Climate Justice HR | Part 1 (EP.81)

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Updated

January 17, 2025

In this episode of the Work Shouldn’t Suck podcast, host Tim Cynova begins an exploration into the crucial intersection of Human Resources (HR) and climate emergencies. Recorded amidst recent natural disasters, the discussion explores how workplaces can prepare for and respond to climate-related challenges, underscoring the importance of planning for the unexpected, building resilient systems, and supporting employee well-being in the midst of these emergencies.

Joining the conversation are Jenna Ringelheim and Jillian Wright, bringing their insights on meaningful HR and organizational design practices rooted in equity, anti-racism, and compassion. They emphasize the importance of proactive planning, values-based workplace design, and the integration of equity, empathy, and integrity in HR practices. This spirited discussion highlights the evolving nature of workplace challenges posed by climate change and the need for resilient, people-centered organizational frameworks.

Highlights:

• Introduction to Climate Emergency and HR (00:00)

• Unplanned vs. Unexpected Events (01:06)

• Climate Justice HR: A New Approach (02:31)

• Guest Introductions and Their Work (03:04)

• Values-Centered Work in HR (04:08)

• Climate Justice HR in Practice (10:39)

• Real-World Examples and Challenges (12:43)

• Developing Compassionate Leave Policies (18:18)

• Building Resilient and Supportive Workplaces (22:16)

• The Importance of Flexibility and Empathy (34:28)

• Final Thoughts and Takeaways (44:22)

Resources Mentioned in Episode:

• Scarcity and the Non-Profit People Paradox Example 2 delves into the St. John’s case study and how they approached the unplanned versus the unexpected

• Climate Emotions Wheel including a Guide to Climate Emotions

• Phases of Disaster Response from the Institute for Collective Trauma and Growth

• University of California’s Center for Climate Justice “What is Climate Justice“ and the Six Pillars of Climate Justice.

• Tulane University’s “What Is a Disaster Management Cycle?”

• Crisis Relief & Recovery on “What is Disaster Leadership?”

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Bios

JENNA RINGELHEIM (she/her) is a skilled facilitator, coach, and HR practitioner that is passionate about igniting liberatory leadership practices within workplaces. She has a keen interest in program and curriculum design, supporting equity-centered people and culture efforts, network weaving and building communities of practice. Jenna is happiest when she is co-creating systems and structures that allow for greater agency, transparency, and shared learning. In her previous work as nonprofit executive, Jenna catalyzed a network of over 2,000 environmental and social change leaders as the Deputy Director of the Environmental Leadership Program. She also served as the Executive Director of Wild Gift, a wilderness-based leadership development program and international network of social impact entrepreneurs. Jenna has a BA in Environmental Studies and Anthropology from Skidmore College, an MA in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University, an MBA in Sustainable Systems from Pinchot University, and a Certificate in Human Resource Management from Portland State University. Most importantly, she is a proud parent, partner, pet matchmaker, foodie, and e-bike enthusiast living in Portland, Oregon. Learn more on LinkedIn.

Jillian Wright, PHR (she/her) spends her days as an HR consultant, but she’s also a dancer, mother, gardener, and puzzle finisher who enjoys helping small businesses succeed. For over 18 years, she’s had the privilege of working with and learning from some amazing folx who have taught her so much about how to facilitate people support BETTER – and she wants to share what she’s learned with other value-driven companies who are ready to do things differently. Her passion for people-support and behavioral psychology in the workplace along with her deep personal commitment to social justice as a member of the queer community has fueled her desire to help leaders create inclusive places to work. Jillian’s background in small non-profit and mission-driven workplaces has gained her valuable skills in the art of prioritization, efficient use of time, and understanding how to make things happen on a shoestring budget, and she’s worked hard to apply those principles to creating affordable, time-conscious, impact-centered consulting projects tailored to a variety companies specific goals, opportunities, and challenges. Learn more on LinkedIn.

Tim Cynova, SPHR (he/him) is the Principal of WSS HR LABS, an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design, and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press. Learn more on LinkedIn.

