more than just management skills. It's about empathy, compassion and understanding what everyone's up against.
Joya and Kathie offer us six insights into the post-pandemic workplace, from the exponential growth of e-commerce and the increased demand for workers in the healthcare & STEM space. And they discuss how we're no longer beholden to the metro area for work - because more flexible, innovative working models are here to stay.
Joya is currently enrolling members for international (Europe) and domestic (NYC) strategy days. She also leads a year-long intensive mastermind of C-Suite level women, which is accepting applications for 2024.
https://www.joyadass.com/
info@joyadass.com
As the world transitions out of the pandemic, women executives are entering a changed workplace. Being a great leader in this space means more than just management skills. It's about empathy, compassion and understanding what everyone's up against.
Joya and Kathie offer us six insights into the post-pandemic workplace, from the exponential growth of e-commerce and the increased demand for workers in the healthcare & STEM space. And they discuss how we're no longer beholden to the metro area for work - because more flexible, innovative working models are here to stay.
Joya is currently enrolling members for international (Europe) and domestic (NYC) strategy days. She also leads a year-long intensive mastermind of C-Suite level women, which is accepting applications for 2024.
https://www.joyadass.com/
info@joyadass.com
I did. Oh my gosh. I finally figured this out. Oh gosh. I know. I was like, I was on earlier. I was like, just in case I had to figure something out.
Speaker 2:Well, we are live. Believe it or not, this is already hanging out, but it's good to see you. And we are resuming episode five of the drink, like a lady podcast. Have you been Kathy?
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I've been busy and, um, sort of taking on, uh, you know, my own family issues, but I'm so good to, uh, glad to be back. I, I truly miss these weekly calls that we have and what we share with our audience.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Well, in this, th this is now our third season of drink, like lady, and we are talking this season about where are the opportunities now that we are transitioning out of the pandemic and really, truly, what is it that, uh, women leaders need to be mindful of? And I know that you have some of your own experience that you wanted to weigh in before we get into kind of those six things.
Speaker 1:I think the experience really is that, you know, we currently are coming out of a pandemic global crisis in terms of the economy, um, and you know, to be a great leader, it means more than just having the skills of management. It really means the empathy, the compassion it's understanding, you know, what everyone is up against and that's all individualistic. So, um, I think the transition back is so powerful for women, as long as they truly own what they can bring to the table.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And for those of you that are watching, this is a drink, like a lady podcast, where we are talking about how women can get a seat at the bar and get a seat in the boardroom. So today, as we talk about the transition back and where the opportunities lie, number one is that the burnout is real Kathy. There's some statistics around this, and I would love for you to share what they are.
Speaker 1:You know, when I started to work on this with you and we had brainstorming, and then I did some, um, additional research, 75% of us workers are in burnout stage. And that is because everything was up ended last year, immediately. And even our personal life, you know, we were up against a wall. So can you imagine that if you were to bring in your team that 75% are in burnout, and what that means is lack of productivity. It means a lack of mindfulness awareness and the ability to be progressive for your company. In addition, we know that Asian, um, that the Asia Pacific regions are looking at 30% of burnout rate, and we do a lot of business within that region. So, you know, this is a global, I always like to use challenge. It's a problem right now, but it's a challenge for us as leaders to take a good, hard look at it,
Speaker 2:But where the opportunity lies is that women by their very sort of natural, uh, way are compassionate, they know how to demonstrate a level of empathy. They are natural collaborators. So really, truly creating a culture where there's more listening, involved. Yes. Is within the female leadership wheelhouse. And that's where the opportunity lies.
Speaker 1:You know, I, I was, um, visiting my daughter out in Ohio and she had some of her women friends come over and they were talking to me and they were just seeking this type of information. We were talking about mental health. We were talking about for all of us. Not only, she's still trying to have positions within companies, but also how do we not only help ourselves, but how do we help others as, as we move forward.
Speaker 2:And you talked about something called understanding day that was held at Ms. What is that?
Speaker 1:Well, actually it's understanding week. They had a week of understanding for Macy's and of course, the minute she said it, I was like, okay, tell me more, tell me more. And it literally was a series of webinars that went on all week. And, um, what was interesting at the end of it, she said, we were told that basically you could cancel any other meeting because you needed to know it, that to, to know more about the understanding of other individuals, they talked about conscious and unconscious bias, they talked about cultural differences. They talked about managing up, managing down. What does that look like? They also talked about, and we're going to get into this in the future is they talked about, we do not leave ourselves at the door when we come to work. And that is so important for us to understand at the end of my, my, you know, 45 minute conversation with her, I was doing some coaching. Um, as I normally do for any woman that I meet, um, she also said that, you know, for her, she said it was so eye opening, that it is an awareness that that company Macy's, which is one of my Alma maters was so in front of what we need to do.
