Serena talks with Olla Joungerius, Founder of the BerLearn Community & Inclusion and Global Learning & Development Architect at Nortal, about the role of HR in welcoming back employees, about the new challenges on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and about the role of vulnerability to create a meaningful work environment.

You can discover more about Olla here:

• Olla's Linkedin
• BerLearn Community

I think it's the focus for everyone should be creating psychological

safety and which means inclusion in many ways and other things is outcome

yeah.

Innovation, creativity and diversity, that diverse group of people

um, that come to your company.

It's a, It's a result.

Retention is a result, innovation is a result.

Creativity is a result, and engagement is also a result.

Welcome to this episode of I'm back today, we are going to talk with all our.

diversity and inclusion, consultant, learning experience designer.

And really experienced in.

Building communities of practice.

We are going to discuss about the role of HR.

In welcoming back employees.

I'll can we create.

A welcoming environment in the workplace..

My first question is,

What means I'm back for you?

Oh, that's you're starting with big guns already, I'm back.

It's in my understanding it's coming back to the same place, but

coming back as a different person.

Coming back either by having overcome difficulties or from which you have

learned and have grown and not being the same person anymore, but coming back to

the environment that you have been before.

But others don't really know that you're a different person now.

So I will see it this way.

And how can you explain, how can you explain to others that

you are not the same person?

I guess it really depends on the situation, how sensitive situation is.

For some people who go through traumatic experiences, it'll be

very difficult to explain it.

. And for others, it's very uncomfortable to ask a question for

others who go through just a life experience like having children.

That could be a bit easier to explain.

But at the same time, questions will be also perhaps that normal

not might be comfortable for others or after prolonged sickness.

That might be seen as a norm for others but might not be comfortable for you.

It really depends on the relationship also that you have with a person

or perhaps after gender transition.

Yeah.

You are also physically very different person.

Or it could be that someone who went through divorce.

Or someone who lost a child.

Yeah.

Someone who went on parental leave and they came back from parental leave much

earlier, and everyone congratulates them on a baby, but there is no baby.

Yeah.

So it's very difficult.

Or someone who lost a loved one.

So for some things, it's obvious for people that you are a different person.

For others it's not so obvious.

. So sometimes it's organization that makes it also, it needs to make it easier

in a psychologically safe environment.

For both parties, for both the receiver, someone who went through this experience,

you were saying about not being the same person.

Do you think we can still be the same performer at work or also our

professional identity will shift when we are coming back to work?

We definitely could be the same performer or even better because

we understand different aspects.

Grow, have more empathy for others to become better listeners.

Depends on situation, of course.

We perhaps might need some accommodations that we didn't need earlier.

For example, someone who is a parent might not want to have late evening meetings.

So it's, it really depends on environment that you're in.

and whether you have an opportunity in psychological state to also communicate

your needs you could still be exactly the same performer or even better but you

sometimes do need to have those s needs.

Sometimes sometimes if I think about my personal story when you are

coming back to work, you have a lot of self doubts or yeah, you are feeling not

good enough or and it's so hard to feel that you can contribute in the same.

even when, as you said, maybe you can perform better.

Do you have any advice for people that are coming back to work and feeling

that their contribution is important?

It's definitely a lot of imposter syndrome for those, especially

who been on a leave for a long time.

Or for those who.

Generally have self doubt in terms of am I good enough?

Am I in the right place?

I think my first recommendation from also my own experience

will be to share those feelings.

It really depends on the, on your team.

But if you're comfortable but share this, say it out loud.

And also have some role models, those who've been through exactly the same

experience, to also learn from them.

There is enormous amount of information on the internet through blogs through

podcasts the hear podcasts YouTube videos for those who've been through

similar experience and came back.

From organizational point of view for myself who work as organizations

a lot of good organizations also offer specific programs for people

who have been on for a long time.

