The Nexus

Want to create a workplace that values creativity, collaboration, and personal growth? It all starts with a strong foundation in performance culture and a commitment to core values. We're meeting this week with New York Times Bestseller, Dr. Vince Molinaro and our very own Founder & President, Kevin Burtt, to discuss what it takes to build a dynamic, engaging work environment that inspires your leaders, your team and drives results. From leadership strategies to fostering a culture of innovation, The Nexus has got you covered - tune in!

From Dall-E to ChatGTP and AI art on TikTok, a new generation of AI and automation has landed, with implications for your workforce and the future of your business. Do you choose to be an early adopter and use AI to generate value? Or wait and see, and risk being left behind? Internationally recognized digital and cybersecurity strategist, Ritesh Kotak, joins us at The Nexus to discuss Artificial Intelligence and the future of work.

Do your company values drive value? Can you draw a line from your brand, your employee engagement, your customer impressions and success back to the core values at the center of it all? If not, then we think you're missing out on your company's true potential. Kevin Burtt, Founder and CEO of Nexus Communications, sits down with our host on the Nexus Podcast to explain how and why values should create value.

Long before the pandemic, many people would look at their jobs and ask themselves “is this what I want to do?”.  It was only during the pandemic that those for whom the answer was “no” decided to act, en masse. Their decision to leave their jobs has had a direct impact on the current labor shortage, which has influenced inflation - a contributing factor in a potential recession.   We are all feeling the effects of that choice, if only indirectly.  So, now the question is: what to do about it?   At Nexus, we speak with lots of organizations who believe that those who left may have made a different choice had they been able to connect those people to the organization's values. Connecting people to values (a subject we'll explore in later episodes) is one of the principal purposes of storytelling.   In the last of our three-part series on storytelling in the workplace, we speak with Dr. Suzanne Keen – president of Scripps College in California, and a specialist on the subject of “narrative empathy”: the effect of stories on the human brain.

In our last episode of The Nexus,  veteran storyteller Steve Pratt told you where stories work. Now, in our next episode on storytelling in the workplace, we're going to tell you why stories work. Or, more specifically, Dr. Peter Jensen will. Dr. Jensen is a sports psychologist, performance coach and founder of the Third Factor, one of the preeminent performance coaching firms in North America.   Whether you're a pro sports coach or a CEO, Dr. Jensen will you tell you the same thing: your first responsibility to your people is to build their self-awareness and self-responsibility, and there are few tools as effective in doing that as storytelling. You want to know why? Then you should probably listen.  Dr. Peter Jensen joins us at the Nexus.

Before it became the on-trend leadership skill of the post-COVID age, we here at Nexus were advising clients on how to use storytelling in their organizations.    Now, teaching leaders to do something they probably do all the time outside of office hours may seem quaint, but anyone who's had to suffer through a story told horribly knows storytelling is a proper gift, just as anyone who's been inspired by a well-told story can speak to its power to change minds, hearts, and behaviours. At Nexus, we see storytelling a core skill set that can both sustain and transform an organization's culture, even (and especially) in challenging times like the ones we're currently facing.    That's why we're devoting the next several episodes of The Nexus to storytelling in the workplace.  Our host, Chris Nelson, will speak with experts on how storytelling works, why it works, and what you need to do it well. In the first episode of our storytelling series, Chris speaks with Steve Pratt, veteran storyteller and co-founder of Pacific Content, one of the most successful branded podcasting companies in the space. 

This summer, you probably had to go WAY off the grid on your vacation to not hear about the latest workplace trend – quiet quitting.   Exact definitions vary, but Quiet Quitting boils down to this: consciously choosing to not do anything more than the bare minimum at work, so you might preserve your well-being.   People who quietly quit aren't disengaged, exactly – rather they're choosing to protect themselves in ways they feel their work no longer will (if it ever did).  The question, then, is why do people quit quietly? And the answer (sadly) may be another meme, one that perhaps hasn't had the same traction as quiet quitting:  Greedy Job.  Greedy Jobs are everywhere and have been around a lot longer than quiet quitting. As defined by the Boston Globe in a recent article, “Greedy jobs are often on-demand, deadline-intense, and client-facing. They hog your life and won't let go. But they can be very lucrative.”   To discuss what we do about both, we've brought in productivity consultant and best-selling author Julie Morgenstern, who wrote “Never Check E-Mail in the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making Your Work Life Work”.

