How To Lead Engaging All Hands Meetings All Hands meetings are a critical touchpoint for your team, and an invaluable part of your internal communications strategy. When done well, they’re often one of the times that employees look forward to the most. But, they can be hard to get right. We get asked about how to conduct recurring meetings, like All Hands, all the time…. So we wanted to share how we do it ourselves, and how we’ve worked with clients to set up their rhythms for All Hands. What are All Hands? If you haven’t heard the phrase, it's the recurring team meeting that companies hold wi ..read more

Conscious Culture’s Spring Checklist With the start of every new quarter, we always make it a point to pull back from our day-to-day and evaluate how the business is doing. It always feels hard to pause, and we’re always glad that we did it. Spring especially is an important time to pause and reflect. Now that we’ve gotten through the first quarter, how are we tracking towards topline goals, how are our people are doing, and are we in compliance? A little “spring cleaning” can go a long way! As you gear up for the quarter ahead, we've put together a checklist to guide you. Conscious Cultu ..read more

Benefits of a Dog-Friendly Workplace (+ Link to Download Our Pet Policy!) Nobody has enjoyed the shift to remote work more than dogs. The long, lonely days at home are a distant memory after a year of spending all day at their owners’ sides. As dog moms ourselves, we’ve certainly enjoyed co-working with our pups, Athena and Hanna. So we’re keenly aware that, as some companies transition back to an office environment, many employees and their pets will be faced with a difficult transition. Or will they...?  Dog-friendly offices were fairly common before the pandemic, and early trends show ..read more

Conscious Culture’s COVID-19 Lessons: One Year Later At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, none of us knew what to expect or exactly how the pandemic would impact our work. The last year has required a new level of adaptability, resilience, and courage from individuals and teams alike. It has fundamentally shifted the way we work — from magnifying pressure on working parents to virtualizing operations and communications to opening up possibilities to work from anywhere. One year later, we are looking back to honor the lessons this year has taught us. Where we work doesn’t matter much. Be ..read more

Holiday Gift Guide This year, we had a lot of fun putting together curated gifts from our clients’ product lines! Then we thought, why not share some of those gift ideas with our community? So if you’re still doing some holiday shopping, here are a few of our current favorites: Moniker Too many great gift options to choose from… Candles – we like all the scents, but this one is great for the holidays! Water Bottle and Ceramic Mug – stylish, durable and sustainable. Virtual Happy Hour Cocktail Kit – great virtual party favor. OSEA If organic skin-care is your jam, look no further! We lo ..read more

How to Build a More Equitable and Unbiased Hiring Process Right now, we’re seeing so many companies grapple with how to create more equitable people processes and reduce implicit bias in the hiring process in order to attract the best possible talent. As humans, we all have unconscious bias, and it’s no secret that there are striking disparities based on race, gender and sexual orientation that start in the hiring process and carry on throughout the employee life cycle. If you don’t intentionally build (and stick to) equitable processes, bias can seep into decision making, limiting your abilit ..read more

Is Feedback Getting Harder? by Bentley Holmes I learned recently from a tai chi expert that 50% of our chi [i.e. energy] is blocked if we’re keeping a secret. That’s a huge percentage, isn’t it? We don’t really talk about “keeping secrets” in a workplace context, but if I translated this into work lingo, that means 50% of our flow is blocked when we’re withholding honest feedback. Working from a “flow state” is highly sought after – as is creating a workplace where people give and receive feedback directly. We inherently know that this is the better way to operate. Having feedback conversation ..read more

5 Lessons I Learned from Maternity Leave By Tiffany Keesey Earlier this year, I went on maternity leave, and wow, have I learned so much! Like what “wake windows” are, how to decode cries, and what it’s really like to be a new parent in the workforce. I’m proud to say we’ve advocated for new parents from the beginning at Conscious Culture by helping our clients implement flexible schedules, paid parental leave and supportive return to work policies. But as is the case with most things, it's hard to truly understand what it's like to be a new working parent until I went through it myself. From ..read more

4 Things Your Employees Want in 2022 (and it’s not more money) By now, almost everyone is familiar with “The Great Resignation”, the pandemic-initiated movement of millions of US workers into new jobs and industries. Unfortunately for employers, this movement isn’t stopping anytime soon. New research shows that 57% of employees are considering a new job in the coming year. Employers are trying to halt attrition by offering quick fixes, like pay bumps or “thank you” bonuses. However, researchers and social scientists are finding that employers are missing the mark. As we move into 2022, it’s ti ..read more

Back to School: How to Support Working Parents in the Time of COVID-19 As the summer comes to a close and the school year begins, many working parents are dealing with the difficult balance of keeping up at work while their children learn from home. This burden falls disproportionately on full-time working mothers who, on average, have spent 22 hours a week on childcare in addition to their jobs since the COVID-19 pandemic began (Fast Company). In fact, a staggering one-third of working parents have left the workforce since March -- 70% of whom are women (Forbes). As leaders and colleagues, le ..read more