The theme of the 2021 Next Gen conference for the Ohio Banker’s League was “Building for the Future”, with a focus on preparing emerging leaders for an industry that is moving forward. The conference was an opportunity for industry rising stars to come together, albeit virtually, to learn, grow, and inspire. Attendees came from all functions of the bank, most relatively early in their careers. All were hoping to come away from the conference sessions with tactical skills that they can use daily to grow in their leadership capabilities.
HCMx Radio Podcast: What's Next for Gender Bias
The HCMx Radio podcast is hosted by Rachel Cooke, Michael Rochelle, Mike Cooke and the Brandon Hall Group Analyst Team, and focuses on innovative, cutting-edge human capital management topics. I (Rachel) was thrilled to have a conversation with Rachel Cooke from Brandon Hall Group about “What’s Next for Gender Bias”.
Watch or listen, here!
Case Study: Women in Bio Burnout Series
This Summer, we returned to a past client—Women in Bio—an amazing organization of professionals committed to promoting careers, leadership, and entrepreneurship of all women in the life sciences. Together with collaborative partners, we delivered a 3-part Navigating Burnout + Building Support Series.
Case Study: Cintas WAVE 2021 – Effective Communication
Women Adding Value Everywhere (WAVE) was started 5 years ago as the Cintas women’s Professional Business Resource Group (PBRG). As the Cintas team was planning the WAVE event for 2021, they decided to take a virtual approach to still provide valuable programming during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our focus for the session was on giving employees a thorough understanding of their personal and professional strengths as an integral first step to creating equitable pathways for communication in the workplace.
Supporting Women in the Return to In-Person Work
Along with many of our clients, Gild Collective is beginning the transition back to in-person work. With several in-person workshops scheduled this June, the trend for companies returning to some amount of in-person work is clear.
As the transition to in-person work begins, how can each of us—regardless of role—push back against the negative impacts on women caused by the pandemic, and avoid new ones?
Case Study: InfoSec Unconscious Bias Series
Infosec helps IT and security professionals advance their careers with skills development and certifications. The organization recently initiated a Women at InfoSec employee resource group and one of the group’s first recommendations was a company-wide bias training. We worked with the team to develop a 3-part series to provide a foundational bias understanding and tailored tools for interrupting bias for both individual contributors and managers.
Case Study: Guggenheim Partners, Effective Communication
Like most organizations, Guggenheim Partners came to us as they were adapting adapting to the unexpected shift from in-person to remote work. Existing communication challenges had been highlighted, and new ones had been created. In partnership with their women’s network we planned a program focused on building effective communication skills specific to remote work and advocating for oneself and demonstrating value in negotiating.
#StopAsianHate – Allyship for AAPI People
White people, and the United States as a whole, have a longstanding and despicable history of dismissing white violence against Asians and quickly letting it fade into cultural irrelevance. And while the new year did not bring a respite from violence and discrimination against AAPI people, it did bring the opportunity for us all to grow as allies, advocates, and anti-racist activists for AAPI communities everywhere. It did present us with the opportunity to keep our eyes open. To truly see these horrific acts for what they are – discrimination, prejudice, and hate crimes. To turn our outrage into action.
Case Study: Communicating Effectively – International Women's Day with Circor
We partnered with Circor for International Women’s Day – March 8, 2021, the theme for which was #ChooseToChallenge. The theme reminded us that a challenged world is a changed world, and without individuals willing to challenge the status quo (which had led to gender inequity for so many, for so long), things would never truly change. For that reason, our focus in this workshop was on communicating effectively to encourage assertiveness in individuals raising these challenges.
Meeting Women's Needs Today + Planning for Growth Tomorrow: Dress for Success Cincinnati
Dress for Success Cincinnati has been the “first step to a better life” for thousands of women in this community since its founding. The mission of Dress for Success Cincinnati is to empower women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire and development tools to help them thrive in work and in life. Join us for this short conversation with Executive Director Lisa Nolan on how DFS Cincinnati has shifted to meet the needs of women during COVID-19, and how they will be able to expand their vision even further with their new location and the TransformHER Campaign.
#ChooseToChallenge - International Women’s Day 2021
International Women’s Day is upon us! This year’s theme is Choose To Challenge.
Since the start of the pandemic, we have seen an abundance of data and research done on the impact of the pandemic on women.
