Your Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of Work
We break down the now and next of work. You stay ahead.
Its not just you - work is bonkers. Burnout is high, trust is low, and everything is changing at breakneck speed.
Friend-to-friend? We get it. We're in it. And we're here to guide you through it.
We’re two leadership insiders—and real-life friends—who’ve led teams, sat in the tough seats, and know first hand how fast, complex, and personal work has become.
Every week, we break down what’s happening at work and to work, taking you behind the scenes of what's happening now, and preparing you for what you'll see in 6 months. We're bringing you breaking news, workplace trends, and interviews with top experts shaping the future of work. We cover what’s changing so you don’t get left behind.
Join us for smart, unfiltered (with the occasional f*bomb or two) conversations about how work is evolving and what you can do about it.
Great for:
• Employees rethinking their careers and trying to navigate what comes next
• People leaders shaping culture and driving change while getting the work done
• Orgs wanting to build smarter, more profitable, more human workplaces
• Anyone craving more honest and practical conversations about the future of work
Topics we cover:
Future of work, leadership, workplace culture, team dynamics, change management, human-centered strategy, layoffs, burnout, performance, career growth, workplace news, workplace humor, and more.
Your Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of Work
New Week, New Headlines: Your Rights at Work Just Changed, Women Shut Out of IPOs, Canva’s Millionaires & OpenAI’s Miss
New Week, New Headlines: your fast-track through the now + next of work.
This week we’re covering four stories shaping how you work, earn, and lead:
- Your rights at work just changed. From overtime pay to union protections, the federal floor is gone—and what that means depends on where you live and who you work for.
- Women are missing from IPOs. 88% of companies going public this summer had one or no women on their boards, and 93% had one or none in the C-suite. What that signals for equity and wealth building.
- Canva just made overnight millionaires. The design platform’s employee share sale proves there’s another way to spread the wealth—and why every employee should pay attention to equity.
- WTF, OpenAI. Big bonuses, but only for some. What they could have done differently, and why it matters in an AI talent war.
👉 If you want to stay ahead of the forces reshaping work—from politics to IPOs to AI—this one’s for you.
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
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I don't know that I trust a company to innovate if they can't even innovate their leadership lineup. This is your Work Friends, where we cover the now and next of work. So you stay ahead, I'm.
Speaker 2:Mel Platt and I'm Francesca Ranieri. We're back with new week, new headlines. Of course, there's a lot going on. Mel, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1:It was hard to pick, but I'm focusing on a Fortune article that came out calling it the bro IPO summer and how women are missing from boards and C-suites in the current surge of public offerings.
Speaker 2:Ah, fascinating, and I'm talking about same job, different rights. There is a new workplace divide, folks. I pulled the data, looked at the last eight months of how work has changed and, based on the state that you're living in and the employer you have, you might have vastly different rights, and I want to talk about that.
Speaker 1:That's such a good topic. I do have one F-yeah news to cover as well.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we got to cover that.
Speaker 1:Little sneak peek.
Speaker 2:Okay, same job, different rights. There is a new workplace divide, so I was actually really interested to see what is all the legislation that's come down in the last eight months since the Trump administration has gotten into office had to react to that and I want to go through a few of the things not exhaustive lists, but some of the major things that have happened in the last eight months since the Trump administration.
Speaker 2:You ready, let's do it. Pay is frozen, fewer qualify for extra pay. That's number one. Non-compete ban was dropped. Employers can block where you work. Next Three contractor roll back so easier to call you independent. We talked about that on the pod where employers can say, hey, you're no longer classified as an employee, we're going to have you as a contractor. Bye-bye benefits. We talked about that. The labor board weekend, meaning union protections are harder to enforce. Federal workers lost union rights. Their contracts were canceled. Obviously we've talked many times about the dei cut back and diversity programs being stripped harder to enforce. Federal workers lost union rights. Their contracts were canceled. Obviously, we've talked many times about the DEI cutback and diversity programs being stripped and safety enforcements were cut. We have fewer checks and balances and, because a lot of that program was annihilated, slower response times. There's not as many people checking up on things like OSHA. Those are just a few of the things that have happened.
