cavo

By: Tamara Sanderson

A long time ago, in a land far away, lived a Persian poet and Sufi mystic—Rumi—and while he lived eight centuries ago, his words are just as powerful today.

As they say in journalism, don’t bury the ledge, and Rumi adheres, starting this poem, The Sight of the Soul, with an insight that goes straight to the heart:

“One of the marvels of the world

Is the sight of a soul sitting in prison

By: Jacques Buffett, Certified Professional Resume Writer and Career Expert at Zety

In 2021, three words reflected the ongoing turmoil in the US labor market. The Great Resignation.

Back in 2020, everyone had hunkered down, both in their personal and work lives.

But as the winter of 2021 rolled into spring, change was in the air. A successful vaccination program gave new hope. And the prolonged period of forced introspection made many question their employment situation.

By: Sylvia Baffour, Emotional Intelligence Expert and Author of I Dare You to Care.

www.sylviaspeaks.com
2022 Fourth Quarter CAVO Visiting Virtual Expert

It’s no secret that more and more people are working remotely, and this is not just a passing trend. In fact, an Upwork survey reveals that 1 in 4 Americans will be working remotely by the end of 2021. They also predict that 36.2 million people will be working remotely by 2025, an 87% increase from pre-pandemic levels.

It’s easy for those of us working in virtual organizations to snicker at the idea of “Zoom Fatigue” and virtual meeting burnout. After all, this virtual communication environment is old hat to many of us! We were Zooming long before COVID was even a whisper on the horizon!

With the Great Resignation upon us, those in the workforce who are not resigning but who can choose where to work may opt to work remotely rather than commuting regularly to an office.

Organizations with remote work in their DNA are ahead. Among them, Gitlab and Automattic are new role models to support a remote workforce with exceptional values geared towards employees' success and well-being. Meanwhile, other companies are forcing employees to return to the office more or less subtly.

It’s relatively easy for companies to leverage virtual tools that help with instant messaging, emailing, and assigning projects. For the most part, that’s what the majority of interactions in virtual settings have become: the nuts and bolts of tasks and project assignments. That’s because this is what ensures profit is being turned and paychecks are being sent out. It came first in a physical work environment, and it continues to come first in a virtual environment as well.

Abou Kassoum O. is a Marketing & CSR, and Marketing Fundamentals Professor at the International School of Economic & Administrative Sciences (EICEA), University of La Sabana, Colombia. A business and marketing Consultant, Abou is an international speaker, trainer, coach, and author of The Habits of Successful Students. He is also the Global A-Talks & Training Manager at AIESEC Alumni International.

People who have worked globally have long understood the dynamics of working in a remote capacity. They have had the opportunity to practice over time and perfect techniques that have made them effective in working this way. We should remember that becoming proficient at something takes dedicated effort, practice, feedback, commitment, and mindfulness. All of us can raise our EI when working remotely if we take an inventory of our skills and then isolate areas for improvement. It isn’t difficult work but rather disciplined work. What will you do today to improve YOUR emotional intelligence?

Psychological safety has been a popular concept in the business press lately, particularly after the Google internal study of teams highlighted this as a key characteristic of high-performance teams. Many managers ask – how do we foster psychological safety, particularly in a virtual team? Fortunately, I interviewed a team in which psychological safety improved during the pandemic!