Vivowire: Friday Honesty, Toby Flenderson & Rebecca Black

Welcome to edition #95 of Vivowire, the Workvivo newsletter!

This is the last edition of Vivowire before I jet off to a family wedding in Corfu and stuff my face with Baklava for six days straight. If I haven’t melted in the heat, I’ll see you again in issue #96!?

In other news... our next Vivowire Community Catchup is now open for registration! If you’re interested in coming along, tell us here and we’ll hopefully see you there.

Or if you’d rather talk to us through our LinkedIn Group, that’s cool too! If you haven’t joined it yet, do so here .

Let's go!

This Week’s Top 3 Thumbstoppers

1. Invest in the Wellbeing of Your People People, People!

TL;DR: Drawing on her career in corporate HR, Cat DiStasio understands the importance of being proactive, rather than reactive, about burnout in people teams.

Your company relies on your people team to support them at work, but what happens when the people on your people team get burnt out? I have two words: Toby Flenderson.?

The litany of HR violations Toby has to contend with on a regular basis – from Dwight purposefully setting fire to the office to teach his colleagues a lesson to Ryan and Kelly’s on-again-off-again romance in the annex – is insurmountable. And he doesn’t appear to get any form of support from the higher-ups at Dunder Mifflin (in fact, when he’s leaving the company to go travelling, his boss gives him a rock that says ‘suck on this’), let alone access to preventative programs for burnout and stress.

The result of Toby’s insufficient (aka non-existent) workplace support system? A jaded, unmotivated HR rep who becomes less and less engaged in his role.?

But in the meantime, let me tell you more about the magic that’s to come from Workvivo being Meta’s only Workplace preferred migration partner.

Meta is retiring Workplace and has chosen Workvivo as its preferred migration partner. This means that Workplace customers will be supported by Meta to migrate to Workvivo if they wish to.

Meta’s official statement reads, “Workvivo by Zoom is Meta’s only preferred migration partner and we will be working with Zoom to provide additional tools and services to facilitate a better transition for customers from Workplace to Zoom’s Workvivo product.”

And our own CEO and cofounder, John Goulding, added: “We know that the news today may be disruptive for Workplace from Meta customers, but we’re so excited about the opportunity to support and help them. Meta has made a huge impact in this market, and we believe that Workvivo is the natural choice for Workplace from Meta customers to transition their employee experience platform.

“It’s our top priority to support customers through this transition, and our team is working to make this process as frictionless as possible.”

Eric S. Yuan, CEO and founder of Zoom said: “Workvivo has seen momentous growth as organizations around the world are increasingly prioritizing the employee experience. We are excited to support Workplace from Meta’s customers and help them reach their goals of reaching and engaging employees – whether they’re desk or frontline workers.”

Learn more about Workvivo and Workplace here

2. Being Honest About Friday (Friday, Gotta Get Down on Friday)

TL;DR: Prepare to have Rebecca Black's voice stuck in your head for the rest of time. Fridays are a hot topic. They’re typically the workday that gets the chop in a four-day week. Many people choose to make them as meeting-free as possible. Some find it hard to justify working beyond the early afternoon on what’s also known as ‘the Weekend Eve’. And for those of us following a hybrid work schedule, it’s the most popular day for working from home.?

Workplace culture expert Bruce Daisley recently wrote a LinkedIn article asking the question, ‘Do we need to be honest about Fridays?’.?

(If you don’t already follow him , I recommend it.)

And if you’re anything like me, hearing (or reading) the word Friday quickly conjures images of Rebecca Black singing from the back seat of her friend’s convertible. And ironically, I think Rebecca’s 2011 debut track is a pretty great example of the kind of outputs we produce when we’re under pressure to grind non-stop.?

Maybe if Rebecca didn’t have to go to school on Fridays, she would have had the energy and creativity to write better lyrics than…

Kickin' in the front seat

Sittin' in the back seat

Gotta make my mind up

Which seat can I take?

(It was genuinely difficult to narrow down which lyrics to include here.)

(No offence, Rebecca.)?

Then again, a song about partying on a Thursday probably wouldn’t have had quite the same impact.

Anyway, back to Bruce! In his LinkedIn article, he referenced data that shows Fridays are becoming more of an unspoken ‘slow’ day at work, where you either catch up on everything you couldn’t do because of meetings earlier in the week, or take the downtime while you can and log off early.?

“This is why I’m very keen to see new data on the levels of workplace burnout. If a new, slower speed Friday is gradually becoming the norm for many organizations, maybe this is the answer to burnout that we’ve been looking for.?

