It has been six months since most companies officially sent employees home for what many thought would be a few weeks and has now become months, stretching on for the foreseeable future. The flexibility to work from home has long been part of the trend toward flexible work arrangements aimed at attracting and retaining talent in an ever more competitive market. However, half a year working from home has had the opposite effect on work-life balance for many and instead of feeling less stressed, people are feeling the WFH burnout.
When I started my business in 2014, I found myself wrestling with how to incorporate my philanthropic mindset with my business goals. In the traditional capitalist model, we're conditioned to produce something—whether it's a product, a service, or a platform—from concrete thoughts and actions. Once we've met quarterly and annual revenue goals, any extra time or money that we happen to have leftover can be donated to an organization for a gold star of participation. This typical model, which leaves philanthropy as an afterthought, has never been enough for me. In my personal life, I have always thought about treating people with kindness, respect, and empathy or about lending a hand when and where I can, so why are these values being overlooked in the business world? Or, even worse, why are they considered a weakness?
For many Black professionals, it's an unspoken rule never to discuss race or politics at work. But the murder of George Floyd has opened the floodgates. Suddenly, race is dominating conversations. Black people are being bombarded with questions. They're publicly sharing their pain at company town halls and team meetings, leading to more exhaustion.Race is an uncomfortable topic to discuss, especially in "mixed company." That's why my market research team at Driven to Succeed sponsored two closed-door, tell-all Community Dialogues via Zoom to talk about race—one with Black professionals and the other with white professionals, from Director to C-Suite plus a few entrepreneurs. Our goal was to build more empathy and understanding and to take steps toward healing to help end institutional racism. There were no right or wrong answers. Just an honest dialogue and diversity of opinions.
There's never been a better time to stop and think about how we can do better and be better as a people, as a society, and as collective members of this beautiful planet we inhabit together. Why? Because the need for social and environmental sustainability has never been more urgent, including members in the beauty community.