Speaker 2:So it's really creating space for that listening understanding week was, and this brings us to our next opportunity, which is that anybody that is a people manager is probably going to be front and center moving forward because this person, man, or woman needs to have the skills to be able to manage people, listen to people and make sure that the existing management also is doing that listening.
Speaker 1:So, you know, there was always this sort of tension between hard skills and soft skills. And if you remember that, he will say, oh, well, you know, well, the soft skills don't matter to the bottom line. And I've given at least a half a dozen lectures on this. It absolutely makes a difference. It makes a difference in terms of what the resistance is to change the resistance, which is what we have. We, everything was up heat last year. Um, and then being able to listen, I call it, um, open to listening and being able to, to find out really what's going on behind someone's lack of performance or lack of skills at that point, lots of times, it's not that they don't have it, that they're the vulnerability, which you talked about, let them be vulnerable. Let them trust you to make the right decisions to move forward in a team.
Speaker 2:I think it's also identifying who the people managers are because that's a certain set. I don't know that I necessarily have it. I I'm working on it, but I just think that there are certain people that were born to be people managers. And if you're not, it's identifying those people and hiring them.
Speaker 1:And it's so key. If you, if you work on a team and I've said this to people, I've asked them, what are the best teams you've ever worked on? They go, well, we all work together. We listen to each other, you know, it wasn't about the ego really was about the end objective, the vision of where they were going together. Um, and anyone was willing to step in it's it's very vital.
Speaker 2:So opportunity. Number one is that there's just going to be more of a culture where employees can have a voice and be more vulnerable and honest. Number two, that this is really a day in the sun for people managers, because we need them now more than ever given them that level of burnout and concerns about mental health. Number three is those folks that work in jobs where there's a lot of proximity. Those jobs are about to change very drastically as people are coming back. And the interesting opportunity there is that AI is going to start playing a bigger and bigger part.
Speaker 1:Those companies that actually were in front of it or were open to getting into more of that AI space and saying, how do we actually parallel human beings? So human beings, aren't going away. That's not happening. You know, we still are still key strategic positions that are available, but what's important to understand in this is that the AI is going to drive, drive more efficiencies as well. And one of the things I did want to say, when we talk about physical proximity, I know that individuals now talking to so many indivi individuals who are working or were working from home, they were like, you know what? I'd like to go back, but I want to go back on a limited basis, want to make it back to that whole rat race that we were involved in before.
Speaker 2:And what dovetails nicely out of that is that there are still certain things that need to be done in person like critical business decisions, negotiations, brainstorming, getting sensitive feedback, onboarding new employees. I mean, I'm in front of my membership all week long. And the biggest challenge that a lot of people see as I'm onboarding this new employee, but how do I make them feel like they're part of the culture that I've built when we're not all in the same room and culture comes from being in the same room
Speaker 1:And that's so true. And the first day at work, you know, you take them to lunch and you get to know more about them personally. They say that really, and we know this from zoom calls, you know, there's zoom call fatigue and that's happening too. Uh, individuals are, are actually craving that human, uh, touch that. And I don't mean to touch in terms of those conversations. One-on-one so it's very critical.
Speaker 2:The next is that Amazon has turned the next day delivery into a real thing, but really the opportunity for e-commerce has grown two to five times since pre pandemic levels. And so this shift is, is just creating a whole new ecosystem of jobs that weren't, that maybe were there before, but are really there now.
Speaker 1:Well, they're highlighted and that's the point, the point that, you know, when we say, oh my God, you know, my daughter was telling me that she got wallpaper on Amazon. I'm like wallpaper on Amazon. Okay. That's interesting. You know, I never thought to go to Amazon for wallpaper, with everything else. Um, then when I started looking at Amazon for this, for our session today, you know, there's, they're working in pharmaceuticals, they're now working on those types of deliveries. We can actually depend on Amazon a lot more to have inventory and get it to us as quickly as possible than our local stores anymore. I'm not saying that I don't agree that we, I think local stores are still going to be critical for us. Then they may actually morph into something else, but here is Amazon changed the flavor of how we shop
Speaker 2:And also the fact that it's not cost prohibitive. You know, then when you go to the vitamin shop or if you go to, um, tart, which is, you know, a makeup concealer, I use the shipping is so prohibitive versus going to Amazons. And, and the fact that I know I'll have it the next day and it'll actually get here is, is really morphing. Everybody's expectations of e-commerce. It's going to really impact who you choose to shop with.