With this abundance of data comes a long list of ways we can choose to challenge in 2021. At Gild Collective, we’re focusing on a few areas to drive impact—both in our own lives and within the organizations we work with to shift workplace cultures and break down gender barriers.
Case Study: Confident Communications During Job Searching for Xavier University Alumni
The economy, like every other aspect of life, what rocked in unprecedented ways when COVID-19 hit in early 2020. The Xavier University Office of Alumni Engagement (a longtime partner of ours) decided to provide the graduating seniors and alumni community with resources for the daunting task of job searching during an economic downturn. We created this session, Confident Communications During Job Searching, to help them on their job search journeys.
Case Study: Navigating Burnout with Givaudan We Lead
The team that leads the We Lead women’s initiative at Givaudan recognized that members were experiencing burnout—as so many women are during the pandemic. There was a desire to provide women the tools to set boundaries to reduce their burnout without adding one more thing to their plate.
The Future of Work is Flexible. Let’s Ensure it’s Equitable, Too
In December 2020, Mercer released their final survey in a series designed to measure the impact of COVID-19 on the workplace. It asked the question, “How are companies addressing flexibility, inclusivity, and the continued impact of the pandemic?”
The data on flexible working is clear, but while it shows that employers are more focused on inclusion than ever before, culture changes aren’t happening. We have the opportunity to form flexible work practices focused on being inclusive from this point forward.
Women + Burnout: A Conversation with Dr. Casen of Drugless Doctors
We’ve been talking a lot about burnout recently—from our review of the 2020 Women in the Workplace report, a deep dive on what organizations can do to retain their female talent, and our new workshop topics on Navigating and Managing Burnout.
Last week I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Casen DeMaria of Drugless Doctors on this topic. As a chiropractor, Dr. Casen works with many women and helps them to identify the gaps and challenges they may be facing, finding the right place to begin and helping her patients get their gusto back.
Case Study: Navigating Burnout Gild Collective Webinar
In December 2020, as we navigated into the new year with a sense of hope about change and evolution out of the pandemic and into the future, many of us felt burned out and overwhelmed. We hosted a public session for everyone looking to go into 2021 with renewed strategies and energy for their goals, all rooted in understanding why their burn out happened in the first place.
This session was attended by people across industries and focused on:
Understanding the foundation for burnout during COVID-19, including the key contributing factors and audiences at greatest risk
Review and discussion of tools for navigating burnout to identify those most effective for each personal situation
Participants left the session with a reframed new of their 2020 goals, especially those which were out of reach due to circumstances no one could have expected. Where it made sense, they reworked and brought those into 2021, with a new attention to navigating out of burnout and into self compassion.
Case Study: Gild Collective Women's Initiative Roundtable
We are taking a bit of a different approach with today’s case study than our previous summaries of client work. Instead, we want to celebrate our Women’s Initiative Roundtable, which we have been producing for over three years locally in Cincinnati. I’m writing about the Roundtable because the main purpose it serves - community - is the thing that so many of us are missing so much right now. While we can’t currently gather in-person with our Roundtable community it still brings great value, and we are excited to see how it evolves in the years to come.
Retaining Women During COVID-19
As we continue to wrap our heads around concerning data points from the Women in the Workplace 2020 study and recent research from Deloitte, we ask ourselves what can be done to retain women in our organizations to avoid a reversal of the representation progress that has been made in recent years.
We’ve explored recommendations from a variety of sources and are guiding our clients to focus on 7 things to benefit all employees, but with a specific emphasis on the challenges and biases women in your organizations may be facing.
Case Study: Communicating Confidently and Assertively with Ribbon Home
We joined Ribbon to present a Communicating Confidently and Assertively session for the entire organization. It was well attended with an extremely engaged group of attendees, especially their CEO. All of the employees came to the session with a central goal of improving the culture of assertive communication within Ribbon, and with one another.
Women in the Workplace 2020: Spotlight on COVID-19
In years past, when the Women in the Workplace study by LeanIn and McKinsey and Company was released, I had been excited. Excited to see progress being made (even slowly) and new insights uncovered on how women can be better supported by their organizations.
The 2020 Women in the Workplace report was released last week, and like many other 2020 headlines, it did not bring with it this sense of excitement or hope. Despite my awareness that women are being disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, I did not anticipate some of these jarring data points.