Work 20XX with Jeff Frick: Recent Episodes
Jeff Frick
Welcome to Work 20XX A show focused on the future of work as we continue to navigate these transformational times. I’m your host Jeff Frick.
We’ll talk to the practitioners, with 100,000s of newly empowered employees, looking for a different relationship with their employer.
We’ll talk to the technology providers, who are responding to these changing demands with new tools leveraging the latest in AI and ML.
We’ll explore the impacts of the rising tide of gig workers, solopreneurs, consultants, and 1099 services that enable them to cater to a global market.
We’ll talk to the academics, authors, and thought leaders who are helping us all get a better handle on what’s really going on, and what it means to each of us.
Our goal is to bring you the human story behind the issues, the context, and the relevance in the spirit of sharing best practices and experience so we can all contribute to making the future of work better for people, organizations, and our world.
Work 20XX is Brought to you by Webex by Cisco
Tracy St.Dic is Global Head of Talent at Zapier, where she's spent the last several years rebuilding hiring from the ground up for an AI-native world. "Slope, not snapshot" is her phrase — she's not interested in where a candidate stands today, she's interested in the angle of their learning curve.
In this episode, Tracy makes the case that most of what companies call signal in hiring is actually noise. Resumes have flattened into interchangeable copy. Applications are increasingly fraudulent. And the traditional recruiter screen wasn't built for a world where the tools themselves change every few weeks, not every few years.
We cover:
- Zapier's AI fluency rubric — one of the first of its kind, open-sourced to the community, and rebuilt from scratch as the bar for "capable" has kept moving
- Why raising the bar meant Zapier also had to raise the level of support, building resources for candidates to close the gap rather than just screening them out
- Ezra, the voice AI Zapier uses for first-round interviews — and the surprising discovery that candidates and recruiters both prefer it to a human screen
- Why an AI interviewer that doesn't interrupt, doesn't show impatience, and never runs out of time zone turns out to be the more humane first conversation, not the less
Everything else is noise. Applications are noise. What's left, once you strip that away, is whether someone is actually climbing — and whether the people evaluating them can see it happen in real time.
Better hiring isn't about finding people who already know everything. It's about finding people on the way up. Tracy makes the case.
Recorded live at Running Remote 2026, Austin, Texas.
Guest: Tracy St.Dic, Global Head of Talent, Zapier | zapier.com | linkedin.com/in/tracy-stdic
Work 20XX explores the future of work, distributed teams, and human performance in the age of AI. Hosted by Jeff Frick.
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Sacha Connor has been coming to Running Remote since 2019, when the conference was held in Bali, and this episode marks her third appearance on Work 20XX.
Please join me in welcoming Sacha Connor back to the Work 20XX podcast.
In Austin for the second year running with the team at Running Remote, we sat down with Sacha, founder and CEO of Virtual Work Insider, to trace how the conversation at this conference has evolved since that first trip to Bali, from synchronous versus asynchronous communication debates to what's dominating the room now: AI adoption inside distributed teams.
Sacha admits she was scared of AI at first. She never worked at a tech company, never learned to code, and did not see herself as a technical person. That changed when she took a Lead with AI certification program and realized the skills translated more directly than she expected. Now she has built her own custom GPT trained on the five-piece meeting framework she teaches clients, purpose, product, process, pre-work, and people, and uses it to prep every agenda she runs.
The conversation also digs into her sharpest observation of the day: AI adoption inside a company follows the same spectrum she has spent 15 years mapping for remote and hybrid work. Some organizations are virtual-first and moving fast, some are still figuring out basic policy on which LLMs employees are even allowed to use, and Sacha works both ends of that spectrum at once, from the executive suite down to the team actually trying to get the tools to stick.
Her advice for anyone intimidated by the mandate from on high to "go use AI": experiment in your personal life first. She has used LLMs for her own family scheduling. Once it clicks personally, bringing it to your team gets a lot easier.
We also cover her fifteen-year remote-iversary, the ERG she helped build at Clorox that grew faster than any other in the company, and her hot take on scheduled send.
Lucy Stein just watched Givebutter cross $10 billion in donations raised for nonprofits, ten years after she joined the company as employee number seven.
Please join me in welcoming Lucy Stein to the Work 20XX podcast.
In Austin for the second year collaborating with the team at Running Remote, we sat down with Lucy to learn how she built a People function from a completely blank slate, and what it takes to keep it intact as the company scales past 200 employees.
Givebutter's culture runs on three codified values: radical transparency, no assholes, and wired for fun. Lucy breaks down what each one actually means in practice, from a weekly all hands where finance shares real revenue numbers, to an explicit team-wide push to assume positive intent before reacting to a Slack message. She also talks through the recent integration of We Are For Good, a nonprofit media and community company Givebutter acquired, and why culture fit was the very first thing she checked.
The conversation closes on AI adoption inside a remote-first team, and Lucy draws a direct line between the skills that make distributed work succeed and the skills that make AI adoption succeed. Her advice for managers right now: PR for your team. When someone on your team is doing something sophisticated with a new tool, make sure it gets seen.
Oh, and yes, we talk about Mr. Butter, the company mascot with a butter slice for a head.
Lucy Stein: Clear is Kind, Assume Positive Intent | Work 20XX with Jeff Frick Ep 64 from Running Remote
Vinícius Coelho: Know the Team, Growth and Impact | Work 20XX with Jeff Frick Ep63 from Running Remote
Vini Coelho recently added Chief of Staff and VP Operations to his People and Culture role at Time Doctor, 140 people spread across 40 countries and 24 time zones. And Vini's met them all.
Please join me in welcoming Vini Coelho to the Work 20XX podcast.
In Austin for the second year collaborating with the team at Running Remote, we sat down with Vini to learn how he does creates and manages culture across such a wide georgraphical and cultural spread.
Time Doctor uses its own workforce analytics tool built to track productivity and in the act of usage behaviour, converts it from what might be percived to be a survealance too, into a trust-building platform.
Vini also makes the case that a company is a sports team, not a family, and explains why that distinction matters for how people actually commit to their work. We talk through what career growth looks like when the org chart is flat and vertical promotion is not a given, and Vini's answer is lateral growth: more responsibility, more influence, more relevance, even without a new title attached.
The most surprising thread runs back to his time as a sommelier in a 2-Michelin-star restaurant. Hospitality taught him that the job was never the paperwork. It was the people. That is the whole philosophy, transplanted into HR at scale.
Vinícius Coelho: Know the Team, Growth and Impact | Work 20XX with Jeff Frick Ep63 from Running Remote
Let me re-read the transcript to nail the details and get Nick's language right.Here's the Libsyn description, built to match the Bobbi Wegner template:
Nick Francis: Calibration, War Council, High Agency Investment | Work 20XX Ep 62
Nick Francis co-founded Help Scout in 2011 and ran it as CEO for 15 years before stepping into the Chairman role in late 2025. Today he coaches founders, facilitates a CEO peer group, and speaks on leadership, remote culture, and building companies for the long haul.
In this episode, Nick makes the case that the AI moment is not a cost-cutting exercise. It's a growth opportunity, and the companies that treat it like one will leave the others behind. The conversation starts with what it actually feels like at the top of the org chart, where there's no support built into the structure, and moves through the operational practices Nick built at Help Scout to keep a remote team calibrated, honest, and moving in the same direction.
We cover:
- The loneliness of the CEO role and the two things that were transformational: a coach who could give hard criticism without organizational risk, and a peer group built on shared values
- The "War Council," a technique Nick picked up from Wade Foster at Zapier, using AI personas to pressure-test decisions from multiple angles when nobody around you wants to deliver bad news
- Calibration as an operating practice, not a document. Managers getting together every six months to stress-test rubrics, align on what great looks like, and minimize bias across the organization
- Why hard conversations don't happen in remote companies unless they're baked into the operating system
- Bifurcating engagement data to focus on high-performer feedback, and why that's not leaving anyone behind, it's investing where the ROI is highest
- High agency as the unlock for the AI era. Nick's belief that the capacity is in everyone, though in some folks it might just be dormant. You've got to wake it up.
- Why leaders thinking about AI only in terms of cutting costs and improving productivity are taking a short-sighted view. You can't save your way to growth.
The job is still the job. The tasks are going to change radically. For an entrepreneur, this is heaven.
Recorded live at Running Remote 2026, Austin, Texas.
Guest: Nick Francis, Co-founder & Chairman, Help Scout | nickfranc.is | helpscout.com
Work 20XX explores the future of work, distributed teams, and human performance in the age of AI. Hosted by Jeff Frick.
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Bobbi Wegner: Culture Is Relationship at Scale | Work 20XX Ep 61
Bobbi Wegner is a clinical psychologist, Harvard lecturer, and Founder and CEO of Groops — a psychology-based coaching platform built on a simple, solid premise: people are social beings, hardwired for connection. "Animals in suits" was her phrase.
In this episode, Bobbi makes the case that culture is relationship at scale. Not the posters on the wall. Not the values deck. The actual strength of the connections between the people doing the work, accumulated one interaction at a time.
We cover:
- Why AI adoption is fundamentally a behavior change problem — and why most companies are treating it like a software rollout
- The thoughts-feelings-behavior chain that drives every business outcome anyone actually cares about
- The impossible squeeze on middle managers right now, asked to hold teams together while navigating their own uncertainty
- The bifurcation Bobbi sees coming: companies that double down on people plus the tool, versus companies using AI as cover to cut
When people are stressed and uncertain, their amygdalas are getting beat up all day long. A stressed, defensive amygdala is not a connecting brain. It's a surviving brain. And that shows up directly on the bottom line.
Good psychology is good business. Bobbi makes the case.
Recorded live at Running Remote 2026, Austin, Texas.
Guest: Bobbi Wegner, Founder & CEO, Groops | drbobbiwegner.com | joingroops.com
Work 20XX explores the future of work, distributed teams, and human performance in the age of AI. Hosted by Jeff Frick.
Transcript and Show notes - Click Here
YouTube - Click Here
Gianna Driver didn't come to Running Remote 2026 as a remote work evangelist. She came as a Chief People Officer who believes, deeply, that how you design the spaces where people gather, physically, culturally, organizationally, determines everything about the kind of company you actually become. Not the kind you say you are. The kind you are.
And that conviction didn't come from a business school case study. It came from growing up on the other side of privilege. Her mother emigrated to the US as a mail-order bride. Gianna knows what it feels like to be on the outside looking in. That experience shaped everything, how she hires, how she leads, how she thinks about who gets a seat at the table and whether the table itself is worth sitting at. Being humans first and employees second isn't a tagline for her. It's a worldview forged long before she had a title.
So we got into the good stuff. Starting with the waiter test. For critical hires, Gianna takes candidates to dinner and watches how they treat the wait staff. Not as a trick. As a window. One CRO finalist interviewed brilliantly right up until the server got his order wrong. That was the end of the process. It's a small moment. It tells you everything.
We talked about mistake-making as a leadership competency, normalizing failure fast, cost-effectively, and without fear, and why organizations that run on cultures of fear are leaving performance on the table every single day. We talked about the machine-to-machine hiring pipeline and what gets lost when the humans step out of the loop. And we went to the hard places: DEI, the political headwinds, the companies pulling back. Gianna's answer was clear and unequivocal. Call it whatever you want. If the words are triggering, find new words. But the spirit, building inclusive, diverse teams because the science says they produce better outcomes and because it's the right thing to do, that doesn't get to go away because it became inconvenient.
And she made a prediction, on the record: companies using AI as cover for layoffs are going to see a boomerang. They've over-cut. They'll need to rehire. And the talent they let go won't be waiting.
Good leadership is good leadership. These aren't lessons for remote teams or hybrid teams or any particular org chart configuration. They're for anyone who takes people seriously enough to be intentional about the conditions they create.
Please join me in welcoming Gianna Driver to the Work 20XX Podcast.
Editor's Note: Recorded May 2026 at the Running Remote conference in Austin, Texas. Special thanks to Liam, Egor, Ana, and the entire Running Remote team.
