Latest news with #companyculture
CNA
3 days ago
- Business
- CNA
Somebody that I used to know: On the weird grief of colleague departures
This question has become part of my awkward welcome ritual for new hires: 'So ... are you a coffee person?' Day one usually begins at the cafe downstairs with a quick hello, a commemorative libation (coffee or otherwise), then a climb up the stairs to commence our journey as co-workers. Over the past decade of running my company, I've continued to personally onboard new workers. It's not that I can't trust someone else to do it. I just really enjoy it. I like showing them our 'designated crying area' (our pantry space) and explaining the curious phenomenon of the office bidet geyser. I like going through our culture deck, throwing in a few jokes to break the ice and seeing them decide how heartily they should laugh. It's orientation, yes, but also something more – a quiet hope that if you make them feel welcome and you remember their coffee order, they might stay a little longer. Then they leave. Sometimes after three years, sometimes three months. Sometimes on a good note, sometimes a strained one. And in that abrupt silence that follows, between offboarding checklists and looking at handover documents, I find myself wondering if any of these efforts were worth it. WON'T YOU STAY WITH ME? About a decade ago, the first person that I hired when I started the company decided to make a jump to a much bigger, more prestigious agency. It was a competitor but it paid her better and had a much more conducive structure for her career development. It made sense for her. We parted on good terms, but it was hard to maintain the same friendship once we no longer shared the day-to-day routines. Even seeing her career milestones pop up on social media triggered a small wave of disappointment – not at her, but at myself. It was insecurity and a bit of resentment all wrapped up in a forced double-tap of the 'like' button. We didn't speak for a long time. Only after a good five years had passed could we both approach the situation with some perspective and humour. Thankfully, we're now friendly again. This isn't a story about attrition rates or talent migration. It's about the emotional tax of investing in people who eventually walk away. No one tells you, when you first become a manager, that the job requires a strange kind of short-term memory. You pour time into someone, build a rhythm, start speaking in shared references and inside jokes – and then, poof, they're gone. Off to bigger things and better pay. The relationship seems to end abruptly there, apart from the occasional LinkedIn sightings. I know that's just the way the cookie crumbles. The workplace today is a revolving door of industry pivots, mental health breaks and career realignments. Everyone's chasing something – balance, purpose, remuneration, title and so on – and it's unlikely that staying in one place can offer everything. Still, why do I feel a small sting every time someone leaves? SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW I'll be honest. I still find it difficult not to take departures from the company personally. Not in a dramatic, weeping-in-the-toilet way, but in those smaller moments. When a photo of a past team outing pops up on social media, in a photo album or the memories in your head. Or when you retrieve an old presentation deck and you see the names tagged in the slides. Certainly not because they're wrong to go but maybe it's because, for a brief window of time, I had imagined a future where we'd keep building something together. This emotional dilemma isn't exclusive to managers and supervisors. The departure I've taken the hardest happened when I was still a junior executive, in the infancy of my career. At the time, I was part of a desk cluster with a senior who wasn't my direct boss, but who had become a de facto mentor. Christopher was soft-spoken, serious and a little stoic, but he always humoured my terrible puns. We'd often sneak off for 'planning sessions' at the canteen that had very little to do with planning. We talked about movies, music, family – the kind of conversations that anchor you during chaotic work days. One afternoon, Christopher told me that the following week would be his last with the company. He'd found a better opportunity elsewhere. In the 2002 Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs, there's a pivotal scene where Tony Leung, playing an undercover police officer, watches the only person who knows his true identity get killed. The camera lingers on his expression of shock and horror and this remains one of the strongest gut punches in cinematic history. On that day when Christopher told me the news, my expression would've made Tony's look mild at best. 'Oh. Congrats, Chris!' I managed to say. 