So like reintegration process, not meaning that those people need

to be reintegrated and need to be upskilled, but more for slow way to not

necessarily build the tech skills or the knowledge but more for emotional.

And a mental understanding that they are there, they're smart, they're talent.

This a good performer.

And they're also surrounded by peers who are inspiration but are also struggling.

So hearing the stories of others is extremely important because you might

be looking at someone who is absolute inspiration or who can do it all, and

you hear the story like, oh, they're also struggling, and that inspires you as well.

In your work in your work as an HR person what is your impression

on the ability of companies in welcoming back employees?

I don't particularly work in hr, so it's more luan development and

diversity inclusion, but I do definitely have operational aspect as well.

In many cases.

It really depends on the team.

There is so much importance on a manager who your manager is and whether you as a

person have the psychological safety to tell them what's going on in your life.

I had situations where my team members shared some stuff with

me that if that, if they wouldn't have shared, I wouldn't have known.

So it.

Responsibility of a manager to have the psychological safety and also be

vulnerable yourself and talk about mental health and wellbeing, and show your own

weaknesses and your own doubts as well.

And that opens the door for others.

And many organizations I could give you an example of one organization

that I worked with as a fin.

I bought 300 people based in Berlin and one of the employees few years back

they went through the gender tradition.

And when she came back to work before all the employees started asking

questions and having a bit of gossip and having some interesting thoughts

and some assumptions, the word of the company decided to send a company wide

email posing the statement in terms of what happened, and acknowledging the

situation and not warning people about.

Not making any discrimination, but basically taking a stand on.

This is what we accept and you will love I can't remember exactly the name, but as

in he's now, she, and this is the name.

Please respect that.

If anybody has a problem, please talk to us directly.

So it was a stand of the company.

And that helped to eliminate any gossip or assumption or any uncomfortable

questions to the person as well.

And the person obviously was discussed with the person before,

say, was not out of the blue.

And it made so much easier for this person to come back and to feel comfortable.

And little by little people started asking question.

Also, the person started feeling more comfortable sharing, but also

setting the boundaries for themselves.

So that's what organization can go through.

I also know the situation where one woman went on a maternity leave and there was

a baby died, so there was a sleeping.

And she came back to work obviously much earlier than expected.

And the way the company dealt for that was also very beautiful.

They have sent an email from her, so she was the one to initiate that.

She worked with HR and that explained the situation and

like frequently ask questions.

And to avoid these questions happening, because people are curious

curious creatures, sometimes you are realizing you ask very uncomfortable

questions, especially when this question was asked many times before.

She made it also easier for herself and also opened up the door to others

and to avoid this conversation.

So it really depends on your HR team or like people in culture team the

relationship you have with them, but with advise every company to have a bit of a.

What to do in this situation because crisis happen on a global level as of war

or pandemic or on a person level as well.

So your communication team needs to prepare as well as your people and

culture team needs to prepare because.

The life is so unpredictable and if you have it all already thought throughout,

as well as resources and action point, it makes it a lot easier for everyone,

both for you trying to in the middle of the night trying to figure out how to do

that as well as for the person to come back and feel comfortable coming back.

And something that I really like about the two examples

is the collaboration part.

It sounds like a collaboration between the person and the company.

An open collaboration and an open conversation Also to empower

the person in deciding how.

She wanted, for example, to discuss about something so personal.

And at the same time, I still feel that in some companies we are not even opening

the door for this kind of conversation.

Yeah, absolutely.

Upfront.

Any suggestion on.

How to open the door for this kind of conversations and why do you

think it's still so difficult?

I think it's difficult because it's just uncomfortable for everyone.

Uh, Because you think about, even people in culture seem, they're also humans.

There, many of them are women and.

Even having to talk to someone who went through experience,

it's also emotionally difficult that they don't know what to say.

So the answer, my answer will be that there is a lot of empathy there is

needed and more, most importantly, it's active listening skills.

Yeah.

Understanding and, but companies, most companies, you're right, most

companies are not prepared for that.