Gianna Driver: How'd You Treat the Waiter, Humans First Employees Second | Work 20XX Ep60 with Jeff Frick from Running Remote 2026
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Nadia Vatalidis flew 10,000 miles, almost halfway around the world, to share her insights at Running Remote 2026 in Austin. And the distance is more than geographic. She doesn't live in the US, Europe or Asia. Her vantage is from South Africa, which povides a unique look 'back' if you will at the rest of the tech scene, with a differernt 'reality' check than I have here in Palo Alto, CA, in the eye of the storm, or even Asia or Europe or Austraila for that matter. Sometimes it's harder to tell what's happening when you're standing in the middle of it.
Nadia was there at the beginning. Over a decade ago, working alongside Darren Murph at GitLab in those early days, helping define what would become the blueprint, reference, dictionary, thesaurus and operations manual, the anchor document, for distributed work around the world, the 'GitLab Remote Work handbook, ' published open source, for the benefit of all. That kind of longitudinal perspective is rare, and she's added to it since, moving from GitLab through other fully remote companies to her current role as Head of People at Doist, 100% remote, 100+ people, 40+ countries.
So we got into the good stuff. Extreme async, functioning radical candor against 40+ cultures, and self managed careers. What does it take to create the conditions where honesty lands as a gift instead of a grenade, across so many different baseline cultural norms? Nadia explained their shadow program, giving people a chance to try before they buy in different types of roles, departments, and functions. And showing her care for the people, Nadia reinforced that even if that if helping someone grow means they eventually outgrow the company, that's not a failure. She celebrates the growth and development. That's the whole point. It gets celebrated. A great illustration and example of the mature, adult, professional, working demeanor required to operate in a world that prioritizes growth and improvement, at the risk of ruffling a few feathers (unintentionally).
And of course we got into how Nadia specifically and Doist generally are leveraging AI to deliver more with their existing team.
Good management is good management. These practices aren't just for remote or hybrid teams. They're for any leader who takes people seriously.
And if Nadia was willing to fly half way around the word to share, I can assure you it well worth your 25 minutes.
Please join me in welcoming Nadia Vatalidis to the Work 20XX Podcast.
Editor's Note: Recorded May 2026 at the Running Remote conference in Austin, Texas. Special thanks to Liam, Egor, Ana, and the entire Running Remote team.
Nadia Vatalidis: Extreme Async, Unguarded Feedback, Career by Initiative | Work 20XX Ep59 with Jeff Frick from Running Remote 2026
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Liam Martin joined me fresh off the stage at Running Remote's 10th event, a milestone that puts into sharp relief just how much the landscape has shifted since that scrappy little secret called remote work became the world's crash course in 2020. What started as documentation, async, and trust has evolved into something far bigger: the realization that the skills and culture remote-first organizations built out of necessity are now the precise prerequisites for becoming AI-native.
The conversation moved fast, from the absurdity of AI writing reports that humans then feed back into AI to decode, to a genuinely new management KPI (watch your team's token usage, not just their hours), to Liam's central thesis for this year's keynote: we are no longer simply managing distributed people, we are managing distributed intelligence. And the remote community, almost by accident, got there first.
Please join me in welcoming Liam Martin back to the Work 20XX Podcast.
Editor's Note: Recorded May 2026 at the Running Remote conference in Austin, Texas. Special thanks to Liam, Egor, Ana, and Team Running Remote.
Liam Martin: Distributed Intelligence, AI-Native Organizations, Remote-to-AI Pipeline | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick from Running Remote 2026 Austin
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Indiana went 16-0 and won the national championship with 7 blue-chip recruits. Their opponents had 110+. What does Curt Cignetti's talent evaluation strategy teach us about the future of work?
It's not about return to office. It's not about hybrid schedules. It's about creating an environment that enables people to do the best work of their lives—finding the best talent, empowering them with AI and modern tools, and building a culture where everybody plays every play.
This is the future of work: strategic evaluation over pedigree, development over credentials, empowerment over control.
YouTube
https://youtu.be/7H-lLnr_3x8
Transcript, show notes, links and references.
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/the-big-game-worst-to-first-culture-talent-champions-work-20xx-ep57
Welcome to 2026!
After four years and 50+ episodes of Work 20XX, it's time to evolve the conversation. The return-to-office debates? We've covered them exhaustively. The real action now is in AI adoption, continuous learning, and building the skills that matter for distributed work.
In this episode, Jeff shares his vision for Work 20XX in 2026, including why he's shifting focus away from return-to-office topics, the AI training with Kyle Moschetto that transformed his workflow, and his commitment to increase episode frequency this year.
Key Topics:
- The evolution of workplace conversations since 2021
- Why return-to-office debates are no longer the priority
- AI adoption and practical training insights coming in 2026
- Evergreen topics that never age: distributed teams, communication, leadership, team effectiveness
- The importance of curiosity and continuous learning
- What's next for Work 20XX
The workplace has changed dramatically since the show started. Our conversations need to change too. This episode sets the stage for a year focused on practical AI adoption, team effectiveness, and the skills that create meaningful work in a distributed world.
What's Next: More episodes, more frequently. AI adoption stories and practical insights. Deeper dives on distributed leadership and team effectiveness. Shorter, more focused conversations.
What We're Moving Beyond: Return-to-office mandates and hybrid work debates have been thoroughly covered. Time to focus on what actually helps people do better work.
Let Jeff know what you want to hear in 2026. What topics are you curious about? What challenges are you facing? What skills are you trying to build?
EPISODE DETAILS: Episode Type: Show Update / Vision Statement Host: Jeff Frick Recording Location: Palo Alto, California Date: January 2026
Topics: Future of Work, AI Adoption, Distributed Teams, Remote Work, Leadership, Team Effectiveness, Continuous Learning, Workplace Technology, Professional Development
Liam Martin shared his full circle moment with me at Running Remote, almost 5 years to the day he was forced to cancel Running Remote’s last visit to Austin, April 2020. With prior stops in Lisbon and Montreal, Running Remote’s return to Austin was a community fest.
Remote first organizations focus more on in-house retreats than anyone outside of the actual travel industry. Industry leaders needed their own retreat. And Running Remote was born in 2018.
After the reflection, the conversation turned to the future, and the intersection of remote management practices, AI adoption, and the impact of hiring the ‘best for the job’ AI proficient talent, regardless of location.
Please join me in welcoming Liam Martin to the Work 20XX Podcast.
Editor’s Note: Recorded 2025-April-30 at the Running Remote conference in Austin, Texas. Special thanks to Liam, Egor, Ana, and Team Running Remote.
Liam Martin: Community Retreat, Remote, AI | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep55 from Running Remote 2025 Austin
#RemoteWork #RunningRemote #AI #Leadership #CommunityBuilding #FutureOfWork #RemoteTeams #GlobalTalent #WorkplaceInnovation #ScalingBusiness #HybridWork #SaaS #DigitalNomads #Entrepreneurship #RiskTaking #EventManagement #BusinessGrowth #Digital #Distributed #Remote #Hybrid #Office #FoW #Workplace #TechnologyAdoption #RemoteFirst #EmployeeEngagement #WorkplaceCulture #Interview #Podcast #Work20XX
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOKJ7j_yqNM&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt&ab_channel=TurntheLenswithJeffFrick
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https://www.work20xx.com/episode/liam-martin-community-retreat-remote-ai-work-20xx-ep55
Mike Melen took a college side hustle, and built it into a growing global digital marketing agency. After starting full remote, Mike opened an office in Bergen County, New Jersey. Covid closed the office, and SmartSites is back to being fully remote to stay.
Remote hiring opened up the available talent pool beyond his Bergen County, New Jersey. Suddenly, Mike could hire people with the special skills needed, regardless of where they plugged in their laptop.
Mike learned early on that the best people want opportunities to grow, so he set an annual goal of 30% growth. He hired younger, less experienced people and invested in them to grow and advance along with the companies. Fourteen years later, SmartSites has grown to 400 people.
Please join me in welcoming Mike Melen to the Work 20XX podcast.
Editor’s Note: Recorded 2025-April-30 at the Running Remote conference in Austin, Texas. Special thanks to Liam, Egor, Ana, and Team Running Remote.
Michael Melen: Talent Pool, Growth Opportunity | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep54 from Running Remote 2025 Austin
#Remote #Digital #Distributed #Async #Work #FoW #Workplace #Talent #Career #BergenCounty #DigitalMarketing #DistributedTeams #Global #HiringStrategy #Leadership #Scaling #RemoteTeams #SmartSites #StartupJourney #TalentPool #TeamGrowth #WorkFromAnywhere #SmartSites #RunningRemote #Interview #Podcast #Work20XX
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MosbOY0uFUI&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
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https://www.work20xx.com/episode/michael-melen-talent-pool-growth-opportunity-work-20xx-ep54
Melinda Stallings brings the power of positivity to the workplace and stage. Founder of The Positive Consultant and curator of DisruptHR Austin, Melinda promotes the “infinite power of positivity,” consulting with individual organizations and extending her reach as the force behind DisruptHR Austin, where she builds programs such as the 2025 theme, Envision, Empower, Elevate, helping people thrive in the workplace.
I also learned about PechaKucha, a Japanese storytelling format built around the idea of “talk less, show more.” At DisruptHR, this translates into speakers having just 5 minutes, with 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. No stress there.
With her focus on pausing, reflecting, reframing, and resetting, Melinda reminded me that there is usually a gift in the negative. You might not see it right away, but look no further than the Odyssean journey at the center of our best stories. There has to be some pain along the way.
Please join me in welcoming Melinda Stallings to the Work 20XX Podcast.
Editor’s Note: Recorded 2025-April-30 at the Running Remote conference in Austin, Texas. Special thanks to Liam, Egor, Ana, and Team Running Remote.
Melinda Stallings: Positivity, PechaKucha, Gifts, Reset | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep53 from Running Remote
#Positivity #Gifts #Reset #EmployeeExperience #FutureOfWork #Culture #HR #HumanCenteredLeadership #KindnessMatters #AustinTX #DisruptHR #Leadership #Digital #Distributed #Remote #Hybrid #FoW #MelindaStallings #PechaKucha #Podcast #RemoteWork #RunningRemote #Storytelling #TeamCulture #ThePositiveConsultant #Interview #Podcast #Work20XX
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Robert Phelps helps keep remote teams secure, often before they even know they’re at risk. As President of Creative IT, Robert and team provide IT services for companies that are too small to build an in-house department, or those that need a little assist.
Robert and I spoke at Running Remote 2025 Austin, before his keynote, ‘The Hidden Bottleneck: Why Remote Teams Struggle to Scale (and How to Fix It Today),’ on the cybersecurity challenges of remote and distributed teams, and the responsibility for user and companies, even if most of their apps and IT are hosted at a large public cloud provider like AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure.
With the world trying to convince us to click, it comes back to people, educating, training, and as Robert stresses, testing to make sure they understand, and don’t take tempting bait.
Compliance and Security, never go out of style. But the challenges and degree of difficulty only increase over time.
Please join me in welcoming Robert Phelps to the Work 20XX Podcast
Editors Note: Recorded 2025-April-30 at the Running Remote conference in Austin, Texas. Special thanks to Liam, Egor, Ana, and Team Running Remote.
Robert Phelps: Cybersecurity, People, Responsibility, Test | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep52 from Running Remote
#Bottlenecks #CARA #Cloud #CMMC #Compliance #Culture #CyberSecurity #Distributed #Enablement #Experience #FoW #IT #Monitoring #Onboarding #People #Platforms #Remote #Responsibility #Risk #Scale #SOC2 #Teams #Test #Threats #Training #Trust #Workplace #RunningRemote #MenloCreekMedia #Interview #Podcast #Work20XX
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDE6yTpz1No&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
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https://www.work20xx.com/episode/robert-phelps-cybersecurity-people-responsibility-test-work-20xx-ep52
Karrie Sullivan has been on the edge of digital transformation since the earliest days of digital media, with a stint at Cars.com during the late ‘90 internet boom. She knows about getting people to change behavior, to adopt the new, to do things differently.
As she said, people won’t change behavior just because you ask them. People will change behavior to fit in. Especially if you hand them proven peer produced playbooks.
Today, Karrie leads Culminate Strategy Group, where she and her team specialize in accelerating new technology adoption by identifying and working with key change agents. That influential 15% sits between the early adopters (the “bleeding edge” 5–7%) and the risk-averse majority (the “we’ve always done it this way” 80%). The Resilient middle 15% hold the key to broader adoption of the new, in this case, more people in the organization putting the power of AI to work for them in their daily tasks.
