"What is...?" Talk Series
Over the last two years, we’ve witnessed several workplace trends like the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting. Each of these is deeply tied to workplace culture. While recent data suggests the labor market is evening out, what is the future of work? On October 27th, we hosted a live discussion where our panel of experts discussed trends related to workplace culture. We aimed to provide actionable strategies and resources to support your efforts to create equitable and inclusive work and learning environments.
October 27, 2022 @ 12 – 1 PM CT on Zoom
Facilitator:
Dr. Meagan Pollock, Engineer Inclusion founder
Panelists:
Dr. Rosalind Cohen and Dr. Woodrow Winchester, III (Bios below)
Recording
Background
What is the Great Resignation?
The Great Resignation, also known as the Big Quit, the Great Renegotiation, the Great Rethink, and the Great Reshuffle, is an ongoing workforce trend in which employees across industries voluntarily resigned from their jobs en masse, beginning in early 2021 largely in the perceived wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fuller and Kerr write in their HBR article: “five factors, exacerbated by the pandemic, have combined to yield the changes that we’re living through in today’s labor market. We call these factors the Five Rs: retirement, relocation, reconsideration, reshuffling, and reluctance. Workers are retiring in greater numbers but aren’t relocating in large numbers; they’re reconsidering their work-life balance and care roles; they’re making localized switches among industries, or reshuffling, rather than exiting the labor market entirely; and, because of pandemic-related fears, they’re demonstrating a reluctance to return to in-person jobs.”
I’d like to add a 6th R, the Great Realization.
I believe with the shift to work from home for many industries, people who are traditionally marginalized and excluded realized how toxic their work environments were, and made intentional choices to find better places of employment.
Additional Reading
What is Quiet Quitting?
There are many definitions and perspectives on quiet quitting, but the most simple and clear definition is when one chooses to perform the duties of their job but no longer go above and beyond. To many, it is saying NO to hustle culture, or just not taking your job too seriously.
Additional Reading
What is the Future of Work?
Culture, technology, society, generational, and more influence how people work and how work gets done. The “Future of Work” is one of the latest buzzwords/phrases that linger in many posts’ hashtags. It can be both an idealistic and predictive envisioning of the labor workforce.
Additional Reading
Strategies
Workplace trends like the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting are deeply tied to workplace culture.
What strategies can we employ to improve culture and climate?
Here are some of the resources and strategies shared in the panel.
Surveys aren’t always the best place to start. Instead, try collective impact.
Surveys aren’t always the best place to start. Instead, try collective impact.Collective impact brings people together, in a structured way, to achieve social change. When used in culture and climate analysis, the collaborative framework invites stakeholders to contribute to a unified organizational direction. This is more effective than surveys alone because we aren’t asking people to relive their traumas, and we are providing a more hopeful collaborative exercise where all stakeholders are engaged in solution-making.
To establish sustainable goals and strategies, we must reveal and address the systemic structures and practices that create barriers to equitable outcomes for all populations. By prioritizing equity and incorporating the five core elements of collective impact initiatives, your organization will sooner achieve its vision to create an equitable and inclusive environment where students feel valued, encouraged, and affirmed and in a positive trajectory to career success.
Interested in facilitating collective impact at your organization? We can help.
Workshops are helpful, but ongoing work that builds communities of practice is more meaningful.
I love to teach and welcome any opportunity to help bring complex literature findings to professionals and practitioners through practical tools and strategies. However, disparate workshops don’t lead to systemic change. I encourage you to build out programs, efforts, and initiatives that nurture communities of practice. Your goal is to build a shared language and accountability that nurtures a climate and culture that arcs towards collective change.
Meaningful change happens best with structure. Try using some of our tools to normalize best practices.
Meaningful change happens best with structure. Try using some of our tools to normalize best practices.- Unbiasing Nudges
- How to practice stewardship instead of gatekeeping
- What are group norms or shared agreements? (And why are they important?)
While culture change requires meaningful efforts at an organizational level, there is much we can do to start with ourselves. Try these resources:
While culture change requires meaningful efforts at an organizational level, there is much we can do to start with ourselves. Try these resources:Recording
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE LIVE PANEL:
- Opportunity to pose questions and share stories in the chat
- Interactive SLIDO polls (smart phone or browser is helpful for participating)
- Community and networking with others
- You'll leave with Strategies and Resources
The Intentionally Engineer Inclusion™ Program Starts January 16, 2023
The Intentionally Engineer Inclusion™ Program is a cohort-based semi-asynchronous 12-week program that will begin January 16, 2023. For any person or team interested in expanding their leadership capacity by building practices and employing skills that facilitate equity, inclusion, and belonging for others, this program is a unique opportunity that brings together many of our research-based tools, strategies, and resources into a learning program that will drive personal and organizational results.
Early-Bird Registration extends until 11/1 with $500 savings.
- 12-weeks of programming
- Monthly live virtual workshops
- Virtual Coaching Sessions
- PDF Materials you can download
Panelists
Dr. Meagan Pollock
Dr. Meagan Pollock began her career playing with light projection on tiny microscopic mirrors as an engineer for Texas Instruments. Through her company, Engineer Inclusion, she now utilizes metaphorical projectors and mirrors to shine a light on micro and macro social systems that, when adjusted, improve student and employee success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
A TEDx speaker, author, and a past recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Meagan holds a PhD in engineering education from Purdue University, an MS in electrical engineering from Texas Tech University, and a BS in computer science from Texas Woman’s University. As an engineer turned educator, Meagan focuses on helping others intentionally engineer inclusion™ in education and the workforce.
Read her full bio here.
Dr. Woodrow Winchester, III
Woodrow W. Winchester, III, PhD, CPEM is the executive director of The University of Texas at Austin Texas Engineering Executive Education (TxEEE). Winchester also oversees the Petroleum Extension (PETEX) and the Health and Safety Training Center (HSTC) of the UT Cockrell School of Engineering. Previously, Winchester was the director of Professional Engineering Programs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He is a Certified Professional Engineering Management Professional (CPEM) with over ten years of technical program and project management experiences. He currently serves as the inaugural director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE/I) for the American Society for Engineering Management (ASEM) and is a past director of ASEM Professional Development & Continuing Education. Winchester was a member of the second cohort of the National Science Foundation-sponsored IAspire Leadership Academy.
Dr. Rosalind “Roz” Cohen, Ph.D., SPHR, SHRM-SCP
Rosalind “Roz” has 20+ years of experience providing HR support in the finance, not-for-profit, and education industries. This experience allows her to connect the strategic and tactical HR support needed for companies to create a space where people can grow and be their best selves while creating cultures of inclusivity where everyone benefits.
Roz has created a successful business to help companies align their operations to foster a culture that does just that. With a focus on Inclusive Leadership and how it can create a culture of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB), she brings extensive experience as a Human Resources leader. Her ingenuity, approachable, casual style, and ability to practice what she preaches give her the ability to help a company envision or understand its culture and align it with business operations.
Roz recently received her Ph.D. in Leadership and Change from Antioch University. Her dissertation, The relationships between dimensions of inclusive leadership and aspects of employee engagement: Crucial connections for organizational success, provides pragmatic and data-driven ways organizations can practice Inclusive Leadership and positively affects employee engagement. She received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and her Master’s in Public and Educational Management from Stony Brook University.