And for companies that don't have this culture of welcome people who come

back some people might not come back.

And it's for you as an organization to think about it.

If something, it's a risk mitigation no matter how how hopeless it sounds.

But it's also risk mitigation.

And I'm not even talking about traumatizing experience.

I'm talking about someone having a child and whether man or woman, and coming

back to an organization and thinking that I don't wanna work 80 hours a week.

There is no way I'm coming back.

I have other priorities in life.

And for you, just losing talent.

I work with many organizations and I interviewed people and they.

I love my company.

It pays well.

It's a cool culture, the hipster, fun Berlin startup.

There is no way I'll be working here when I'm having children.

That's it.

So also for you to understand that.

There's risk mitigation.

Yeah.

And not about only women having children.

Yeah.

Men also have different priorities when they have family.

Yeah.

And we always forget about them.

It's super interesting for me that the risk mitigation part because it's

something like hidden because you think, oh, I'm applying the law, I'm

following the rules, and it's enough.

What is missing for me is also the impact of how you are handling

certain situation on other.

Because I had the experience of one person going into a burnout, coming back with

a horrible situation with her manager, and everyone else was seeing that.

And finally enough, a lot of people left because of this, even if they were not

directly experiencing the situation,

because they could see, if it happens to me, this

is gonna be the consequence.

So I'd rather go before that happens.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Escape.

Yes.

Escape, run.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I've, I work in a in a very high paced environment.

In my company with hyper growth and I was going through very personal experience

recently and I'm extremely lucky to I have felt very comfortable sharing both

with my manager and all of my reports, my indirect reports that I'm going through

difficult time and I might be taking time off and I might not be as productive.

And I'm very lucky that, first of all, I.

The psychological safety through that.

And second, all that, the amount of support I receive was overwhelming.

My managers straight away say like, don't worry about work.

Work is not important.

Screw work, don't work.

Go sick, leave, take time for yourself.

And that was that would actually kept me going because I needed work for me was a

good distraction for me, was very nice.

But knowing the fact that you're surrounded by those people.

That was extremely empowering that supports you.

And at the same time, after sharing my personal updates, a couple of

team members came to me and said, thank you for being a good leader,

because I feel more comfortable even more comfortable now also sharing.

So thank you for sharing your vulnerabilities.

Yeah, it was beautiful.

It was a win-win

, Olla: we are always talking

but how can we really feel.

There is psychological safety in our team.

To me psychological safety is having difficult conversation

and feeling comfortable having a difficult conversation with

someone regardless of the security.

Regardless of the hierarchy, regardless of your channel in the company.

So it's for you being able to ask a different, difficult question for

you to challenge someone and not have repercussions, and for you to be able

to bring your whole self to work, right?

So it's not just about professional self, but the whole self about.

Talking about kids, talking about a person life, talking about

health, talking about everything.

Because we spend so much time with work and most of us are online, in

front of our computer at home, so we can't really separate work and life.

So, okay, now, nine in the morning, okay.

I'm a work self and then at 5:00 PM I'm a person self.

So those words I merged a long time ago.

So psychological safety is when you don't have to put a mask.

, you don't have to code switch.

You don't have to change your accent or change your clothes or put your

makeup on in the morning specifically because it has to be pretend someone

that you are not just to fit in.

But it's when your whole self is appreciated and you more for

cultural contribution and culture.

Wow, this is so powerful.

And I'm curious on what do you think about linking these to diversity inclusion?

When we talk about diversity inclusion, often we have some

categories in mind, but for me, having the courage to bring your old.

It's contributing to diversity and inclusion.

What do you think?

Yeah, absolutely.

To me, diversity inclusion, I think is a bit of overused words in a way that a

lot of people use it interchangeably, but actually knowing the meaning behind that.

So to me, diversity is a fact.

It's obvious that all of us are different.

Gender, sexual orientation, religion.

