Rachel Cottam 3:31
He did a great job. Okay, thank
Rolando Rosas 3:33
you. Thank you. Hello, Rachel, where are you checking in from today?
Rachel Cottam 3:37
So I’m near Salt Lake City, Utah.
Rolando Rosas 3:39
All right, beautiful country. I love I love it out there. That’s just a wonderful, lovely place. I’ve been in a while. But that’s great. You know, today before we get to your full story in in talk about that, you know, I would just want to say you caught my attention on LinkedIn with a post that you had, that sparked this conversation and you and I’ve had a few weeks ago regarding return to office and what it means for parents, as well as the impacts financially to the bottom line both for employers and employees when it comes to this thing, so you had an actual dollar amount, and it resonated me because I have a little one. And if I had to go back to the office, I would be as an employee absorbing an additional $16,000 in cost that all of a sudden on that I was the daycare provider or the or providing that care to my little toddler or little one. I would have to like all of a sudden find daycare for them and and I think that’s part of where some of this disconnect comes when it comes to folks that are saying you have to be with your button to see inside the office. versus you know, I’d really like to be at home because Is my kid, my spouse, my loved one, my pet, a sixth one that I’m, you know, taking care of all of those reasons factor into my decision on working from home versus somebody that doesn’t maybe they have older kids, maybe they’re very they don’t have kids. Right? And that’s just not a, you know, it’s not in my brain. So I’m making decisions based on things that are other people don’t have to deal with. I’m having to deal with no kid. So when I get your button, you see, right,
Rachel Cottam 5:29
yeah, and I really appreciate you bringing up that post, it really took on a life of its own. I was seeing some folks in my network and my community were being told to return to office and as soon as two weeks, and they had to find childcare solutions within that time, which anyone who’s had to find childcare knows it’s more like a two year timeframe to get on the waitlist to make sure you have a good provider. So when you can afford who’s close to your office, who works the same hours as you, and that post ended up? Yeah, you have to have trust, like what is more important than the caregiving of your child. So you don’t want to just find someone within two weeks, a lot of time in the post really resonated with both I think I ended up having 3.3 million impressions. On both sides of the issue, folks who were saying you’re taking advantage of employers, when you you’re proposing something like this, it’s illegal to have conversations around compensation based on your childcare status, for example, and other folks who are saying that this is what executives need to hear. And these are the conversations that are not happening prior to those folks making the return to off mandate.
Rolando Rosas 6:39
Do you think it’s something is as easy as you know, just because it’s not my situation, right? If I was, you know, and I’m just going to put in a very stereotype, if I’m a 59 year old, executive or middle manager, at that age, you’re probably further in your career, you you’re you’ve may have had kids, so they’re gone. And so to you, it’s not really it’s not resonating, or it’s just not in your brain, like somebody that’s 35 and maybe has a, you know, a young one? Or is it just more sinister than that you think?
Rachel Cottam 7:17
I don’t think it’s sinister, I tend to give folks the benefit of the doubt. But the demographic that you’re representing is true. We know that in the C suite, we still see about 80% male versus 20%, female of that demographic, the majority are white, the majority are over 50. So they may as your stereotyping, have a have a certain lifestyle, have kids that are older or never really carried that burden of childcare. The way that you know, 50 years ago, it just wasn’t it wasn’t the same as it is now.
Dave Kelly 7:51
We’re going to jump into some other questions, you know, as it relates to working from home and the benefits and the misconceptions. But before we do a quick read from our sponsor, listen, Rolando, do you remember when clients and business partners, we’re keeping us awake at all hours of the night? Heck, yeah, man, man. And, like so many sales people that I know, they use their, they use their personal cell phone number, you know, for work. And I just think that’s crazy. So we just want to let the people know, to the people know that they can easily use Zoom for both online meetings, and also phone calls. While you can take back the night so that you can sleep better knowing that your phone won’t ring at all hours of the evening. Zoom phone allows you to keep your personal phone number separate so that you can rest more easily and be more effective during the day. And with Global Teck Worldwide as your zoom partner. Setting it up is as easy as 123. So make sure that you check them out at Teck.global/zoom to get started today. So back to the conversation at hand.