'Happy for you.' Two weeks later at his cleaned-out desk, I shook his hand and said all the right things: 'Let's keep in touch. Don't be a stranger.' What I couldn't shake was the strange sense of grief and futility. What would be the point of keeping in touch if we no longer worked together? FRIENDS ARE FRIENDS … FOREVER? What is 'workplace culture'? We like to talk about it in terms of values and vision statements, but most of it comes down to the people. It is who you sit next to, the person who replies with a meme instead of a boring thumbs-up, the one who makes the 5pm slump bearable. So when they leave, it isn't just another email from the human resource department. It's a permanent glitch in your work day. Conventional business wisdom dictates that investing in people is never a waste, even when they might come and go – because people are the most valuable assets of any company. I've echoed those things. I even genuinely believe them. But there's another truth, too: that what isn't a waste can still sometimes feel like one regardless. It's only human of us to feel something, especially after we've poured hours into someone – coaching, giving feedback, having conversations over coffee and bubble tea – only to have them resign right when they finally started getting it. Maybe it is not quite bitterness but certainly, there is a sense of jadedness. The kind that makes you want to pull back with the next person, just a little. Don't get too attached. Don't ask about their weekend or their interests. Don't joke too much. Here's the catch: If you stop investing in your people earnestly and genuinely, you will slowly become the kind of manager you swore you'd never be. Transactional. Coldly efficient. Checked out. And ironically, that's exactly the kind of environment people want to leave. So I will keep trying, even when the farewell Slack message reads like a LinkedIn boilerplate. I will keep hoping that somewhere along the way, the time we spent together meant something. That, in between rushed deadlines and Monday check-ins, we managed to become more than just colleagues ticking boxes on a task list. Maybe that's the point – to make the workplace not just somewhere people pass through, but somewhere they felt seen, where they felt real connection, even if briefly. I love how Andy Bernard movingly puts it in the series finale of American sitcom The Office: "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." The real treasure, as they say, might just be the friends we made along the way.
Entrepreneur
6 days ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
How to Build an AI-Driven Company Culture
A practical guide for business leaders on how to build a company culture that embraces AI through curiosity, experimentation and hands-on learning. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. In the early 1900s, as the automotive revolution reshaped industries, blacksmiths and carriage-makers struggled to adapt. More than a century later, we face a similar inflection point with AI. Just as horse-drawn carriages gave way to automobiles, entire industries are being redefined by algorithms today. The question isn't whether your company will adopt AI, but how. And the answer hinges on one critical factor: culture. Related: How to Create a Workplace Culture That Supports Digital Transformation (and Why It's Important) What does an "AI culture" look like? Building an AI-driven culture isn't always about buying tools or hiring machine learning scientists. It's about fostering a mindset where experimentation, learning and human-AI collaboration are core to your company's DNA. Here's how to start: Model curiosity to dispel fear: Leadership must champion AI, but grassroots innovation is what embeds it into real workflows. At CodeSignal, our engineering team doesn't just use AI — they build with it. From leveraging GitHub Copilot for complex refactoring to fine-tuning custom LLM agents for internal tools, AI is part of their daily toolkit. And it's not just engineering. Our marketers, for instance, prototype campaign ideas in Claude and validate messaging variations with Gemini. The key? Leaders must model curiosity. Share your own AI experiments — and failures — with your team. CodeSignal has a Slack channel dedicated to experimentation with LLMs, where team members share how they've been using AI and what they're learning ("productivity hacks" are a team favorite). I have been studying AI technology and building AI-native products for over a decade, but this doesn't stop me from continuing to learn. I regularly share my learnings, from using the latest LLM models for everything from code writing to email writing to image generation, and debate with my colleagues on how different models perform on complex math challenges. The point of me doing this is to set the example that incorporating AI into your daily workflow doesn't have to be intimidating, and in fact it can be quite enjoyable. It also reinforces that we're all learning this new technology and figuring out how best to use it to do our work together. Provide access to the right AI tools: Today, tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney are free, yet many companies still gatekeep access. That's a big mistake. We give every team member a ChatGPT Teams subscription, with the expectation that they'll play around with it and even create their own GPTs to augment their workflow. In the past year, our employees have created over 50 custom GPTs that help them draft sales emails, gather market insights, extract data, answer HR questions and more. Make AI literacy a core expectation — then build on it: Giving people access to AI tools is necessary, but it's just the first step. To create a meaningful impact, leaders must pair access to tools with training. CodeSignal does this by asking every team member to complete AI literacy training, where they build skills in using and interacting with LLMs with hands-on practice. Our team recently finished a "spring training" in generative AI literacy, where everyone at the company (even me!) completed a series of experiential learning courses online and shared our learnings, questions and ah-ha moments in a Slack channel. We boosted motivation for