Remote-work has dwindled over the past few years as employers issue return-to-office mandates. But will that continue in 2024?
In this episode VEST Member Jess Kyle, Data Engineer Manager at Underdog Sports, a fully remote company with more than 350 distributed employees, talks to Lynn Greenberg, Founder of Pivt, a platform helping employers reduce turnover and enhance the social well-being of relocated, mobile, and remote workers and their families.
Listen to the conversation, we covered:
00:00:03 Remote Work Trends and Employee Satisfaction
00:19:21 Leveraging Technology for Remote Productivity
00:24:39 Addressing Employee Well-Being and Burnout
00:34:50 Improving Work-Life Balance Through Company Culture
00:40:20 Shift in Purpose of on-Site Retreats
00:49:16 Remote Work and Gender Disparities
00:55:44 Work Alignment and Personal Boundaries
Pivt is a VEST Her Ventures Portfolio Company.
If you enjoyed the episode share it with a friend and don't forget to leave us a review. If you are ready to take your career to the next level, apply to join our community of professional women, all eager to help you get there and stay there. Check out our VEST Membership and apply today! www.VESTHer.co
Remote-work has dwindled over the past few years as employers issue return-to-office mandates. But will that continue in 2024?
In this episode VEST Member Jess Kyle, Data Engineer Manager at Underdog Sports, a fully remote company with more than 350 distributed employees, talks to Lynn Greenberg, Founder of Pivt, a platform helping employers reduce turnover and enhance the social well-being of relocated, mobile, and remote workers and their families.
Listen to the conversation, we covered:
00:00:03 Remote Work Trends and Employee Satisfaction
00:19:21 Leveraging Technology for Remote Productivity
00:24:39 Addressing Employee Well-Being and Burnout
00:34:50 Improving Work-Life Balance Through Company Culture
00:40:20 Shift in Purpose of on-Site Retreats
00:49:16 Remote Work and Gender Disparities
00:55:44 Work Alignment and Personal Boundaries
Pivt is a VEST Her Ventures Portfolio Company.
If you enjoyed the episode share it with a friend and don't forget to leave us a review. If you are ready to take your career to the next level, apply to join our community of professional women, all eager to help you get there and stay there. Check out our VEST Membership and apply today! www.VESTHer.co
Hey everyone, this is Erica Lucas, your host and founding member of Vest, an organization connecting women across industries, regions and career levels so that together we can expedite the pipeline of more women in positions of power and influence. Welcome to another episode of the Vestor podcast, where we explore the invisible barriers holding women back in the workplace and share stories of women building power collectively.
Speaker 2:Post COVID. For both the employee and the employer, it's been a real time of reflection. From the employer side of things, I think they've really had to think about what is the nature of our business right? So if you're a software company, it might be a little bit easier to have everyone work remotely and might be more affordable to get people all over the world. If you're in manufacturing or sometimes retail, that might not be as easy.
Speaker 2:And then another thing that these companies I think are starting to really look at is a lot of these companies hire people remotely during the pandemic and one of the things that they're now having to consider is, if we're having everyone return to office, they now need to pay those people a relocation package because they were hired as a remote worker, and that could be upwards, as I mentioned before, of $90,000 per remote employee to say, okay, you need to relocate to Texas because we're mandating you to come in three days a week or five days a week. That's a hefty cost. And also, what type of talent are they going to potentially lose when they take that strict stance?
Speaker 1:Remote work has dwindled over the past few years as employers issue return to office mandates, but will that continue in 2024?
Speaker 1:In this episode, vest member Jess Kyle, data engineer manager at Underdog Sports, a fully remote company with more than 350 distributed employees, talks to Lynn Greenberg, founder of Pivot, a platform helping employers reduce turnover while enhancing the social well-being of relocated, mobile and remote workers, as well as their families. Join us as we talk about employer versus employee expectations, how managers can prepare for hybrid models, new work from home technologies and how business leaders should rethink office space. This episode is brought to you by Vestor Ventures, our venture capital arm, investing in women led companies, building solutions for the intersection of the care economy and future of work. Also by Vest Peer Network, a network of professional women across industries, regions and career levels, helping each other navigate careers and working together to build a future of more inclusive work spaces. This conversation was part of a more intimate coaching session with Vest members and has been repurposed to accommodate this episode. If you enjoy the episode, share it with a friend and don't forget to leave us a review.
Speaker 3:Really excited to talk with Lynn today. I want to just start out by sharing some context. I think it's worth noting that some jobs simply cannot be done remotely. You know, jobs like care services, manufacturing, many teaching jobs, lots of critically important jobs are unable to benefit from remote work. I think it's important to acknowledge those folks and that fact. I also want to point out that we have people joining us from both an employee and an employer perspective today. I imagine that there are varied experiences across the group with remote work and I encourage all of you to share your perspectives and ask questions in the chat as the discussion unfolds.