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Transcript

Tim Cynova:

Hi, I'm Tim Cynova, and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast for thriving workplace practitioners. On today's episode, we're beginning an exploration into climate emergency related HR. A topic in its intersectionality we'll be devoting more space to throughout the season. This isn't a one and done, if you will, but given the events of recent months, we thought we'd lay down an introductory track about it now. We recorded this episode about a month after Hurricane Helene caused devastating flooding in Asheville, North Carolina, and communities across Western North Carolina. It was also time in New York City when the skies were hazy for days, as nearby forest fires spewed smoke from such unexpected places as Upper Manhattan, Brooklyn's Prospect Park, and New Jersey's Palisades in the shadow of the George Washington Bridge. And as we publish this episode, crews are still working tirelessly to contain the catastrophic fires in and around Los Angeles.

Several years ago, I was researching how scarcity mindsets show up in organizations, and I read about the concept of unplanned versus unexpected events. Coincidentally, it was also about the time when I heard someone use the phrase global weirding to describe some of the more unexpected events being produced by climate change, like snow in Atlanta in April. In the scarcity case study, the idea of unplanned versus unexpected events was introduced in the context of emergency surgeries versus elective surgeries at St. John's Regional Health Center in Missouri. St. John's was struggling to keep up with demand for their finite number of operating rooms. I'll link to the article in the show notes for those interested in reading more about how they approached that challenge. To skip most of the details for now, they boiled it down to, we know what's going to happen, it's expected, we just don't know when exactly it's going to happen, making those events unplanned.

In many ways, that frame of unplanned versus unexpected has been resonating for me when thinking about climate-related emergencies, how workplaces can prepare for them, and who is most impacted by them. At this point, we know these events are going to happen, we just don't know exactly when and where it will occur. I wanted to talk to a few people who have been considering how to approach this intersectionality to better understand what it is, how we can be thinking about it, and what planning for the expected in a values-aligned way looks like, perhaps something we might call Climate Justice HR. For today's conversation, I'm joined by the amazing Jenna Ringelheim and Jillian Wright, who bring a wealth of knowledge, and experience, and insight to this topic. So without further ado, let's get going. Jenna and Jillian, welcome to the podcast.

Jenna Ringelheim:

Thanks, Tim, so happy to be here.

Jillian Wright:

Yeah, glad to be here.

Tim Cynova:

As a way of grounding our listeners in the conversation, why don't I invite you each to introduce yourself and the work you do these days. And Jenna, you want to get things rolling?

Jenna Ringelheim:

I consider myself a strategic partner and accountability buddy. What that looks like on the daily is facilitation, coaching, leadership development training. In my previous life I was definitely an organizational integrator.

Jillian Wright:

I do HR consulting for small mission purpose driven businesses, really with the lens of anti-racism, anti-oppression, and understanding how we can do HR differently with that perspective.

Tim Cynova:

We are each guided by values in our organizational design work. Jillian, you just mentioned some of yours, and it's the thing that has connected us over the years. I also know that we each articulate them slightly different than each other, and that maybe has even evolved over the years as we've been doing the work, so I wonder when I say value centered work, what are those values that each of you are thinking about and holding in your approach? And maybe how you came to articulate those values?

Jenna Ringelheim:

It's definitely been a journey both in understanding what values are important to me personally, but how they show up in the workplace. So similar to Jillian, equity is front and center for me in my work. Continuous improvement and creating an environment where folks actually have agency to be themselves. I know that's become kind of a cliche term, but it truly is what values based org design is striving for.

Jillian Wright:

When I started my own business, Begin Again HR, this was a really important exercise for me, getting really clear about how I say how my values show up in the work I do, helping small businesses. My four words are inclusion, meaning HR shouldn't support some humans, they should support all humans. Intention, so for me that's about dedication to thoughtful, holistic impacts, considerate approaches. Integrity, do what you say, be honest about what's possible, and admit when you make a mistake. And then empathy, listening, caring deeply, understanding that nobody's lived experience will identically match your own. And a quote that I reference all the time is Brené Brown says, "I'm not here to be right, I'm here to get it right." And trying to think about, how do we continue to morph and think about supporting the people we work to get it right?

Tim Cynova:

With that values orientation, how do you show up differently maybe in this work than, say, "traditional HR" or traditional org design? How does that change the orientation to how you think about it, how you imagine new processes, and practices, and workplace initiatives?