Please join me in welcoming Karrie Sullivan to the Work 20XX podcast.
In this wide ranging conversation, we cover the interaction of workplace, AI, transformation, psychology, behavioral science, change, adaptability, and a whole lot more. Karrie brings clarity to the chaos of transformation.
The through line: how to increase AI adoption, and more broadly, how to assimilate change faster, so your people can do more, with less, faster, by putting the right tools to work.
Karrie Sullivan: Results, Resilient, Reluctant, Readiness | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep51
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt66YYGRCMs&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
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https://www.work20xx.com/episode/karrie-sullivan-results-resilient-reluctant-readiness-work-20xx-podcast-with-jeff-frick-ep51
Henrik Järleskog, has been on my radar for some time. He’s an active member of the ‘future of work’ community on LinkedIn, frequently contributing articles, keynotes, posts, panel discussions, podcasts appearances and more. I knew I’d have him on eventually….
And then he dropped the post … ‘Not one hand went up’
And went on to describe his team of AI agents, working for him. His dirty dozen, cabinet, team of rivals, assistants, advisors, and worker bees, helping Henrik 3x to 4x himself as he described. From Ambinet.ai to Veed.io , the list is long and detailed.
So the time is now.
Please join me in welcoming Henrik Jarleskog to Work 20XX
We delve deep into the concept of ‘Full Stack Hospitality’ and it’s relevance in the future of work, workplaces, offices, and places where people gather. Sodexo is the 420,000+ employee behemoth you may not be familiar with, serving over 80 million consumers daily in over 45 countries, so Henrik has data, especially after being tasked to focus on the post pandemic workplace.
And then there is his AI adoption story.
While many struggle to find GenAI applications in daily life, Henrik has jumped in with both feet, taking courses, joining communities, and actively upping his game, not only in the name of future of work, but helping to define how organizations move forward with everyone brings a team of 30 assistants to work. How much faster can we go? How much more can we accomplish when 80% solutions are delivered in hours, not days?
I think you’re going to enjoy this episode.
Henrik Jarleskog: AI Squad, BarCeptionist, Full Stack Hospitality | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep50
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8VQ5kdN1FE&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/henrik-jarleskog-ai-squad-barceptionist-full-stack-hospitality-work-20xx-ep50
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Brian Robertson’ leadership philosophies are based on empowering the system, not the people. With clear limits, an ‘act don’t ask’ permissive mindset, the culture seeks to foster more entrepreneurial leadership, when people can exercise authority and autonomy, rather then sitting around, waiting to be told what to do.
As the founder of Holacracy and a veteran entrepreneur, Brian brings a new model for leadership and decision-making, rooted in clarity, authority, and giving people the ability to act.
Recorded at Running Remote in Austin, Brian shares how companies can unlock speed and autonomy by creating transparent systems where roles are dynamic, authority is clearly defined, and people are trusted to lead without waiting for permission. He explains why most “empowerment” efforts fall flat, how limits actually expand freedom, and what it looks like when even the newest hire can shape the CEO’s responsibilities.
From roundabouts to role maps, this conversation is packed with practical takeaways for leaders looking to future-proof their teams and ditch outdated command-and-control models. Empower the system.
Please join me in welcoming Brian Robertson to the Work 20XX podcast.
Editor’s Note: Recorded 2025-April-30 at the Running Remote conference in Austin, Texas. Special thanks to Liam, Egor, Ana, and Team Running Remote.
Brian Robertson: Authority, Clarity, Limits, System | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep49 from Running Remote
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv7awiTqQQY&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
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Mindy Honcoop helps people grow, one micro dose at a time. As the founder of Agile in HR and a seasoned people leader, Mindy brings a unique lens as her path started in the juvenile justice system, working with kids, and figuring out how happiness, and being one’s best self at work, contributed to a child’s well being.
At Running Remote, Mindy emcee’d the outside stage for two days, absorbing insights, and sharing her own perspective on the evolving nature of leadership, work, and upskilling. In this episode, she shares how fractional roles work, her approach to growth and creating a people and skills roadmap, and then training her way out of the engagement, upskilling the internal team to take the business up a notch. Mindy has a laser focus on a market segment where she identified a gap she could fill.
Micro dose change is just one secret she shared.
Please join me in welcoming Mindy Honcoop to the Work 20XX podcast.
Editor’s Note: Recorded 2025-April-30 at the Running Remote conference in Austin, Texas.
Special thanks to Liam, Egor, Ana, and Team Running Remote.
Mindy Honcoop: Fractional, Upskill, Micro dose Change | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep48 from Running Remote
#MindyHoncoop #AgileHR #MicrodoseChange #Fractional #Upskill #Microdose #Change #FractionalLeadership #Upskilling #FutureOfWork #RemoteWork #PeopleOps #Digital #Distributed #Remote #Hybrid #Workplace #RunningRemote #LeadershipDevelopment #HumanCentered #WorkplaceTransformation #ContinuousImprovement #TeamCulture #Interview #Podcast #Work20XX
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc-JKzPVZMw&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here
Mindy Honcoop: Fractional, Upskill, Micro dose Change | Work 20XX Ep48 - Work 20XX
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/mindy-honcoop-fractional-upskill-micro-dose-change-work-20xx-ep48
Justin Harlan wants you to move to Tulsa. But not just for the $10,000 check. He wants you to consider building your life in Tulsa. As Managing Director of Tulsa Remote, Justin leads a groundbreaking initiative to attract talented, remote workers to diversity Tulsa’s economic base beyond oil and gas with more knowledge workers. To grow greater Tulsa, as well as the newly transplanted community.
Tulsa is also investing in ‘placemaking’ to increase the probability that these newest residents will stay for the long team. And it’s working. With over 3,500 people relocated and an 85% retention rate, Justin and team are hitting the right levers.
People are coming for the incentives, they’re staying for the quality of life.
Please join me in welcoming Justin Harlan to the Work 20XX podcast.
And thanks Justin and Austin Remote for being active sponsors of Running Remote, hosting the welcome reception.
Recorded 2025-April-29 at the Running Remote conference in Austin, Texas. Special thanks to the Tulsa Remote team and our friends at Running Remote.
Justin Harlan: $10K to Move, Stay for Community | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep47 from Running Remote
#TulsaRemote #Talent #Distributed #Digital #Remote #Hybrid #RemoteWork #TalentAttraction #RelocationIncentives #CommunityBuilding #EconomicDevelopment #QualityOfLife #JustinHarlan #FutureOfWork #DistributedTeams #RunningRemote #PlaceBasedInnovation #HybridWork #DigitalNomads #Interview #Podcast #Work20XX
YouTube - Click Here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQCMEJBGsgg&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/justin-harlan-move-for-10k-stay-for-community-work-20xx-ep47
Zach Boyette got a business class view of the world and decided to build a life, and company around the freedom to design one’s own life, not only for Zach the traveler, but all the employees, regardless of the design they choose, living anywhere in the world. As co-founder and CEO of Galactic Fed, Zach leads a 100% remote, 150-person global marketing agency. They designed the company from the bottom up around the principle of giving agency to employees to design they life they want to lead. At work, at home, and in their communities.
Built on a foundation of documentation, writing things down, no single point of failure. They’ve developed blueprints to describe in detail how to do various projects, from kicking off a client engagement, to interviewing new candidates.
And time together, the focus is on fun. Show and Tell, Games, and more. Since the work is digital, together time is used to strengthen the human connections.
Please join me in welcoming Zach Boyette to the Work 20XX podcast.
Where we’re reminded yet again, that it’s better to be one in a million, than one of a million.
Thanks again Zach.
Recorded 2025-April-29 at the Running Remote conference in Austin, Texas. Special thanks to Liam, Egor, Ana, and Team Running Remote.
Zach Boyette: Remote, Design, Freedom, Games | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep46 from Running Remote
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Q077l_SRc&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/zach-boyette-remote-design-freedom-games-work-20xx-ep46
Phil Kirschner returns to Work 20XX with a fresh perspective on how we actually get work done, and exploring a concept he calls “vibe officing.” And yes, it’s a verb. As Phil puts it, “technology should help us be more human,” navigating between spaces, people, and pulse moments with greater flow and fewer barriers.
Sitting face to face from Running Remote in Austin, Phil shares practical insights for leaders navigating change for their teams and organizations, culture shifts, and compliance challenges, with an update on New York City’s Local Law 97.
Please join me in welcoming Phil Kirschner back to the Work 20XX podcast from Running Remote.
As founder of PK Consulting, former McKinsey expert, and veteran of WeWork’s meteoric ride, Phil has seen firsthand how organizations build, adapt, and sometimes stall. His new newsletter, The Workline, has quickly become essential reading for workplace strategists, changemakers, and executives trying to align culture, operations, and experience. We dug a little deeper into a few choice editions.
Thanks again Phil.
Recorded April 24, Running Remote, Austin Special thanks to Liam Martin, Egor Borushko, Ana Maria Bennett & Team Running Remote
Phil Kirschner v2: Vibe, Pulse, Transparency, Nudge | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep45 from Running Remote
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNfo6fLWjSM&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/phil-kirschner-v2-vibe-pulse-transparency-nudge-work-20xx-ep45
Sophie Wade returns to Work 20XX with a powerful reminder, the future of work is digitalized, multi-gen, and human-first. And that’s not a typo, it is a process of work being broken down, and digitalized, and to quote Sophie, ‘the tech driven world and operations is changing how we work, not the other way around.” In person, from Running Remote in Austin, Sophie shares deep insights on how empathy, adaptability, and trust are reshaping workforce dynamics.
Please join me in welcoming Sophie Wade back to the Work 20XX podcast from Running Remote.
As founder of Flexcel Network, author of Empathy Works, host of the Transforming Work podcast, and creator of the Work in Progress Report newsletter, Sophie has been a relentless advocate for designing work experiences that prioritize empathy, people and performance. Literally hundreds of thousands have attended her LinkedIn Learning classes in pursuit of a more responsive, flexible, and inclusive workplace. And breaking news, she’s launching a new series of classes on Sophie Wade dot com this month. The first one, Selling with Empathy. Lots more in the show notes.
Recorded April 30, Fair Market, Austin Special thanks to Liam Martin, Egor Borushko, Ana Maria Bennett & Team Running Remote
Sophie Wade v2: Digitalized Multi-Gen, What Is | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep44 from Running Remote
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWXG1mNidpg&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt&index=1
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/sophie-wade-v2-digitalized-multi-gen-what-is-work-20xx-ep44
Brian Elliott returns to Work 20XX with a fresh lens on scaling distributed work, investing in people, and navigating the J-curve of technology adoption inside teams. Because what works for supporting distributed teams, works for increasing team AI adoption. Align on real goals, only three to five, and check in with tweet sized updates, once a week, on those three goals.
Please join me in welcoming Brian Elliott back to the Work 20XX podcast from Running Remote.
As co-founder of Future Forum, co-author of How the Future Works, and now with his new Newsletter, Work Forward, Brian is a data-filled champion of distributed teams years and years, long before Covid, before it was in fashion.
He continues in that tradition with his latest, the Work Forward newsletter, chock-full-o case studies, research, and exercises to help you get more out of your team. He pulls from the best, including a heavy dose of Atlassian, PagerDuty, and Neiman Marcus.
Recorded April 30, Fair Market, Austin Special thanks to Liam Martin, Egor Borushko, Ana Maria Bennett & Team Running Remote
Brian Elliott v2: Invest, J-Curve, Goals, Team | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep43 from Running Remote
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Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here
Sacha Connor returns to Work 20XX and asks, how do you self advocate, make sure the right people see and are familiar with your accompaniments, skills, and potential, when the most important factor when being considered for that next promotion or fresh opportunity is an AI agent preparing a list of candidates for consideration.
Are you on the agent’s radar? What digital persona is assembled by the AI after consuming the knowledge management system data, presentations, actions plans, meeting notes, agendas, project summaries, IMs, emails, meeting transcripts, and more digital exhaust? How does it compare to others?
Please join me in welcoming Sacha Connor back to the Work 20XX podcast at Running Remote,
As Founder and CEO of Virtual Work Insider, Sacha has long been a leading voice and resource for building distributed team success for years.
In this episode, we explore how in today’s AI world, people must signal their value to not just their managers and people who make decisions, but the AI agents that create the nominations based on a wide swath of internal systems communications data.