Speaker 3:So with that, I'd like to introduce today's guest. We have Lynn Greenberg with us. She is the founder and CEO of Pivot, which is a cutting edge platform focused on reducing turnover and enhancing the social well-being of women and enhancing the social well-being of relocated, mobile and remote employees and their families. Importantly, I'm going to tell you all about Lynn in just a moment, but first I want to congratulate her on her recent over-subscribed $3.5 million funding round. I cannot wait to see the impact that this is going to have on furthering Pivot's mission, which I think is best summed up by a quote that I found on one of Lynn's LinkedIn posts, where she says no one should feel alone in a place that should feel like home. So let me tell you all about Lynn. She is recognized as a Forbes 30 under 30 in 2022 and Forbes next 1000 in 2021. Lynn is also actively involved on the board of trustees at her alma mater, franklin and Marshall College.
Speaker 3:Before launching Pivot, lynn gained valuable experience at Bloomberg LP in London and Autonomy Ventures, where she excelled in securing startup deal flow, managing teams and driving value creation for portfolio companies. A dedicated mentor and advisor, lynn contributes her expertise to women in business at Yeshiva University, astia Angels and London and Partners. Lynn's influence extends to various speaking engagements, including South by Southwest, harvard University, nyu, stern Business School, columbia University Business School, new York Venture Summit, brandeis University and the University of Oxford. She's also been featured in reputable publications such as Forbes, the London Evening Standard and Digital Trends. Lynn also shares her insights through contributions to Thrive Global, erc, worldwide Mobility Magazine, startup Magazine and the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. Lynn welcome and thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, such a privilege. All right, let's dive right in. I'm hoping you can start out by telling us a little bit more about Pivot.
Speaker 3:What is it who uses it and what are the main benefits of the platform for both employers and employees?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So a little bit of context, and why Pivot means so much to me. So Pivot was actually started out of my own experience. I relocated to London to work for Bloomberg as a 21-year-old and I landed there without knowing anyone, faced the issue that all people do when moving somewhere new, which is where do you start to make your new city feel like home? And despite the fact that I had a hefty relocation package, the one thing that was missing for me turned out to be the number one concern of all relocated and mobile employees, which is that social well-being. And what I struggled to find was where do I live? Which bank do I join? How do I get information on my city from people I trust? What are the answers to the questions I don't know to ask? And then, how do I meet people from scratch and really make the most of what I felt was a life changing opportunity?
Speaker 2:And as we dug in deeper, what we came to find was that the average company spends $90,000 on average domestically, $300,000 on average internationally relocating someone, and a third of those people will quit their job within a year or move back home because of their and their family's inability to socially acclimate.
Speaker 2:And so what we do at Pivot is we are a platform designed to reduce turnover and improve the social well-being for relocated, mobile, remote employees and their families. We work with some of the largest companies globally. We started working with cities that are now attracting and retaining remote workers to boost their economy and help with the population deficits that they may have, and really we do that through helping the employees and their family members make their new city feel at home through community wellness, curated content to really make sure that they acclimate and make sure that it's a transformative experience, and all the while for the employers, really helping them protect their investment right, make sure that their employees are happy and they stay, because, as we all know, people are the most valuable asset to any organization, and I think one of the silver linings of COVID was that we really found that that company started understanding that that good health and doing right by your employees is also a very good business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely Could not agree with you more there. Are there any insights that you can share from pivot users about the preferences of employees when it comes to working remotely or having a more flexible workspace?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say a couple things. So I think it's constantly changing. I think it's different now than it was two months ago, than it was six months ago and certainly pre-COVID, and I think understanding that is a really important thing for employees to know and employers to know. I think the motivations the biggest thing is motivations for moving are changing. So traditionally it was your company is going to relocate, you you decide whether you want to go or you don't want to go. Now motivations are shifting, right?
Speaker 2:We found that post COVID, there were a whole lot of people I think it was close to 3 million plus domestically that relocated on their own due to the fact that they could work more flexibly. Right, and people are starting to think about what priorities are important to you. Is it lifestyle? Is it cost of living? What's best for my family? Do I need to be commuting five days a week? Right, and those, if they don't, and those priorities take precedent. People are starting to to relocate because of those aligned values. I think what we're also seeing as of late and we actually have started to see this since the last election cycle is people are now moving because of climate change, increasingly, and because of politics, and so I think what we're starting to see in terms of motivations is are people working to live or living to work? And those priorities are very much shifting, and that is giving way into what is motivating people to move.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I joke around often about working from home. Sometimes, depending on what's going on, it's a lot more like living at work than working from home. That leads me into my next question, which is about striking a balance From a customer perspective, what are you hearing about the main challenges and opportunities that organizations are facing Striking a balance between remote and in-office work? I know it seems like there's the rise of the hybrid culture and there's opinions all across the spectrum on that, but what are you hearing from your customers on this?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'll start with the challenges. I think one of the big ones is culture. It's very easy when you're in the same office space to have your vision on the walls and to be communicative and transparent and really make sure that everyone's on the same boat. And I think companies are struggling with really cultivating that culture remotely and virtually. And so how do you really start hyper-focusing and being really intentional about that? With that, I think, coincides with that social well-being component. So traditionally, the workplace is really a place where we find a lot of our social connections and we all know that that contributes to health and people extending and feeling more loyal at their company if they have a co-worker beside them that they really enjoy being with or working with. And so how do you cultivate those connections virtually as well, which also helps productivity? If you trust those people, you create those connections. That really extends from a social perspective really to the workplace and the task at hand.