Rolando Rosas 8:59
Yes, thank you, Dave. I hate getting disturbed at night. But it also, Rachel, if we were to just bring that in even to the conversation. I think that also is part of the issue when it comes to remote work or work from anywhere. I think for a lot of folks, especially in America, there isn’t a lot of muscle memory, because remote work for a lot of folks prior to the pandemic was something that you had to either apply for or get approval for. And so not a lot of people experienced what it’s like working from home. And so getting the taste and have that separate having good clean separation between work and home, a lot of times got blurred. And so balancing the or keeping boundaries on things wasn’t very easy for folks that hadn’t been doing it and now they’re you’re trying to build this muscle memory around how to do it well. And for some folks, it worked really well and For others, not so well, would you agree or disagree with that?
Rachel Cottam 10:05
I would agree for me when I first had to go work from home during the pandemic, I was terrified, I was so frustrated, I think there were a lot of fields for us that were more than just about the work from home dynamic. But I didn’t know how I could pull it off, I truthfully didn’t know how I was going to be able to achieve any sense of balance. And for a while I didn’t I think so many of us were in survival mode with our businesses. So many of us were saying, We’ve got to work longer hours, we’ve got to work overtime, we’re working from home. So now that could really be any time of the day. And we didn’t set clear boundaries around when we’re taking zoom calls, or when our personal cell phone was ringing for business. I think for me, one of the greatest benefits of the pandemic, however, was seeing that I could do it, and seeing that it actually brought better health benefits. For me, it gave me more time to exercise, I was saving money on gas, I was saving money on food on coffee. And I think that we often forget how positive those changes were. Because we have, as you were saying this demographic that says, Well, I did it for a long time this way. And I liked that better. But the truth is a lot of folks received benefit from shifting to work from home.
Dave Kelly 11:21
For sure. So knowing that you figured out how to do it, maybe you had some doubt, you’ve learned how to do it. My question would be fill in the blank, Rachel, when working from home, you should never What? What?
Rachel Cottam 11:40
Oh, this is a good one. I mean, I go back to the your sponsor, that’s probably intentional. When working from home, you should never force yourself to work outside of working hours. I think for me, I got really good at setting a calendar that showed when I was working. And when I was not, as a parent of young children, I have kid duty on my calendar, I have school drop off on my calendar. And I don’t hide those things. I think, you know, to your question, a lot of times, folks used to hide personal appointments, child care appointments, on their calendars, they would just put it as an ambiguous meeting, because they were afraid of the repercussions. And when we talk about how we can build ally ship and workplaces, I think it is by living our lives out loud, by parenting out loud. And that starts all the way at the top. So when you work from home, you should never be afraid to hide those things that are happening on your calendar that are part of being a parent that are part of being a human being go on a walk, take the time that you need, work from home has created better mental health and better working conditions for a lot of folks.
Rolando Rosas 12:46
I love it. I do too. I love it. I can’t agree with you more. I don’t even want to add to that, because that was well said. And I agree with everything you just said because it’s definitely enriching. But I want to get your reaction to a very well known figure that says, oh, no, Rachel, you are not thinking straight when it comes to remote work. So
Dave Kelly 13:14
don’t give it away.
Rolando Rosas 13:16
Ori do we have that footage, and then we’ll talk about it on the other side of the video.
Guest Speaker 13:21
Like there are some exceptions, but I kind of think that that the whole notion of work from home is a bit like the, you know, the fake Marie Antoinette quote, let them eat cake. It’s like, it’s like, it’s like, really, you’re going to work from home and you’re going to make everyone else who made your car come work to the fact work in the factory, you’re gonna make the people who make your food that gets delivered that they can’t work from home, that, you know, the people like they can fix your house, they can’t work from home, but you can. Does that see Marley? Right. That’s messed up. You see, there’s a moral issue. Yes. I mean, I see it more as a productivity issue, but it’s also a moral issue. Here also get off the moral high horse with the work from home bullshit.
Rolando Rosas 14:01
All right. Somebody that does not agree with anything you’ve just said? What do you react? What’s your reaction to that when you when you? I know my reaction when I heard that. But I would love to know what what your reaction is to that? I’m sure you’ve seen that.