Age, marital status.

It's, you know, when the company say, oh, we have a diverse organization.

Okay, amazing.

Yes, the world is diverse.

What's the be to be proud of?

is important is whether those people can be themselves at work

and actually not put a mask on.

I think for many organizations they see diversity as by default

and advantage by default.

That's submitted leads to creativity, innovation.

I don't know all those amazing things that Deloitte will tell you,

but the reality is that diversity does not really work with inclusion.

Diversity by itself is a conflict.

Yeah.

Because there are different people with different perspectives.

They don't really understand each other.

Diversity is a slow decision making because you need to

find so many consensuses.

So what I usually look at the company is that you really to focus on inclusion

first before you go into diversity.

So inclusion is, can we have a difficult conversation?

So not manage diversity is chaos.

It doesn't lead to innovation, it leads to chaos.

So managed diversity is inclusion.

And inclusion is a fact.

Diversity is a fact.

Inclusion is a choice.

So thinking about it from a perspective of diversity is an apple.

Banana peach and including this, a fruit salad.

Yeah.

It's when all of it me mixed together and it tastes good and it's nice and it's

all colorful and beautiful and not really being, not, no one really being single

handed for the, for their diversity.

Huh.

I think it's important to, for companies to really focus on

the inclusion, focus on the.

How and what can we actively do?

Because if you don't consciously include, you unconsciously exclude.

And I think it's very important.

It's not enough just to bring people together and say, okay,

now we have a diverse team.

Now, do you diverse things, , , , ? I think diversity should be.

Second step after inclusion, even focused on the psychological safety first,

and having difficult conversation and having different perspectives heard.

And then diversity will come naturally.

Diversity is small for result.

In many ways.

Yeah.

And for me if we are able to create psychological safety and real inclusion,

we are also allowing everyone to exactly be themself and be as diverse

as they are without mask, as you said.

But it's still a process where people needs to feel

comfortable to show themselves.

For example, I just discovered something about one colleague that I know since

two years ago, but it was a process and it's okay and it's beautiful like this.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's the focus for everyone should be creating psychological safety

and which means inclusion in many ways and other things is outcome Yeah.

Innovation, creativity and diversity, that diverse group of

people that come to your company.

It's a result.

Retention is a result, innovation is a result.

Creativity is a result, and engagement is also a result.

Yeah.

But how can you.

Wait.

In the sense that we want to have everything immediately, the results,

the retention, immediately the engagement, and immediately when we

know really well, that is a long term process and something that you need to

build, and it's not really something that you can grab like in one month.

No, it's definitely a process's.

Everything else it's in the same way.

It's a culture.

What kind of company culture do you have?

It does, it's not born overnight.

It's all about small things, small rituals of.

Do you have interrupt?

Is it normal to interrupt people during a meeting?

Is it normal to ate?

Is it normal to challenge leaders for someone who is also very junior?

Is it normal to um, make some remarks that are not very inclusive or make some

jokes that are not very appropriate?

So it.

, it grows and it grows.

It's like wheats in a garden.

They wouldn't grow overnight, but if you don't get rid of them, they're gonna

contaminate the whole garden and all the good flowers are going to die out.

So it's for you to having consistency, make checking yourself, are those the

behaviors he want to see in organization?

Those the behaviors he wanna promote others, those behaviors.

He want to educate.

. And then building on that you have your culture chain, you have

your expectational behaviors.

So if you realize that one day, oh, we have a toxic environment, toxic

organization, how did that happen?

It took years and years, and very often leaders are the one

who either turn a blind eye towards that or did not call out.

Unconscious bias.

Did not call out microaggressions, did not call out some remarks

and say, oh, it just a joke.

Oh, she didn't mean that.

Oh no, it doesn't matter.

Oh, I will be silent this time.

Or, yeah, I will ask him in private.

It's all those small things.

Or some comment.

That are normalized.

Oh, you should smile more.

Yeah.