Jenna Ringelheim:

For me, it comes back to that initial exercise, figuring out what the values are, whether or not they are shared, and what you're striving for over time. I love that Jillian has added some definition to her words because words can mean a lot of things, and I'm sure all of you have been through that exercise to figure out what the mission, vision, and values of our organization is. And then at the end of the day, when you're working in the organization, it doesn't match up. For me, values-based org design, or leadership, or whatever you want to call it, really is about the practice of being with each other, and checking in, and making sure that you are still continuously striving towards that future vision, both on the daily, but the things that you're building over time, whether it's into your business or into your programs. So it's really an exercise and a journey, it's not a one and done sort of thing.

Jillian Wright:

Absolutely agree. For me, part of it is about the pause. So much of traditional HR, we all have work experience where it was done in a hierarchical way, it was done in a way that, oh, this is the one answer for the thing. And it's really about pausing and thinking, are all voices included? Is this the way that makes sense that aligns with the values that we have, or are we just sort of reinventing the way things have always been done? And that pause is what's really important, I think.

Jenna Ringelheim:

I think I would also layer in humility. I hear integrity and then my mind shifts to humility because we don't always get it right the first time around. We might think that we write the most perfect policy, but actually how it gets carried out is the exact opposite of that. And so as an HR professional or practitioner, really the pause is also an opportunity for us to slow down and make sure that whatever we did dream up with the team is meeting the needs of the organization over time.

Tim Cynova:

That was one of the really significant moments in our early work at Fractured Atlas to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization in 2013, 2014, was acknowledging that the policies and initiative that I thought were really great, that we had been working on, actually really weren't all that great when you considered who was included, who felt like they were included, who got to use them, who felt like they had the space to use them. And really pausing to say, how do you do that in an anti-racist way? How do you do that in an equitable way? How do you do that in an adjust way? And like, oh, the policy actually isn't as great as I thought it was, and then teasing it apart into those pieces. One of the most interesting exercises I've used in my consulting work is the misunderstood words list, where you go into an organization, and getting to know people, and you start writing down words that people are using like innovation and integrity that you think people have different definitions for than everyone else, right?

So it's like 10 people here all define integrity in 10 different ways. And using that as an opportunity to come back and be like, "Before we even work on integrity as a value or how this plays out in practice, what do we mean when we say integrity?" And I think right now, especially at this moment in time, what do you mean when you say those words? What does that mean to you before we can start to move that to action? Because how easy is that to work in cross purposes or do harm because we've not taken that moment to, at least a baseline understanding of what the words are that we're using, what we mean by them.

Jillian Wright:

I think pertinent to this conversation today are the words sustainability, or resilience, or thinking about those things as it relates to climate.

Tim Cynova:

Using the title for this episode as climate justice and HR or climate related emergencies in HR. How climate is impacting how organizations are run, and what we as people designing practices, designing support systems, should be thinking about as this is becoming an increasingly prevalent challenge in our organizations. Certainly, the United States and in other countries around the world. As practitioners who are designing systems and structures to support people to create thriving workplaces, what resonates for you when you think about Climate Justice HR or climate related emergencies in HR, and the role that people in the positions that we hold have to play in creating more resilient organizations that are people centered?

Jenna Ringelheim:

I really appreciate the opportunity to look at this question because I've been in the environmental sector my entire career. My first environmental job was when I was 14 years old, and this concept of climate change or climate justice has been a train of thought that has been in my mind for a long time. And at this point in my career, I consider myself climate justice adjacent, in the sense that I support a lot of leaders that are working in the environmental sector to help them better match up their external intentions and work with the way they show up for their workers.

I was thinking back to the podcast that you had about creatives and how they don't always have the opportunity to show up creatively in the work. And I think it's a similar sort of syndrome here where environmental organizations don't necessarily walk their external talk. And so for me, Climate Justice HR is really this opportunity to slow down and take a look at, not only the ways in which climate disruption will impact organizations, but what are the ways that we can support our folks when things go sideways? Because we know that this world we live in will continue to get weirder and weirder moving forward.

Tim Cynova:

You both have connections to the Northeast and Vermont. Vermont in particular is a state where the past couple of years has seen devastating flooding, and that's likely to continue. It might be unexpected when it happens, but it's likely going to happen again. Jillian, we connected a couple weeks ago because your current phase career includes working with a number of organizations as an HR consultant, as a resident of Asheville, North Carolina. Connecting with clients, and friends, and communities that, similarly, have been devastated by the recent hurricane. I'm curious, as you think about how this actually shows up to human beings in place, what does this look like right now for you, recording this maybe four or five weeks after the hurricane came through in North Carolina? What are people experiencing right now? And also, what are you hearing from an HR lens that's maybe not helpful now, but would be useful to consider in the future?