Speaker 1:That's a lot.
Speaker 2:It's a lot. Meanwhile, there's some things that are stalled in Congress, like the PRO Act, which would make unionizing easier, the Equality Act, which would ban LGBTQ plus discrimination, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would close wage gap loopholes, the Portable Benefits Bill that would give you contractors health and retirement, and the FAIR Act, which would end forced arbitration. All of those things are stalled and, by the way, they ain't going anywhere anytime soon.
Speaker 1:No, and also the White House just released that talent strategy playbook last week. I highly recommend folks read it, but essentially and I don't want to butcher this so please go read it for yourself and we'll link to it in the show notes. But the headline there is they're focused very heavily on apprenticeships and that can mean something for orgs. But also AI is the Wild West. They want the folks to use that. They also don't want people to lose jobs, which is like two conflicting messages, where they're not putting any sort of barriers or restrictions around AI to protect people and their jobs, but are also encouraging organizations to do that and trying to heavily influence how organizations are run with their talent strategy.
Speaker 2:I find this interesting because we have the talent strategy playbook just dropped. We have a slew of regulation that has made the federal floor drop out, which basically means your protections as an employee, the regulations you need to abide by as an organization are going to be largely left up to either your state regulation or an employer. So it's interesting to me that they released this without any teeth, and it also doesn't surprise me whatsoever, because they don't want to be in this business of regulating what businesses do For employees. There's some things you want to consider For employers. There's some things that you would want to consider For employees. Again, your protections depend on where you live. California very different than Texas.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:The other thing is it's based on who you work for, and this isn't necessarily new. Minimum wage looks different in different states. Overtime can look different in different states Not necessarily something that's new but the federal floor that used to be there. It's completely fallen out and for employers you have a choice. You can race to the bottom or you can set clear standards for what you protect and you reward yeah, we talk about this all the time.
Speaker 1:What do you stand for as an organization that's going to become even more critical now than ever before?
Speaker 2:A thousand percent. We had a prediction show at the top of 2025. And my word for what is the work going to look like in 2025 was clarity, because it will be very clear what organizations stand for and what they don't, when they don't have to stand for anything. This is coming to roost because we're seeing this regulation getting pulled back. This is also the place where and friends, I would very much pay attention to this where employer brand and business strategy are literally now the same thing. The rules you set inside your walls will decide if you're going to keep talent or if you're going to lose talent, and so the big question for me is when all of the laws start clawing and stepping back, what are the rules as employers? What are the rules that you're writing as an employee, what are the rules that your company is writing? And that's going to tell you everything, and it's just such a huge opportunity for businesses to lean into this from a differentiation perspective.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100%, especially when you're thinking about the employee value proposition. Why should they come work for you? And the headlines inundated with AI, everything and none of us are immune. Everyone's talking about it, but there's a lot of reports, now that there's been a little bit of time, that organizations aren't seeing the ROI that they were hoping to with that. So it's not the solve all. You're still going to have talent, challenges and retaining talent and attracting talent, so the decisions you make today are going to really matter in 2030.
Speaker 1:Francesca, you and I have been talking about women in the workplace for the last two years and covering the mass exodus of women out of corporate, out of business, because they don't feel represented, they don't feel supported, and so no industry is immune, and now IPOs are coming into play. So here's what you need to know IPOs are back in a huge way. Women aren't showing up in the boardroom or the C-suite, though. New research looked at 61 IPO filings this summer and found that 88% had one or no women on their boards and 93% had one or no women in the C-suite. Compare that to Russell 3000, where women hold 30% of board seats and nearly the same in executive roles. Companies going public right now are ignoring even baseline market norms for gender diversity. So, as we just spoke about all the political things around DEI, with DEI already under fire, this might be signaling a step backward where women risk being shut out of the next wave of growth for companies.
