Tuesday, May 23 – IRI Annual Conference
How do we foster that kind of culture in between off-sites and Zoom cocktails?
Keynote Speaker spotlight: Digital Workplace Expert and Author of Remote, Inc. Alexandra Samuel
The most successful organizations will embrace the new hybrid model of work as a way to renew their organizational culture, fuel effective collaboration and attract the most talented employees. But how do we foster that kind of culture in between off-sites and Zoom cocktails? How do we strengthen collaboration without back-to-back video calls? And how do we re-establish the office as a core part of our working rhythms, when so many employees are cozily remote? The key is to shift how managers and employees think about flexibility in this new world of work. Flexibility isn’t about picking your days in the office, or how often you come in. Real flexibility is about aligning your team to make the most of their face-to-face time, so that they have more focus and flexibility on their days at home. That’s the kind of flexibility that comes from understanding how to combine office and remote time in a way that makes the most of each setting.
The most successful hybrid employees adopt a “business-of-one” approach, meaning that they take on the responsibility and accountability of a small business owner. They define their work in terms of goals and deliverables instead of by the eight-hour workday; embrace a rhythm of “punctuated collaboration” that uses structured check-ins to complement solo work; and use the focus of their at-home days to deliver even stronger results. This session will help professionals to organize their priorities, communicate effectively, structure online meetings, and maintain a healthy work-life balance in the context of hybrid work.
A regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The Harvard Business Review, CBC, and JSTOR Daily, Alexandra Samuel is a data journalist who specializes in management, hybrid work, and tech culture. As the data journalist for the annual Forbes list of the World’s Most Influential CMOs, she has a deep understanding of how top brands and executives navigate digital transformation and the realignment of employee and customer experience in a hybrid world. She works regularly with companies like Google, Discovery, and Microsoft on reports and workshops that address the biggest challenges in digital business. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University, where her dissertation was the first comprehensive study of hacktivism (politically motivated computer hacking). While at Harvard, Alexandra researched the impact of technology on social capital for Robert Putnam’s groundbreaking book, Bowling Alone.
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