Jillian Wright:

That's rough right now. There's the things you can do in advance. There's the on the ground phase one of what needs to happen right now. I'd say we're in the process right now in Asheville of heading into phase two, which is challenging. I mean a lot of folks had the initial rush of emergency aid, sending water, sending all these donations, and now you don't hear about Asheville on the news, a lot of the volunteer groups have left. What are we doing now to rebuild and to be supportive of the community in this moment? And it's rough, people are really downtrodden. But I think what people are able to do is pivot and be creative about how do we think about what's next? I'm doing a lot of work in unemployment and helping companies strategize what people and staffing looks like for the next phase.

Hindsight's always 20/20, what could we do to be better prepared next time because these once-in-a-century storms are likely not going to be once-in-a-century anymore. Places that people thought were environmental havens and safe spaces like Asheville, like Vermont, that doesn't exist. What can we do to be prepared, to be mindful about who will be most impacted, and build out policies, and structures, and ways of support that help in those communities? I've actually been looking a lot right now into leadership training and crisis, so there's a organization called Crisis Relief and Recovery. And they have a leadership program, they have trainings you can do. I'm just trying to understand how best to help support leaders in these moments that will happen again.

Jenna Ringelheim:

Thank you, Jillian, for showing the emotion, because for folks that are working in these spaces trying to support organizations, trying to support real people, it's tough work. We do live in unprecedented times. What I feel sad about is, I think in some ways, the environmental sector has set us up for this moment, in the sense that we've always talked about climate change as something that's going to impact the polar bears or people on islands in Fiji. Now, we're in this moment where it is in our backyard and it is impacting your neighbor, it is impacting maybe you, as a practitioner in the space.

Tim Cynova:

One of my defaults is to look to see, is there an example we can use and then retrofit it into what we need right now? Let's go out and see what exists before we reinvent the wheel. There might not be these specifics, but trauma, healing, processing, loss, grief, anxiety, all these things that people bring as human beings into the workplace, and then we're trying to design places where people can show up and thrive, while also carrying a lot of stuff with them. Jenna, I'm curious with your lens on this one, what comes to mind as you think about what might be replicable? Where do you look for things? Do you even use this kind of copy and paste framework, or are they unique in what's needed?

Jenna Ringelheim:

Maybe we look to the six pillars of climate justice, where they really have unpacked the different components of what looks like a climate-just future. Part of that has to do with centering indigenous voices and actually doing the work to do planning around emergencies and the equity components that we talked about earlier. I mean it is one body of work where there has been work done. I'm also hearing Jillian talk about just the trauma-informed care that is needed in this moment, that maybe historically HR professionals haven't been trained in. We know that HR professionals haven't been trained in a lot of anti-racist theory or anti-oppressive theory, and so this is another moment in time to double down on the skill set that practitioners need to show up to these new challenges.

Tim Cynova:

You started to tease apart, in this work there are policies, and there are practices, and there are workplace initiatives, and there's language that we use, and/or things that we're like, "Oh, that's a great thing that that organization is doing, let's figure out how we can bring that in and copy/paste initiatives." And one of the things that, Jenna, you've worked on in the past, was a compassionate leave policy. I'm curious both about that, and as we think about, what are some of the things maybe that are specific or that could be repurposed when thinking about climate related emergencies in organizations?

Jenna Ringelheim:

I've been really fortunate to partner with an organization called the Earthwatch Institute. The CEO there is actually the organization's first female CEO in its 50-year plus history. And over the last year and a bit I've been helping her rethink their employee handbook and a lot of the policies that were very, very antiquated, and bereavement leave was one of them. For me, compassionate leave is really bereavement leave reimagined. I think traditional bereavement policies are really steeped in the traditional family. You get this number of days for this individual, you don't get individuals that aren't blood related, stuff that makes no sense to a grieving individual.

As we know, grief shows up in lots of different ways, and connecting it back to climate disruption, as Jillian has showed us a little peek into just in this podcast, there's big feelings and real stuff that comes up when people are dealing with these catastrophes. And so it was really cool to write this policy last year, and then honestly, it was the hurricane that impacted North Carolina, where we had an employee based there, that was able to tap into the policy. And I was able to connect with her just recently to say, "Did this policy actually meet your needs in the way that it was intended?"