Rachel Cottam 14:17
Yes, I’ve heard the quotes from Elon Musk claiming that work from home is morally wrong. And I think it is important that we acknowledge in this conversation of a really critical caveat, that being able to work from home is a massive, massive privilege. That only applies to folks who are knowledge workers, portable workers, whatever you want to call it. There is only a subset of the community that this can apply to. We recognize that folks in the service industry do not have the ability to work from home. I was a high school English teacher for three years before I transitioned to tech. As we mentioned, I was not able to work from home. And in fact, I rarely took a sick day because creating a sub plan took more time than just coming and pushing through the day sick. So I think that’s my first reaction. Yes, we are right to acknowledge that working from home is a massive privilege. And I’m grateful to speak from that perspective. Second, is it morally wrong? No, we could get into a lot of what that could mean about the morals of it around the integrity of it. And I think that post, as we were talking about earlier, created a lot of outrage, because all of a sudden, people were asking, Hey, is working from home as a parent actually taking advantage of your employer? Are you trying to say that you can provide childcare and do your work at the same time? And that is not the conversation, right? The conversation is around flexible work, it is around trust, it is around allowing parents to schedule work around pickup or drop offs and knowing that they’re still going to be productive employees. So do I wholeheartedly disagree with Elon around the morally wrong statement? I do. I think even though you guys, in a recent episode talked about how the slackers in the office are gonna be the slackers at home. So is there an element of folks who are taking advantage? Like, is there a percentage? Of course there is there’s going to be a percentage in the office who are playing solitaire on their computer all day? Yeah, or your your choice, right? Yeah, so I just think it’s important to acknowledge No, is it morally wrong to work from home, that’s not the issue. It is morally wrong to take advantage of your employer by not working in the timeframe or with the outputs that are expected. But work from home isn’t the issue there, it’s more likely a lack of clear KPIs clear boundaries, clear expectations from management, and a lack of trust.
Rolando Rosas 16:48
What love I love where you going with this? Because you’re you’re it’s as if you read my mind, because that’s where I want to go next with you regarding the secrets around remote work and work from anywhere, Ori role, the best kept secrets intro,
AI 17:05
well kept secrets, well, secrets, gotta keep them safe. And sound. Well, let’s see for savers, just like Dima.
Rolando Rosas 17:19
I love what you’re talking about, Rachel, because in the conversation that you and I had prior to this, there was a lot of nuggets that you had shared, and you’re just like going right into it. So let’s already let’s put up some of those best kept secrets that you and I were talking about that would help folks that are either thinking of bringing employees back to work at the office on site, or looking to make their work from home policies better. So let’s go right into number one. Number one, we were talking about that requiring return to Office can potentially limit the employers ability to expand on diversity and what that means for the organization. What did you mean by that, Rachel?
Rachel Cottam 18:11
Well, let’s think about the kinds of employees that you were able to hire and retain with equitable, remote work policies. So when you’re able to hire for more global communities, all of a sudden you have access to isolated communities, international communities, historically redlined communities, and you’re increasing those perspectives. And that also kind of gives you some flexibility in, you know, contracted workers. And you’re also we’ve talked about this already, you’re also able to hire more working parents who are dependent upon flexible work arrangements in order to provide that caregiving. And a kind of an addendum to that is you’re able to hire folks who have an elderly family member, for example, who they are the primary caregiver for. I’ve talked to people as well who might have children with disabilities. You know, I spoke to someone who had two children with disabilities. And she said that remote work was the game changer for her and being able to balance her life effectively make an impact at work, and still be dedicated at home. Other folks that you’re able to add to this list neurodivergent folks who may think a little bit differently, who may require accommodations in office, which employers are legally required to provide at home, they can build a space where they feel productive, where they feel secure, where they have the things that they need to avoid some of those sensory difficulties that may be a hindrance to their productivity in the office, you’re able to hire more people with disabilities along those those same lines of one that’s really interesting to me, as you’re able to eliminate some appearance bias. There is data that shows that men who are shorter who have a smaller height, or women who have larger bodies are often discriminated against and hiring practices. And that
Rolando Rosas 19:57
can we will come back to that was was First thing that’s so interesting. Let’s let’s just go back to my slow brain can absorb it to you said, Men who are shorter, right, can be discriminated against because of their appearance when it comes to working at a particular location at an office, is that right?