Recorded April 29, Fair Market, Austin Special Thanks to Liam Martin, Egor Borushko, Ana Maria Bennett & Team Running Remote
Sacha Connor v2: Self-Advocacy in the Age of AI | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep42 at Running Remote
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLrTlErF3OU&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes - Episode Page - Click Here
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/sacha-connor-v2-self-advocacy-in-the-age-of-ai-work-20xx-ep42
Ryan Anderson and his global research team are spread across more than 20 countries, allowing them to study a wide variety of built environments, workplaces, homes, schools, and healthcare, not just remotely, but in person. That in-person presence is critical. It gives them the ability to feel what’s happening in different types of spaces, each designed around distinct objectives.
Ryan also hosts one of the leading podcasts in the space, About Place—a true masterclass in all things design, workplace, and beyond. In fact, his podcast was one of my earliest and most valued resources as I dove into this community and topic.
So it was a real pleasure to sit down in person at Running Remote 2025 in Austin. Ryan shares how experience-based design isn't just about furniture or aesthetics, it's about creating environments that support engagement, autonomy, and wellbeing.
We explore the purpose behind workspace design, the data behind engaged teams, and the human factors that too often get overlooked. Ryan also talks about the role of choice and trust in workplace effectiveness, and why spaces that reflect organizational values are more important than ever.
Please join me in welcoming Ryan Anderson back to the Work 20XX podcast.
Recorded April 29, 2025 | Fair Market, Austin Thanks to Liam Martin, Egor Borushko, Ana Maria Bennett & Team Running Remote
Ryan Anderson v2: Support Rich Interpersonal Interactions | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep41 from Running Remote
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WskmM6kJiKI&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/ryan-anderson-v2-support-rich-interpersonal-interactions-work-20xx-ep41
Jessica “JJ” Reeder was there, with Darren Murph, at GitLab, early pandemic, when suddenly the entire world was interested in their masterpiece, the GitLab Remote Work handbook. When the world was thrown into remote and distributed work over a weekend in Spring 2020, and answers to many of the questions were contained in the tens of thousands of words, and thousands of pages in the GitLab remote work playbook.
As JJ recently reminded, that work started a decade ago. She and Darren are no longer at GitLab, and the Pandemic is 5 years removed and fading in the new rear view mirror. Good news, eyes on the future.
The future is AI-powered. Good news, the same behaviors, attributes, and best practices that powered success in distributed teams, are the same required to increase team AI adoption.
The long held dream of a high functioning organizational knowledge platform, is finally, almost here?
Please join me in welcoming “JJ” Jessica Reeder to the Work 20XX podcast.
JJ and team are implementing said knowledge platform in her new role at Upwork. As we discuss in this interview, it’s about the hard work, and everyone doing their part, that builds the buy in, and the data base, to dramatically improve the chances of success, wide spread adoption, and a significant reduction in the time spent searching for information.
Thanks again, JJ.
Editor’s Note: Recorded 2025-April-29 at the Running Remote conference in Austin, Texas. Special thanks to Liam, Egor, Ana, and the entire Running Remote team for collaborating with Work 20XX to capture these in-person interviews with the top minds shaping the future of work.
“JJ” Jessica Reeder: Scaling Knowledge, Evolution, Operations | Work podcast with Jeff Frick 20XX Ep40 from Running Remote
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmpI_FOdyyo&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/jj-jessica-reeder-scaling-knowledge-evolution-operations-work-20xx-ep40
Mark Cruth, Principal Modern Work Coach and Advocate at Atlassian, has been knee deep in the Atlassian system of work for years. A driving force behind Atlassian’s Team playbook,and a big fan of starting from templates, Mark has been helping organizations implement better ways of working.
Such a treat to sit down with Mark at the Atlassian Team ‘25 event in Anaheim, California. He walked me though some of this foundational team effectiveness philosophies, starting with alignment around goal, clear working agreements, clear roles and responsibilities, and an emphasis on getting closer with the teams one step removed, upstream, and downstream, to stay aligned.
Please join me in welcoming Mark Cruth to the Work 20XX podcast
Let’s make things more explicit. More communication, fewer assumptions.
Thanks again Mark.
Editor's Note: Recorded 2025-Apr-10, Anaheim Convention Center. My first solo onsite recording with some new gear. Missing my rock star production team.
Special shout out to Rob Castaneda and Team ServiceRocket for sharing their booth to enable this recording.
YouTube - Click Here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF0JsaJfR8M&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here
Dominic Price returns to Work 20XX, this time from the floor of Atlassian’s Team ’25 conference in Anaheim. Dom shared his candor, introspection, experiences, and hopes on the back end of a busy week, in person, across a small high boy table, on far more than the future of work. Simultaneously tired out and fired up, it promises to take some fun and unexpected turns.
Dominic has multiple frameworks, available to all, which can help all teams perform better. From the User Manual, to Working Agreements, the Personal Moral Inventory to the Modern Work Manifesto, think of them as intentional guide rails to prevent unnecessary friction and turbulence down the road when unfounded assumptions collide into behavior and attitude differences around specific actions. Sometimes resulting in intentional internal sabotage.
Dom is more than playbooks. He leans into the learning attitude, and looking in for opportunities to have existing beliefs challenged and updated with new information, so we can evolve and progress, not get stuck.
Beyond active listening, ask questions, be a catalyst, be curious, be explicit in your acceptance and actively seek out alternative views, approaches, and opinions.
How would you approach this problem? What would you do differently? Be the catalyst to move the knowledge forward.
Please join me in welcoming Dominic Price back to the Work 20XX podcast
This time, live and in person, from Atlassian Team ‘25.
Thank you Dom
Editors Note: Recorded 2025-Apr-10, Anaheim Convention Center. My first solo onsite recording with some new gear. Missing my rock star production team.
Special shout out to Rob Castaneda and Team ServiceRocket for sharing their booth to enable this recording.
YouTube - Click Here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW7Ys5gn8AI&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show notes - Click Here
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/dominic-price-v2-curiosity-impact-listen-value-work-20xx-ep38
Peter Marquez, Chief Customer Officer at ServiceRocket, joins us from the floor of Atlassian Team '25 in Anaheim to share his frontline perspective on the vibe and announcements, including Rovo, Atlassian’s AI assist, now included with purchase.
With over a decade of experience, we cover the ecosystem, evolution of the market, and company. Customer expectations are shifting, Atlassian's footprint more strategic. Rovo promises to significantly reduce the TTI … Time-To-Information (I just made that up) sitting on top of a unified data structure, including the transcripts from looms and meetings.
If we're reliable, we don't always have to be right. But we always want to be present. We always want to be available. - Peter Marquez:
Please join me in welcoming Peter Marquez to the Work 20XX podcast
Thank you Peter.
Editor's Note: Recorded 2025-Apr-09, Anaheim Convention Center. My first solo onsite recording with some new gear. Missing my rock star production team.
Special shout out to Rob Castaneda and Team ServiceRocket for sharing their booth to enable this recording.
YouTube - Click Here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUj6eXv79F0&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/peter-marquez-evolution-ecosystem-responsive-rovo-work-20xx-ep37
Molly Sands is Head of Teamwork Lab at Atlassian, where she helps distill what makes teams great, the practices, tools, exercises, behaviors and rituals that great teams tick. Built on first person research, delivered by Molly and team from the Teamwork Lab. Results are published regularly via a number channels including the State of Teams report.
I was able to grab some time with Molly in Anaheim at the Atlassian Team ‘25 show, and surface a wellspring of insight from the latest State of Teams, Personal Productivity, and so much more.
Please join me in welcoming Molly Sands to the Work 20XX podcast
Atlassian’s always done things a bit differently. Born in Sydney, scaling from profit not venture, replacing email with JIRA, and building one of the earliest distributed-first cultures.
Thank you Molly
Editor's Note:
Recorded 2025-Apr-09, Anaheim Convention Center. My first solo onsite recording with some new gear. Missing my rock star production team.
Special shout out to Rob Castaneda and Team ServiceRocket for sharing their booth to enable this recording.
YouTube - Click Here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH_236fOsZ4&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcipt and Show Notes - Click Here
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/molly-sands-clarity-empowered-disciplined-rituals-work-20xx-ep36
Andrew Boyagi just completed a multi time zone, multi country, multi week development project with no meetings. Not one. No kick off meetings, no status meetings, zero. And no one even notices until it was pointed out after the fact.
Sure, Andrew still kicked off the project. Of course everyone kept informed. Yes, objectives and priorities were aligned and corrected over time. But without meetings. Just messages, posting, videos, and perhaps a call, using Loom, Confluence, and Slack.
As Atlassian’s Global Head of DevOps Evangelism, Andrew’s all about experience to drive better software, faster. He’s constantly thinking about removing friction, innovative use of tools and processes, and focusing on the high leverage activities that deliver. Andrew’s mission is to eliminate friction, toil, and distractions so people can focus on delivering the best work of their lives.
I had a chance to sit down with Andrew in Anaheim at Atlassian Team ‘25 and dig into the latest findings from Atlassian’s ‘System of Work.’ Andrew’s also an advocate of leveraging AI to help increase developer productivity, but perhaps not in the ways you might expect.
Please join me in welcoming Andrew to the Work 20XX podcast
Thank you Andrew
Editor's Note: Recorded 2025-Apr-09, Anaheim Convention Center. My first solo onsite recording with some new gear. The audio is not great, but the content is well worth the effort. Missing my rock star production team.
Special shout out to Rob Castaneda and Team ServiceRocket for sharing their booth to enable this recording.
YouTube - Click Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a18HhhdVRoo&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here https://www.work20xx.com/episode/andrew-boyagi-better-experience-productivity-system-work-20xx-ep35
Charles Corley traveled to Singapore via Hong Kong to start a new chapter over thirty years ago. He stepped off a night train into a bustling world heretofore only seen on a big screen at the cinema. Charles is not afraid of change, he embraces the new.
As Director of Development at M Moser and Associates, Charles and their global teams are leveraging 3D modeling, virtual reality, and cross-disciplinary collaboration to bring workplaces to life, not only as a ‘show’ deliverable, but as the centerpiece for the entire design process, start to finish. Sitting in Singapore, with visibility on project around the world, Charles has a unique vantage to learn about what works, and why.
Even more intriguing, Charles has used ChatGPT every day since it was launched in November 2022. Every day. Looking for ideas on how to get started with AI. Already started, but not sure how to get more value at work. You will love, Love, LOVE this episode and Charles’ AI discovery and current state. Kudos to Moira Moser for making the investment in all at the organization having access to the entire suite of AI tools.
Please join me in welcoming Charles Corley to the Work 20XX podcast
Charles also reminds us how far we’ve come from ‘Sick Building Syndrome’ to a focus on wellness, sustainability, and creating an environment for people to do their best work. Engagement and Adaptability are key words.
Editor's note: There was some unexpected maintenance happening in an adjoining unit in Singapore, so you might hear some banging and sawing and drilling here and there, but I assure you, everyone is ok, and the redo looks smashing.
Thank you Charles.
YouTube - Click Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkNGFqywW7g&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here https://www.work20xx.com/episode/charles-corley-culture-wellness-visualization-ai-colleague-work-20xx-ep34
Connie Noonan Hadley, Founder and Chief Scientist at the Institute for Life at Work, has been exploring team effectiveness since our paths first crossed in Philadelphia thirty years ago.
After roles at General Mills and McKinsey & Company, she dedicated herself to academia to further her research on leadership and the universal desire to love one's job. It turns out that strong social connections and support systems at work significantly enhance job satisfaction and reduce burnout. However, many workplaces lack these crucial components.
Consequently, Connie has focused her efforts to provide organizations with solutions that enhance workplace team cohesion and output. She advocates for intentional steps to reduce loneliness and increase psychological safety.
Connie has authored and co-authored numerous research papers, articles, book chapters and podcasts on these topics. Her contributions include a recent Harvard Business Review cover story titled ‘We’re Still Lonely at Work,’ co-authored with Sarah L. Wright.
Please join me in welcoming Connie Noonan Hadley to the Work 20XX podcast.
The effective adoption of new methods and technologies is crucial in today’s rapidly evolving world. The frequency and impact of external shocks seem to be escalating, with constant challenges since at least March 2020.