She was very appreciative. I was also just thrilled that her manager knew to say, "Hey, use this. This is for you." I guess linking back to, you can write the best policy, but if you don't train managers on how to activate it in times of need, it doesn't really matter, right? In this compassionate leave policy, I was very explicit in writing, or including I guess, domestic catastrophes, and being explicit in stating that means forest fires, that means floods. Then it becomes a conversation about what people need in that moment. Ultimately, I think helping people process these challenging life events and having a policy that really states, "Hey, this is for you." Is an important place to start.

Tim Cynova:

Well, in that addition too about forest fires, I live in New York City, and right across the river there are fires that are impacting people in New Jersey and slightly north of the city. One might think forest fires that happens out west, but as we've pointed out already, just because maybe historically is what you might think of, all of a sudden this is actually impacting commutes, and people's health, and the air quality, and all these different things that maybe, even being a company based solely in New York City, you haven't had to think about before, having these things on the books.

And especially, I think your point, Jenna, around making sure people besides you know how to use them, is such an important point of this work that I often find so frustrating, it's like, I'm not in every meeting, I can't be there to hear this conversation. Most of the work is like designing systems and structures that other people are going to use, is orientation of the work that I think makes it more resilient than, "Tim wasn't in that meeting, Tim couldn't explain the nuance of how to use that." Or even that, "Maybe you should go talk to Tim." It's one of those big pieces where the whole thing, as you pointed out, kind of just can fall apart if that key piece isn't linked up.

Jenna Ringelheim:

Yeah, I would add that I am a proud pandemic parent. I had my first son in April 2020, and five months later we were evacuating our home because the air quality in our house was the worst air quality in the world. So if I retrace the steps of what helped me get to the place to develop this policy, it is super real to me and super important that we think about, again, these moments that people could never imagine in their lifetime having to go through, and yet here we are. Vermont, here we are again, two years in a row, this sort of disaster, this sort of flood. So the future is now. If your organizations at least haven't started the conversation, it's a great time to get started.

Jillian Wright:

One of the exercises I did in one of my last tenures was around all the different types of crisis or "emergency" that could come up, and what is our plan in those things? And just simply articulating what department is going to deal with that or how are we going to communicate to our customers what's going to happen, and who will do that, just so that it's written down somewhere and people have an understanding of those pieces and elements of it. Also, thinking about emergency contacts, and when would they be contacted, and why, and what would you say to them? I think that gave staff both a clear understanding of their roles, but also helped them feel more knowledgeable and secure, and oh, okay, I see, so I have to give this piece of information that's very personal to me. Who is my emergency person and what are the parameters and the boundaries in which my work life in that life are going to intersect? And pieces like that took intention. Let's be really clear about that.

I was thinking about, as you all were talking, is something like job descriptions. In a situation where you might need to transition quickly and pivot to virtual versus in-person, something like, what are the essential functions of your role? What things do we need you to be able to do? We can do them in a different way, but we need you to be able to do these things. And knowing and having clarity around that, so important. And I think can be such a pivotal piece for people to latch onto or have stability in when things are very unstable. That's another piece that I've done work in job descriptions, sort of articulating what those are as they relate to accommodations, or other components around compliance and work. But I think for an employee, being able to understand exactly what it is that is essential to their role and say, "We don't have to worry about those other things right now, all we need you to do is this." That can be really helpful.

Tim Cynova:

Julie, there's an earlier version of a framework that I still use today when you first went on parental leave. We took apart your role in minutia to say, this isn't just a job description, but it's like all the minutia things, and then who's going to be the primary person to take this on? Who's going to be a secondary? And I've iterated over the years to be like, let's record a video of the person screen sharing, or talking about that, or linking to the document that has the details.

And I think that that's something that could be helpful in an instance where we can't contact this person or we need to quickly pare down what someone's able to do because they don't have internet or they don't have access to various things. Talking about what we can do in advance, it's a pretty lightweight way I found to articulate those different things, to identify them, and it can be used in a lot of different use cases. But this I think is certainly one of those instances where you have it on file and you can just pull it up and use something, especially in these instances where there's crisis or unexpected things arise regardless of what they might be.