Rachel Cottam 20:20
Yes. Let me see if I can find these stats for you because they are fascinating. Wow. So here’s the one for each two and a half inches of extra height, a man earns $1,611 more a year, annually. For each two and a half
Rolando Rosas 20:37
inches, two and a half inches above, let’s say five foot four or five foot five, five foot nine, what are we talking about?
Rachel Cottam 20:43
This study said of extra height. So I’m not sure where we start
Rolando Rosas 20:47
above average height, right? So if whatever the average is right now, two inches above that, then you get an extra $1,000.
Rachel Cottam 20:54
Yes, a year annually, right. So this adds up over time for women 4.6 increase in BMI results in 4000, less annually.
Rolando Rosas 21:06
Alright, so that one’s slow as well. So for women, with BMI, you’re talking to body mass index, so then the larger the more girth they have, and we put that in a polite way, the less they are going to make to the tune of
Rachel Cottam 21:21
4200 less than annual income boom.
Rolando Rosas 21:25
So that’s big debts, it’s the negative there, let’s call it the penalty, the penalty for these this demographic is there’s a penalty for that for being an onsite worker in the tune of 1000s of dollars, and could be 10s, or hundreds of 1000s over the lifetime of a worker.
Rachel Cottam 21:47
Yeah, and so all of a sudden, you’ve got you’ve got this little zoom rectangle. And if all the hiring is happening over zoom, you can’t tell how tall someone is you can’t tell the size of someone’s body. And you have now implemented more equitable hiring practices, and you’re eliminating some of the unconscious bias you might not have even been aware of. But if that person came into the office to interview, they were less likely to get the role. And as I mentioned, this continues along in the career progression, I just recently read an article that says it is to women’s benefit, to remain underneath that BMI average if they hope to be promoted, or move into a C suite role within their career.
Rolando Rosas 22:24
So one of the things we can’t remove in an office, or what I hear you saying it seems like we can’t remove the the the things that are in our head about the ideal worker, and what that worker should look like, or, or B, right, the biases, we can’t remove those from our brains, because they’re ingrained somehow. And the ones most impacted those two groups that you just talked about. That’s amazing.
Rachel Cottam 22:55
It’s a really interesting data point. And I do want to correct you on just one thing, we can retrain our brains, and we should. So I do want to make sure that we say that here, that is absolutely possible to acknowledge and root out unconscious bias. And I think those who are succeeding in remote work policies or in office policies, those who are succeeding in eliminating toxic workplace cultures, are those who talk frankly, about these biases, and do the work to unpack them. But again, that’s a topic for another episode. Yeah, but
Dave Kelly 23:26
the benefit for the employer like it would be, you would be doing your organization a disservice if you were hiring slackers not realizing that you, you were influenced by the way that just by the way that they looked in their height or their way. Like, I mean, we have shareholders, we have stakeholders. That’s a shame. You know, I’d hate to be fooled to hire people just based on their height or their or their weight. But it’s a fair, it’s a fair conversation, I would say, Yeah,
Rolando Rosas 24:00
no doubt, no doubt. And you had some more secrets to share as well, or you put that back up on the board. Because we’ve got a couple more we want to we want to dive into the talk about trust in the level of trust and how that increases when we’re talking about this topic.