Proactive measures to reduce loneliness and increase psychological safety within teams can build resilience, enhance innovation, and strengthen team cohesion. These steps are also effective in reducing burnout and attrition.
Connie and I delve into the research to explore the actions leaders can take to improve performance in these essential areas. Connie is focused on solutions.
YouTube - Click Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgJltXj7vqg&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here https://www.work20xx.com/episode/connie-noonan-hadley-loneliness-psychological-safety-team-effectiveness-ai-work-20xx-ep33
Chet Kapoor, Chairman and CEO of Datastax, is all in on GenAI, aka Generative Artificial Intelligence. When ChatGPT burst into public consciousness in November 2022, Chet pivoted his team and the company to seize a leadership position in the fifth major technology wave of his 30+ year technology career.
Data at scale, vectorizing databases, and an open-source ethos are just a few ingredients necessary to enable developers to build and deliver the next revolution of GenAI native, and GenAI infused applications. This opportunity goes beyond merely saving money and increasing efficiency by a few points; to fundamentally reinventing processes, business models, and daily life assisted by human-like agents specifically designed around the context of our individual preferences, productivity, and priorities.
Please join me in welcoming Chet Kapoor to the Work 20XX podcast.
From RAG to LLMs, SLMs to hallucinations, and the exponential curves that will provide each of us with our own personal agents running locally, tuned to various processes, GenAI apps promise to change everything. From managing personal email to the marketing department, to our personal social calendars, these technologies will be based on the context and relevance of what matters most to each of us. The implications are broad and Chet and I discussed a number of important topics, from regulation and governance, developer tools, to the ramifications of 24/7 speech access to a supercomputer running apps tailored to our preferences. Exciting, scary, brave new world? Yes, yes, and yes.
What can we learn from the four most recent technology epochs (client-server, web, mobile, cloud), and what makes this GenAI chapter so unique?
Join me in this conversation with someone who has lived through prior transformations and has strong opinions on how this next chapter will unfold. Chet’s eyes still sparkle, the data-centric, open-source excitement burns as brightly as when he first picked up The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple Computer by Michael Moritz in 1984, knowing then that he had to be part of this technology-powered transformation.
YouTube - Click Here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcvLOREN5IE&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt&ab_channel=TurntheLenswithJeffFrick
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/chet-kapoor-genai-my-agent-human-like-reinvention-work-20xx-ep32
Julie Whelan and the CBRE research team delivered the updated 2024 edition of the US Office Occupier Sentiment Survey. This marks the third consecutive year we’ve had Julie on to share the findings and some of the insights behind the numbers.
For the first time since Covid, according to Julie, the survey feels somewhat ‘normal,’ reflecting a significant shift in sentiment regarding organizations ‘shedding’ space. While the past few years focused on downsizing and adapting to hybrid work models, companies are now reaching a "steady state" where office space utilization is stabilizing, and some organizations are even considering expanding their space.
Please join me in welcoming Julie Whelan back to Work 20XX.
We covered a range of topics, including the difference between measuring efficiency vs. effectiveness. We reviewed the latest on technology investments, from video conferencing and space scheduling to occupancy sensors and more. We also explored some innovative ways companies are using flexible and shared spaces to accommodate peak days when most employees are in the office, while still maintaining ‘vibrancy’ on days with fewer people present.
With New York’s Local Law 97 coming into play, we discussed the role of sustainability, net-zero goals, office conversions, and the capital markets adjustments that will reset a number of properties that no longer meet today’s standards.
These topics and more make for another highly engaging conversation with Julie, who has her finger on the pulse of the office market from a national perspective.
YouTube - Click Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2khvxe9CcQY&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt&ab_channel=TurntheLenswithJeffFrick
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here https://www.work20xx.com/episode/julie-whelan-v3-sentiment-shift-location-vibrancy-work-20xx-ep31
Evan Benway, a musician and the child of musicians, has been immersed in the creation and study of music since his earliest days. Through his deep appreciation for the evocative power and joy of sound, Evan understands how profoundly music can affect mood and emotions. However, in his professional journey, he discovered a stark contrast: sound is often considered a major distraction in traditional knowledge worker environments, especially in open floor plans filled with sound-reflecting materials like concrete and glass. Even in the most cutting-edge offices, unmanaged noise—particularly from people talking—can overwhelm other positive design elements. Evan experienced this firsthand and was struck by how unproductive such environments could be due to a poorly managed soundscape.
Traditional methods of sound management—absorbing, blocking, and covering, known as the ABCs of acoustics—are increasingly inadequate in modern office designs where sound sensitivity is high, and conventional solutions like carpets and acoustic tiles are less practical.
There had to be a better way.
Join me in welcoming Evan Benway to Work 20XX.
Evan founded Moodsonic to transform sound from a negative element into a positive force that enhances productivity, mood, and well-being. Moodsonic uses science-backed, biophilic sounds to create contextually relevant, dynamically generated soundscapes (with no loops) for built environments. Starting with offices and expanding into healthcare and educational markets, Moodsonic's approach brings the power of nature-inspired sound into these spaces.
Evan and his team are pioneering the use of dynamic soundscapes to improve people's experiences in built environments, leveraging the deep-seated biological impact of sound on attention, health, productivity, and well-being. At the same time, they carefully design these soundscapes to avoid the many pitfalls that poorly designed audio environments can bring.
In this episode of Work 20XX, we dive into the details, science, methods, and results of creating intentional soundscape designs that work in harmony with visual and other design elements to create better workplace experiences.
YouTube - Click Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OqytQDMf80&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt&index=1
Eposide page with transcript and show notes - Click Here https://www.work20xx.com/episode/evan-benway-dynamic-sound-positive-well-being-work-20xx-ep30
Tony Jamous started Oyster in January 2020 to use the power of software to address the disequilibrium between the tens of millions of un-filled knowledge worker jobs in the West, with the Billion plus new knowledge workers coming on line in the next 10 years in the developing world.
Connecting the supply to demand, without making people leave their home countries. Making hiring global as easy as hiring local. Bringing amazing job opportunities to people around the world, while making it easy for employers and employees, regardless of their location in the world. A Professional Employment Organization (PEO) on a planetary scale, delivering hundreds of millions of dollars of direct investment to in the form of wages and taxes, to workers in over 180 countries around the world.
Please join me in welcoming Tony Jamous to Work 20XX
After a series of successful startups, including going public and acquisition, Tony found himself financially successful, but felt there was still something missing. Tony took a year to heal himself, to get better, to get healthier. He wanted to create a new organization, hyper diverse, and hyper distributed, using the latest technology to enable people to hire talent from anywhere in the world, and that talent to perform their jobs without having to leave their home communities and move..
Tony describes his leadership style as ‘Sustainable Leadership,’ a human-centric approach, taking care of self first, and your people, which results in a stronger organization, increased engagement, and 100% remote organization of about 600 people living in 70 countries.
In this episode, we dive into the opportunity, the logistics, and the management philosophy Tony is using to create a very unique culture to address one of the largest market miss matches of the next several decades. I am absolutely thrilled to share Tony’s story with you.
YouTube - Click Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8eUlGJVCd4&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Episode page with transcript and show notes - Click Here https://www.work20xx.com/episode/tony-jamous-global-talent-sustainable-unreactive-work-20xx-ep29
Brian Elliott mined one of the primary information veins on attitudes about work, workplace, the impact of agency, trust, and outcomes-focused management, effectively moving work forward at the team level, in concert with organizational and individual objectives. The Future Forum Pulse survey, 10,000 people, surveyed quarterly. With the full backing, partnership, and research support of Slack, Salesforce, BCG, MillerKnoll and MLT, each with their own research operations.
Brian is independent now, sharing his insight far and wide. He last visited Work 20XX June 2023, and delivered the ‘Distributed Working 101’ best practices on distributed work, every hot button question, challenge, benefit, and opportunity I could think of. Time for an update and uplevel of the topics as priorities change in a year.
Please join me in welcoming back, Brian Elliott to Work 20XX
If you generalize distributed work adoption as a form of technology adoption practices (tools and rules), you can use the same process and philosophy to increase AI and adoption in your organization, it’s another form of technology adoption practices. If you don’t, others are. It’s good business practices, broadly applicable. And as many organizations are unsure how to navigate AI adoption, good news, distributed work provides the road map.
That’s what we cover in this episode, which might have been titled ‘Distributed Working 201’.
Oh yes, did I mention it’s RTO season? In headlines only.
YouTube - Click Here
Sacha Connor took a risk. Working on the west coast, for a company she enjoyed in a job she loved, she put it on the line in the interest of wanting her soon to be first born child to grow up around her extended family in Philadelphia. So in 2010, she asked, can I keep my position, but move 3,000 miles and 3 time zones away, and go fully remote? They replied, yes, ‘but’ with significant career altering caveats. Sacha bet on herself, and took the offer.
Sacha made the move, and not only ran large distributed teams for the next 8 years, for Clorox, from Philadelphia, she overcame all the hurdles, and caveats, getting Clorox to de-couple location from potential and career track. Sacha started Virtual Work Insider in 2018 to help other organizations more effectively work as distributed teams and organizations, and she and team continue that work today, with a who’s who of progressive companies looking to embrace change, and learn the skills, mindsets, and behaviors to thrive in a more distributed world.
Please join me in welcoming Sacha Conner to this episode of Work 20XX
I was thrilled with Sacha accepted my invitation, as she started her distributed team member journey from zero, and has learned quite a bit over her time at Clorox, and with her current clients, on what works, what doesn’t work, and the practical steps to take to do distributed work better. From being Omni-modal, able to comfortably switch modes, to mapping out your network, and humanizing the members of the team, she’s chock full of tips and tricks to better navigate, and manage our increasingly distributed and dynamic world and workplace.
YouTube Video - Click Here
Transcript and Show Notes - Click Here
Chase Warrington established travel and international experiences as his guiding priorities early in his career, recognizing the necessity of making significant trade-offs to achieve these goals. After a brief period in the corporate sector, Chase joined Doist, a fully remote company with 100 employees spread across more than 30 countries. As the Head of Operations, he has taken a holistic approach to remote work best practices and has become a prominent figure in the remote work movement, which gained momentum during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Chase and his family embarked on their international living adventure and are currently residing in Valencia, Spain.
In 2021, Chase launched the "About Abroad" podcast to offer advice and insights to those interested in living abroad. The podcast covers a wide range of topics from the mundane, such as visas and taxes, to more specific themes like Van Life and obtaining dual citizenship in various countries. Chase is an active presence in the community, frequently speaking at conferences and appearing as both a host and guest on numerous podcast episodes.
Please join me in welcoming Chase Warrington to this episode of Work 20XX.
I am thrilled that Chase accepted my invitation. His mission is to streamline the path to living and working abroad, making it smoother and less complicated than when he began his international journey over a decade ago.
YouTube Video - Click Here
Transcript and Show Notes
Jack (John) M Nilles coined the term ‘Telecommuting’ when describing the trade-offs between using the phone and commuting. After the first 20 years of his career coordinating interdisciplinary technology teams in the development of top-secret optical systems for satellites and NASA, and spurred by a Santa Barbara urban planner's challenge, ‘If you can put a man on the moon, why don’t you do something about traffic?’ As the University of Southern California's first director for Interdisciplinary Research, he assembled various disciplines to study and validate Jack’s hypothesis that technology enabled tasks to be done in new ways, starting with trading telecommunications for commuting. The development of the Policy on the Telecommunications-Transportation Tradeoff, 1974 Final Report (and book in 1976), was based on work with an insurance company, who wanted to reduce their ridiculously high turnover. This research is the basis for over 50 years of work invested in advancing distributed work in a world where ‘technology was never the issue; there were always more people who could do it than managers who would allow them to.’ Please join me in welcoming Jack Nilles to Work 20XX. I was thrilled beyond belief when Jack accepted my invitation. Ninety-one years young, still actively blogging and posting on the topic, what a treat to hear the story of how all this got started. Jack Nilles: Telecommuting, Tradeoffs, Resistance, Incentives | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick, Ep25 #Telecommuting #Tradeoffs #Resistance #Incentives #Leadership #Management #RemoteWork #JackNilles #FoW #RtO #Bandwidth #Change #Behavior #TechnologyTradeoffs #Digital #Distributed #Hybrid #Remote #Workplace #Interview #Podcast #DistributedWork #Technology #WorkplaceInnovation #ManagementChallenges #JALA #LeadershipInsights University of Southern California #USC #FutureOfWork hashtag#Work20XX
Michelle Ossmann, PhD, MSN started her career as a Nurse practitioner, delivering services to patients in need. She saw an opportunity to use design to better support more patients at scale, and just as importantly, the Nurse practitioners and other health care team members who face a storm of beeps, flashes, and technology intersecting with the care and emotions of the hospital ward. As part of this work, she took a deep dive into the fundamental literature around hospitality, something that is deeply ingrained in human culture, across continents, religions, and time. It’s a set of shared values, fundamental to the human experience, and sharing food and breaking bread is the third of three attributes that define it. Please join me in welcoming Michelle Ossmann to Work 20XX I heard Michelle at another webinar (Thanks Mark Catchlove), and was so excited she accepted the invitation to share her knowledge with the Work 20XX community. The host-guest, hospitality frameworks are generalizable across several applications and a useful framework for those feeling challenged by the evolving workplace landscape.