Jenna Ringelheim:

Yeah, I think that's so important. We've talked about, in other spaces, Tim, working agreements, and team charters, and the how of the work. And I think organizations that have that really well-dialed when these unexpected events pop up, you've kind of done the work already and there is an element of plug-and-play. One of the things that's been interesting to me is just reflecting on the remote work environment, and what are the things that we did learn in COVID time? Remember those years that we were in our homes experimenting with different ways of working when things are not normal? On one side it's like, yeah, we know these things, and on the other side it's like, how quickly we forget how to use these things.

Tim Cynova:

Jillian, you and I have talked about things like furloughs, and layoffs, and what organizations might all of a sudden need to be thinking about in climate-related emergency, where that business, it physically no longer exists a restaurant or whatever it might be. What happens to the staff that you have? How can you quickly have these policies rolled out so you're not trying to figure out how do you approach this in a kind and caring way while everything else is going sideways on you?

Jillian Wright:

That's been a really hard part of the work I'm doing now. Places need to make really hard decisions, and trying to walk them through, what are the options? Reductions in staff, RIFs, furloughs, those are all really hard and they require a lot of logistical things, but there's also ways that you can do them that help address some of the questions, or concerns, or worries that folks have as they're departing. Something that I've worked with folks on here is around, okay, well maybe you need to let people go, but maybe part of that letting go can be around giving them one-to-one support on applying for unemployment or outplacement services.

How do we get you connected with somebody who's going to help you update your resume? How can we be thoughtful about severance? Do we need to do that? Can we furlough people? Can we shift people to part-time? I do have a background in finance work. Numbers can be scary, especially in moments where it feels like everything is up in the air. Understanding, okay, scenario A, what is that going to look like? What does scenario B look like? And making those things approachable. And then support for both the employer and the employee, the leaders making the decisions and then the folks that are so desperately impacted by it.

Tim Cynova:

We used to work with an organization that helped people who were trying to resolve healthcare-related challenges. I keep getting this bill, why is this bill different than it's supposed to be? I can't get ahold of anyone at the insurance company. And it was kind of an add-on for medical plans in particular. I was wondering recently, and Jillian, I think we talked about this too, we're like, is there a kind of equivalent that isn't about outplacement? But you know in an emergency people will have to fill out FEMA paperwork or housing, all these things that are on the list. And when you're in the emergency, it's not always easy to figure out, who do we call that could easily come in, that can help our team figure out what they need? And so I'm curious, if that doesn't exist, either if we don't know if that exists, we can't find it online, if any listeners are like, this is a great resource that organizations can essentially have in their back pocket, that can be useful to staff when they're in that moment where there's everything on their mind except for work.

Jenna Ringelheim:

That makes me think about mutual aid as a concept that has become more familiar to the average person, so it might've historically looked like a neighborhood association or your faith community. I've really seen an increase in people coming together around challenges and trying to, again, get the answers, or get the email, or get the phone number into a centralized place, so at least people know where to start. I think the translation for me into organizational culture is like, how do you create that culture of care? How do you not lose sight of the things that you've learned in the past, maybe in other contexts?

There's a lot to learn through the parental leave policy and how we support people through that journey, as you described, is like covering their roles and things like that. There really are, I think, examples in the workplace that translate well, but it's also about thinking beyond the boundary of your organization or your business. I've primarily worked in small organizations, but highly networked ones that are committed to supporting people across those boundaries, and so what is the networked approach to resolving some of these challenges? Again, we're all trying to figure it out, especially in these moments that everything feels upside down.

Tim Cynova:

I think that's one of those approaches that hybrid workplaces can benefit from, especially when I think about organizations that have people working in different states, across the country, across the world, it's not all located in one area. How do you leverage that network of staff? To make things even more challenging, we're talking about this in the context of a workplace, where there are power differentials oftentimes, and other things at play than just maybe your neighborhood community or an affinity group that exists outside of something that's a formal workplace.

Jenna Ringelheim:

One of the things that really stood out for me in these most recent rounds of hurricanes were the organizations that actually did speak out and say, "Hey, we're not okay, but we're centering our employees in this moment." It sounds like, Jillian, you and I both have an affinity for some pottery in North Carolina, East Fork. They're definitely one entity that stood out to me of, they got on the line and said, "First and foremost, we're making sure that our employees are okay. We're sorry that our plates aren't going to get shipped out this week, but they're just not." And so I think that sort of modeling of organizations that are really saying, "This stuff is real, this stuff is happening, this stuff is impacting us." Is a good way to encourage other organizations to be bold enough to make those sometimes hard decisions to center their people over profit.