Rachel Cottam 24:18
Yeah, so one of the topics that I’ll rephrase, one of the paradigms that is really interesting to me in the workplace is Stephen Covey’s Speed of Trust. And it’s this idea that as trust in your organization increases, you’re able to get things done faster, speed increases, and you’re able to get things done more efficiently. And so they end up costing last. So the equation is that trust goes up, speed goes up, and cost goes down. And I think this relationship plays into the return to Office discussion, especially for those who had the advantage of working from home either during the pandemic or who had lingering remotes. work first work policies, they were granted this immense trust, where employer said, I trust you to get your work done your 40 hours of work done in the timing that is best for you and for your families, I trust you to get it done where you want to whether that’s, you know, allowing folks to travel or to visit family, whatever that looks like, I trust you to get it done where you can. And then all of a sudden, they’re being told no, you have to work at this time when I say and where I say. And we’re kind of going back on this relationship where employers have built trust, and then seeing the bottom line results because of that. And now they’re saying, Well, I’m scared, maybe it’s the macro economic environment. I don’t know, I’m not a business owner, maybe Rolando, you could speak to this more. But I think folks, especially in the C suite are now saying, I am willing to sacrifice that trust that I had gained that trust that I put in folks, in order to see people in the office and regain a sense of personal control over the work folks are doing.
Rolando Rosas 26:07
I would say from my experience as a founder and CEO of a company, it stems back from what what is comfortable to you, and people tend to revert back to what’s comfortable. You know, prior to the pandemic, we were already 100% virtual, right? So for us, virtual was not a thing like remote was not a thing, that technologies actually got better during the pandemic. And it made collaboration and communication because those are two separate things. Both of those two things got better for us, we benefited from that. And for folks that were office, let’s call it office first in their approach for work, and then even have hybrid, that all became very, very difficult, like you talked about earlier, that was a very weird thing that was really, really weird for a lot of folks that had to go in and start managing people that now we’re not sitting at a physical cubicle, where they could just walk down and Joe come into my office or Susie come over here, I need to I need you to come in right now. Managing that way, became extremely difficult during a pandemic, because now you’re forced to learn and learning a new thing is hard on the brain. And a lot of times you’re talking about retraining, retraining the brain to think I gotta have a meeting that we a standing meeting we have every Monday at nine o’clock and the end on Tuesday. That’s what you had to do almost prior to the pandemic and have some kind of muscle memory around that in order to I think really thrive under this. And so now managers now okay, policies opened up, we can move around more freely as bring them back. Right? I don’t at that done. We did that. Right? We got it, we did that. And for those that, you know, maybe want to stay at home, we’ll give you you know, two or three days to be at home. And you think that’s fine, because that’s the way things were. Now I’ve heard Kevin O’Leary, as well as Steve Cadigan, who worked at as an HR manager at LinkedIn, both of them say something like this. You know what, the world is a totally different place today. So even if you were under that regime, which Kevin O’Leary very much says, hey, that’s the way the world was three years ago, four years ago, not today. 40 to 50% of the people in a in a workplace may just quit over the whole thing. And so for Kevin O’Leary, he’d said it’s on CNN, this interview, that he’d lose about 40% of his workforce, if he forced everybody to come back to the office. So you either can compete using that as a leverage point. Or you can make it much more difficult. And in right now, this current environment, the labor market is tightening. So although employers are wielding this some willingness Iron Fist to return to the office, I think it’s to their detriment to not have the long game in mind where the tide of the world is moving towards more work from home or remote work.
Rachel Cottam 29:18
One thing I’d add to that is I think the organizations that have failed at work from home because some have, let’s be honest, I get it. It has not worked in every organization, or those who did not embrace the challenge of becoming a remote manager or embracing a remote company. As you’ve talked about already, there are tools that can help you with communication and collaboration. But there are also soft skills and management that you have to develop differently when you’re managing a team remotely versus when you’re managing them in office. So I think, you know, to those managers, I’d say did you give it your best shot? Can you try it again? I think that’s that’s the piece that’s missing. Is there it does have to be done differently from the leadership team. And I don’t know that we always that we fully committed to that.
