Rework Work

There is a question I rarely hear leaders ask.

Do you know what your lowest-paid employee actually makes?

Not their title or performance rating, but whether they can cover an unexpected expense, afford housing, or recover from a financial setback.

Most leaders don't know. Not because they don't care, but because the distance between the boardroom and that reality is rarely examined.

That distance has consequences. It shapes how employees experience leadership, how trust is built or broken, and how long people are willing to stay engaged before they quietly start looking for the door.

This is not only about pay. It is about whether leaders are willing to understand the full impact of the decisions they are making and take responsibility for what those decisions create across the organization.

Bias lives in that distance. In the assumptions we make about what people need, what they can handle, and what they deserve. In the processes, we never question because they have always worked for us.

The organizations doing this work well are not waiting for a crisis to examine that gap. They are building leaders who understand that the distance between their decisions and their employees' reality is not a management problem. It is a leadership problem.

If you are ready to take an honest look at what that distance is costing your organization, send me a message.



*Image from my visit to LinkedIn's Toronto office

People don't leave jobs. They leave managers.

Organizations track everything except whether managers are actually leading well. No standard, measurement, or accountability.

The cost shows up in your retention numbers long before it shows up anywhere else.

If this is a challenge your organization is facing, send me a message.

I keep seeing conversations framing women’s networking groups and leadership spaces as “exclusive” or unfair to men.

No.

Creating spaces where women support one another in industries and systems that have historically excluded, underpaid, overlooked, or undervalued them is not discrimination.

Women still face pay gaps. Women are still underrepresented in executive leadership.
Women are still more likely to have their expertise questioned, their communication scrutinized, and their advancement tied to standards that are often applied inconsistently.

That reality becomes even more layered for women of color, LGBTQ+ women, disabled women, older women, and women navigating multiple forms of bias at once.

So when women build networks, mentorship spaces, and communities to share knowledge, opportunities, resources, and support, that is not about exclusion. It is about survival, visibility, access, and sustainability inside systems that were not originally designed with them in mind.

We live in a society where men still hold the majority of institutional power across business, politics, finance, and leadership. A woman’s networking group does not suddenly erase that reality.

What these spaces often provide is something much simpler and much more necessary: access to people who understand the experience without requiring women to constantly justify why these conversations matter in the first place.

That is not discrimination, it’s just community.

Article: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/04/15/trump-dei-crackdown-targets-women-networking/89426934007/

Layoffs are revealing things organizations did not intend to expose.

Employees are watching executives receive retention bonuses while teams absorb double the workload. They are watching organizations praise resilience while quietly eliminating benefits, shrinking teams, and expecting fewer people to carry the same output.

People are noticing the gap between what companies say they value and what actually happens when pressure hits.

That gap matters.

Because inclusion is not tested when business is easy. It is tested when resources shrink, decisions get harder, and leadership has to decide whose stability matters most.

This is one of the reasons trust erodes so quickly after layoffs, even in organizations with strong branding and polished internal messaging.

People are not only evaluating the decision itself. They are evaluating how leadership behaved while making it.

Who was informed honestly?
Who had time to prepare?
Who was protected?
Who absorbed the consequences?

Those are leadership decisions. Not unfortunate side effects.

In Unbias: Addressing Unconscious Bias at Work, I write about how systems, policies, communication, and accountability shape employee trust far more than intention ever will.

This is not just about surviving difficult business cycles. It is about whether leadership is willing to examine what their decisions communicate to the people still left inside the organization.

That work takes strategy, alignment, and leadership accountability.

If your organization is trying to navigate this moment without losing employee trust, leadership credibility, or alignment between values and action, this work cannot stay theoretical. Unbias: Addressing Unconscious Bias at Work was written to help leaders move from intention to implementation.

For organizations ready to go deeper, this is the same work I help leadership teams strengthen through advising, strategy, and leadership development. DM me to start the conversation.

To purchase your copy of Unbias, tap the link in the bio.

A lot of professionals are realizing the job market they built their resume for no longer exists in the same way.

Layoffs, restructuring, global competition, remote work, AI screening tools, and shifting hiring practices have changed how organizations evaluate candidates. In many cases, professionals are no longer competing only locally. They are competing across cities, countries, and industries.

That means your resume has to do more than list responsibilities.

It needs to clearly communicate value, adaptability, transferable skills, and impact in a way that translates across roles, industries, and sometimes even borders.