Jillian Wright:

Absolutely. There is a locality associated, but leveraging those networks back to that sort of communicating with each other when all communication was down here, certainly on the ground, felt very palpable communicating, to your point, Jenna, we need help. There isn't pride involved in this moment, we need help with this thing. We need whatever the need is, reaching out within the networks and finding that. I mean I find this in all sorts of HR situations, start with the humanity and the empathy of, this is really hard. And a thanks and a gratitude for when that reach out happens. You don't know what people need, so I would say don't make assumptions about what people need, even in the work context. But I think sometimes it's even stepping outside of the box of what your parameter as a company is for your employees.

I've seen examples of companies just like getting pallets of water. That's not part of what we do, or our job, or whatever it is, but if it makes it easier for people in this moment to have what they need. Or to front load payroll because we know a storm's coming and we don't want people to be without. Typically, everybody gets paid on the Friday, but it's like in this situation we're just going to pay everybody on Wednesday, so you have what you need. It's working in that flex of, how can we pivot? How can we be creative? How can we do things a little differently to put the people first? And then communicating those things.

Jenna Ringelheim:

I love that so much, partially because I actually went back to do more HR credentialing. I did that to figure out what the rules were, so I could essentially break them or bend them in those times where there are some rules. I think what you are talking about is exactly that of, we are inventors of our own domain, and sometimes in these HR decisions, we do have the power and ability to do something that we've never done before. And that's where bravery, I think, really shows up in these roles for individuals that have gone on that journey to understand who's going to be most deeply impacted by these events. And make sure that whatever it is you're designing is supporting those folks. I think that's the most exciting part of this sort of work, is when we find those moments and when we do the follow-up to say, "Hey, did this actually also help you in the way that it's intended?" But yeah, I think that's so key of figuring out, yeah, maybe we've always done it this way, but do we have to?

Tim Cynova:

I think that goes back to the earlier conversation about values and using those questions, how might we, what if, to this payroll question, why is pay usually on the first and the 15th or every two weeks? Why is that? What if we could pay people every single day right after they worked? How might we do that? I also think something you both are raising is around the fact that people who do this work are also people, right? It's not like we somehow have checked our humanity at the door, like grief, anxiety, productivity, like, "Oh, cool, I'm just going to show up as the HR person or as the CEO and not be a person."

These are still people who are showing up in the work when, perhaps they're also wrestling with it themselves, thinking about the different scenarios you've been sketching out, and the need to do this in advance because when you get there, you might not be able to do it yourself, so what might we want to put in the queue when we have the time, when we have the space before we actually need it? And so how do you prioritize what would be most helpful, so that it's not reliant upon you to be a hundred percent there and able to roll this out as the person of the organization?

Jenna Ringelheim:

The field of disaster management has the four phases, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. In unpacking that a little bit, I was really honing in on the recovery piece too of, maybe we do a great job of giving someone leave, and Jillian, you talked about it a little bit of, yeah, we had this moment, we had all of the attention on Asheville, and now we have to get back to it, but we're still in the middle of it. Thinking about the lingering aspects of whether it's grief, or trauma, or anything related to these moments. I've always been really curious in understanding more the disaster management field because I do actually think that it's pretty well-defined, and they do have really incredible systems in place of, how do we get into communities fast, and set things up, and all of that? And how that could translate in the organizational sphere.

Tim Cynova:

There's something really helpful around frameworks that give names to things that maybe you might be unfamiliar with, to know that this isn't the first time someone has gone through this. There are certain phases, as organizations, as people who are setting up plans, that maybe what we need in the initial first three months is different than what we need in the second three months. Or this is a framework that says these are all of the emotions that we all are feeling right now, and you can see it on one page.

Jenna Ringelheim:

I think anything that can help normalize that these moments in time are both happening and continue to impact folks long after the initial event occurs, and having those conversations in the workplace. And bringing it back to teams to brainstorm both the individual, first, obviously, of what is going to be most supportive to them. But also to the team level of thinking about, what are the ways that we can support each other through these periods of time? I think about the difference between an organization that's directly impacted in a community versus a remote team that has maybe a few team members that are in Florida or in other places that are impacted. There's not going to be a one-size-fits-all solution to this body of work. The conversations can start.

