Thriving Corporate Women

From baby showers to bridal parties, women have always celebrated life's milestones together. Now, it's time for something groundbreaking….

Our inaugural Menopause Party! 🌼 May 4th: Join us for an Unprecedented Celebration of Womanhood! 🌼

Whether you've already experienced menopause, are going through it right now, will go through it one day, or are a steadfast ally, this celebration is for you!

And we are making it a real party!

Jointly with Yoga Sole our welcoming, community yoga studio in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn!

Let's gather to honor this empowering transition with joy, strength, and resilience.

Come join us as we embrace the beauty of spring and the joys (and all the other aspects 😊) of womanhood!

RSVP today (see link in the comments the QR code in the picture attached) and let's have some fun celebrating together. 💫🌈

Help us spread the work! Please forward this post to your friends in Brooklyn/NYC.

I want to wish you all the best in the new year. Somehow this year, all the usual celebratory words sound tone deaf for me. There is too much stuff going on in the world, too many people around me are dealing with major life events when it is hard to feel “joyful” or “happy”. If this seems like a stretch to you too, I want to offer that sometimes “neutral” is the best we can strive for and is good enough. And event if you are south of “neutral” feeling whatever you feel right now is real and “enough”. Don’t get me wrong, if you are able to feel genuinely happy, please do and spread the joy, but if this is not your jam now, don’t feel obligated to feel happy or think that you cannot share whatever you feel with others. They will get it. Wishing you a “neutral” 2024!

My favorite local hair studio!

Commute? People's dynamics? Balance of work/life, care/business results? Childcare?

What do you think is the main challenge related to the return back to the office?

Let's crowd-source the things to pay attention to over the next 30-90 days.

The number of women leaving U.S. workforce due to pandemic keeps growing and getting up to $5mm (according to some stats).

Mothers are taking up the brunt of the workload increased due to pandemic.

We can debate whether it is their own decision because it is "just easier to do it myself" or they chose to stay with the kids (try having a difficult conversation with your partner about uneven distribution of chores when you are exhausted! And what if you don't even have a partner?!)

But the numbers speak.

A NYT article (link in comments) gives a lot of good advice of what different entities (employes, government, individuals) can do to support working mothers.

Here is the list for employers:

✅ Offer part-time schedules or unpaid leaves.
It is still unusual for white-collar workers to work part-time (and not get penalized for this).

✅ Pay for child care.
Mother don’t just need time; they need money.

✅ Don’t penalize people for caregiving.
When it comes to evaluations, factor in everything that they've been dealing with.

✅ Don’t go back to “normal” office life.
People are happier, healthier and more productive when they have control over where and when they work. Hybrid maybe a better option.

If you want support strategizing, reach out to me.

Follow your desires! What comes up for you when you hear this advice?

A woman told me once "If I do, I may quit my job and stop taking care of my family".

This is in the extreme, of course, but many people get really uneasy about this idea.

Desiring and desires get a bad rep and completely indeserving.

There is a different between wants (often material and externally driven) and desires.

Desire is the force of life, which can be wasted if you overdo on wants or underdo on desires.

If you feel some level of uneasiness when you hear my original question, you ABSOLUTELY want to pay more attention to your desires.

Imagine how much are you contorting yourself and your desires to "fit" your current life, job or relationship? How much of the life force are you wasting!

And you know what? if you follow your desires, you are NOT going to leave your family and quit your job.

It will actually make you more engaged and impactful at work and strengthen your relationship. I know this because I've done this.

If you keep staying in the contortment, however, eventually you will snap and do all these things that you fear you may do.

If you're done staying contorted, reach out to me for a strategy session (send me a message here).

Leaders are under enourmous stress right now. Helping employees manage through the “pandemic wall” and beyond will require them to use their empathy muscles, as well as crank up coaching skills like never before.

The thing is that the leaders:

🎯 still need to meet business goals, manage risk, and generate revenue,
🎯 may not be trained in using empathy and coaching skills specifically.
🎯 could have hit the pandemic wall themselves.

How do you support leaders?

Positive Intelligence, a science-based method, can help.

The program can either be used to

🎯 support and train people's managers (or HR folks) to help them effectively support employees, or

🎯 provide it directly to employees, and augment manager's effort and free up their time.

It takes only 6 weeks. In a few weeks of the program, we have seen leaders:

🎯 leading with empathy,
🎯 deeper understanding their employees,
🎯 have tangible tools on how to effectively their reports,
🎯 Have more resiliency themselves.

You can find more information on the Positive Intelligence website (link in the comments) or reach out to me.

As a partner of Positive Intelligence, I offer access to the program and facilitate groups for employees and individuals.

Very welcome news!! (Finally, no killer hornets this time of the year!)

New York is reopening arenas, stadiums, and large music venues!

(Small print: with limited capacity)

Barclays Center in my hometown of Brooklyn was the first one to reopen hosting Brooklyn Nets vs Sacramento Kinds on Feb 23. (Nets won 127-118!)

Yes, it is limited capacity. Large venues are allowed 10%.

This followed New York restaurants reopening indoor dining on Valentines day (25% capacity).

And wedding venues will reopen on March 15 (up to 150 people). So if you were waiting to pop the question, now is the time!!

Provide a meaningful support to employees

In other words, don't shift it to HR.

I'm sure your HR team is working hard (and they are quietly burning out, too) and your company may be offering a variety of classes and courses on skill development and resilience.

AND your employees want you and your individualized attention and approach, not a list of resources on an internal website.

Many people feel that the past year has been a lost time, but there were other instances when it has been used for enormous growth, exploration, and professional/personal development. And for building lasting connection and relationships.

To really do this, you’ll need to have conversations with employees, really listen, be curious and ready to be flexible.

This asks for even more empathy and coaching from the leaders, but it is worth it because in return you get loyalty, engagement, and employees who are performing at their best.

~When was the last time you had 1:1 conversation with your employees, not about a deal or a project? (Blameless discernment, no beating yourself up if it has been a while!)

~Who are you going to reach out today?

What stops YOU from being
on top of your game?

Check out my blog and take the Free Assessment!

https://svetaparilova.coachesconsole.com/blog.html

As the companies start planning the return to a “new normal”, the are a lot of questions on leadership minds.
"How to avoid burnout of my team? How to keep any productivity gains achieved during the pandemics and alleviate the inefficiencies? What should the “new normal” look like? One CEO's experience during the pandemic provides a lot of practical tips, and can help many answer these questions. https://www.svetaparilova.com/blog.html