This is one of the reasons my LinkedIn Learning course, Writing a Resume, continues to resonate with so many professionals years later. People often come into the course thinking they already know how to write a resume, only to realize how much hiring expectations and career strategy have evolved.

I also hear from professionals navigating career changes or exploring opportunities outside their home country who are trying to understand how to position themselves more competitively in a rapidly changing market.

Your resume is a communication tool, and in this economy, clarity matters.

If your resume has not been updated in years, or if you are trying to reposition yourself in today’s global workforce, now is probably the time.

Check out my LinkedIn Learning courses by clicking the link in the bio.

ICYMI: My latest Lead With Inclusion newsletter looks at the collapse of Spirit Airlines and the leadership questions underneath it.

This is not only a story about layoffs or bankruptcy. It is a story about accountability, communication, executive protections, and what employees learn about organizational values when things fall apart.

I unpack:
-Why pay gaps are also leadership signals
-How crises expose workplace design choices
-And what employees pay attention to long before trust fully breaks down

Because people are not only evaluating what leaders decide. They are evaluating who gets protected when things get hard.

🔗 Read the full newsletter by tapping the link in bio.

Companies are changing DEIA language on websites, in annual reports, and across internal communications.

Some organizations are renaming teams. Some are removing public commitments entirely. Others are hoping that if they stop saying the words, the scrutiny will stop, too.

Employees are still having the same experiences.

They still know who gets promoted and who doesn’t. They still know whose complaints get taken seriously. They still know whether leadership applies accountability consistently or selectively.

Changing the language doesn’t change the system.

This is exactly why so many organizations struggle with this work in the first place. They approach inclusion like messaging instead of operational strategy.

That’s not a communications problem. It’s a leadership problem.

In Unbias, I write about how organizations fail when they skip the foundational work of alignment, accountability, and transparency. Without that foundation, companies end up reacting to political pressure instead of building workplaces people actually trust.

If your organization is trying to navigate this moment without losing employee trust, leadership credibility, or alignment between values and action, this work cannot stay theoretical. Unbias: Addressing Unconscious Bias at Work was written to help leaders move from intention to implementation.

For organizations ready to go deeper, this is the same work I help leadership teams strengthen through advising, strategy, and leadership development.

Tap the link in my bio to work together and purchase your copy of Unbias

DEI was never about compromising merit.

It was about ending the systems that compromised it in the first place.

I said this on Minnesota Public Radio and I'll say it here: the reason the acronym became a target is the same reason affirmative action became a target in the 70s and 80s. The discourse gets so charged that we stop talking about the actual work and start debating words.

Meanwhile, the work itself is straightforward. Standardized hiring processes. Bias-free performance reviews. Benefits that actually work for people. Promotion systems that don't quietly reward proximity over performance.

That work hasn't stopped. It just needs leaders willing to do it without waiting for permission from a headline.

If your organization is navigating this moment and needs a clear, legally sound strategy that goes beyond language and actually moves the needle, that is the work I do.

One lawsuit has a lot of leaders second-guessing conversations around diversity, hiring, and inclusion.

And that uncertainty is already changing workplace behavior.

In this Lead With Inclusion newsletter, I unpack the EEOC lawsuit against the New York Times, what the law actually says, and why so many organizations are retreating from practices that are still completely legal.
I also break down:

- The difference between expanding opportunity and making decisions based on identity
- How fear reshapes leadership behavior
- And why silence creates its own organizational risks

Because right now, many leaders are not responding to legal changes. They are responding to pressure, perception, and fear of becoming the next headline.

If you are trying to lead clearly in this climate, this one is worth your time.

🔗 Tap the link in bio to read the full newsletter.

https://reworkwork.substack.com/p/wanting-diversity-isnt-discrimination

Your unconscious bias training is not the finish line.

It's not even close.

I created the #1 most-watched course on LinkedIn Learning in 2021. And I told people then what I'll say now, watching it doesn't make you unbiased. It makes you aware. Awareness is just the starting point.

The real question isn't whether bias exists in your organization. It does. The question is whether your systems are designed to catch it.

Are your hiring panels structured to reduce it? Are your performance review criteria standardized? Are you looking at who ends up on PIPs and asking why?

This is where the work actually lives. Not in a training. In the systems.

If your organization is ready to stop checking the training box and start building processes that hold up, let's talk about what that looks like for your team.