All the small, small, small things, uh, that actually make up, the weeds of

the garden and that it's very hard to if you don't call it out, if you stay

silent, don't call out some behaviors.

It's not only the person not going to learn, but anybody else who

has observed this behavior, they will unconsciously clock in and

say, oh, okay, so this behavior.

Since saying this and that it's normal.

So I will practice it as well.

So suddenly, instead of dealing with one person, we have to deal with five people

who also gonna adopt this behavior, and that grows very quickly and spreads

across, across the whole organization.

We are talking about coming back to work after life changing experience,

but we are all experiencing, I think, things around the world that can

have a big impact of on us, like the pandemic, like the war in Ukraine,

like what happen in Korea right now.

And so I'm wondering what is your perception on.

Creating the space at work to discuss big things that are

happening in the world that can have a big impact on our wellbeing.

Very good question.

Tip number one, don't ignore it.

. I think the organizations that kind of pretend that it will pass let's

just sleep on it and that'll go away.

That indicates that you don't care and that you don't really.

Understand what people could be going through.

So this the silence of our friends is worse.

There was there was a very good phrase It was not the words of our enemies that

hurt us, but the silence of our friends.

So it's extremely important to acknowledge that because people

do go through different things.

For example, in the war Ukraine, the first thing that I did Working with a

lot of organizations, also in my own organization that I work in is to send

out an email for companies saying, please, you have to say something.

You have to say, you have to acknowledge both.

First of all, the situation.

Acknowledge and support your Ukrainian employees, as well as not to forget

your Russian employees as well, because they're also going through a

lot of very drastic things that you would want to go through as a person.

So silence does not help.

So it's important to to take a stand and I know many companies

now say taking too much stand

I also know situations where in, in 2020 when the Black Lives Matter

move and started in Europe, a lot of companies started posting on

social media and Black Lives Matter.

And the employees commenting, saying, duh, is it like we don't

have a single black employee?

Don't be so two-face.

So ization also needs to be careful don't jump in a bank wagon.

You also need to believe and trust what you're doing.

If, if you, If you say, who were posting about and then all those spread, but

then ended up with, and then uncover that actually working with fashion

companies that were supporting that.

Be careful what you say, but it's important for you to answer your question,

to communicate your standard as a company because silence does not work.

And number two, To have to have a channel for people to discuss those issues.

And I know some companies ban it.

For example, there was a situation of base camp two years ago,

the ban to have any political discussions on the internal channels.

Straight away, 30% of the company left.

And then it was another company that said that you're not allowed to discuss any new

social political issues and then people leave because you're being silenced.

How can you not discuss that?

And yes, it does distract people, but it's better for people to discuss

that in a safe environment rather than develop distrust also towards the.

And what do you think about the boundaries that are important

between your personal life and your work life, but also the fact that

you are bringing to work every day?

What is happening in your personal life, internal or external?

It's a very good question.

I think here I have to be also honest and say that I'm a little bit torn

between those two because in the past we used to go to work clock and clock

out, come back home and that's it.

Now we are so invested and companies understand that.

And also, to be honest, they take advantage of that.

And so now if you want to leave.

In the past, you live work, you change the company you live, but now you're

stuck because you live with your friends behind you, leav in your gym,

behind perhaps your health insurance.

Maybe your kids go to school sponsored by a company or kindergarten sponsored

by a company, or you have some sort of.

Stock options, or you have a health package or this or that or that, or some

sort of subscription to, all the small things as in, they don't cost that much,

but it's, it makes a lot harder for a company for a person to make decision.

As in look at Google, it's as simple as offering food to people.

It's a very simple thing.

Google, Facebook, but people end up staying there.

Why would you wanna leave?

The office, if there is food there, there is gym, all your friends are there.

So it's a trap.

So I think for people who are really excited about all these perks offered by

the company, they also need to be asking themselves, am I being trapped as well?

You what?

Realizing am I setting my soul?