Every five years since the early 90s, the UK government has tracked something called “work intensity” and what they've found is disturbing if not surprising: more people are saying they work harder to tighter deadlines under greater levels of tension. In 1992, 23 percent of workers who responded to surveys on this subject said they worked at high speed; 30 percent of respondents said they “worked very hard”; and 53 percent claimed to work under “tight deadlines.” Today those numbers stand at 45, 46, and 60 percent, respectively. Now…layer on top that a pandemic, rioting in the US Capitol, inflation, war in Ukraine, a looming recession. Workers are stressed – and they're asking themselves questions like “Why the F$&# am I putting up with this?” That is a challenge for any employer, one that our guest on today's pod set out to solve with his own company. His name is Jason Fried, he's a co-founder of the tech company Basecamp, and after twenty years of trial and error he put all his solution in a 2018 book called “It Doesn't Have to Be This Crazy at Work”. Jason joins us to talk about what he sees now in the wake of COVID, with a potential recession looming on the horizon.

It's a secret to no one that for a long time, women have had to overcome systemic disadvantages in the workplace…and the pandemic did not help.  As we've explored in other episodes, the lockdowns of recent years have affected women (and working mothers, in particular) more acutely than other parts of the working population, and that effect was so pervasive it was even given a name: “she-cession.” Of course, now that the pandemic is over you'd expect the She-cession to be as well, and that's where our guest on this podcast would say you might be wrong. Sarah Kaplan of the Rotman School of Business joins Chris to talk about the work that still left to do, and how the pandemic has made it harder.

You might think that with our current labor shortages that employers are getting creative in how they attract and hire candidates. Some employers are doing just that, but according to our guest on this episode of the Nexus, many more are still using the same tired hiring practices that yielded dubious results before the pandemic…and it could cost them. Forbes Contributor and Founder of WeCruitr Jack Kelly sits down to tells how and why hiring practices need to change.

Last week, it was announced the unemployment rate in the US was 3.6%, the lowest since February 2020, and below market projections for this year. In Canada, the rate stands at 5.3% - the lowest unemployment rate since 1976! To put this in context…a country with a rate of 5% is considered to have “full employment”. To some this may read like a sign of a healthy economy, but according to our guest on this week's episode not everyone is dancing in the streets over the news. His name is Pedro Antunes, he's the chief economist for the Conference Board of Canada, and he's going to explain why a lot of employers may be weeping at the moment.

2022 has been a year of employee backlash from trucker convoys to vaccine mandates to protesting anti-union tactics, all playing out against a backdrop of shifting supply chains and tight talent markets. But has the law changed because of this recent history? We sit down with Erin Porter, the Partner and Vice-Chair of Labour and Employment and Human Rights at Fasken. She's going to explain to us how these issues are a minefield for employers, but a minefield with clear, unambiguous boundaries. 

Here at the Nexus, we love it when our guests give us (intentionally or otherwise) the subject of our next episode. That is exactly what Future Forum's Helen Kupp did for us recently.   In our discussion around the future of hybrid work, she raised the idea of a “remote second class” – people working away from the office who are prey to systemic disadvantages.   Considering that many employers are using the promise of flexibility to attract talent, you'd think this might be something they'd wish to avoid, and yet some major organizations who have gone hybrid have already signaled their intention to treat remote workers differently from office workers (looking at you, Facebook).  To find out what kind of challenges a remote second class might present, we spoke with Anita Wooley, Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business.

Employees in the talent pool love it, a lot of managers hate it, and the uncertainty around it is making a number of people nervous. In our last episode, we brought you two case studies: a company that was operating completely remote all over the world and an organization in a New York office with everyone back at their desks. On this episode, we're going to shift to the world in-between. Helen Kupp, from Product Strategy & Partnerships at Future Forum, Slack's think tank on the future of work, joins us to discuss life at Slack, their hybrid office model, trends in talent attraction and the labour market, and what the future holds for new ways of working.

With all vaccine mandates, labour shortages, supply chain disruptions (and now, Omicron) it's probably hard to know what the best approach to working your people may require. So we thought to ourselves – maybe the best way for listeners to discover their own path is just to hear from people who've already chosen theirs? In Part 1 of this two-part episode, we'll hear from two people from two real companies living on opposite ends of the spectrum to find out why they chose to return to the office (or not!), how it's working and what effects that choice is having on their teams and their organizations. Stephanie Harper, a Growth Partner at Moniker and Jonathan Bensamoun, CEO & Founder of Fi both join us at The Nexus.

By now, many of you have probably heard about NHL player Kyle Beach, who was sexually abused by a coach while playing with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010.  His story is proof of how pernicious the issue of workplace harassment continues to be – and how much harder it is to change a work culture like professional sports, which is  not only male-dominated but also “hypermasculine” (and yes, there is a difference). Paul Melia, President and CEO of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport joins us to discuss what's needed to change the discussion around harassment in legacy cultures like pro sports.

A survey of North American workers recently revealed that a vast majority of Black employees prefer remote work.  The reason? They feel more accepted by co-workers when they work from home than when they work in an office. This is striking data point, especially now that we're talking about how we're going work together coming out of the pandemic.  To understand it better, we spoke with Adjoa Osei, a clinical psychologist and diversity consultant.

