We recently posted a quote on Instagram (@renovateald) by Jeffrey McDaniel: “I realize there’s something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they’re experts at letting things go.” As we think about leadership development and growth, the reality is that letting go of everything just because it’s a new year isn’t necessarily the best practice. In today’s episode, we explore some topics and issues that we want to keep talking about and exploring in 2022, as they shape the way we do our work as leaders and leadership developers.

What do author John Mark Comer (author of The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World) and Olympian Simone Biles have in common? They are both inspiration for our conversation today about learning how to have honest conversations about saying no and slowing down in order to maintain mental health, balance, and prioritizing yourself in a world of overcommitment and busyness. We will share our recent decision to renovate how we do Renovate after some honest conversations about the fact that just because we can make it all work, doesn’t mean we should. We’re glad you here to join us in this conversation!

Episode 11 begins a short four-part series that we are calling “Do You Need Directions Back to the Office?” The world is opening up, and most people are heading back to their places of employment to return to in-person work. But for many of us, that heading back comes with trepidation and nervousness. We are not the people we were 15 months ago, and for some of us, our passion for our work has waned while we were in survival mode. However, it is time to get to work, and it is necessary to work, for reasons beyond just the paycheck. Today we start with the episode “The Necessary Shift Back to Work,” where we break down the reason why we as humans need to work, and how to go about making that shift back into a post-pandemic work mode.

The Urban Dictionary defines Hard Pants as “Pants that don't have a stretchy, elastic waistband. During any pandemic, the desire to wear only elastic waistband pants instead of pants like jeans.” After 15 months of wearing a very different wardrobe, employees are heading back to actual office spaces looking, feeling, and thinking differently. As we continue to think about renovating the culture of an organization and office to reflect the needs of employees who have undergone a lot of changes in the past 15 months, how can our dress codes be renovated to welcome new ideas about being professional and being able to breathe comfortably at work? Our conversation about hard pants is one for employers, brand new employees, and everyone in between!

We are so excited to bring you an episode today that focuses on a topic we are all wrestling with: heading back into the office after a long time away. We know that not everybody completely switched to WFH mode, but we know that no matter where and how you were working since March of 2020, it was not the same as before. As we now ease back into work, the realities of what we left behind are hitting home. For many people, what we left behind was a toxic or challenging work environment, company cultures that were poorly defined, and office climates that were chilly at best. Our conversation today offers a chance to imagine how life will (and should) be different based on what we’ve learned working from home in the last year and how we’ve changed in the process. Organizations need to be rethinking their priorities, their care for employees, and their office cultures in ways that reflect the fact that we are all different than we were before. Join us as we talk about how that might look and how you can renovate your office culture.

We have reached the final episode in the series “Class of 2021, What’s Next?” We hope you have enjoyed listening as much as we have enjoyed making these episodes, and if you haven’t listen to all in the series, please go back and do so. You won’t regret it! This episode we are once again bringing the voice of a graduate of the Class of 2021, this time Troy Kates from Dominican University. In this episode Troy shares the wisdom of what he learned during the pandemic, the importance of learning how to focus his time and energies, and what mental health looks like for these graduates. We are so impressed with the truth that Troy shared with us, and we hope you learn from him as well.

As we begin to wrap up our series, "Class of 2021, What's Next?," we are finishing with a few episodes of interviews with recent graduates and employers. This penultimate episode in the series features an interview with Randle Elmore, Commercial Accounts Manager at Grainger. Mr. Elmore speaks with us about developing leaders in young employees, onboarding the Class of 2021, and offers advice on how new graduates can work to make the transition from a disrupted college experience to workplace success. There is a lot of wisdom and great advice in this episode, so we hope you enjoy it! As always, if you have something to add to this conversation, please connect with us! @renovateald (Instagram) or renovateald@gmail.com

In Episode Six, we continue our conversation in the series “Class of 2021, What’s Next?” This time, we are conversing directly with a member of the Class of 2021 to find out how she experienced the last year of her college experience, what the next stage of her life looks like for her, and what she hopes for after all of this is over. We were thrilled with her openness and wisdom in our short conversation, and we know you will enjoy listening as well! Thanks for joining us in this interview with Elizabeth Sprunt, Class of 2021, University of Denver.

