In this episode, Dr. Jim welcomes Bryan Power, the head of people at Nextdoor, to "bust some myths" within leadership and HR realms. Set against the exciting backdrop of the HR Transform conference at The Wynn in Las Vegas, the dialogue delves into contemporary issues surrounding workplace flexibility, remote work, and the evolving strategies within talent management.
Bryan Power brings a fresh perspective to the conventional wisdom regarding work-from-home policies and their perceived relevance to gender, exploding the myth that flexibility is predominantly a women's issue. The discussion highlights the importance of abandoning outmoded ideologies and embracing a more nuanced understanding of productivity in today's diverse working environments. By weaving in contemporary trends with insightful analysis, this episode provides listeners with an informed viewpoint on crafting intentional, effective workplace strategies.
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Transcripts
Dr. Jim: [:
Bryan Power: Thanks, Jim.
Dr. Jim: Thanks for hanging out with us. Before we get into the myth busting part of the conversation, it's going to be important for the listeners and viewers to know a little bit more about you, so tell us a little bit about the stuff that you're involved with.
Bryan Power: I lead the people team at Nextdoor. I've been there for about five and a half years. I joined, it was a startup company, about 200 employees. We've scaled it, we're about 500 people now around the world. We're a public company. And really everything that's related to the people function is my responsibility there.
Dr. Jim: What do you like the most
about the role that you're in?
Bryan Power: I really like just the, The changing nature of the field, like for the last three years, we've had these unprecedented changes that you've had to deal with in the workplace really made the job a lot more strategic, a lot more interesting and definitely a lot harder.
everything. Obviously we all [:
Dr. Jim: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And the job certainly hasn't gotten any easier. So you're ready to bust some myths.
Bryan Power: Yeah, let's do it.
Dr. Jim: All right. When you think about leadership and HR myths, what's the one myth that you wish would just go away?
Bryan Power: So I think it's actually related to the work from home debate because flexibility in the workplace has become, really important to employees of all generations.
But what I've found is there's still, it's still rooted in that it's mostly for women, whether it's. We call it parental leave today. It used to be called maternity leave or paternity leave, meaning moms and dads need different time off. But even today, it's still people working outside of the office, working from home.
I still just feel like there's this remnants of a stigma that's something that women need more than men, and I just couldn't disagree with that. More flexibility is something that we all benefit from, and employers really need to be thinking about how to incorporate that into their workplace strategy.
e backwards thinking when it [:
Bryan Power: I don't think you can simplify productivity down to one word. There's lots of different types of work and certainly some work is better from home and some work is better together. I think part of the challenge is when you're not intentional about having people come together periodically to build those relationships, it just becomes an assumption that if you get together, things will just happen.
And while I do believe that serendipity of meeting new people at work that happens when you're bouncing off of each other in an office is important. You can't just prescribe, Hey, if everyone just shows up every day that those things are gonna happen. So really being thoughtful about how you design your workplace is really critical there.
n. There's gotta be a middle [:
So we're just scratching the surface on this conversation. If folks want to connect with you and continue the discussion, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?
Bryan Power: I would love for them to just reach out to me on LinkedIn.
I've lost the connections. I communicate with a few people there via message. I'm happy to get in touch.
Dr. Jim: Awesome stuff. Thanks for hanging out with us, Brian.