Rolando Rosas 30:08
Right. And I think we’re in the early stages. You know what, we’re probably somewhere in the second or third inning of this, when it comes to remote work, because there’s still a lot to learn. And I think more information will come out. And there’s already a lot of information. And on our last episode, we had something about the state of remote work, and how companies like Fujitsu and the behaviors and surveys around that and their employers, and we’ve had done some LinkedIn posts, I think, the momentum, and in getting all of that organized in terms of what it does for people, what it does for the employers, and what it means to the bottom line, those numbers are starting to come out and the information is out there. And I think if people are concerned about the bottom line, they want to go check out that last episode we did because we did touch on the bottom line and and from somebody, I go bring back, Kevin O’Leary, who’s a was a VC guy, likes numbers likes money. He says he’s the neck, he makes an extra 20% in margin, just by implementing remote work, and he has no reason to go back to the old way. So margins can be enhanced. Now, let’s jump into those other aspects that you mentioned. already. Go ahead, put that back up on there. We touched on people don’t change work from home. Hold on a second. Let me see if I can see it better. People don’t choose work from home to take advantage of the employee employee years and have a conversation. I want to jump into this one have a conversation with employees about return to work office policy, because Rachel, you’re saying how leaving those out can be a huge mistake and cause a lot of unnecessary problems.
Rachel Cottam 31:54
Yeah, Future Forum which is I believe slacks Think Tank recently released a study around this topic that said 60% of executives do not design their company policies around where you’re working with input from their employees. So to restate that 60% of executives surveyed say they’re designing their company policies with little to no direct input from their employees. And I think in the remote work, return to Office debate, what we’re seeing is this massive disconnect between the C suite and between the line worker, for example, and when I did a LinkedIn poll recently to just ask my audience, hey, where where do you think you’re most productive? Like, does that actually matter to you? Overwhelmingly, my audience said that they are more productive when remote. So I had 352 responses. 74% said they were more productive when remote 17. So they were equally productive wherever and 9%. Only 9% said they were more productive in the office. And so I think these are the kinds of polls checks that leadership teams are not running before requiring these mandates. As you said, it’s kind of a gut reaction. I miss working from room in the office, I miss seeing people, I’m seeing some downward movement in our financials, I think having people in the office could could help make an impact there. And really, that’s not the response. That’s that’s not the perspective of these employees. And that’s where you see that tension. And some of that frustration from folks who are being told they have to return to the office.
Rolando Rosas 33:33
And I let me give some more color to what you’re saying your your poll had some of this week. We found a survey from Fujitsu’s 80,000 employees in Japan. They prior to the pandemic, they had an internal survey that said 75% of people viewed the office as the best place to work. That number went down to 14%. After people went home, in its them in that is an amazing stat within itself. To think that people that said, yeah, 75 Oh, yeah, we overwhelming love going into an office, and that went down to 14. And so tying in why you would want to have employee input on a return to office policy. Because if now the workplace is only 14% favorable, that means that 8080 is my domain, right around 86% are not, or the input of that 86% would be completely missed in a policy that would really almost eliminate or put them to the sideline in favor of the 14%. Right? If we were to kind of calibrate things that way. So if you don’t take the input of the 86%, or roughly somewhere in that neighborhood, you’re really going to have a culture problem. You’re going to have an attendance problem. You’re going to have all sorts of issues. issues that are gonna come up as a result of that.
Rachel Cottam 35:03
I think this goes back to that original post that you shared of mind. That essentially the hook was that if you’re requiring folks to come back into the office, you should also be offering them a raise. Well, what that means to me is that if you’re requiring folks to come back into the office, the contracts that you signed, when you hired them has changed, right? When I get a new contract, when I’m evaluating new, new, a new position, I’m doing that math, I’m asking myself, does this salary match with with my current lifestyle? Does this support my needs related to my family related to my housing related to my transportation, and so
Rolando Rosas 35:42
on screen, Rachel, for folks that are following us online via video, that post that Rachel is talking about is on there, you can see the information she’s provided.