Speaker 2:I have a thought about this. Yeah, can I tell you my thought women risk being shut out of the next wave of growth for companies. I have a thought about this. Yeah, can I tell you my thought? Yeah, tell me your thought. Last week, by Wednesday, three women I know different industries, different ages, different levels quit their job without having anything to go to, because they were done First of all. It's very unfortunate that they're not showing up in IP. First of all, it's very unfortunate that they're not showing up in IPOs. I think it's very unfortunate that we still are dealing with the numbers of women in the C-suite, in the big chair, everything. And I have a theory that women are just like I'm done and I'm going to go build better over here.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You and I talk about that as our own kind of personal story. Right, I'm coaching women left and right on their career transition or pivot into something else either an organization that does prioritize them or doing their own thing To your good point. They want to have impact and they want to feel supported and they're finding that community outside of corporate in a lot of different ways Because the representation is getting smaller and smaller, as we've seen. That trend is happening over time.
Speaker 1:So for folks out there who need an education on IPOs, just in case, a little lemonade stand analogy, if that's okay, let's just picture you have a cool lemonade stand. At first, only you and maybe your family own it. Then one day you decide you want to grow big, you buy more lemons, you get fancier cups, Maybe you even open a lemonade stand all over town, but you don't have enough money to do it by yourself. So you say, hey, anyone can buy a little piece of my lemonade stand. And then you split your stand into a lot of tiny pieces called shares and then you sell them. That's an IPO. It's the first time a company lets the public buy pieces of it on the stock market. So instead of you just owning the stand. Lots of people can own a piece of that stand and get money to grow. Why this matters, why you need to care about this and why you need to care that women are not being represented in this.
Speaker 1:Culture starts at the top with IPOs. That's at any organization, but if a board in the C-suite are all men, it often trickles down into hiring promotions, decision-making that's going to affect your career path. Equity and wealth building IPOs usually come with stock options or grants for people. If leadership doesn't value diversity, women and underrepresented employees, you might miss out on those wealth-creating opportunities. So it's creating greater disparity for those groups. It signals priorities. A company that sidelines women at IPO is showing you what it values upfront, what it doesn't value, and that's a clue whether it will invest in equity inclusion or employee wellbeing. Long-term, the impact to innovation. Diverse leadership teams make better decisions and lack of diversity is gonna hurt growth, which can affect job security and company success and future leadership. Ipo companies are tomorrow's big players in the industry, so if they aren't building diverse boards right now, the next decade of leadership pipelines are going to be even more narrow. If IPOs are supposed to be about the future, why do you think this is still so stuck in the past, Francesca?
Speaker 2:Because they can.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because they can.
Speaker 1:I don't know that I trust a company to innovate if they can't even innovate their leadership lineup. Those are my personal feelings on this. That's my point of view, and I'm sticking to it. All right, friend to friend. Here's what you need to know. The IPO market is heating up, and we're going to talk about that in a minute with some of our FIA news. The seats at the table, though, are still looking like that old boys club.
Speaker 1:Okay, if you're an employee, pay attention to this. Pay attention to who's making decisions at your company. Ask about the board makeup at all hands or on the website. Bring it up in your ERG groups and use your voice to push for transparency, if that's something you care about. And if you're choosing where you want to work, look at those leadership teams before you sign on, because representation is culture. Ultimately, if you're an executive, you don't get a free pass because you're early stage. That was one of the excuses that they found in the article. They're early stage, so they just haven't had the chance yet. It's bullshit. This is the exact moment where, if you're an executive, you get to set the tone for the company's future, so prioritize diverse hiring and on board appointments before you IPO. Investors and employees should be watching this, and they likely are and the companies that get this right now are going to win talent and trust for future, which we were just talking about with your story. I don't know, it's getting interesting over here.
Speaker 2:Is it getting interesting, or it's always been?
Speaker 1:it's always been backwards.