“While people might tut and bemoan a lazy new generation of workers, a slower pace Friday is in fact preceded by an ‘always on’ Monday to Thursday. We’re still working at a pace unprecedented in previous generations. But it might be that we’ve just found a way to make it work.”

Maybe when we’re forced to be on non-stop from nine to five, Monday to Friday, the result is lower quality…? like the lyrics:?

Yesterday was Thursday,?

Today is Friday

Tomorrow is Saturday

And Sunday comes after wards

I don't want this weekend to end

I couldn’t resist adding more.?

Again, sorry Rebecca. Your song is a cult classic that brings us all true joy.?

3. Under the Lens… Ericsson, Encompassing EX & Eggs?

TL;DR: ‘Eggs’ probably doesn’t deserve a place in that headline, but I’m finishing work tomorrow to go to a family wedding in Greece, so my brain is already mushy with sunshine and moussaka.??

Employee experience isn’t one thing. You can have office ping pong tables (hey, it’s been a while since we brought up those!) and beer taps, but without genuine recognition, the culture is going to feel pretty empty.?

The same goes for other parts of EX; employee recognition without appropriate remuneration or flexible working only goes so far.?

So, when it comes to your EX strategy, you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. There are many, many competitive characters we can learn this lesson from; When Andrew Neiman is pushed to reach seemingly impossible levels of perfection in jazz drumming, he neglects every other part of his life to get there (Whiplash, 2014).?

When ballerina Nina Sayers wants to secure the lead role in Swan Lake, the mental toll of her tunnel vision drives her to intense burnout (Black Swan, 2010).?

When the Von Erich family are forced to focus only on building a dynasty of professional wrestling, the brothers and their loved ones suffer (The Iron Claw, 2023). (I really recommend this movie.)

Your EX may not be entirely perfect, but if you’re consistently working towards a well-rounded, multi-faceted approach to worker satisfaction rather than pushing just one area to perfection, you’re certainly on the right track.?

The thing about Ericsson Worldwide’s employee reviews that stands out to me is how all-encompassing they are. They commended all areas of the company as a place to work, from diversity and inclusion (4.3 stars on Glassdoor) to culture and values (4.2 stars) and work-life balance (4.2).?

Its overall Glassdoor rating is 4.1 stars , with 88% in approval of CEO B?rje Ekholm and 85% saying they’d recommend it to a friend. Its Comparably score is also 4.1 out of 5 , where it boasts a B or higher in categories like Diversity, Happiness, Perks and Benefits, Compensation, Executive Team, and Manager.?

Its retention score is 72%, another B, and its overall culture score puts it in second place ahead of its competitors Qualcomm, Infosys, Avaya, and Alcatel-Lucent. According to Comparably, 80% of Ericsson Worldwide employees look forward to interacting with their colleagues, 78% are excited about going to work each day, and 77% feel challenged at work.??

A holistic approach to EX is far more impactful than focusing all your attention on one area and hoping the rest will follow – and Ericsson Worldwide’s culture seems to be a pretty good example of that.?

The bottom line? Be like Ericsson (and not any of the terrible leaders from intense psychological thrillers about physical endurance and being the best at something); cast a wider net when it comes to building your company culture and employee experience.?

And if any of your managers start saying ‘not my tempo’ to their teams – or, you know, hurling chairs at their heads – it’s probably past time to send them packing.

Quote of the Week

“Every Halloween I tell him the same thing; you can't bring weapons into the office, and every year he says the same thing; as soon as I get my weapons back I'm gonna kill you” – Just one small insight into the daily life of Dunder Mifflin HR rep Toby Flenderson

What’s up at Workvivo??

9 Steps of Migrating to a New Employee Experience Platform: If you’ve already done your research and decided which employee experience platform (EXP) to migrate to, you may be asking yourself, ‘what now?’ Here's some help .?

The Ultimate Employee Appreciation Cheat Sheet: Caitlin Kirwan has put together a cheat sheet of 20 ideas to recognize and reward your staff.?Learn more here !

7 Meeting Agenda Templates & How to Create Your Own: Too often, meetings drift off-topic, lack clear goals, and end with a sense of time lost rather than value gained. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Continue reading on Zoom's blog !

Final Thought?

Remember that the people who look after your people are people too. So look after them just as much.?

Watch the Iron Claw if you want to see Zac Efron in a brilliant dramatic role.?

And wish me luck eating all the moussaka and baklava on the island of Corfu.

Until next time, Vivowire out! ?

If you have any feedback or just want to say ‘howdy’, simply reply to this email, reach out on LinkedIn or chat on Twitter .