Tim Cynova:

There's a exercise called the premortem. In this case, before we launch this program and initiative that we think is going to be amazing and everyone's going to love it, let's talk about how it's just going to go all south. All the things that might happen here, and then the next step is to plan for those things. All right, what are the top five, maybe 10 things that could go wrong? And what would we do if that happens? And so I think there's some element of this as a group to say, "All right, so climate-related emergencies likely will happen. What are the high probability things that might happen to this organization? And then what will we do if forest fires affect our business in New Jersey? What policies do we need to think about?"

And then co-designing, co-creating the thing that we think would fit the organization and sort of using that as an exercise to engage in that kind of conversation. Oftentimes, can't do everything on the list, but at least it brings up maybe the most high probability things and then starts to build this structure and that conversational framework for engaging in the design conversations that are necessary.

Jillian Wright:

Well, I would say even not getting specific at the what is it that happened, but what sort of impact base. What if we all can't communicate in the ways we usually communicate? Or what if utilities don't work? Because in Western North Carolina we never thought we would have severe flooding, so I don't know if our brains have expanded to the like, let's prepare for that thing. But more of what if utilities are out, what is the next thing? Or what if cell phone service is down, how will we communicate? Or kind of thinking through the impact-based side of it could be the way to start to think bigger about the systems, and structures, and how do we... Oh yeah, what would we do if that was down? But I think being able to tap into your logical brain in a moment when you're not in crisis and fight or flight, is when to have those conversations and to think through those things, because once that's engaged, it's so much harder to be able to think about strategically, what should we be doing?

Jenna Ringelheim:

I think I'd be remiss also to not bring in this concept of climate anxiety that is so front and center, even if you aren't directly impacted or it was a miss. I'm thinking about the folks in Florida that thought they were going to have the worst hurricane of all times and then it didn't happen. But that doesn't mean that there weren't multiple days leading up to that event where people probably couldn't focus on anything outside of whether or not their family was going to be safe. For me, personally, I think about that a lot, being a parent. If we get the big one, if we get the earthquake here in the Pacific Northwest, which way do we go? What neighbors are safe? Do we have enough water set aside? And so even though that's not something that is directly impacting my work on the daily, it is this kind of in the back of my mind thing that contributes sometimes to the brain fog or the feelings of anxiety that arise when you really start to think about what is happening to us in this moment in time.

So that's a piece of it too, of making sure that your employees, whether you have specifically a mental health PTO policy or other things, again, to just encourage people to take the time to get grounded, to take a breath. For me, the mantra has been, the work can wait. There are sometimes that the work just has to wait. We, as leaders or organizational designers, need to figure out ways to build that in to systems, and structures, and offerings, so everyone in the organization truly believe that in these moments or these days, where work just isn't going to happen. I think about that one a lot, because it's less of a in your face, than your house going downstream in a legitimate flood. It can be as overwhelming.

Tim Cynova:

As expected, we've covered a lot of different areas related to this topic, and also just scratched the surface of it, how this can show up in organizations and what to do about it. As we bring the plane for landing on the conversation today, where do you each want to land it?

Jenna Ringelheim:

I think the thing that really stands out for me is HR futures. The fact that we as practitioners are designing for a future we still don't know. These incidences in the last year are just a small glimpse into what could happen. Do the work before the disaster occurs. Do the work when your brain is actually calm and not in that fight-or-flight mode. Have these conversations, talk about people's needs in a way that feels supportive no matter what their situation is. People are going to be impacted in all different ways, and we as workplace practitioners may not even know the depths of how people are being impacted by these sorts of incidences. Have the hard conversations and build up that muscle memory in teams, in leadership conversations, to really be able to show up when the hard stuff happens.

Jillian Wright:

This is the unplanned versus unexpected, right? We know that climate change is here, and how do we plan for the unexpected as we move forward? And hold the tension too, that people are going to be impacted in all different ways. We don't see all the layers of that. How do we help build in support for the unseen as we move in this ever-changing climate space?

Tim Cynova:

Jenna and Jillian, it's always a pleasure to be in conversation with you two, hear how you're thinking about specific topics related to values-centered workplace design, and exploring and inventing new approaches. Thank you so much for your inspiration and ideating today, and thanks so much for being on the podcast.

Jenna Ringelheim:

Thanks, Tim.

Jillian Wright:

Thanks so much.

Tim Cynova:

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