completing the training by setting up a goal of 95% participation — rewarded by cool new swag when we met the goal. Next, we're building on this foundation of AI literacy by running an AI hackathon at our next in-person meetup. Here, team members will break into teams based on how they use AI and their depth of knowledge. Some teams will explore using LLMs to draft creative campaigns and set project timelines, for example, while others will be building custom GPTs to automate actual parts of their job. The machine learning experts on our team, meanwhile, will be working on building innovative new AI applications from the ground up. The goal here is to set the expectation that everyone uses AI, yes — but more than that, to give team members ownership of what they do with it and the freedom to choose which parts of their job can best be complemented by AI. Related: AI is the Coworker of the Future — 3 Ways Employers Can Get Ready The stakes have never been higher For some organizations and teams, adopting AI will be uncomfortable at first. AI tools raise a range of new technical, regulatory and ethical questions. Many employees fear that AI will displace them from their jobs. That discomfort is real — and it deserves our attention. As leaders, our responsibility is to guide our teams through uncertainty with integrity and transparency by showing how embracing AI can help them become even more impactful in their jobs. I do this by modeling AI use in my everyday work and openly sharing my learnings with my team. This gives team members permission to experiment on their own and helps move them from a mindset of fear to curiosity about how AI can be a partner to them in their jobs. To return to the analogy of the automotive revolution: We're teaching our carriage-makers how to build self-driving cars. If you're a business leader, ask yourself: Am I modeling what it looks like to learn and take risks? Am I giving my team the tools and training they need to build AI literacy? Am I fostering a culture of exploration and experimentation on my team? The AI revolution is already here, and the future isn't going to wait for companies to catch up. Neither should we.
Associated Press
6 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Lief Labs' CEO Adel Villalobos Featured in Fireside Chat at VIA Workforce Development Conference
VALENCIA, CA / ACCESS Newswire / May 28, 2025 / Lief Labs, a premier formulation and product development innovator and manufacturer of dietary supplements, is pleased to announce that Lief's CEO & Founder, Adel Villalobos, was a featured speaker in a fireside chat at the Valley Industry Association (VIA) Workforce Development Conference on May 15th held at the Hyatt Regency in Valencia, CA. The VIA's Workforce Development Conference was titled, The Future of Work 2.0: Igniting Generational Talent in a Tech-Driven World, and attendees included executives, entrepreneurs, human resource and thought leaders from some of the top companies of the Santa Clarita Valley. In addition to fireside chats with Villalobos and other regional business leaders, the conference featured strategy discussions regarding attracting, retaining and developing top talent in a competitive market and creating pathways for growth that resonate across generations with presentations from keynote speakers Seth Mattison and Kim Lear. Adel Villalobos, CEO & Founder of Lief Labs 'I greatly appreciated the opportunity to share my experience and views on how company culture is critical to scaling a business. Culture is as important as the great nutritional products we produce at Lief. I believe you can't have one without the other,' said Adel Villalobos, Lief Labs' CEO and Founder. 'The VIA Conference did a fantastic job of bringing together great insight on the future of workforce development through the perspective of generational differences and technology and the impact these two areas are already having on businesses and their culture.' Villalobos added, 'I was proud to be representing my CEO colleagues and Los Angeles CEO Council where I play a key role in advocating for workforce development. I'm extremely passionate about the importance of bringing community, businesses and elected officials together to drive the right economic climate through collaborative agendas such as workforce development.' About Lief Labs Lief Labs is a premier formulation and product development innovator and manufacturer of dietary supplements. Our in-house Product Development and R&D team creates the best tasting and most cutting-edge formulations of supplements. Lief also houses over 220,000 sq ft of new and fully renovated, full-service, state-of-the-art, Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) manufacturing facility, which includes an in-house analytical testing lab and a microbiology lab, and offers custom solutions for a multitude of supplement categories. Lief collaborates with entrepreneurial firms to help them build premier brands. Our turnkey solutions allow us to engage in seamless partnerships that help brands with scalability and sustainable growth. Lief hosts the Beyond the Supps podcast which covers a wide range of topics such as entrepreneurship, social media, quality control, health & wellness, and the impact the dietary supplement industry has worldwide. The company is based in Valencia, CA. To learn more, please visit ### For Media Inquiries, please contact: Cathy Loos Loos & Co. Communications +1-347-334-4135 [email protected] SOURCE: Lief Labs press release
Forbes
