Renovate Podcast Renovate: ALD, LLC

We recently posted a quote on Instagram by Jeffrey McDaniel: “I realize there’s something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they’re experts at letting things go.” As we think about leadership development and growth, the reality is that letting go of everything just because it’s a new year isn’t necessarily the best practice. In today’s episode, we explore some topics and issues that we want to keep talking about and exploring in 2022, as they shape the way we do our work as leaders and leadership developers.

This is Part One of our new series: Class of 2021, What's Next? In this series, we are going to explore a number of realities facing recent college graduates, and the employers who hire them, in this new post-pandemic world. This series is for both the employers and recent graduates, giving practical advice and steps to help navigate the successful transition from a strange and unexpected end of college to the new and yet undefined post-pandemic workplaces that hire them.
In Part One today, we explore the losses that have occurred due to the pandemic. What important aspects of their college experience (particularly the important hands-on moments in their senior year) were lost for the Class of 2021, and what does that mean for their preparedness for the workforce? Due to those losses, what do employers need to know about or rethink when it comes to hiring and transitioning these new employees? We will explore the losses, what those losses mean for this generation of young adults, and provide practical steps for both the Class of 2021 and employers in helping to recognize and work through these losses. 

What do author John Mark Comer (author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World) and Olympian Simone Biles have in common? They are both inspiration for our conversation today about learning how to have honest conversations about saying no and slowing down in order to maintain mental health, balance, and prioritizing yourself in a world of overcommitment and busyness. We will share our recent decision to renovate how we do Renovate after some honest conversations about the fact that just because we can make it all work, doesn’t mean we should. We’re glad you here to join us in this conversation!

Episode 11 begins a short four-part series that we are calling “Do You Need Directions Back to the Office?” The world is opening up, and most people are heading back to their places of employment to return to in-person work. But for many of us, that heading back comes with trepidation and nervousness. We are not the people we were 15 months ago, and for some of us, our passion for our work has waned while we were in survival mode. However, it is time to get to work, and it is necessary to work, for reasons beyond just the paycheck. Today we start with the episode “The Necessary Shift Back to Work,” where we break down the reason why we as humans need to work, and how to go about making that shift back into a post-pandemic work mode.

The Urban Dictionary defines Hard Pants as “Pants that don't have a stretchy, elastic waistband. During any pandemic, the desire to wear only elastic waistband pants instead of pants like jeans.” After 15 months of wearing a very different wardrobe, employees are heading back to actual office spaces looking, feeling, and thinking differently. As we continue to think about renovating the culture of an organization and office to reflect the needs of employees who have undergone a lot of changes in the past 15 months, how can our dress codes be renovated to welcome new ideas about being professional and being able to breathe comfortably at work? Our conversation about hard pants is one for employers, brand new employees, and everyone in between!

We are so excited to bring you an episode today that focuses on a topic we are all wrestling with: heading back into the office after a long time away. We know that not everybody completely switched to WFH mode, but we know that no matter where and how you were working since March of 2020, it was not the same as before. As we now ease back into work, the realities of what we left behind are hitting home. For many people, what we left behind was a toxic or challenging work environment, company cultures that were poorly defined, and office climates that were chilly at best. Our conversation today offers a chance to  imagine how life will (and should) be different based on what we’ve learned working from home in the last year and how we’ve changed in the process. Organizations need to be rethinking their priorities, their care for employees, and their office cultures in ways that reflect the fact that we are all different than we were before. Join us as we talk about how that might look and how you can renovate your office culture.