And be careful.

Be careful in companies.

Say we have family, the family, the family don't lie.

Families don't disown someone when they don't have money

when you're not behaving well.

So it's extremely important to set boundaries and also, Not being let

on by a company to to take advantage of that consciously or unconsciously.

Having life outside of work is extremely important, and I'm the one guilty of

that because, work in learning and development, so I'm the one, offering

exciting, cool bells and whistles for people to retain people and to

engage people, and to grow people.

So they stay in a company.

And also having community building, the sense of belonging organization.

So I'm torn because both my work at the same time, I see the negative consequences

because it is a double edged sword.

So for you as a person, you need to understand what are

your boundaries and whether you.

Don't have friends outside of work.

If you don't have anything going on outside of work, if on Friday night

you check your teams or your Slack to see what's going on, that's a very

big sign that you probably need to set your priorities straight because.

Work is just very temporary.

And you need to have a more, a long term perspective on yourself

and your, don't put all X in one basket and have your boundaries.

What I have seen, especially with startups, is that often your mission in

life is aligned with the mission of the company, but this is creating an issue if

you want to live, because it's like giving up on your mission, your personal mission.

If you give up on the company and there is a discussion.

It's important for me to have about, you are contributing to the mission,

but it's your personal mission.

It's not only the startup mission or the company mission, and sometimes

I feel that there is a big exist crisis for people that are leaving the

company also because they are feeling.

They are giving up their personal mission.

Do you have a similar experience or different?

Yeah, definitely.

I don't have a hundred percent like when I left the company and I really

felt, but I think what you do give up.

Because you develop such a strong attachment to the company you feel like

you're giving up a part of yourself.

And that's the danger I'm also talking about in terms of you

feel like you cut off your limb.

And it's always very dramatic, but it is, it does really feel this way

that you feel you also betray your dreams and you betray, but it does not

necessarily mean that the whole worlds around this company, your mission.

You know, The company's mission, unless they're super unique in what they do

and only company in the world that does that, and hopefully they're so enterprise

rather than corporate then perhaps, but there, there are ways for you to seek

self-actualization than just to work.

And there other ways you can do to feel empowered and have a mission.

Yeah, so seeing other ways in having this mission is very important and

not just something that you can also be in control because, let's be

honest, organizations nowadays in this economic situation, the redundancies

and layouts is such a normal thing.

And then even yourself, if you decide because you wouldn't leave, it's

sometimes it cannot be in your control.

So it's important to take over the control in your life and not just kind depend on

someone to own you and to decide also on your mission and on your happiness in.

It's like coming back to yourself.

Always.

Yeah.

Coming.

Exactly.

That's a very nicely, but coming back to yourself, and it's in the

same way as anything, it's in the same way as also relationships.

Yeah.

You don't need to have someone to fulfill you.

You also need to be happy with yourself, and if you need someone

to fulfill you, to make you feel happy, that you need to also look on.

Maybe there could be a problem.

Someone could, make you happy and make you even happier.

But someone does not need to exist for the sake of, for you to be dependent.

It's very unhealthy.

Other, it's company a relationship or material goods or social media.

Yeah, being, coming back to yourself and being also like

content it's extremely important.

Very healthy.

Do you want to add something else to the conversation for our listeners?

No, it was really enjoyable and I really enjoyed that.

And I think for me it's important to say that if you are listening

to that, you are not alone.

Sometimes you could feel like we are the only person in the world to go

through this experience, but we are not.

What helps?

It's um, talking about that, what person helped me is to talk, to,

say it out loud, talk with friends, people you can trust, people you're

close with about the situation.

The more you talk about it, the easier it becomes.

And also writing it.

Like journal reflect on that and it helps you to put your thoughts together and

to say, okay, that's life that happened.

. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you for listening to this episode, please share it with friends then needs

to hear this important conversation.

You can find more information in the description or on the website.

pod.link/welcomeback.