26-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How to Build a Workplace that Keeps Gen Z Engaged and Loyal
So, how do you create a Gen Z-friendly workplace that keeps employees engaged? Well, let's just say the key to their retention has everything to do with understanding their core values. And these values are more than mere ideology. The core principles of Gen Z are intrinsic to everything. After all, their values influence their opinions, investment choices, and professional endeavors. Perhaps this is why this generation is making such a significant impact on today's work environment. They're challenging leadership methods, communication styles, and even company culture because they believe one's principles strongly connect and influence productivity and profitability. Now, this isn't the first generation to be compelled by their mores, and it certainly won't be the last. Baby boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials all bring with them strong work ethics and a values that drive their treatment of others in the workplace and their customer interactions. So, what is so different about Generation Z? Why is it imperative for business leaders to understand how core values influence this generation specifically? Well, here's the thing: unlike previous generations, Gen Z is not just adding their two cents and waiting for businesses to follow suit. This generation is leaving in droves and not waiting around for companies to cut through the red tape and revamp their organization to center around their values. It's no wonder that many business leaders are frustrated with this generation. After all, some feel that Gen Z is coming to the table with multiple demands and a low tolerance for the timetable to implement those demands. Some experts have even suggested that the high turnover rate is due to what they call revenge quitting. Now, that's one opinion. However, I doubt that it's the main reason for their departure. The idea that an entire generation is intentionally quitting simply out of spite is an overstatement and a gross assumption at best. And it misses the point entirely. Generation Z is highly influenced by their core values. This is why, it's my belief that the reasoning behind their exodus goes much deeper than the superficial. This generation is not trying to be difficult or demanding. If anything, they're just passionate about creating a healthy, safe, and productive workplace that will benefit all employees. So, let's explore some research to understand why Gen Z stands out as uniquely driven by values and how it impacts companies. According to the World Economic Forum, 60% of Gen Zers and Millennials believe values are absolute dealbreakers when considering job opportunities. 90% of Gen Zers were willing to quit a job if it meant finding a workplace that better aligned with their values. The same study found that, in contrast, only 70% of Gen Xers viewed values as a breaking point regarding company loyalty. Gen Z is also more concerned with opportunities for growth and fulfillment than Millennials, who value stability and salary. Perhaps these values will shift as Gen Z enters different stages of adulthood. However, at this point, according to NielsenIQ (NIQ), Generation Z is highly influenced by the ability to be creative and curious in the workplace and have tech and media at their complete disposal. How can you implement these values into your company and stand out from your competitors? Here are two ideas to get you started. Using technology is like breathing for Generation Z. After all, this generation grew up on iPhones, TikTok, and Netflix. So, it's understandable that they value convenience and efficiency in the workplace, which has everything to do with technology and AI integration. It's no longer enough to email an employee or connect with them on Slack. Gen Z desires access to all the new technologies, such as project management tools, communication platforms, and AI software. After all, 86% of this generation agree that technology is essential to their personal and professional lives. This generation doesn't see tech as a toy; they see it as a tool. So, when you invest in giving Gen Z access to the latest and greatest technology, you're giving them the ability to build your company to the next level. Additionally, you might want to consider offering a video tutorial platform, such as LinkedIn Learning, Skillshare, or MasterClass, that's accessible to all employees from 9 to 5 or anytime they want to learn. This will give them the freedom to build upon their skill set and learn at their own pace. As I mentioned earlier, creativity and curiosity are key to engaging Generation Z. They want to feel inspired and engaged when they enter the workplace. Now, this doesn't mean that they have to feel entertained. They're not looking for their workplace to keep them engaged. Gen Z wants a safe environment where they can learn, make mistakes, and fail forward. How can you give this generation of employees opportunities to be creative? Well, here's a list of three ideas to get you started: So, how do you create a Gen Z-friendly workplace that keeps employees engaged? Well, if you're a business leader, you can't go wrong if you're willing to take a step forward and lead with listening and learning. For Gen Z, what matters most is that you're willing to evolve and align your business with their values. As long as you're willing to work to create a healthy, tech-forward, and creative workplace, what more could they ask for?