Rachel Cottam 35:53
Thank you. And so I think it’s important to acknowledge that all of a sudden, this service agreement has changed. And so whether you’re a working parent, obviously, that’s the number that I cited, because that’s most personal to me. But whether you’re a working parent, whether an employee of any type, if you signed an agreement that said our company is remote First, when you won’t be required to come back to Office, and then that agreement changed. We better be reevaluating a few things. So that looks like a conversation with your manager. And maybe they say, Hey, we’re looking at moving back to Office, what would you need? In order? How can I support you in order to make that most possible? And maybe that is a financial incentive, maybe it’s not like, let’s get creative about the way that that we are supporting folks and returning to office, if that is the culture and the office expectation we’re going to require, I do to want to go back to those working parents. Back to that that secret number three, because I think it is, like I said, the audience that’s most important to me. And Dave, you and I were chatting briefly before this, and I really wanted to hear what you had to say. But you were sharing how for you, when you were working at didn’t have the option of work for Home, you saw your kids only what, 90 minutes a day is that right? Minimum,
Dave Kelly 37:06
strangers were spending more time with my children than than I was, for sure. And it was a commute into a city. It was a commute back home. It was I tried to make myself available as much as possible. But I certainly I did some real simple math. I didn’t want to work, I didn’t want to go to work. I wanted, I wanted some other way. I just wanted something different. I, again, building a family, it’s the most exciting time, it was the most exciting time of my life outside of graduating college and starting my career, getting married. And when kids came along, that was just a wonderful start to a chapter. And then the reality real quick was is you’re going to pay for someone else to take care of your children, the time that you are with them, you make that very meaningful, but that’s going to be Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, and then Monday is gonna come along and then you’re gonna have to give your child away. And it was sad. It was sad when you did the numbers. And then when you did the numbers with your income, versus your expenses for taking care of that child. You it was just time to reevaluate just where I wanted to physically work because again, back then 2004 2005 work from home was you know, it was delegated to people that were higher up on the totem pole, different responsibilities, different level of trust with the organizations. And as a newbie, kind of coming up. We didn’t I didn’t I didn’t have that yet, but it was it was very eye opening. For sure.
Rachel Cottam 38:42
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And I think that’s that’s been my experience too. I don’t want to miss out on my um, my children’s life. One of the women who commented on my post, the one you just shared. It made me laugh. She said adults in the office distract me more than my daughter has, during my time work from home. She’s almost three. She says your child. You know your child isn’t isn’t a distraction. And I responded to her and I said and even if she is I would rather have watercooler conversation with my three year old and hear about the Fairyland that she’s imagining. Then talk about the Super Bowl, which, you know, mixed opinions on what you would rather talk about. We don’t need to get into that. But I treasure those two minute moments between meetings where I step out of my basement office, and I get to see the art gallery that my kids have plastered all over the walls. That that’s why I work right I’m not working because it’s it’s the only thing that fulfills me it does fulfill me I challenge myself in my role. I’m ambitious, I’m dedicated. But I also have a life outside of work. That is so fulfilling and rich that I’m not interested in missing for a two hour commute to the office.
Rolando Rosas 39:53
I love those words Rachel I it literally as if you sat in on our practice When reading today, everything you just said the last 60 seconds, I said to the guy says, you know, it’s time for us to come up with a new phrase. I’ve been thinking about something called Work fulfillment. And you said those words and it because it allows work fulfillment encompasses being able to enjoy work, being able to enjoy family, being able to be respected with the work you do, being able to be recognized, being able to do those things that you would do when you work from home, like caring for your kid, and no loved one or at somebody that’s not feeling well, right. All of that is part of the thing. I’m fulfilled with work, and therefore I can produce, right? Yeah, I can’t really produce, if I’m driving every day, an hour sitting in traffic, smelling the polluted traffic every single day, because it’s bad for my brain, more than just your body. So anyhow, I really enjoyed this. You know, maybe I gotta go sweep out the studio, because you literally said while we were in production leading up to this, what I want to what I want to get into with you now is a rapid fire segment. Well, your brain is in your brain. What can you just tell me what the words are feeling are and Dave and I are going to go back and forth on this. So Dave, I’ll kick it off with these are five things. So what would be more embarrassing? So to kind of get a progressively more challenging, I think, maybe for you not so. So what would be more embarrassing this or that? Number one, walking into a meeting late versus logging into a virtual meeting late?
Rachel Cottam 41:45
I mean, neither are embarrassing if you have a good reason for it. I think like, you just got to own it. We all live our lives outside of work. So if you had something that made you late, that happens, right, you’re a responsible employee. That wasn’t a good this or that answer, but I I truly believe that
Dave Kelly 42:04
your answer and see if you’re gonna do the same thing to mind. Go by Dave. All right. What’s more embarrassing Rachel, co worker overhearing office politics at watercooler or not being muted on a zoom call and co workers overhearing personal conversations in the background? I’m gonna choose
Rachel Cottam 42:30
office politics because I don’t think those are watercooler conversations. We should have those elsewhere. The Zoom call lines I think those are endearing. I love hearing somebody’s kid hop up or their dog barking on their lap. I think those are cute.