Speaker 2:I think another thing that companies are thinking about is KPIs and tracking I think a lot of companies continue to be concerned of.
Speaker 2:If we're letting our companies work remotely, how do we know that they're not going to be on the golf course nine hours a day and are they getting their jobs done? And so what are those new softwares that we need to install, what are some of those new management styles that we need to start promoting in order to make sure that people are hitting their goals and that they're working and taking advantage of that? And then I would say, a challenge as well is attracting and retaining top talent, because I think people really started understanding what their priorities were during COVID and what their preferences were, and so companies really need to understand the repercussions of whether they're going to say, ok, we're going to have everyone come back five days a week, we're going to be completely remote, or we're going to be hybrid, and that will very much impact the talent pool, that will impact who they're getting and, from a cost standpoint, what does office space look like? The opportunity side of things, one of the main things that we're seeing, especially with some of the cities that we're starting to work with, and we found we're working with one city in upstate New York, and they did a survey on what they're finding.
Speaker 2:So to give you a little bit of context, this region is incentivizing remote workers to relocate there, and they're giving them a cash allowance, they're helping them with housing, and they found that 60% of their applicants were those with accessibility needs, and I think that's a really important thing that we need to be cognizant of, and I think it's a really great opportunity Is remote work really helps people with accessibility needs A but also people with different work styles and lifestyle. If you're a mother, if you're a father, that really prioritizes that. It really gives a lot of newfound flexibility in terms of how, when and where we work, and so I think that's an opportunity for the employees and also the employers if they can really understand how to cater to that. The other thing that I would say is two different things. I would say the talent pool. You don't have to hire in one specific region if you have a remote work lifestyle, which I think is really interesting, and a lot of companies are looking at this as a means to cut on office space, which is interesting as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is pretty interesting. I've often wondered about the connection between the commercial real estate market and these policies that companies have about return to work or not, so you mentioned a few challenges there that I'm really curious about what you're seeing in terms of how these companies are meeting the moment, especially with regard to culture and allowing flexibility With executive decision making. How are you seeing and how do you think, additionally, that it could be done executives weighing the decision to mandate a return to the office versus allowing flexibility, taking into account employee satisfaction and overall business needs?
Speaker 2:I think this post-COVID for both the employee and the employer, it's been a real time of reflection, and from the employer side of things, I think they've really had to think about what is the nature of our business. So, if you're a software company, it might be a little bit easier to have everyone work remotely and might be more affordable to get people all over the world. If you're in manufacturing or sometimes retail, that might not be as easy, and so I think it's really understanding the nature of your business. What you need to do to really service your clients and your end user in the best possible way is A. And then another thing that these companies I think are starting to really look at is a lot of these companies hire people remotely during the pandemic, and one of the things that they're now having to consider is if we're having everyone return to office, they now need to pay those people a relocation package because they were hired as a remote worker, and that could be upwards, as I mentioned before, of $90,000 per remote employee to say, okay, you need to relocate to Texas because we're mandating you to come in three days a week or five days a week, and that's a hefty cost, right?
Speaker 2:And so I think a lot of companies need to see if they can do that first of all, and also, what type of talent are they going to potentially lose when they take that strict stance right?
