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On the agenda today: Email Tips | Win the Battle to Work from Home | Redefining Your Role | The War of Art

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BITS AND BOBS

• Harvard Career services have created some helpful resume and cover letter tips that you can find here!
• Trouble falling asleep? "Music to help you sleep from BBC Introducing paired with Radio 4's Shipping Forecast" - it's as boring as it sounds and should just about do the trick!
• ​A Shortcut for Caring for Others (and Being Cared For Yourself)​
• Fancy a quick cheat sheet to email like a boss? Here you go!​
• A preview to a future analysis section in this very newsletter: The Glass Cliff is a nightmare for Black women.

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Circe Member Highlight: Ingrid R. Maurice Knowles, MPH, MS

Ingrid Maurice is a public health leader who is an expert in preparedness strategy, workforce development for public health emergencies, international response and recovery strategy, and non-profit post-recovery planning. Having worked in city government, the non-profit/NGO space, and international response, the foundation of her work ethic is research and knowledge sharing across disciplines and borders. She holds a Bachelors in History of Science from Harvard, a Masters in Biomedical Science from Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine (PKA The Commonwealth Medical College), and a Masters in Public Health from The New York Medical College.

Find out more about Ingrid here!

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Office Space: Not the Movie

Today, we hope to equip you in managing the increasing pressure of returning to an office (RTO). If you are one of the highly social extroverts clambering to get back to your cubicle, missing those 5 pm happy hours, we suggest you skip ahead.

Data has quantified what we’ve all been observing: powerful executives and white men are more likely to yearn for in-office face time. Despite all the data showing most women, people of color and black women are happier working from home (WFH), we foresee the pressure to return to an office creating lopsided ramifications, especially for women, especially for people of color, especially for women of color.

Here is what you can do when the pressure to return impacts you:

• Find your allies and collaborate on your approach: developing a plan to protect remote work doesn’t have to be a solo endeavour. Swap insights with coworkers, company leaders and other departments. You’ll strengthen each other’s approach with shared messaging, and empower more advocates to counter leadership’s assumptions about what employees want. There is strength in data, strength in numbers, strength in a community approach.
• Prepare, practice, and reinforce your talking points about the value of remote work in your role: This list can be long, so it’s important to tailor the value to what you do. For example, improved ability to collaborate with more people and across locations in one day, increased productivity, effective use of time for independent contributions, effectively managing your team across geographies, etc.
• Specifically define if, how, and when in-office collaboration will bolster you, your team or the initiatives that you manage: It’s easier to combat meaningless coaxing into an office when you thoughtfully define valuable in-person activities, meaningful space for collaboration, and when those tasks require in-person access.

At Circe, we create scripts for our members to navigate work scenarios, including how to respond to return to work pressure.

When your boss says, “You should start going into the office, it’s important for people to see you.”:

“Visibility is really important. What I’ve seen is that I can reach more people when I host an info session via Zoom, or record a meeting for people who are unavailable during particular times. The audience increases, and coworkers are responding really positively to the convenience and value of time well spent. I’d like to replicate that meeting/presentation/ when there’s another meaningful event happening in the office, so there’s multiple motivators for getting together.”

When your company says, “We expect you to come into the office 2-3 days per week.”:

Ask and tell your bosses: “Can you clarify what the expectations should be for me specifically? Working remotely has enhanced my productivity and my ability to collaborate across teams/locations. I’m concerned the office expectation confuses face time with collaboration and can be counterproductive. We pride ourselves on agility and adaptability and I really value the flexibility to do great work - in the workspace that enables me to do that best.”

We assume you’re here because there aren’t too many others in your shoes, helping you navigate pressing career questions. If you’re looking for guidance, send our experts a question. Your Circle is here to help.

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How do I reframe my salary, title, and role when team members are leaving?

Two people in my company have quit (or are leaving imminently) recently and I am (implicitly not explicitly) taking on their responsibilities. How and when do I approach having a conversation about what this means for me in terms of my salary, title, team, etc.?

When: ASAP, before you are stuck holding on to a bunch of tasks that you aren't being recognized or compensated for.

How: Well, that depends on what you want.

Are you happy taking on these new responsibilities? If so, decide what you want and what you need (more money, a bump in title, whatever that looks like for you) to make hanging on to those responsibilities worthwhile for you. Add in what your response will be if your company is unwilling to give you these things as once you put them on the table you might become unhappy in the role without the recognition that will make you happy. Then treat the conversation like a regular conversation around career progression: Highlight your wins, state your goals, and make a clear case for why your redefined role justifies your asks. It will be important, for your own sake, to write a new job description based on what your work life looks like now compared to what you were hired for so that you can clearly contrast what's on paper with your new reality.

Are you unhappy with these new responsibilities? Same as above - write down that new job description. Note if (and how) these new responsibilities are getting in the way of the actual work you were hired to do, and open the door to getting them off your plate: "How can we transition these tasks to a team member who is better positioned to execute them so that I'm able to do my job to the best of my ability?"

In either case, it's best to name the situation so that you aren't letting the tail wag the dog and you retain autonomy in your career and stay aware of your choices. It's great to be a team player but there's no need to light yourself on fire to keep your company warm.

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Have a question for our experts? Drop us a line!

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Book of the Week

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