Forbes
22-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Where Company Culture Thrives Beyond the Office
For decades, we treated office space as the default builder of company culture. We relied on proximity, physical cues, and accidental interactions to do the work of connection. But culture by osmosis doesn't scale—and it certainly doesn't travel. The pandemic proved what some already suspected: we can work effectively without sitting together. But it also surfaced the deeper truth. If culture isn't built into the building, it must be built into the work. That shift—from office-dependent to intentionally designed culture—is the transformation leaders now face. Culture is not where we sit. It's how we show up. And companies can no longer confuse floorplans with values. The first step is to recognize that most assumptions about in-person culture were never universal. Not everyone benefited from hallway chats or open office serendipity. Not everyone felt included or seen. As Mark Dixon, founder and CEO of International Workplace Group, said in our conversation on The Future of Less Work podcast about the many people in large office buildings: If you've ever worked in a global organization from anywhere other than the headquarters, you've probably felt this. Maybe you had to travel to HQ just to feel part of things. Or maybe you found yourself on countless conference calls, trying to contribute from afar while others shared eye contact and informal cues in a conference room. Trust, visibility, influence—none of it flows naturally when you're not in the room. When you stop treating the office as your culture engine, you start asking better questions. What actually builds connection, meaning, and commitment? Who gets included or excluded in how we do things? And how do we design culture that travels with people, wherever they go? Culture doesn't just happen. It must be curated. It's not enough to hope people bump into each other in the hallway or linger in the break room. Today, culture needs to be designed into the fabric of how people work and connect. And that doesn't just mean creating better moments for when we're in the same building—it means building the systems, the rituals, and the connections for when we're not. Instead of relying on accidental run-ins, organizations must create intentional moments of interaction. That includes investing in interactive platforms that allow people to collaborate meaningfully across distance. And it means establishing clear rituals and rhythms that give structure and emotional consistency to the employee experience, whether you're in a shared space or working from a laptop halfway across the world. As Dixon put it: If a football club can create global belonging without proximity, so can companies. Think of culture less as a place and more as an ecosystem: emotional resonance, shared rituals, recognizable signals, and consistent communication. That's not luck. That's design. In a world without desks and doors, culture doesn't trickle down from the top. It flows through people—especially those in the middle. First-line managers became the connective tissue of organizations when office walls disappeared. It was in the micro-moments—the quick check-ins, the tone of an email, the way feedback was given or withheld—that culture either flourished or fractured. During the pandemic, decision-making shifted downward by necessity, giving rise to more empowered leadership at every level. Video calls, once seen as a barrier, made leaders unexpectedly more visible and available. Employees who had once been peripheral gained new access and voice. But the lesson isn't just about what happened when we all went remote. It's about what happens when culture isn't dependent on shared physical space. Managers, by virtue of proximity in the workflow, are the ones who shape culture moment by moment—in everything they say and do, and just as powerfully, in everything they don't. Culture is lived, not laminated, and it comes to life through the small, human choices we make in how we treat one another at work. This isn't just about where people work. It's about how we design work to be inclusive, regardless of location. A remote-first mindset doesn't mean everyone is remote all the time—it means that everything from onboarding to collaboration is designed as if no one is in the same room. It forces us to decenter the office from our cultural assumptions. When you adopt this mindset, you're not simply enabling remote work. You're creating a culture that's accessible to everyone—those in headquarters and those halfway across the globe. You're designing with intention: ensuring that everyone has access to the same information, the same visibility, the same opportunities to participate, no matter where they sit. It means building transparent communication flows that don't depend on being in the right meeting. It means emphasizing outcomes over face time. And it means investing in tools and processes that support inclusion, equity, and access by default. Even if your team is largely office-based or hybrid, this mindset ensures that no one is left out simply because they weren't in the hallway when a key conversation happened. This is the big shift we're living through. We are unbundling culture from place. The office still matters—but it no longer defines culture. It becomes a tool, a convening space, a symbol. Not the source. Culture no longer depends on showing up to a building. It depends on how leaders communicate, how decisions get made, how people experience the organization in their day-to-day work. Are they included? Do they feel safe? Do they see themselves in the values being lived out? These are the new cultural markers. The future of culture is participatory. It's something we build actively, not absorb passively. And that means everyone has a role to play—especially leaders who are now responsible not just for performance, but for connection, cohesion, and clarity. It's in every interaction. Every check-in. Every decision to share or withhold information. Every small choice that says, "You matter here." Your best people work not because they have to, not because you tell them to, and not because you measure them on it. They work because they want to—because working for you is their way of achieving their purpose in life. So build a culture that doesn't depend on buildings. Build one that moves with your people, wherever they are.