Speaker 1:So you get Amazon, you order it, it comes the next day or within two days, right? They tell you when it's delivered, they show you a picture of it. So, you know, it's happened. And then if you go to reorder it, you have the same color or the same product. Well, you have to do is hit by again, right? Well, if these are about doing what, like are, you know, very knee jerk reactions, so you don't have to think about it. So we're able to think about and do additional, uh, activities. How about how long does it take to get to a retailer? You know, getting in the car waste of, you know, wasting gas, I call it wasting gas, but you know, my time is an asset. So I like to make the most of it, I'd rather be reading a book or sitting outside or enjoying a glass of wine
Speaker 2:And China e-commerce delivery and social media jobs grew more than 5.1 million during the first half of 2020. I found that in a McKinsey report, so opportunity number five is demand for workers in the healthcare space and the stem space. And this is supposed to grow more than it has in pre-print pre pandemic levels. Not only as our population is aging, but also because our incomes are rising.
Speaker 1:Well, I think this is really a natural transference of what is now going to be important to us this whole pandemic, the whole COVID 19. I just finished a book called the premonition, and it talks about how our system, our healthcare system really needs to be fine tuned. It was very much about preventative in the past, not preventative, but actually it was about reactive. Now it's very much going to be about actionary. What can we do ahead of this? So we need very bright individuals. We need people who can see that visionaries, um, and be intuitive about where that's going very important going forward
Speaker 2:And really embracing technology like that. The industry has embraced it before. I think there are parts of it. Um, but I think just really embracing, developing, innovating new technologies. And I think that that, that that's the opportunity in the healthcare and stem space. Yes, absolutely. And so then we're at number six, which is a more flexible, innovative working models. I think you teed this up earlier, but I think it's interesting that now you aren't just beholden to somebody who is in the Metro area. You can find somebody in Atlanta, uh, someone was telling you a story about a Microsoft hire recently, and they were able to hire a real superstar from Atlanta who was not going to move to Redmond, but they can do that now because our, our, our bumper guards around what we think is a good hire have changed dramatically.
Speaker 1:And what that does is it actually allows companies to, up-skill what they're looking for to get their teams at a level that they envisioned. Those companies that have that forethought right off the bat are going to take advantage of this new opportunity, you know, in terms of any place anywhere, um, and bringing really strong individuals together also really smart driven individuals want to work with really smart, driven individuals in they're done that. It is, it is something that makes work actually a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:And I think about somebody who's maybe in a Detroit or somebody who's in a Minneapolis, like not in one of the top 10 cities, this now gives somebody like that. An opportunity to work with those great minds in a way that they probably wouldn't have done before, because they didn't want to leave where they live. And, you know,
Speaker 1:And that goes for dual income families or individuals who are also taking care of their elders. Um, they now don't have to make absolute big decisions and uproot their entire family, but they can make a or strong, um, decision in terms of where they want to work outside of the fact of moving.
Speaker 2:So diversity of talent and diversity of thought is the real opportunity because we aren't beholden to people that are just in the local area. Kathy, next week, we are going to be talking about something else, which is psychological safety. Why is that important? Well, that's true
Speaker 1:Is really important because quite honestly, everything was uprooted last year. Any type of control was completely out of control. CDC controlled us. We couldn't go out. You know, all of this became something that we, there was no way we control, could control our lives anymore. At some point couldn't even get the basics, you know, and, and that had to be, uh, you know, rerouted as well for em, especially Amazon and some of these retailers, but what's important is people are still feeling that effect. They're still feeling things are still quite, not out of control in control. So what psychological safety will do, and I love doing this as you put the right team, right managers in place to put the right leadership skills in place, and it has to start at the top. And what will happen is all of a sudden, you're, you're going to have a team and people who want to want to work for you, um, because they're going to feel really safe to make good decisions.
Speaker 2:And also as an you're creating an environment where there's, uh, you're able to dissent and there aren't repercussions for that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You know, we talked about failure at one point in, in our earlier episodes. Um, and it's important that people are able to take risks, especially with what's going on, but feel really safe and working with all their managers.
Speaker 2:If anyone wants to work with you, you're a business strategist. How do they get ahold of you?
Speaker 1:They can call me directly at six oh nine nine three three seven 600 or at my email Stuart, Kathy, as it's pictured right here on the screen@gmail.com.
Speaker 2:And with me, you can always get ahold of me on social media. I'm at joy dust, no punctuation in between the first and last name on Twitter on Instagram. You can always email me at info at[inaudible] dot com. Kathy, we'll see you next week.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Joyce. Have a great week.
Speaker 3:[inaudible].