Speaker 2:And so I think one of the things that we've seen many times is a lot of companies have said we're returning to office, and then all of a sudden they back up on that because they learned that a lot of their talent is going to quit right away, and so that's something that I think they're looking at is both on a cost perspective and talent polls. And then the third aspect I would say that a lot of the companies are weighing is again that commercial real estate piece. So a lot of companies are locked into 15, 20 year commercial real estate investments and they're saying everyone needs to return to office because we need to pay for this space, right? I think it's going to be really interesting to see in five, 10 years how that shifts, because those leases will be up and it is a significant cost cutting mechanism if you can save on that office space and be more intentional about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely. It seems like, in at least some cases, the cost of relocating all those employees is probably less than the cost of just paying the lease and letting people keep working remotely. What about technology? And by that I mean leveraging technology to maintain productivity and collaboration. So, like in the context of remote work, how are you seeing executives ensuring that their companies are effectively? You know, I mean, I think there's a balance to strike and maybe you can speak to this too between monitoring in the sense of, like, having a handle on productivity and making sure people are working. And then you know, like I think there's a fine line between that and like surveillance, which I think you know. I've heard a lot of, you know, horror stories about things companies do, but you know, what are you seeing in terms of how companies are leveraging technology in this way?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think I think it's still very much a learning curve for a lot of these companies and trial and error and seeing what works. I think it obviously very much depends on the structure. So are they hybrid? Are they remote for the hybrid organizations and specific in particular? You know they have a lot of software that's really organizing when people are going into the office more intentionally, right, I think the slacks of the world and those intranets, those company intranets are becoming more and more important and how they leverage that.
Speaker 2:And I would say, not just on a task basis but, for instance, our team is fully remote.
Speaker 2:And one of the things, one of the most successful things that we've done is we have a Slack channel as well where it's called the water cooler and we talked about things that you might you might have if we were all in the same office, talked about in the water cooler.
Speaker 2:So I think it's kind of taking some of these tools and really leverage both task oriented things that you wouldn't be able to that kind of takes in the way of going over to your colleagues desk and tapping them on the shoulder to you know logistics and day to day to calendar processes either.
Speaker 2:You know intentionally when you're going into the office space, or you know how to understand when people are in office, in office, out of office, and then I think the other thing that people are looking towards is you know managers are doing retrospectives, and I think this is not an opportunity. I think managers need to start doing, if they don't already, retrospectives on where the gaps and opportunities are quarterly, because what we're finding is that tech is evolving so rapidly. Even you know. You look at AI integrations right, and how that's affecting everything that we do in the workplace. I think that the the tech component, especially from a remote work standpoint, needs to be constantly checked in on, because there are so many different ways that you can be improving and implementing and you know, catering to to the needs, both culturally and task oriented.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. When we're talking about remote work and its impact on productivity, how are executives addressing, and how can they address, concerns related to accountability?
Speaker 2:I think it's being hyper clear on goals, both personal goals, team and company goals, kpis and how each person contributes to the company, team and individual success.
Speaker 2:I think that has to be very, very clear because then, from the standpoint of them being concerned, if you're on the golf course as opposed to working right, if they're hitting their KPIs and they're being successful in those ways, then who cares right? So I think that is a really really big component to being able to do this successfully. I think the other aspect is really developing systems of transparency. So, for instance, our team every Monday will list things that they accomplished last week and what they're looking to accomplish this week, and what that does is it really promotes accountability, which I think is really important, because I think everyone it's also important, when you can't see what your colleagues working on, to really understand how they're contributing to the team's goals and the overall goals and maybe those things that they have questions there that they might not be able to see because they're working remotely, right, and so I think those are some of the things that we've found to be pretty successful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I see Erica's comment here in the chat about executives using it as an excuse for bad management. Like, I agree that this is a management challenge. I think you mentioned transparency being important. I totally agree and I think that in addition to that, we also need leaders who are modeling the way in terms of being accountable, like speaking up when you make a mistake, letting people challenge you publicly and addressing concerns and accountability head on. I think modeling that is super important Absolutely. How are you seeing executives address, like, the well-being of employees, both remote and in office, but especially considering the potential for burnout? And I like, for context here, I have a lot of friends who are professionals, like many of you here in this group, and it seems like, especially in the last, I want to say, year or so, everyone I'm talking to is like I'm so burned out, I'm working so much, there's so much coming at me so fast. You know, how are companies addressing the well-being in this sense?
Speaker 2:So, as I mentioned briefly earlier, I think one of the silver linings of the pandemic was really employee well-being. I think it started to take center stage because everyone really felt that burnout and felt their well-being sacrificed in some capacity. And so employers are starting to really realize that good health and taking care of your employees is also good business and helps with their tension and productivity. And this extends to social, financial, physical well-being. And so I think what we're finding is a couple of things. I think we're seeing more and more companies, even within the last six months, hiring heads of well-being at their organization whose job is to infuse well-being into each part of their organization. So that's a really exciting mechanism to see on its own. We're also seeing a lot of these companies hiring ahead of mental health and really coming into each aspect of the business again and seeing okay, how can we rework our strategy to really incorporate this, which is really, really cool.