Lately, the teams at Nexus have been supporting clients with their mental wellness programs. A lot of that work involves helping people talk openly about their struggles with mental health.  You'd be amazed at how many people have told us that having a colleague who's willing to listen has made those struggles easier, just as having a person who's judgmental or unprepared to listen has made them worse.   Which begs the question…while it's important to help people share their stories, isn't it just as important to help people listen?  If having a colleague in your corner can mean the difference between life and death when dealing with mental health, shouldn't we be doing more to give those “listeners” the skills and the permission to support their co-workers?   Those are just two of the questions we put to Mark Henick, best-selling author, speaker, and prominent mental health advocate.

Nearly all of us have that one person in a workplace who behaves like…well, like a jerk. But have we ever taken the time to ask ourselves “why is that person behaving like a jerk?” Well, David Zweig has…in fact, it's how he makes his living. David is organizational psychologist at the Rotman School of Business who studies “workplace deviance” or the ways in which people veer outside the boundaries of appropriate behaviour while at work. He says the problem of deviance may not be because people can be jerks, but because we have a fundamentally flawed way of looking at performance.

If you had to pick two important revelations for organizations coming out of the pandemic, they might be as follows:   We don't have to work in offices to be productive. We may struggle to get everyone back into the office, even if that's what we want.   That's probably why a lot of employers are considering the concept of “hybrid work”, which allows people the chance to decide how and where they'd like to collaborate with their co-workers.  Sonia Kang is an organizational psychologist, a professor at Rotman School of Business as well as host of her own podcast “For the Love of Work” and she joins us to talk about the pleasures and perils of hybrid work.

In a recent article, author and organizational psychologist Adam Grant called languishing “the neglected middle child of mental health” – an emotional state between depression and burnout that doesn't get as much attention but has the potential to create as just as many challenges for organizations – especially if the languishing person in question happens to be your boss.   Leadership consultant, best-selling author and friend of the Nexus podcast Dr. Vince Molinaro returns to tell us what we can do for and about languishing leaders BEFORE they drag us down with them.

If you're an employer you may be facing a looming crisis – Global News has called it “The Great Resignation” and New York Magazine named it “The Clock-Out Cure” but they're both describing the same thing: after a year of accumulating, pandemic-induced work stresses, many talented high performers are quitting work for the sake of their well-being. The circumstances behind these radical acts of self-care may vary but they have origins in something many of us have complained about but few take action to fix (until now):  a culture of overwork, where employers demand (either implicitly or explicitly) that their people put their job ahead of all other considerations. Overwork and our shifting attitudes about it are just one of many trends that our guest on this episode happens to be following. Her name is Kathy Woods, and she's a partner at Deloitte specializing in workforce transformation. 

The worker you hired yesterday isn't the same worker you need today. The rapid pace of change places a premium on an employee's ability to learn and adapt, collaborate and innovate. “New skilling” employees and aligning hearts and minds with organizational purpose and values is now mission critical. On this episode of The Nexus, Nexus Learning Practice Leader Rob Pearson discusses how the enterprise learning function is evolving to meet these challenges.

Long before there was a pandemic, there was a slow-motion revolution happening in the workplace – automation and low-cost technologies were poised to change not just how we did our jobs, but whether those jobs existed at all. But COVID-19 has had profound impacts on that revolution, and in ways you might not expect. Workplace transformation expert Stephen Harrington joins us to talk about these new twists in the plot.

The First World faces a serious problem: It's not making enough babies. Birth rates in developed nations are plunging, so in places like Canada, robust immigration policies are considered necessary if we're to sustain our populations.   But despite the promise of wondrous opportunities,  many who choose to emigrate discover it can take years before they find careers in their chosen field, if at all. On this episode, we speak to Adwoa K. Buahene, CEO of TRIEC (Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council) about missing out on immigrant talent pools, how to hire for diversity and how to win the war for international talent.

UPDATED EPISODE: We here are the Nexus podcast factory are working furiously to produce more pods for your listening enjoyment, and we hope to have new ones for you very soon. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this repeat of one of our favorites from 2020. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Antiracism has become a conversation at the forefront of workplace culture. But what do you do if you haven't done this type of work before? How do you prepare to move your organization into this new future? We talk to DE&I consultant, Kim Crowder, on what you need to do to get started on transforming your organization into the workplace culture of your dreams.

The year 2020 will forever be remembered as a year of profound change and in the midst of all the shocks and stress, it gave us all a reason to pause and think about our values. For businesses, it was about what was important and how they showed integrity, whether it was through Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, employee engagement, or assessing the mental health of employees. Kevin Burtt, CEO of Nexus, joins us this week to talk about how to define and activate your organization's values and use them to pursue your workplace purpose.