In Episode Five (the 4th in this series) we are going to dive a bit deeper into a topic we brought up in Episode Three. There we were talking about the gaps that have been left due to college in a pandemic, a lack of in-person internships and opportunities, and the isolation of the last year. One of the gaps we identified was that there is a gap left by emotional and mental trauma and unrest the Class of 2021 has experienced. In order to help new graduates overcome those gaps and heal from the emotional and mental stresses of the final years of their college experience, we are suggesting that these new employees are going to need encouragement - perhaps more and differently than new employees before them. This episode offers specific and practical suggestions about how employers can encourage their new Class of 2021 employees to help them transition successfully to the workforce.

In this second episode of the series on the Class of 2021, we are addressing the gaps that may have occurred because of the losses addressed in the last episode. Particularly, what skills or experiences are missing for our recent graduates that need to be filled in on-the-job, either by their own determination or the work of their new employers? A gap, as we see it, is neither negative nor positive, it just is. If the London Underground can tell us all to “Mind the gap” as a gentle and friendly reminder for our safety, we are asserting today that we all, graduates and employers, need to mind the gap to help our graduates safely and smoothly transition from college to employment.

We have identified Isolation and Invitation gaps, Mental and Emotional gaps, and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) gaps that these graduates might be experiencing. This episode will lay out some practical steps that employers can do to fill in the gaps so that their new employees transition well and are successful in the jobs they were hired for. We also offer practical steps for the Class of 2021 to help themselves identify and work to fill in some of the gaps they feel they have before entering the work force.

If you would like to respond or engage in conversation about these topics, please follow us on Instagram (@renovateald)! We'd love to engage with you there!

In thinking about what comes next for the Class of 2021 and how to help them transition into the workplace, it is only appropriate that we begin to hear from them directly, which we will in this episode, where we dive in a little deeper to one of the themes we've explored previously: how to engage these new graduates in the workplace. Engagement involves bringing them out of the isolation they've experienced and into the culture and rhythms of the office setting. Engagement means finding belonging and purpose in the workplace. Engagement means meeting these new graduates where they are, particularly in terms of the challenging end of college that they experienced.

We explore the different engagement needs of all five of the generations currently in the workplace, what engagement means and why it's important, and some practical ways for engaging these newest employees. And we hear from graduates of 2021 to learn what it means for them to be invited and engaged in the workplace.

If you took even a tiny nugget away from this podcast, we'd love for you to subscribe and share! Please help us spread the word to the Class of 2021, and engage with us on Instagram @renovateald.

This is Part One of our new series: Class of 2021, What's Next? In this series, we are going to explore a number of realities facing recent college graduates, and the employers who hire them, in this new post-pandemic world. This series is for both the employers and recent graduates, giving practical advice and steps to help navigate the successful transition from a strange and unexpected end of college to the new and yet undefined post-pandemic workplaces that hire them. In Part One today, we explore the losses that have occurred due to the pandemic. What important aspects of their college experience (particularly the important hands-on moments in their senior year) were lost for the Class of 2021, and what does that mean for their preparedness for the workforce? Due to those losses, what do employers need to know about or rethink when it comes to hiring and transitioning these new employees? We will explore the losses, what those losses mean for this generation of young adults, and provide practical steps for both the Class of 2021 and employers in helping to recognize and work through these losses.

In this inaugural episode of the Renovate Podcast, hosts Nicole Saint-Victor and Emily S Bosscher take some time introducing themselves, the work of Renovate: Accessible Leadership Development, and the future plans of this podcast. Renovate's mission is: Reimagining strategic growth through relational team transformation and opportunity. This work is done through workshops, designed to help disrupt the status quo in an office or department. We root out the preconceived notions of who each employee is and instead discover the true gifts and attributes they bring to their work. We take a cultivating tool to the way things have always been done, loosening up the soil or culture of the office to prepare for a new garden, a new way of nurturing employees for individual growth that helps the whole department achieve a harvest in meeting or exceeding strategic goals.

The work of Renovate is committed to relational interactions and helping organizations find practical ways to help their employees truly use their gifts for the greater good of the department. Nicole and Emily are passionate about developing leaders in all spaces, and in particular are passionate about launching Generation Z and other underserved or minoritizied populations into the workforce.

Thank you for joining us on our podcasting journey. If you would like to reach out about having Renovate: Accessible Leadership Development work with your department or organization, please email us at renovateald@gmail.com. We'd also appreciate a follow on Instagram (@renovateald)!