Speaker 2:And then I would say I think a big shift is benefits are changing. So pre-pandemic, it was all about free food and ping-pong tables in the office. Right now it's about well-being. Right, how do we take care of you? And then the last aspect I would really say is. I think it's really important from a management perspective to really walk the walk. I think it's really important it's sometimes easier said than done, but to really show your employees that you're taking care of yourself, that you're taking a maybe. It's maybe, and that can be in a variety of different ways. Maybe you're taking a gym class in the middle of a workday, right, or you're going for a walk, or you're doing things to really support yourself, and so I think there's a really big accountability that needs to happen on the management side to really understand culturally that taking care of your well-being and your family's well-being is something that we prioritize and we see as good business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I mentioned earlier feeling like you're living at work. Sometimes it does feel like the boundaries between work and personal can get blurred if you allow them to. I'm curious if, with these companies you're working with, are you seeing a lot of discussion around encouraging their employees to set and maintain personal boundaries? I think it's so important for that message to come from leadership, because otherwise employees are just going to assume like, oh, I need to be on all the time, I need to be working all the time, and I think everyone deserves to be disconnected from work. So are you seeing that kind of communication happening or not so much?
Speaker 2:Yes, and in fact I'm seeing a lot of it.
Speaker 2:I'm seeing it also in people's emails. On the bottom of their emails they'll say I may be responding to you at a crazy hour, don't feel like you need to respond to me at a crazy hour. And so I think managers have to really set the stage and have to be a little bit more vocal about what those priorities are, not just for themselves, but also correlating it back to the overall well-being of the business. Because if you can't take care of yourself and you can't prioritize those things, it's going to lead to burnout, and we know that that's not good for business either. And so I think really saying this is not just a nice to have, but we need you to take care of yourself, we need you to do these things, we need you to turn off and start prioritizing yourself, because that's good for our business. So I think we're starting to see that more and more, and I think the most successful companies are going to see that 10 times over in terms of the retention of their employees and the productivity and the lack of burnout.
Speaker 3:Yeah, We've talked a lot so far about during the pandemic, people's priorities changed. It suddenly illuminated like oh, wait a minute what's really important to me, and now we have a lot more employees valuing flexibility, so that puts pressure on companies to come up with new retention strategies to keep their top talent within the organization. What are you seeing here, trend-wise?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of it is, as I mentioned before, the type of work and how selective they can be. It also, I think, is going to very much depend on the economy and who holds the leverage. Is it the employer or the employee, unfortunately? And then I think some of the trends that we'll be looking at certainly we are is things around accommodating workers and accessibility needs, but not even those workers with accessibility needs. But sometimes, as I mentioned, if you're a parent, you're going to be way more productive if you know that your kids are taking care of and that you can pick them up from school and those types of things.
Speaker 2:And we're also seeing like we've had a couple of people that were saying I don't have an accessibility need, but the lighting in the offices there's just too much for me. I get migraines, and so it's, I think, really understanding. I think companies and employers are going to really understand that it's not cookie cutter and that they're really going to have to understand when, what and how people work best and really look to kind of accommodate that into their strategy. As I mentioned before, I think the other trend we need to be watching is really that commercial real estate piece, right Like what's going to happen in five, 10 years when those leases run out. How's that going to adjust strategy and return to office?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's going to be a really huge opportunity for a lot of companies and it'll be really interesting to see how many of them decide to kind of make a shift, because I think what you're saying about accessibility needs is so important. When companies are not taking that into consideration, you're leaving huge amounts of talent just on the table by expecting your workforce to kind of just fit into this like, as you said, cookie cutter, mold and it just that's not the world we live in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and not just for people with accessibility needs, as mentioned. But it's you know, some people I certainly don't. I don't work great when I'm sitting at a desk nine to five. I work way better when I'm able to move around a little bit more and change my scenery. Maybe take 30 minutes to go for a walk in the middle of the day, right? And so I think it's really thinking about how do we get the most out of our talent? Right, because I think it's important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. And you know yeah, we've talked about parents and you know all these situations where you might be taking care of someone and how you can show up so much better for the people that depend on you when you have control over your work schedule and your environment. Absolutely. Let's drill in a little bit on company culture. So, particularly in a hybrid environment, I think I think we all agree, maintaining a strong company culture, building culture, is hard to nail it right, regardless of the setup, but when you have a hybrid work environment or even totally remote, I think there's even additional challenges. On top of that, how do you recommend that executives foster a sense of belonging and collaboration among team members?
Speaker 2:I think in a hybrid environment, it's really important that they provide the tools to be intentional about meeting. So, when they do go into the office, are you making the most of your time there? Are you meeting with the right people, both from a task standpoint but also socially, and getting to know your colleagues and building that sense of trust? I think, really giving new types of benefits and tools. That extends beyond the workplace, right. And then, I think, creating if they're hybrid or they're remote really being intentional about team off-sites or how you're getting people together, not just day-to-day but as a company as a whole. Really connecting outside of the day-to-day task, I think is really, really important from a culture standpoint. And then, lastly, what I would say is I think leaders need to be even more vocal about their vision and what's important to them and how everyone contributes to success. I think that you need to be reinforcing that over and over again when you're not important, even when you're not altogether in person, all the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, those are really good points.