UPDATED EPISODE: Following the incident at the Washington Capitol, we think this episode is relevant now more than ever. Here's one of our favourite podcasts from 2020. Stephen Liptrap, President & CEO of Morneau Shepell, a leading provider of technology-based HR wellness services joins us to discuss mental health. We look at Morneau Shepell's Mental Health Index research and tips on how to keep a pulse on employee mental health, prevent productivity loss, and engage with your employees during periods of great stress.

In our last episode, we told you why organizational purpose is important. In this episode, we're going to show you by talking to a leader in one of the industries hit the hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. Sharon Cohen, Vice President Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, joins us to tell us how a clear, shared purpose among leaders and their teams is helping her people strengthen their sense of community and thrive in this challenging time.

This week, it's time for something a little different. As we near the end of a whirlwind year, we talk with our very own President and CEO, Kevin Burtt from Nexus Communications, a leading provider of talent communications solutions. We discuss how to create a sense of purpose in the workplace, why purpose culture matters, the Nexus origin story and how we connect people with purpose.

With all due respect to the late Steve Jobs, micromanagers, the office was never any kind of guarantee that people would collaborate or be productive. At the same time optimizing performance is still a worthy goal and one that's not quite as easy now that every day is Wear Your Pajamas to work day. This week we're talking to Mark Hickson, Knowledge and Insights Lead at Microsoft. He talks to us about people analytics, how to improve your team's productivity and collaboration and what your organization can do to measure the power of employee connections, improving focus, scheduling resources, and employee wellness.  

The 2020 American election is happening today, COVID-19 cases are rising, there are protests in the street and winter is coming. To say that people are under an incredible amount of stress is an understatement. But what do we do about it? This week we're talking to Stephen Liptrap, President & CEO of Morneau Shepell, a leading provider of technology-based HR wellness services. We look at Morneau Shepell's Mental Health Index research and tips on how to keep a pulse on employee mental health, prevent productivity loss, and engage with your employees during periods of great stress.  

Updating Your DE&I Playbook: Improve Workplace Culture and Drive Market Growth. We've heard all of the metrics – diverse companies outperform less diverse companies, inclusion inspires innovation and contributes to purpose culture. DE&I is vital to your bottom line. So why don't more companies do it better? That's the question we put to Michael Bach, founder of the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion and author of the new book Birds of All Feathers. We discuss the six steps to DE&I transformation, making Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion its own business vertical, and how we can reframe DE&I initiatives for success.

Good Trouble: How preparing yourself for a DE&I transformation can benefit your employees. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Antiracism has become a conversation at the forefront of workplace culture. But what do you do if you haven't done this type of work before? How do you prepare to move your organization into this new future? We talk to DE&I consultant, Kim Crowder, on what you need to do to get started on transforming your organization into the workplace culture of your dreams.

How to Channel Your Employee's Advocacy (in Ways That Won't Blow Back on You Later).   In the past six months, we've seen the world of work change, economic priorities shift, and social mores put under the microscope under the dramatic pressure COVID-19 imposed on us all. As a result, we're monitoring brands and leadership closely – searching for the accountability the COVID crisis demands. We've all heard of activist CEOs and shareholders, but is there room for activist employees? Can activism in the workplace serve as a business driver? Steve Davis, author of the upcoming book, Undercurrents: Channeling Outrage to Spark Practical Activism, joins us to answer these questions.

The Looming Challenge of Working Parents (And What Their Employers Should Do About It).   Since the start of the pandemic, a lot of working parents have been forced to juggle both their jobs and their kids at home at the same time. Now, this “temporary” situation is looking a little more permanent, and that could create a whole host of problems - from increased attrition to lower productivity to reversals in gender parity. Jennifer Vena of Bright Horizons joins us to talk about what employers can do for working parents to sidestep these issues. 

Tips on Managing Colleagues You May Never See in Person Again. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it's that we can be pretty adaptable when we choose to be. Between the garbled audio on video conferences and fixing snacks for our kids between calls, many of us have been able to make Work From Home work. However, there's one thing business leaders still need to figure out – how they show up for their people (and we're not just talking about the picture on their Zoom profile). Leadership consultant and bestselling author Vince Molinaro joins us to share a few tips on how to lead in a remote world.

How the pandemic is accelerating and hindering the re-invention of work. Long before there was a pandemic, there was a slow-motion revolution happening in the workplace – automation and low-cost technologies were poised to change not just how we did our jobs, but whether those jobs existed at all. But COVID-19 has had profound impacts on that revolution, and in ways you might not expect. Workplace transformation expert Stephen Harrington joins us to talk about these new twists in the plot.