YouTube Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8uCBgNzkzU&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt&ab_channel=TurntheLenswithJeffFrick
Transcript and Show Notes
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/michelle-ossmann-hospitality-welcome-security-care-work-20xx-ep24
Dominic Price has been a workplace futurist since before it was cool. Atlassian, founded by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar in 2002, has always embraced a uniquely Australian approach. With its roots in Sydney and HQ in Silicon Valley, the company was profitable before being funded, displaced email with JIRA for internal communications, and built it’s distributed workplace culture on the back of 5 core values, including don’t ‘f” the customer. Dominic is responsible for driving step-function learning to take Atlassian further and faster, enhancing how we work. Fortunately for us, Atlassian's open-source ethos is evident, and Dominic, along with his team, shares their insights generously. Dom will be the first to tell you that without context, knowledge is less impactful, and it's crucial to apply it as relevant. Please join me in welcoming Dom Price to Work 20XX. Dom is a deep thinker with a pragmatic flair. We delved into everything from 1%, adaptability, and bias for action, to context, culture, data, distributed teams, do-ocracy, evolution, experimentation, feel, foundation, how we work, open source, Personal Moral Inventory, portfolio, psychological safety, proxy, ROI, scale, situational leadership, team, TEDx, The Five Ls, The Modern Workplace Manifesto, trust, try, unlearning, values, walks... and more.
YouTube Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lwPqARB92g&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show Notes
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/dominic-price-experiment-feel-safety-learning-work-20xx-ep23
Sophie Wade has been working, writing, and speaking on the Future of Work before the Future of Work was cool. She’s always been a teacher, so after her first career in media, she started the Flexcel Network, helping organizations optimize around outcomes and sustainable work environments, leveraging in part, flexible work. In 2019, she published the first of five LinkedIn Learning courses. Sophie launched her podcast ‘Transforming Work’ with Sohie Wade Just weeks before the global lockdown in March 2020. In 2022, she released her 2nd book ‘Empathy Works: The Key to Competitive Advantage in the New Era of Work.’
Thrilled to welcome my very special guest, Sophie Wade to Work 20XX.
Hosting 100 episodes of her own podcast, Sophie brings a breadth of expertise that reaches far into, and branches into the area of people development, re-skilling and training, education, both traditional and new digital forms, leadership, and of course the role of empathy for leaders moving forward in a digital, post covid world.
Sophie shared some of the latest from her travels and guests, asking good questions as a fellow host will, from music creativity to technological innovation, AI Hallucinations (yes, that’s what they call them) to digital platforms, and challenges in the multi-generational workplace.
Thanks again Sophie
YouTube Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raMUSl9Xr6I&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
Transcript and Show notes
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/sophie-wade-transforming-skills-change-truth-work-20xx-ep22
Please join me in welcoming Nellie Hayat, Workplace Innovation Lead, Density, and Host of the Beyond Work Conversations Podcast to Work 20XX. What a treat to share the mic with podcast host who has wholeheartedly embraced the good vibes of the workplace ecosystem. And when it comes to positive energy, this guest literally lights up the room on her arrival, in person or online.
We cover a wide range of topics starting with her move to workplace from stops in fashion to aerospace. She's a seasoned traveler, who values experience with cultures all over the world. And since languages, dialects, and accents vary place to place, Nellie has turned this communication challenge into an operating principle of being more aware, and paying more attention, when listening carefully to people speaking. And being aware that people might have a challenge with her accent, and take that into consideration.
She prides herself on being a generalist, able to bring the best of prior experiences into new fields. And she's certainly an original.
Thanks again Nellie.
Transcript and Show Notes
https://www.work20xx.com/episode/nellie-hayat-attention-original-generalist-work-20xx-ep21
YouTube Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEuQ3udT3Ig&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt
#Flexibility #agency
I’m absolutely thrilled to share this conversation with the entertaining, data-centric expert in the field of work from home, Nick Bloom.
No one has more of a finger on the pulse of the relevant data in this industry. I welcome Nick Bloom, the William Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University, Professor of Economics and Sr Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and Founder WFH Research to Work 20XX.
Nick is an often cited, interviewed, and referenced expert in the field, having started his studies over 20 years ago. He co-founded the WFH Research project in May 2020 in direct response to the pandemic and a need for first-person baseline information.
Get past the recent headlines of mandated return to office and find out what Nick thinks about what will happen in the next five years.
Thanks again Nick for the generosity of your time, and your ongoing sharing of great academic research and insights.
YouTube - Click Here
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We disclaim proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. No representation is made or warranty given as to their content. The user assumes all risks of use.
It’s like Airbnb and WeWork had a baby but with less drama.
That’s a simple summary of Radious. pro from CEO and Co-Founder Amina Moreau. She moved from film and photography through marketing into co-defining the workplace future. As an Airbnb host during the pandemic with inventory to move and dirty laundry stacking up, she invented Radious. Radious offered a solution with residences outfitted with business amenities less than a commute away for workers. Or these residences can serve as an offsite adventure experience. As they used to say, there’s a property for that. We discussed the growing piece of a more flexible on-demand real estate portfolio, her entrepreneurial journey, the special magic of starting a marketplace from zero, and of course, her awesome home studio setup.
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PXNTDO_la0&list=PLZURvMqWbYjmmJlwGj0L0jWbWdCej1Jlt #Intentionality #Optionality #Mindset #work20xx #Adapting #AdaptingHosting #AminaMoreau #AirbnbAlternative #Authentic #Authenticity #BeginnerMindset #Brand #B2BPlatform #Business #Buzzword #Captioned #Clarifying #Communication #CommunicationSkills #Commercial #CoolGlasses #Coworking #Cre #Cynic #Digital #Dynamic #Effective #EffectiveCommunication #Encounter #Entrepreneurship #Escape #Flex #Flexspace #Flexible #FlexibleHosting #FlexibleIncomeStrategies #FutureOfWork #Glasses #GrowthMindset #Helpful #Hosting #Hybrid #Innovation #Insight #Interview #Iteration #Knowledge #Marketplace #Marketing #Meaningful #MeaningfulPursuit #Meet #NeighborlyInitiative #Office #Opensourceworkplace #Opportunity #Optimism #Pandemic #PandemicInnovations #Personal #PersonalBrand #Pessimism #Podcast #Powerful #PowerfulTool #Pragmatist #Psychology #Qualified #RadiousPro #Radious #RealEstate #Realestate #Remote #RemoteWork #RemoteWorkEscape #Residential #Retreat #Safe #SafeRetreat #Shortterm #Skills #Space #StandOut #Storytelling #Team #ThirdPlace #Thirplace #Work #WorkLifeBalance #Workplace #WorkplaceCommunication — Disclaimer and Discloser
All products, product names, companies, logos, names, brands, service names, trademarks, registered trademarks, and registered trademarks (collectively, identifiers) are the property of their respective owners. All identifiers used are for identification purposes only. Use of these *identifiers does not imply endorsement. Other trademarks are trade names that may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and/or names of their products and are the property of their respective owners.
We disclaim proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. No representation is made or warranty given as to their content. The user assumes all risks of use.
Often referenced Future Forum Research found that flexibility ranked second only to compensation in determining job satisfaction Rob Sadow, Co-Founder and CEO of Scoop was curious to explore how self-reported importance translated to feet on the street, as measured by headcount growth in companies, by Flexible/Hybrid work policy.
Rob & team combined the Flex Index, a database representing 6,500 companies’ flexible/hybrid work policies, with partner People Data Labs Labs data on headcount growth by company to find out.
Welcome back for another episode of Work 20XX with our guest Rob Sadow, where we dive into the Flex Report, the July findings, and much more. We dive into he and his brother’s less-than-smooth, rebirth from the Covid ashes, Covid taketh, Covid givith hybrid work, and re-birthed entrepreneurial journey. And I had to extract a few nuggets from his Show Flex Perspectives, featuring many of the industry’s favorite guests including Nick Bloom, Phil Kirschner, Shujaat Ahmad and Brian Elliott.
Thanks again, Rob.
The Flex Report - Job Growth Edition - 2023-July-18
https://lnkd.in/giWBECan
Winning the war for talent in the post-pandemic world, Future Forum Pulse Survey, Future Forum Team, Future Forum, 2021-June-15
https://lnkd.in/g5SNqJeM
Flex Perspectives Podcast
https://lnkd.in/gP4ZJ-Nd
#work #workplace #work20xx #podcast #linkedinlive #premier #fow #flexible #flex #hybrid #distributed
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All products, product names, companies, logos, names, brands, service names, trademarks, registered trademarks, and registered trademarks (collectively, identifiers) are the property of their respective owners. All identifiers used are for identification purposes only. Use of these *identifiers does not imply endorsement. Other trademarks are trade names that may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and/or names of their products and are the property of their respective owners.
We disclaim proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. No representation is made or warranty given as to their content. The user assumes all risks of use.
On July 13, The McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) released the ‘Empty Spaces and Hybrid Places: The Pandemic’s Lasting Impact on Real Estate' - report Sixty-four pages focused on ‘superstar’ cities in the US, Asia, and Europe, and the long term impacts from Covid on the commercial real estate market with a focus on office,
Welcome to the kick-off of Season 3 of Work 20XX with McKinsey’s Phil Kirschner, where we dive into the report, and a broader discussion on the best practices necessary to enable your organization to thrive in the face of this the workplace revolution
Thanks again Phil.
Empty Spaces and Hybrid Places: The Pandemics' lasting impact on Real Estate,
Authors: Jan Mischke, Ryan Luby, Brian Vickery, Jonathan Woetzel, Olivia White, Aditya Sanghvi, Jinnie Rhee, Anna Fu, Rob Palter, André Dua, Sven Smit, Editor: Benjamin Plotinsky, McKinsey Global Institute, 2023-July-13
https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/empty-spaces-and-hybrid-places
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All products, product names, companies, logos, names, brands, service names, trademarks, registered trademarks, and registered trademarks (collectively, identifiers) are the property of their respective owners. All identifiers used are for identification purposes only. Use of these *identifiers does not imply endorsement. Other trademarks are trade names that may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and/or names of their products and are the property of their respective owners.
We disclaim proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. No representation is made or warranty given as to their content. The user assumes all risks of use.
© Copyright 2023 Menlo Creek Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved
Julie Whelan and the research team at CBRE have published the latest edition of the US Office Occupier Sentiment Survey to share insights into the current state of the office market. There have been significant changes since our last conversation, coming out of the pandemic in the summer of 20222.
Organizations have become more declarative in setting and communicating policies regarding the number of days employees are expected to be present in the office. Directions, recommendations, or mandates, even those with an 'office first' approach do not expect teams to come in five days a week.
When it comes to the health of office buildings, the age-old rule of "location, location, location" still applies. Mixed-use submarkets that host a variety of business and residential profiles, as well as multiple economic drivers, tend to be more attractive, and active, with less crime. Office buildings located in these healthier communities are doing better than those in less vibrant submarkets, like overly office-dense central business districts.
Julie and I delve into the implications for office, commercial real estate, and facilities professionals, while also highlighting ways to enhance the effectiveness of those responsible for driving business outcomes.
Thanks again Julie.
CBRE Spring 2023 US Office Occupier Sentiment Survey - https://www.cbre.com/insights/reports...