Speaker 2:It's going a little backwards. Listen here, you know what it is and again, I just go back to this like people that know the value of it and have seen the value of it and lived the value of having a lot of great representation, will continue to do that, and the people that haven't figured that out, it's just, if you're going to act on it and I think some people are willing. Ignorance, yeah, I agree, but IPO. Ipo thing is huge though, like the amount of money when your company IPOs is ginormous, stock is huge.
Speaker 1:It can be life changing for employees, which is what I want to cover in my FVAT news because it's super exciting and it's a women led company. So there's that, and you and I have done a ton of research. By the way, what kills me just before we I'll get off my little platform in a second, but what kills me is multiple times we have covered stats in the research around the success of diverse companies and how it actually helps your bottom line if you're growing. It's like where is the disconnect that's happening, for folks Don't understand it, don't get it. There's tons of research to support it. You want to do WTF first?
Speaker 2:I'll do WTF because I think it might be the flip of what you're talking about. Last week there was something circulating around open AI giving every employee a $1.5 million bonus based on their performance, and I read it and I was like that's fucking amazing.
Speaker 1:Every employee.
Speaker 2:They have about 3000 employees. It's life-changing. Speaking of IPO money life-changing, but when you dig into it that's actually not the case. They gave every engineer, every developer, every decision science person $1.5 million, vested over two years. Still very generous. But what strikes me, and where there might have been a huge opportunity, is if they would have given it to everybody.
Speaker 1:Because everyone plays a role in the success of a company.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm talking about, because we typically always focus on rev gen roles or product development roles Hugely important, you don't have a business without them. I get that. But there's always a kind of second class citizen feel to people that protect your organization or enable your organization. Without the protection people your trust, your regulation, your lawyer, some semblance of HR Right, you're one massive-ass lawsuit away, right. Look at some companies like there is a driverless vehicle car company that got rid of all of their safety and regulation team and then, guess what? They didn't get any of their safety and regulations in and now they're out of business. Rarely, for that reason, have had the absolute legend status that they could have had. That, by the way, they could have ridden for five years in an ai talent war gone.
Speaker 1:Gone because the true story came out. Yeah w2.
Speaker 2:Love the bonus, I love it, but what the fuck? Why not give it to everyone? That's all I'm saying. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, because everyone played a role. You know what, down to the events person or the janitor in your building who helps maintain the office so people can work in it. Represent everybody.
Speaker 2:The legend status, the story, the goodwill. What are we doing on this AI wave? If we're not abundance man, what are we doing? What are we doing? I'm asking you, yeah, okay, what's your afia?
Speaker 1:My afia is the opposite of that. I hope Fortune featured the article about Canva, the graphic design tool that I think most people use today. Canva's billionaire founders are making overnight millionaires of all of their employees. Most IPO stories this summer are feeling like the same old playbook, like we just talked about, but Canva just reminded us there's another way to do it, francesca. So they're valued at $42 billion, and Canva ran an employee share sale that let current and even former employees cash out on stock before the company goes public. So overnight millionaires were made not just for founders or top executives, but for people across all of the teams who helped build it.
Speaker 1:Why this matters. It's not just a big payday for them. It's a statement about how success gets shared. As we were just talking about, where most IPO headlines are celebrating investors and leadership, canva is really spreading the wealth across all employees who were part of making them win in the marketplace. So we've been seeing the bro IPO wave, as we just talked about open AI. Everything's looking the same, but Canva is showing that there's a different path, and one where employees aren't just the footnote of the conversation, but they're central to their whole story. That's a differentiator. If you're an employee. This is a reminder to pay attention to equity and ownership in your company, especially if you're looking at startups, because that structure could change your life. And if you're an executive, follow Canva, because they're doing it. That is all. That is all I got.
Speaker 2:I love. It All right, stop All right.
Speaker 1:This episode was produced, edited and all things by us myself, mel Plett and Francesca Ranieri. Our music is by Pink Zebra and if you like this, please rate and subscribe. We'd really appreciate it. That helps keep us going. Take care, friends. Bye, friends.