Speaker 3:I think another point that I think some companies miss is that it's not enough just to offer these tools and offer have someone in charge of wellbeing If your decision-making about what the company's going to be doing is not in line with that and doesn't facilitate that.
Speaker 3:So, for example, let's say you work at a company who the velocity of new work is really fast, maybe they have all these benefits and tools that you can use to help feel more connected, wellbeing tools to take better care of yourself. But if the pace of your work and the decisions being made in the company don't actually allow you to take advantage of those tools and benefits, then it's like you may as well not even have them. I've experienced this in previous roles, where it's like people have to make a choice like oh, do I take this 30-minute walk or do I finish this critical thing that I'm already going to be working nine hours today and I also have to do this. So I think I would like to see companies be more conscious of those kinds of choices that employees are having to make, and the decisions around the tools and the company trajectory need to be in line. Do you agree? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of that is again walking the walk. I think management really needs to be transparent and show how they're doing that. And then also we've heard this a lot too is employees have great benefits, but they don't know how to utilize it to your point. And so are there people that are there to explain or talk about how they can take advantage, or to the fullest extent, and then you've seen this from a startup culture. I think this is extending more and more into the corporate world.
Speaker 2:But the unlimited time off really saying to people, ok, but we need you to take the time off because unfortunately, especially in the US, we're in a grind culture and showing that you're grinding and working more hours than not is seen as amendable and successful. And so I think really switching the narrative and having leadership, the head of people, hr really say OK, here's how you can take advantage of what we offer you, here's how you should be taking advantage of your time off. And this is important because, xyz, this is not just a nice to have, but I think we really need to start making people aware of what they have and how they can really utilize it to the greatest extent and how that contributes back to company success. I think is the biggest thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, underdog. We have a limited time off and the only policy we have around it is that you must take three weeks minimum, that's great. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I think they really are leading the way in a lot of ways on this remote work stuff. So let's talk about future trends and predictions. Looking ahead, what trends do you foresee in the balance between remote and in-office work? I know we've talked a lot about the real estate market. How can executives prepare for the evolving needs and expectations of the workforce?
Speaker 2:I think they have to get their systems in line and be very attuned to employee pulse and, as I said, technology is changing rapidly, people's motivations for working and moving is changing rapidly, and so I think it's really paramount for them to really stay abreast of all of these things that are popping up and the change in sentiment and things like inflation right, which could really change how people, where they want to live and where they want to work right and some of the decisions, and so I think, thinking about it from an employee standpoint, all these things that we're seeing pop up and staying really close, potentially hiring that head of wellness to keep that pulse on sentiment and where things are headed, is going to be really paramount.
Speaker 3:I just have this one final thing If you can leave us with three main takeaways or action items that you'd recommend for VEST members, both employers and employees, I'll keep it really simple, I think, for employees and employers.
Speaker 2:I think we really, I would really urge everyone to think about and evaluate your priorities, how, where and when you work best, what work means to you, right in regards to your family, in regards to your goals and really make sure that you're aligning your employees' needs and, as an employee, you're aligning you and your family's needs to what you're doing at work. I think that's one of the privileges and the silver linings that came out of COVID is really the perspective to do just that and be a little bit more intentional and really looking for those companies and those employees that satisfy that culture and that need.
Speaker 3:Yeah, great advice. All right, I'm going to give you a question from our chat. So this is from Cat Slack. Have you seen a shift in the purpose of on-site retreats to account for the full-time virtual environment?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. So I think it's a couple of things parlaying that vision over and over again, right, I think, especially, but also from a social mechanism. I think a lot of these retreats now are really to get to know your colleagues, build trust, because then when you're across from them on the Zoom over the screen, it's way easier and more productive to do work together. You trust each other a little bit more, you get to know their habits and a little bit more about them. So I think that's been, and I would say too, companies are doing that from a retreat standpoint. I think they're also doing virtual retreats too, right. So there's like all these Airbnb virtual things that you can do, where you can bring someone on to help you build sandwiches as a team. Right, I think people are, companies are really seeing retreats as a mechanism to get outside of work and really connect with people. On that social standpoint, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 3:Kristin Garcia asks work-life balance is now one and the same when you make life and personal time a priority. How are managers and supervisors being trained on asking about personal goals?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think managers are well. First of all, I would say that there's a fine line, right, because you still need to kind of maintain being the manager and not getting too engulfed in your employees' day-to-day life. But I think it's what everyone is recognizing is that what happens from the human side greatly affects work. We're seeing this in relocation, right, as I mentioned those numbers, a third of people will quit their job within a year and move back home because of that human aspect, because them and their family can acclimate outside of work. And so I think really making sure that they understand what the priorities and the needs of that individual, how they work, when they work best, where they work best, to really incorporate that into their strategy, I think is very paramount.
