Charter

For Charter Pro: Read an excerpt of Jacob Clemente's conversation with Amy Schultz, Canva's global head of talent acquisition, for a look inside the company's approach to embedding skills-based practices into their management strategy, from hiring and onboarding to the learning journey throughout the employee life cycle.

Have you signed up yet for the 2024 Charter Workplace Summit? Join us on October 8 as we ask and answer two questions about the year ahead: Where should we be going? And how do we get there? Here's what a past year's attendee had to say about our programming: ““I left the Charter event feeling so optimistic about the future of work and hopeful that we may come out of the pandemic being able to bring about meaningful change." Sign up to attend virtually for free or request an in-person invitation here: https://buff.ly/3RNajIm

Bumpin that* on Oct 8. *research-backed tactics to lead dynamic organizations.

96% of execs expect #GenAI tools to increase productivity, but 77% of employees say these tools have actually *decreased* their productivity and increased workload. That's in part from an overemphasis on #productivity over a focus on experimentation, and lack of investment in training: only 26% of firms offer AI training (which research shows can also help close the gender gap). Brand-new research out this morning from Kelly Monahan, Ph.D. and the Upwork Research Institute also shows: 😓 81% of leaders say they’ve increased demands on workers in the past year. 🔧 85% of companies are mandating or encouraging the use of AI tools to improve productivity. 🤷♂️ 47% of employees who are using AI don’t know how to use it to be more productive. 🔥 Given the pressure to perform, 71% of employees are burned out. Execs are under a lot of pressure to drive efficiency and the #GenAI hype cycle. The combo is causing too many to skip the investments needed for any successful change to occur. Successful programs focus on potential, not productivity: experimentation and iteration with the tools at the team level that allow people to make work better. That requires investments of time and energy, training, and support—investments that executives need to be realistic about, including frank conversations at the board level. My coverage in Charter this morning gets into the J-curve of AI adoption, and what those investments look like, backed up by recent research and some great case studies from Almost Technical, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Slack as well. 🔗 Check it out, link in comments! Thanks for the great work pointing the way forward to Kelly and team at Upwork, Pranay Ahlawat, Debbie Lovich, Julie Bedard and teams at #BCG, Christina Janzer and team at Slack, Nickle LaMoreaux at IBM, Helen Lee Kupp and Women Defining AI, Dan Priest at PwC, and more. Special thanks to Kevin Delaney and Erin Grau -- if you're not a Charter Pro subscriber, you should be! #AI #research #technology #FutureOfWork #training #ChangeManagement

How do you root out bias before you make a high-stakes decision? Anu Gupta, author of the forthcoming book, Breaking Bias: Where Stereotypes and Prejudices Come From—and the Science-Backed Method to Unravel Them, offers a new framework with mindfulness at the center. He focuses on equipping individuals with the necessary skills to identify and interrupt bias as it pops up in their own thinking. One of the practices he recommends is mindful minutes. Start team-wide meetings with a minute dedicated to calming the nervous system. For leaders, that means asking team members to “breathe, relax our nervous systems from the top of our heads to the bottom of our feet, and just become mindful of our intentions and motivations,” he explains. Consider prompting silent reflection and re-centering with questions like, “Why are we here?” or “What are we here to do together?” Join Charter Pro for more from our conversation with Gupta, including a tactic he calls "compassion bombing" and the difference between his framework and traditional, didactic DEI trainings:

The pandemic catapulted HR to new heights of influence. Now, economic pressures and shifting priorities threaten that hard-won position. Key challenges include: 👉 ROI gaps in people initiatives fueling C-suite skepticism 👉 Compliance focus crowding out strategic partnership 👉 HR-CEO misalignment on socio-political issues growing 👉 Skill gaps and burnout challenging HR professionals All while people issues remain top board concerns, second only to the economy. So what’s the path forward? HR leaders must prove their strategic value amid financial constraints, political turmoil, and eroding influence. The stakes are high, not just for the HR profession, but for organizations’ ability to effectively manage their most valuable asset: their people. I share approaches for #hr leaders to regain strategic influence while building skills and coalitions in my latest for Charter Pro.

With worker engagement and motivation flagging—what Gallup has termed “the great detachment”—many leaders are looking for new strategies to hold their teams together. For Vijay Pendakur, Ph.D., author of the upcoming book The Alchemy of Talent, the secret has to do with preparing teams to navigate a dizzying rate of change with a combination of trust, connection, and belonging. Some tips he shared with Charter: 👉 Name the unknowns. "In periods of change, your team will have a lot of questions that you don't have the answers to," he says. "What you want to do is to name the unknowns and name that you don't have the answers... You actually have to speak into that uncertainty in order to keep people from filling the void with their own stories." 👉 Meet conflict with curiosity. "You don't have to be a consensus builder. This isn't about making everybody feel good, but you can double down on the conflict by using your superpower of curiosity," he explains. He gives an example of what a skillful leader might say: "'Michelle, I see that you're having a strong disagreement with Eric over the product strategy. Tell me more about where your perspectives come from.’ Now all of a sudden, Michelle feels seen and supported to actually go deeper and explain why she may be having this really passionate push for product strategy A over Eric advocating for product strategy B." 👉 Inquire and affirm. Pendakur also offers a four-step model for addressing conflict aimed directly at you. He encourages leaders, when criticized, to first take a breath, then lead with curiosity, actually listen, then affirm. " It's not about affirming the content of the feedback," he notes. "As a team leader, you do not have to agree with the feedback being given to you. I listened to Michelle, and I can say, ‘Michelle, first of all, I want to thank you for giving me this feedback. This is exactly the kind of behavior I want from my team. I need some time to think about what you're sharing. Can I come back to you later today or tomorrow morning with a more thoughtful response?’" Read our full interview with Pendakur for more from The Alchemy of Talent, or read an excerpt of our conversation in yesterday's Charter Briefing newsletter. Links in the comments.

Have you signed up yet for the 2024 Charter Workplace Summit? Join us on October 8 as we ask and answer two questions about the year ahead: Where should we be going? And how do we get there? Here's what a past year's attendee had to say about our programming: “The panels and networking opportunities were so valuable, and the entire event was so well-run (plus, the space was absolutely beautiful). Kudos to the entire team for what seemed like a successful conference.” Sign up to attend virtually for free or request an in-person invitation here: https://buff.ly/3RNajIm

With the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony just 10 days away, Charter co-founder Erin Grau wrote about seven ways you can use the Olympics to bring together your team. Check out her recommendations, from hosting viewing parties and Olympics-themed movie nights to engaging in social impact and community engagement events:

What even is work like in the summer anymore? Charter journalist Michelle Peng rounds up the latest data on office attendance, vacation days, travel volume, and hybrid-work arrangements for a portrait of summer schedules in a world where flexible work has become the norm. Plus, for Charter Pro members, a toolkit of policies, templates, and resources to shape your flexible-work and vacation policies.