Short video monologue (spoken by Eileen Kiernan) reflecting on how the COVID-era shift to virtual work collapsed boundaries between home and work, increased visible informality (e.g., pets/kids in meetings), and made workplace empathy, authenticity, and technology-enabled investments in productivity and satisfaction central to retaining and motivating employees.
Five years ago, people didn't talk about what was going on in our lives at work. If there was difficulty, they kept it to themselves. There was a line between work life and home life. These days, it's all collapsed into one. There's a reality and a messiness to how we now work in this virtual working space where there are dogs in the background and kids breaking into meeting rooms. And that leveling of the hierarchy, I think, will benefit because it will allow people to be much more real and authentic about what they need. Having empathy in the workplace is now core to our new normal. In a world where everything else seems so broken, if you can set a vision and a mission that creates for a positive and rewarding work path and productive work, people will respond. There are a variety of ways you could look at investments, whether it's through around productivity or satisfaction. We want to make sure that we liberate people up from areas that are unrewarding or driving high turnover with help of technology. My name is Eileen Kiernan and I'm ready to make change.
