EPISODE SUMMARY
Brandon Laws sits down with Victoria Dew, Founder of Dewpoint Communications and global communications consultant. The two discuss Dewpoint’s latest Insights Report, “The New Rules of Employee Experience and Communication in Late 2020 and Beyond.” The goal: to give employers a fresh perspective on how the pandemic has changed the working world and to help them communicate and engage in effective ways as the workplace continues to transform.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Victoria Dew, the Founder and CEO of Dewpoint Communications, is no stranger to business strategy. With 15 years of internal communications experience advising executives across various industries, Victoria is passionate about helping organizations improve their efforts to communicate and engage with their employees.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, Sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
PANDEMIC INSIGHTS REPORT
“We heard so much about companies that did a great job responding in those first phases of the pandemic. But I wanted to know, now that this initial craziness is through, what does [the next year] look like?” — Victoria Dew
To compile valuable information for her report, Victoria wanted to make sure she interviewed a range of business leaders from different geographical areas and industry sectors. She wanted to look at trends across the whole business landscape, so she sought out business leaders of everything from startups to larger companies with about 35,000 employees.
After COVID hit, businesses had to respond whether they were ready or not. But how were companies actually approaching this monumental change? And why is “the people stuff” — employee engagement, experience, and communication — important for business? These important topics were the key focus of the questions that Victoria asked business leaders.
According to Victoria, “everyone really wanted to talk about what they did during the first phase of the pandemic, and it was part of my role to steer them towards what was next.” Some business leaders had a very clear strategy for where they were going,” and some, understandably, are “building the plane as they fly it.”
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Key Themes
“One of the things I noticed was that there’s a really nice sweet spot in mature startups. Companies that have been around for a while, they take the “people stuff” very [seriously]. Many of them, obviously in SAS or tech companies, they have to compete very hard for talent, so they really understand the value of their employees and are very deliberate and intentional about creating a great employee experience.”
“Companies who, first of all, had done a really great job of connecting their employees to values, to the company’s purpose, were hit harder in the initial phase of the pandemic — the remote workers being away from their coworkers and their leaders. It was initially harder for them. And then what happened was, as they went through the pandemic, what you would hope happened, which is that those values were there to support them. They had the infrastructure to draw on from a resilience perspective and from a communications perspective.”
Catapulted Forward
“I think, in so many ways, the pandemic vaulted us into new space. All of the things that we were building — especially around values, leadership, transparency, walking the talk — there was just nowhere to hide anymore. So companies that didn’t understand how important this was before were suddenly forced to contend with it.”
The Workplace: No Longer a Place
“I was speaking to someone the other day — we were talking about the workplace — and they said, ‘the workplace isn’t a place anymore. It’s a state. There’s no there there.’ When we talk about the workplace, we’re actually not talking about real estate anymore, which is super exciting and interesting. It’s just bigger than that.”
Support for Managers
“Managers are people too. And as much as we’re relying on them, what I also saw was some really cool, innovative approaches to supporting managers and creating programs and frameworks for how they can [find] community. So they can feel like they’re not alone on an island while leading their teams, when really they’re experiencing a lot of uncertainty, insecurity, panic, and chaos as well.”
Returning to Work
“We have good news about vaccines. And the idea that a return to the workplace, a physical space by July, in the United States is not a crazy. Whereas even a few months ago that might’ve seemed like a crazy idea. […] There’s some interesting research that basically confirms what we know, which is that about 20% of people want to work from home, and about 20% never want to work from home. Everyone in the middle wants a hybrid. I think we know that we’re headed for a hybrid model.”
Making Up for Losses
“As we move into economic recovery, we know that companies are going to need to make up for their losses. And we know they’re going to need to shift back into hypergrowth. We also know that that often comes with putting more pressure on our people, which is kind of where we started from. So in terms of work-life balance, […] people are struggling. We know there’s genuine risks to mental health, to break down, to burnout, to attrition.”
The Challenges that Lie Ahead
“One of the biggest challenges [is] onboarding whole cohorts of new employees, especially more junior employees who may not have a strong professional background — who may not meet their manager in ‘real life’ for a long time. How will they learn? How will they get socialized? How do they contextualize?”
LEARN MORE
Connect with Victoria Dew on LinkedIn, or if you’re interested in learning more about what business leaders had to say, download the report here. Our hope is that it provides some valuable insight into how the pandemic has affected the workplace and how your business can effectively respond to it.