Rolando Rosas 42:47
What about them? I’m glad you say it sounds like you’re you’re more patient than the average bear on an online meeting.
Rachel Cottam 42:56
I truly don’t get embarrassed. easy either.
Rolando Rosas 43:01
Okay, but Well, we got some more blush Oh meter up a little bit. Okay. This one getting caught gossiping at the office or sending a personal email to the wrong person. The second
Rachel Cottam 43:20
Yeah, yeah. Personally emails that that could be bad.
Rolando Rosas 43:25
Okay, it could be really bad. Really bad. All right, Dave, your
Dave Kelly 43:29
turn and and that’s why you put that delay on your on your turn around Cemil delay sending personal email to the wrong person. I have done that once. 18 years ago, and it is still in my brain today. I was still thinking about it, and I was still kind of cringing. Anyway, alright, so the next one. What’s more embarrassing, skipping out on Happy Hour drinks with coworkers. or skipping out on family dinnertime?
Rachel Cottam 44:02
Always, always the second, but I think that’s a given based on our conversation.
Rolando Rosas 44:07
Yeah, well, we didn’t come in this one with prejudices because we didn’t know where you fall in on that. If not, we’d have been able to find some real turning up the heat. But seems like you’re gonna get to you don’t get too rattled by the so that’s kind of cool. And here’s the last one kind of humor, tongue in cheek humor specially for folks, maybe you don’t get embarrassed but we’ll see. Walking out of the office bathroom with toilet paper stuck on your clothes, or flushing sounds on a zoom call.
Rachel Cottam 44:41
I’m gonna say flushing sounds on a zoom call because like we just don’t need to be there with you but like, take care of that on your own time. But again, like I’m very much of like, let’s make the office more human. So if you have toilet paper walking out of the bathroom, let’s let’s laugh about it together. What What a great story. For the plot,
Dave Kelly 45:02
also something that may stick with you for 18 years. Oh,
Rachel Cottam 45:07
is this a real experience? I’m understanding Yeah.
Rolando Rosas 45:12
This happens that we actually had to filter the filter out what we were originally going to put any error, because she may not like that. So let’s go with something that can and does happen. And then, you know, it’s an it’s a very easy conversation to have around that. Rachel, was there anything else that we missed, or that you wanted to add to the conversation before we wrap it up?
Rachel Cottam 45:38
I’m sure there’s more we could talk about around here. And, and I think there’s probably something that we missed. But just to wrap up, I would reiterate that the workplaces are changing as you look at millennials and Gen Z, like they are requiring things like salary transparency, if you don’t have diversity in your organization, that’s a hard pass. So this is not only for short term, bottom line benefit, but long term, if you want an engaged workforce, you will look at ways to integrate flexible work.
Rolando Rosas 46:09
And Rachel, if somebody wants to get more info on you, where should they go looking for you?
Rachel Cottam 46:16
Yeah, come find me on LinkedIn, I love to have discussions with people who think differently than me. So I would love to see you on LinkedIn.
Rolando Rosas 46:24
That’s how I got a hold of you and I, I’ve follow your stuff your post, I really love it, love your insights, because it’s all about learning more and hearing the same perspective from all the people that I already know it gets boring after a while. So I really love the I love your two cents on on on the comments that you add and the posts that you have on LinkedIn. So I would encourage everybody to go follow her on LinkedIn. So today, we’ve been talking to Rachel Cottam. And if you want more of this type of meaningful discussion of round work, you want to check out our last episode on the state of remote work, where we talk about stats, figures, as well as research. So if you’re trying to establish or enhance your work from home policies, you’ll find some hard numbers, some figures as well as research into this topic. You can check those out on circuitloops.com or wherever you consume your podcasts. Thanks for joining us today. And Dave and I will see you in that next episode.
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