Speaker 4:So I'm interested to know how do you find the balance and be fair when you have some employees who just absolutely cannot work remote but the other side of your organization can? How do you find fairness and wellness benefits and work like balance and all those things that you guys are talking about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a really big challenge that a lot of these organizations are facing right now, and I think a lot of it is generational too that people are finding.
Speaker 2:And I think the other challenge that companies are finding as well is how do we also promote and make sure that we're creating mentorship and for those new hires, really onboarding them in the correct way, and so that kind of all comes into play.
Speaker 2:And I think that's why a lot of these companies are shifting towards a hybrid where it's a little bit more intentional about, when you come in, giving people the bandwidth and the opportunity to work in office if that's what they desire to do, but creating that flexibility and putting processes in place that, if they would prefer to work remotely, that they have the ability to do that too.
Speaker 2:So I think it's easier said than done, especially for the larger companies, to do something of that sort. But I think it is a challenge that is evolving and again it's kind of diving into your employees' specific and individual needs and seeing how you can best accommodate it. So, for instance, I'll just give one more example For a company we've seen this for a company that is not paying for office space and everyone is working remotely. They're giving a budget for employees to go to a coffee shop every day or we work so they're getting outside of the office or a budget to meet for lunch with some of their colleagues every once in a while, or a happy hour. So I think kind of being flexible is kind of the mechanism that companies are starting to take and really very much in the figuring out mode.
Speaker 5:Hi Lynn, thank you so much for your presentation. I had a question. I'm an attorney and I you know the law tends to, in the field in general, tends to take a long time to catch up with what the rest of the world is doing sometimes. I'm just curious, from your perspective, in working with a variety of different companies across the globe, I'm sure Can you kind of give us just maybe a war story, if you will, of a company who hasn't really embraced these ideas and this new way of doing things and just kind of how that has impacted then if you have that hasn't been receptive to using services like yours or the other technologies that are available to really kind of fully embrace. It's almost like after the pandemic and then it was like, okay, everybody get back to work and let's just go back to normal and the whole world wasn't normal anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I will say, too, that I think there's a little bit of a catch-22 here. So I think some companies and we know there's been a load of layoffs in the last year are kind of taking this as an opportunity. If they know that they are trying to cut costs and they need to reduce their workforce, that they're kind of saying, okay, this is, we're doing this, it's the, it's my way, or the highway, knowing that they need to cut workforce and saying this is the mechanism that we're going to do that. So I think we're seeing that right first of all. The second thing is, I think the companies that haven't leaned into this are really starting to see retention issues and, with a war for talent, they're just not attracting the right talent and the best talent Because, as I said, people's priorities are shifting right.
Speaker 2:They care about wellness for them, their family, their lifestyle, and so when they're evaluating jobs, I think there was a study that recently came out that said two-thirds of workers would rather take a job that focused on lifestyle and more well-being benefits than on a greater salary right, and so I think it's something that they really need to lean into, and I'm not going to name names, but there are some large corporations that have not, and they've seen a really big retention issue. They've also seen pretty bad PR stunts right, which does not look great on their company from a culture standpoint and I think it's going to be. Yeah, it's an issue.
Speaker 5:I have another question about your company specifically. Can you tell us more about? You said you're starting to work with cities. I'm just really interested in your idea and kind of how you're doing what you're doing. It sounds really interesting.
Speaker 2:Appreciate it. Yeah, so we started realizing about eight months ago that what we were doing to support corporations and their employees right to help them take newfound opportunities and unfamiliar places, acclimate, find community was actually really applicable to what a lot of cities and towns across the US were starting to do post COVID, which is there's 71 cities and towns just across the US way more internationally that are saying we are going to incentivize remote workers to relocate to our location in order to boost our economy and help with a population deficit. And so what we've been doing with cities is we've been coming in and saying we'll help you attract and retain that talent so that when you pay them $10,000 to relocate here, plus housing and everything else, that they'll actually stay beyond that incentive period and they'll contribute back. And then also giving them some data and insights from the human side of things as to how you can enhance their lives and your program to make sure that they stay and have a transformative experience in their new location.
Speaker 6:I have a question I'll just throw out there and it kind of relates to Monica's. You know the people expect their lawyers to be in an office, but also that's sort of the case for some nonprofit people. You know there are certain industries where they just sort of expect you to be there and the fake background of a pretend office isn't going to do it for them. Do you get asked, or if when you do, from people who are reluctant to engage with business, people who are working remotely, what do you tell them other than just you know the general tropes of you know retention and all of that, like what are some of the benefits of why it may even be more valuable to work with folks in those remote?
Speaker 2:situations, and you mean from a client standpoint, like, yeah, yeah, I think it really comes down to right specific.