Disclaimer and Discloser All products, product names, companies, logos, names, brands, service names, trademarks, registered trademarks, and registered trademarks (collectively, identifiers) are the property of their respective owners. All identifiers used are for identification purposes only. Use of these *identifiers does not imply endorsement. Other trademarks are trade names that may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and/or names of their products and are the property of their respective owners.
We disclaim proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. No representation is made or warranty given as to their content. The user assumes all risks of use.
© Copyright 2023 Menlo Creek Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved
Brian Elliott literally 'wrote the book' on the future of work with his fellow authors and Future Forum co-founders, Sheela Subramanian and Helen Kupp. ‘How The Future Works.’. At Future Forum, Brian and team got beyond the assumptions, and surveyed 10,000 people, every quarter to get the data.
What are the secrets to building culture, connection, driving innovation, and effectiveness, in the ever-evolving world of work? Culture, Innovation, and Productivity, that s what people question the most in my workplace, future of work, hybrid, remote, digital-first........ conversations.
So we jumped right into it, and Brian shares some of the lessons learned, a level deeper into connections, behaviors, communications, effective, management principles, meetings as more, with actionable insight that everyone can use to improve the work experience, regardless of where you plug in your laptop of recharge your phone.
Digital-first, agency, flexibility, psychological safety, all built on intentional behaviors, 1:1 communication, documentation-first, and repeated communication on the mission, the why, and each person's role in delivering against the mission (see Janitor, JFK, & Apollo Moon Mission story). Living the values in words, actions, and decisions. Pushing decision-making down as far as possible, including the establishment of norms at the team level.
What a treat to sit down with one of the top leaders in the industry, built on the back of amazing first-person survey data, the Future Forum partnership, and experience at Slack, Google, and BCG, key and leading players in the digitization of work and workplace.
Thanks again, Brain.
YouTube - Click Here
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All products, product names, companies, logos, names, brands, service names, trademarks, registered trademarks, and registered trademarks (collectively, identifiers) are the property of their respective owners. All identifiers used are for identification purposes only. Use of these *identifiers does not imply endorsement. Other trademarks are trade names that may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and/or names of their products and are the property of their respective owners. We disclaim proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. No representation is made or warranty given as to their content. The user assumes all risks of use.
© Copyright 2023 Menlo Creek Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved
Andreas Hoffbauer, Founder & Director of Atelier Kultur has built a business helping organizations leverage organizational sociology best practices to build better networks in and around their organizations, to increase the discovery and dissemination of knowledge, reinforce and grow culture, and thrive in these increasingly dynamic times.
Networks, and networking, be they physical or digital, face-to-face, via digital work platforms like Slack, Teams, or Webex, or external platforms like LinkedIn, or any number of professional associations, networks provide the ties that bind, and can be the path to new knowledge, information, and potentially cutting edge thought, design, and insights to provide new axes of competitive advantage. Especially in fast-moving industries like technology and media. And since every company's evolving into a technology company, the applicability of Andreas' lessons reach far and wide.
Weak ties, strong ties. Internal groups, and cross-functional connectors, information flows up and down and horizontal to the chain of command, direct connects and indirect relationships, we covered it all in this extended conversation.
We even got into the Ship of Theseus aka Theseus' paradox.
I'm sure you'll enjoy this conversation with Andreas as much as I did.
Work 20XX Episode Page for show notes, transcript, etc.
YouTube - https://youtu.be/n3kOAh61HfA
Time for Episode 13, and not knowing the level of superstition with my guests, going solo for episode 13. A quick update on some of the lessons learned through the first 12 episodes, and making a slight course correction as we work through season 2.
Also reviewing lessons learned through the first twelve episodes including async, communication, office, meetings, learning, career, hybrid, remote, 1:1s, trust, agency and more.
YouTube - Click Here
Kate Lister | Research, People, Trust | Work 20XX #12
For decades, Kate Lister, President of Global Workplace Analytics, has been studying human productivity, workplace, and the benefits of employees spending less time in traditional offices. She reminds us that ‘telecommuting’ was coined by Jack Nilles in 1973.
Her specialty is research… she and her team have been mining thousands of research reports, the highlights of which she shares in the next 50 minutes. We cover the Mount Rushmore of remote-work issues: productivity, culture, innovation and employee engagement plus more in this extended conversation.
My Conversation with Kate Lister
YouTube - Click Here
Dave Cairns, SVP Office Leasing for CBRE Canada, leasing office space to some of the largest companies with a presence in Toronto, squeezed eight years of traditional office time between a very unconventional post-college career in poker, and more recently, embarking on a 'digital home-ad' life while taking a leadership position on commercial real estate transformation, and becoming a prolific publisher on LinkedIn. I am so excited to share this episode with you.
East of the Eastern time zone, in the Gulf of St Lawrence, lies Prince Edward Island (PIE), just off New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in the Atlantic time zone. This where Dave Cairns and family relocated. As he explains, "my wife and I moved to an unconventional place because of a pandemic set of learnings," a place they were considering a vacation home, they would now move full time to raise a family and embrace the life of digital home-ads.
Dave inhabited a digital world long before covid, online poker. And it was in this world, that he developed his very unique perspective on the strengths of community, engagement, relationships, and transactions that do happen digitally, the positive impact growth in digital worlds has on corresponding physical worlds, and finally, the difficulty many non-digital natives are having during this time of transition.
My conversation with Dave Cairns
Don’t Gamble 1-800 Gamblers Anonymous Hotlines https://www.gamblersanonymous.org/ga/hotlines Gamblers Anonymous, International Service Office, 1306 Monte Vista Avenue, Suite 5, Upland, CA 91786, Phone (909) 931-9056
Episode Page on Work 20XX - Dave Cairns: Arbitrage, Asset Class, Asynchronous, As-A-Service | Work 20XX #11 - Work 20XX
Watch on YouTube - Dave Cairns: Arbitrage, Asset Class, Asynchronous, As-A-Service | Work 20XX #11 - YouTube
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We disclaim proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. No representation is made or warranty given as to their content. The user assumes all risks of use.
© Copyright 2023 Menlo Creek Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved
Tyler Sellhorn runs remote for Polygon Labs, a blockchain development platform with 500 employees distributed all around the world. Less than 4 years ago, he was teaching high school algebra for the Fort Wayne Community school district, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the 140th largest metro area in the US, not necessarily known for its bustling blockchain sector.
Welcome to Work20XX, a show focused on the transitioning world of work, where we bring you the best minds in the business to provide insight, direction, and specific actions that leaders, line managers, and individual contributors can use as we experiment our way forward.
I started the process with Tyler with every intention to deep dive into remote team management best practices, leveraging Tyler’s day job, and Podcast where he’s hosted the biggest names in the workplace. And yet, I find his career pivot to be even more compelling, and something more broadly applicable to an audience far larger than those focused on remote work, including those laid off in the past, and those still to come.
How do people, transition to industries, that didn’t even exist when they finished our formal school? Thousands of people are getting laid off, automation will remove many jobs, many of which are crap, but still.
The good news is there are so many avenues to find a match for your current aptitude, applied to a new field, with some learning of the vocabulary, norms, community, discussions, hot button issues, voices, etc. And this is accessible online. Whether that be getting a certification for in demand cloud or data skills, or becoming a remote work expert as Tyler did, the resources are available, the information is available, and the community is available, you just have to pick which community fits your objectives.
Tyler transitioned from High School Teacher to Customer Success for a software company, then Remote and Ops for a blockchain development platform, picking up hosting the ‘We Work Remotely” podcast along the way.
As Meg Bear likes to say, the secret to re-skilling is doing. What Tyler shows is all, is that the resources are there, listen to the experts, read the posts, and take the certification. The open-source ethos, layered on vast libraries of information, has changed the way we continue to learn, both for fun, professional development, and the more frequent than comfortable career pivot.
My conversation with Tyler Sellhorn
YouTube - Click Here
Tracy Hawkins, former VP, Head of Real Estate & Work Transformation, Twitter was well into the hybrid / remote work transformation before Covid thrust the concept on the rest of us. Moving from the London and Dublin offices to Twitter Headquarters in Downtown San Francisco, she and her team had already expanded their thinking from a purely real-estate-centric focus on leases and occupancy, to how they could use the tools at hand to build and support the broader employee experience, culture development, and taking a more human-centric, activity based approach to how her team could enable Tweeps to do their best work, regardless of location.
Covid certainly accelerated this, and Tracy’s team formally moved from the finance team to the people train in 2020. Tracy has executive support as she and team focused on the details, everything from formally institutionalizing, training, and promoting behaviors, norms or ‘etiquettes’ around asynchronous communication, fewer meetings, no-meeting Fridays, Perching, and more. Compete with Senior executive support and modeling of desired behaviors.
As for space, the goal was choice, giving people a variety of environments to choose from, when they want to come in to accomplish something, be it heavily eam collaborative work, culture building and team bonding, or isolated focus work, Tracy and the team focused on providing options.
Welcome to Work20XX, a show focused on the transitioning world of work, where we bring you the best minds in the business to provide insight, direction, and specific actions that leaders, line managers, and individual contributors can use as we experiment our way forward.
In this far-ranging conversation, we cover these topics and more including the role of data, and a number of no-cost ways you can begin to better support all the people in the organization.
Without further delay, a conversation with Tracy Hawkins
Shared pain builds camaraderie and strengthens ties as we rally around a cause.
Workplace professionals grabbed internet megaphones and started sharing best practices almost immediately in the spring of 2020 as the digitization of work took a step-function leap forward. This open-source ethos of sharing continues today because as much as we have over two years of experience, the future is still undefined. A learning mindset and all that implies, has never been more important.
Welcome to Work20XX, a show focused on work, and the future of work, where we bring you the professionals to provide insight, direction, and specifics actions leaders, line managers, and individual contributors can use to navigate these sometimes choppy waters.
Maribel Lopez, Founder and Principal Analyst, at Lopez Research, has been doing her part on this path of discovery. Maribel has been working in ‘technology enablement’ her entire career, founding Lopez Research in 2008. In this far-ranging conversation, we discuss how organizations are completely rethinking the importance of and prioritization of well-being as an objective which digital workplace systems weren’t originally built to do. Now that all devices are connected and data is at our fingertips (literally), the digital work experience is about thoughtful, contextual, and intelligent applications, doing the right things, at the right time, with the right information. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should (cough, ‘surveillance’).
I was excited to get Maribel’s take on the entire spectrum of inputs impacted by the term-soon-to-be-dropped ‘future of work.’ It’s just ‘work’, the future is unknown. The digitation of work has reshaped the data conversation, shifting the focus from ‘can we get data’ to ‘we have super granular data, now what? What’s proper, what’s really valuable, and what moves us toward desired objectives?’
The ubiquity of data, especially coming from employee surveillance systems and activity trackers, makes the use of that data and its impact on culture and productivity part of the digital workplace calculus. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
We covered the benefits of asynchronous communications and some meeting best practices. Offices are moving from connected spaces to intelligent, smart assets, adding additional layers of context nuance to the data. Managers need assistance and training in managing their teams and working products in a hybrid world. Flexibility, in time and place, is a high-value component of DE&I initiatives.
And finally, in our technology-obsessed connected world, the skill, practice, and art of communication have never been more important. Without further delay, a conversation with Maribel Lopez.
Workplace professionals have worked with corporate real estate and facilities to build productivity and people-centric improvements in the office and work environment for decades. But resistance was usually high and progress measured, frustrating many who saw opportunities to do so much better and move beyond historical habits that continued to dictate so much of our work routines. As we come into Fall 2022 in the northern hemisphere, summer ends, and the kids go back to school, While some companies go fully remote or fully on-site, it appears that most companies are going to offer their people some type of hybrid working plan. The bad news is no one really knows what Hybrid means generally, and more specifically for their team. The Good News, there are workplace professionals who have the knowledge, experience, and tools to help. Welcome to Work20XX, a show focused on work, and the future of work, where we bring you the professionals to provide insight, direction, and specifics actions leaders, line managers, and individual contributors can use to navigate these sometimes choppy waters. Adrienne Rowe is Head of Workplace Strategy at Raytheon Technologies. Adrienne’s college summer internship sweeping the streets of Disney World turned into a 20+ year career with Disney, where she developed many of the foundational values that continue to surface today, starting with the connected threesome of the customer, the product or experience, and the employee. Purposeful attention to detail centered on the customer’s experience defines the perception of the company in the customer’s mind. In Workplace, Adrienne works in partnership with other departments like real estate, facilities, communications, technology, human resources, and others, to create a collection of work environments that are not just a place for calls and meetings, but where people can do the best work of their lives. Adrienne and I discuss a number of strategies and methods organizations can use to increase the chances of hybrid work success moving forward. Starting with the reality that we don’t have all the answers, and must be willing to try some things, and learn, knowing that not all the experiments will work. It’s a dynamic and changing world of work, and we’re entering new territory. As Beth Comstock reminds us, get comfortable being uncomfortable. As we dive into the vocabulary and priorities of the hybrid workplace, most importantly, Adrienne reminded me, that we have to think and frame the conversation not in the words of the experts, but in the words of people learning new behaviors, new management techniques, new 1:1 strategies, and more; many for the first time. I’m thrilled to share this interview with one of the leaders in workplace strategy. Without further delay, a conversation with Adrienne Rowe.