Speaker 2:I think it comes down to the same thing that businesses are parlaying that doing right by ways of employees and your customers is also going to do right by business and there's stats that show that. And so I think there are some instances where clients, especially in some industries, will want to meet in person in some regards. So maybe they'll work remotely but they'll take more business trips. But it also gives them there's also benefits to that right. If they're not paying for office space and they're working remotely, they might be able to do more client visits in person. They may be able to be a little bit more flexible with their schedule because they're not going from meeting to meeting, they're in front of Zoom. So I think it's really understanding what some of the benefits are and I don't think it personally doesn't make you less reputable, right if you're not in office, and I hope that COVID really started to shift that narrative that you can be just as productive in a home office as you can be in a corporate setting.
Speaker 6:I have one more kind of question and since it's a group of all women, I feel comfortable asking this. So I work in nonprofit and often with folks who are barely making minimum wage or not making a ton of money. They're using their and have historically used their PTO time for personal taking care of business kind of things. Now, as a woman and a mom, I find myself and I work with colleagues who are taking their work from home time and really just doing more mom stuff and it's not an issue, it's sort of like what we do. But when I'm working with male colleagues who don't have that same situation, how do you kind of level set the playing field, so to speak, on a team when there's still that level of disparity?
Speaker 2:I think that's something that unfortunately goes on from a manager by manager basis but needs to be addressed and needs to and actually I might defer to Erica on this because you might have a little bit more insight from the care economy standpoint as to how this is being addressed.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to make sure that I understand your question, amy. So you're saying that women working from home we're still doing all of the work, right? So we're working whatever we need needs to take care of at the office and we're still doing household management and care, given duties, and all of that and their unpaid labor? Yeah, I mean, I think it's shifting. I think that you know, I think that societal norms are shifting a little bit. I think that man are taken on more of that.
Speaker 1:I think we're destigmatizing the fact that man can contribute to household management, to care, given duties. I were certainly, as you mentioned, nowhere near where we need to be. I was joking with my husband the other day. He was telling somebody that he feels like he contributes a lot and I'm like, yeah, but still not even 50-50. Like, not even, and you don't get a pat in the back just for contributing.
Speaker 1:So I mean, I think, unfortunately, this is why these conversations matter, because I think that some of this, we as managers can have conversations, but I think, more importantly, as a society, need to have these conversations because this is more of a conversation with our partners, conversations with our friends, conversations with more women, you know, sharing our stories and talking about how do you, you know, how do you manage this, how do you have these conversations. I think we just need to do more of that and then it's going to be over time. I don't think it's going to happen right away. I don't know if that answers your questions. I don't know if it's. I made it even more sad but no, I think.
Speaker 6:I mean, I think more than anything, I'm just curious how other people are thinking about that, because you know, I'm I'm Gen X, 45 years old. We're sort of in that cost that we have been for a long time of everything shifting. But I noticed that just a couple of years older than me and beyond is a very different perspective, and then below there's a different perspective, and so it's just sort of how do you navigate that? And I find you know, I have had similar conversations with my partner and it's more like work colleagues I find that are like why aren't you so refreshed? You worked from home yesterday? And I'm like, yes, I worked my two jobs at the same time.
Speaker 1:I see what you mean. Yes, for sure.
Speaker 5:Well, I mean you and I both know, especially in the legal setting, I mean even in firms where men are given the same, you know everybody you can work remote, you can not, whatever there, often, a lot of times I even have friends that are, I mean they're using their remote time to not do extra mom stuff or home management or whatever. They're spending more time on the golf course or wherever right I mean, some of them are, and so I think it's a matter of you know, like Erica was saying, you know just like obviously setting those expectations. But I totally understand what you're saying, because we're in the same age group and I see that too. There's just these vastly different views on how that flexibility is utilized, from men to women, between men and women, and I think that Lynn touched on this right.
Speaker 1:I think that this is why it's very important and we don't do it enough to take a break and see how are we aligning what's important to us, how do we want to work, when, when, how, you know. How do we want to contribute? How do we align, you know, our values and how we want to show up and how we want to treat it, and what boundaries do we want to set so that we can then hold ourselves accountable? We don't do that enough, I think we, because, you know, and it's unfortunate, because we, as women, even when things are going right, we're always worried that we're going to drop the ball and so but but I think that that's why it's even more important to Lynn's takeaway is we need to make time to have those conversations with ourselves to see how we're doing, how do we want to continue to show up, and then what boundaries are we going to put together to keep ourselves accountable?
Speaker 1:Right, because I mean, you know, some employers are going to do all of these wonderful things that we're talking about, or we may implement all these wonderful things we just talked about as managers, but that everybody's going to, and so then, at that point, then it becomes a personal choice, right? What do we want to do then, personally? So if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend and don't forget to leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your career to the next level, apply to join our community of professional women, all eager to help you get there and stay there. Go to wwwbestherco and apply today.