Workplace professionals have worked with corporate real estate and facilities to build productivity and people-centric improvements in the office and work environment for decades. But resistance was usually high and progress measured, frustrating many who saw opportunities to do so much better and move beyond historical habits that continued to dictate so much of our work routines. As we come into Fall 2022 in the northern hemisphere, summer ends, and the kids go back to school, While some companies go fully remote or fully on-site, it appears that most companies are going to offer their people some type of hybrid working plan. The bad news is no one really knows what Hybrid means generally, and more specifically for their team. The Good News, there are workplace professionals who have the knowledge, experience, and tools to help. Welcome to Work20XX, a show focused on work, and the future of work, where we bring you the professionals to provide insight, direction, and specifics actions leaders, line managers, and individual contributors can use to navigate these sometimes choppy waters. Adrienne Rowe is Head of Workplace Strategy at Raytheon Technologies. Adrienne’s college summer internship sweeping the streets of Disney World turned into a 20+ year career with Disney, where she developed many of the foundational values that continue to surface today, starting with the connected threesome of the customer, the product or experience, and the employee. Purposeful attention to detail centered on the customer’s experience defines the perception of the company in the customer’s mind. In Workplace, Adrienne works in partnership with other departments like real estate, facilities, communications, technology, human resources, and others, to create a collection of work environments that are not just a place for calls and meetings, but where people can do the best work of their lives. Adrienne and I discuss a number of strategies and methods organizations can use to increase the chances of hybrid work success moving forward. Starting with the reality that we don’t have all the answers, and must be willing to try some things, and learn, knowing that not all the experiments will work. It’s a dynamic and changing world of work, and we’re entering new territory. As Beth Comstock reminds us, get comfortable being uncomfortable. As we dive into the vocabulary and priorities of the hybrid workplace, most importantly, Adrienne reminded me, that we have to think and frame the conversation not in the words of the experts, but in the words of people learning new behaviors, new management techniques, new 1:1 strategies, and more; many for the first time. I’m thrilled to share this interview with one of the leaders in workplace strategy. Without further delay, a conversation with Adrienne Rowe.
What happened when the world of ‘agile, flexible, and dynamic’ crashes into what my Wharton Real Estate Professor used to describe as ‘big, lumpy, assets’? Best in class Real Estate, Facilities, and Workplace Professionals are on board, and early results are out, including the recent opening of LinkedIn’s Office One, where 50% of the workstations were removed, and replaced with over 75 different seating configuration options throughout the building.
Who better to ask than Julie Whelan, Global Head of Occupier Thought Leadership for CBRE? Julie has been leading a longitudinal study with occupiers since 2015 and shared some of the latest results on Work 20XX, a show focused on work and the future of work. In this episode, Julie shared some of the latest data from the Spring 2022 US Office Occupier Sentiment Survey.
Individual workstation occupancy has been in decline long before 2020. Ironically, Julie and the team published Global Outlook, “The Age of Responsive Real Estate’ in March 2020, foreshadowing a more flexible, activity-based real estate portfolio. And as we’ve repeatedly seen, Covid accelerated said transformation, compression 10 years into two.
‘Activity based’ is the way to think about usage, which drives employee experience and productivity, which drives retention and innovation. No one wants to be considered overhead or SG&A. How can Real Estate and Facilities professionals use their expertise and resources to help make everyone more productive?
Real Estate also represents a huge lever in achieving corporate sustainability objectives, which are important for everyone from the boardroom to line people.
These are still early days. Listen, watch the data, and be ready to adjust.
Without further delay, enjoy this conversation with Julie Whelan
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Bad meetings are the bane of the modern working world. The back-to-back, uninterrupted energy crushers have only gotten worse over the last two years. We’re asked to be “always-on” and ready to jump on the next notification (i.e. email, message, IM, DM, text, etc.). This type of work culture is burning people out to the point we gave it a name: “The Great Resignation.” There’s a better way.
Welcome to Work 20XX. A show focused on work and the future of work, as the world of 2019 fades further into the distance. I wanted to move from beyond meeting bashing to sharing best practices. And while some organizations and consumers of expensive executive time do invest in this most important skill, most don’t, and assume that somehow, people will get it. We’re still collectively battling “We’ve always done it this way.”
Welcome Shani Harmon, Co-Founder & CEO of ‘Stop Meeting Like This.’ Shani shares the best practices, tips, and tricks that many of our managers seem to miss, including when NOT to have a meeting (i.e. weekly status meetings).
And while we already know many of the tasks to improve the probability of success (e.g. agenda, objectives, clear roles for each participant), Shani shines a light on many of the gravitational forces, (e.g. institutional, cultural, social, and psychological) that keep us from being more effective, including fear of missing out (FOMO), office politics, and lack of trust due to ineffective communication cultures, channels, and systems.
Hopefully, this combination of simple instruction, and focus on the real barriers to implementation, will help you and your team learn and adopt the mindset and techniques to start gradually removing barriers.
You’ll end up with more effective meetings, more effective people, higher quality work, and less burnout. And you won’t have to ask your people to turn the cameras on.
Without further delay, enjoy this conversation with Shani Harmon.
Do you know the biggest challenge your team faces outside work right now? Be sure to ask and listen. And watch PayPal’s Dave Montez on the power of the one-on-one. Welcome to Work 20XX. A show focused on work as we continue to navigate these transformational times. I am your host, Jeff Frick. Whether you’ve been on our Work 20XX journey from the first step or just joining us now, you can quickly grasp a consistent theme—transitioning more work activities to asynchronous and reducing the number of face-to-face meetings. We’ve been advocating the investment in automation of routine tasks and powering self-service as the default way to find information. The reason for this ruthless prioritization is simple—to put people at the top of the list! Not human resources, but the people, with all their subtle and not-so-subtle nuances, interests, imperfections, and unique perspectives. Invest your most precious resources, your time and attention, into the people who will have a significant impact on the success of your endeavor. An engaged team will deliver better results.
How do you create and nurture an engaged team? How do you measure their outcome when not working in person together?
In Episode 4, we dive into the art of the one-on-one, with a master of the art, PayPal’s Chief Audit Executive Dave Montez. Full disclosure, I’ve known Dave for decades, and a year ago he shared his measurement technique of over-indexing on one-on-ones, in a way I’d never heard before.
Again, pulling from lessons shared by Darren Murph, Meg Bear, and Ryan Anderson, the best way to engage people is to ask them questions and listen. And listen to the question behind the question, and then do something about it. And the best way to really understand your people is to get to know them.
And Dave doesn’t just talk the talk—he spends a minimum of two and a half hours per day with individual members from their globally distributed team of over 80 people.
Without a doubt, Dave sets the standard for anyone looking to invest time in developing their people. In this segment, he shares some of his processes, and more importantly, the results of what he calls the ‘compassionate engagement.’ You won’t be disappointed.
So, without further delay, my conversation with Dave Montez.
Welcome to Work 20XX. A show focused on work as we continue to navigate these transformational times. I am your host, Jeff Frick.
In this episode, we explore the world of Design, Real Estate, and Facilities through the eyes of long-time industry veteran Ryan Anderson, Vice President, Global Research & Insights, MillerKnoll. No surprise, these professionals are moving from cost center/efficiency thinking to a more human-centric, and ‘seat-at-the-table’, rethinking their resources.
How can we use our portfolio of resources?
(real estate, facilities, interior design, remote support, etc)
to help our People CREATE the BEST WORK of their CAREERS.
It’s hard to attract talent, you want to retain good people, you’re looking for engagement. I invite you to take raise your expectations by changing the focus to the small discrete things Ryan and the professionals at Herman Miller Labs have been studying and documenting and reporting for decades.
I didn’t realize how much the tethered-PC infrastructure of the last several decades inhibited the execution of Activity-based spaces, something on design boards long before the PC. The infrastructure has caught up with the vision, with advances in Mobile and WiFi technologies, powerful handsets, and the proliferation of the cloud as an application delivery method. No department wants to be a cost center, and by shifting the focus to human productivity, from spreadsheet-centric optimization and utilization, Real Estate and Facilities are stepping up to do their part, in collaboration with HR and IT. ‘Average’ offices spaces, where everyone got the same ‘here’s your computer here’s your chair’ regardless of function aren’t good enough anymore. A single space built to accommodate all can’t be optimal for the individual, doing all types of work, in all kinds of conditions.
Historically, organizations, over-indexed ‘private desk/cube/office’ and under-indexed in meeting collaboration space, even as private desk utilization rates continue to drop, even before the pandemic. In fact, offices should invest in places that support these activities including Community Socialization, Team Collaboration, and Individual Focus work.
In this far-ranging conversation, Ryan shares his deep data-based expertise and best practices. The pandemic showed that work could get done outside the office, and on closer inspection of workspaces (COs, Air Quality), there are environmental improvements to be made. Most importantly, the promise of Activity-based spaces and concepts like ‘neighborhoods’, and a more agile/flexible mindset, will make the spaces and places of the future much more attractive, and productive than the rows of desks and tables and cubes of cabled computers in the past.
My conversation with Ryan Anderson.
'Work 20XX' with Jeff Frick
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Episode 2 - Meg Bear
Welcome to Work 20XX
A show focused on the future of work
as we continue to navigate these transformational times.
I’m your host Jeff Frick.
The world changed in March 2020, Chief Human Resources Officers and Chief People Officers had to quickly
adjust to the new world. Amazingly, the companies and people adapted faster than anyone would have imagined.
It quickly became apparent that this wasn’t a temporary situation, but really a catalyst to change the expectation of what’s possible,
and the relationship between output and location, between employer and employee.
SAP SuccessFactors is a leading human resource solution provider, and as such, sits at the engagement point between company and employee, where the rubber meets the road in terms of systems and processes that define much of what the company means to the employees. Post March 2020, as the demands in the market, changed, far beyond simply supporting remote workers.
It created a new demand need for better engagement tools, sentiment analysis, connection
In this episode, we are joined by Meg Bear, Chief Product Officer, SAP SuccessFactors. Meg shared the challenge many faced in responding to the shelter in place demands and working through a distributed team. But she had the added burden to deliver tools and applications to support this evolving relationship between employee and employer. In this far-ranging conversation, Meg shares her views on the factors behind the great resignation, what hybrid really means, and the fact that organizations need to get better at responding to change. We discuss authority, agency, control, flexibility, choice, collective intelligence, and intrinsic motivation because as Meg says “that’s what this is really about.”
From the impact of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to the role of leadership and communications, Meg shared her
perspective and vision of the path forward.
So without further delay, my conversation with Meg Bear.
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Episode 1 - Darren Murph
Welcome to Work 20XXA show focused on the future of work
as we continue to navigate these transformational times.
I’m your host Jeff Frick.
Who better to kick off the show than the #1 expert on the distributed team in the world, Darren Murph, Head of Remote for GitLab. Darren shares the lessons and best practices in making distributed teams successful. And the best part, all the lessons are applicable regardless of where you plug in your laptop. And since GitLab is Open Source They publish for all to use. They include the power of intentionality, documentation, and moving as much work to asynchronous as possible, freeing up the extremely valuable face-to-face time (via room, phone, or Webex) for higher-value activities like 1:1s and culture and rapport building.
For more, please visit Webex Ahead - https://webexahead.webex.com/all-remote-secrets-to-improve-your-teams-function-regardless-of-where-they-plug-in/