The Power of Giving Space and Freedom to Process
Episode Notes
Nicole shares a touching story of returning to work after a short maternity leave. With all of the emotional pressure many new mothers go through when adapting to this new normal of motherhood and full time work, many leaders struggle to lead well. Hear how Nicole’s manager worked with her during this emotional time.
About the Guest
Nicole Thompson
VP of Talent Engagement
Circana
Nicole is a Global HR leader passionate about connecting people and business strategies to help companies thrive. She’s known for helping simplify the complex and creating exceptional employee experiences driven by culture, innovation, and inclusiveness. An energetic leader of high-performing teams in talent management, and organizational design and development, Nicole is also an expert in leading transformations, using human-centered design to reimagine services, technology, and solutions.
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I'm really looking forward to chatting, chatting with Nicole Thompson about human first and empathetic leadership.
0:32
Nicole is a V P of talent enablement at the at Scana, a wonderful human being and we were just catching up somebody who I haven't seen in a while, but we both worked together at Orbits worldwide when it was just Orbits before it became part of Expedia, Nicole.
0:45
Welcome to the show and thanks for joining us.
0:48
Thank you so much Paul.
0:51
So tell us a little bit about V P of talent enablement.
0:54
What does that mean?
0:55
What do you do?
0:56
And Scana, what is Scana?
0:58
Yeah, sure.
0:59
So, so is a brand new company.
1:02
It is a merger between I R I and the N P D group.
1:06
So we specialize in really bringing data and technology to C P G companies, manufacturers, retailers to help them use data to make a decision.
1:17
So we're about two weeks in and here I lead the, it's called talent enablement.
1:22
Think of it, everything within the employee experience, how we help make everyone's day better and brighter coming to work.
1:30
So I do a lot of work around individual development and a lot around leadership development and really making sure that we've got the best talent and that they are happy and healthy and it's a great place for them to work.
1:43
It's such an important thing.
1:44
I was talking to somebody yesterday.
1:47
And how interesting it's been post pandemic, that development of employees and employee happiness and engagement has become kind of a forefront like the the pandemic has kind of subsided now and this is companies and leaders are talking so much about this and leaders I think are a part of how you keep employees engaged.
2:06
If you don't have a great leader, you're probably not as engaged and not as productive.
2:11
So can you talk to us about your human first, your empathetic leadership story that, that you have to tell us today?
2:19
Of course.
2:20
So my story started 10 years ago.
2:23
So I am a mom and 10 years ago, I was having my first child and it was a really interesting time.
2:31
It was the beginning of my career and this was before work from home, this was before flexible working.
2:38
And it was also before a lot of the maternity and paternity leave were making advancements in that space.
2:45
So my my maternity leave was six weeks.
2:49
And when you think about being a new mom, I had a lot of time to go through having a baby and coming back to work and my husband and I, we were a two income family.
3:00
And so I needed to come back to work as soon as possible.
3:03
I didn't have the luxury of spending a lot of time away from work.
3:08
So I came back to work at eight weeks after my daughter and it was really hard, it was a really big struggle.
3:16
And at that time, I didn't have a lot of language to talk about it.
3:21
I was really focused on not letting motherhood impact my career.
3:25
I wanted to come back and show that I could just get into everything and be back right where I was.
3:30
But I was really struggling physically and mentally, it was really hard, hard and I came back to a new position and was just really having a hard time stepping back into work and had to take a lot of time off to be with my daughter, you know, had a day care colds and all of those types of things.
3:50
And I had an amazing leader who really gave me grace and flexibility and coaching to not put so much pressure on myself to allow myself to find space and to find time to figure out this new normal.
4:08
And she really, we never really talked about it, right.
4:11
We never talked about my work or me being a new mom, but she gave me that space and that freedom to really just try to process and to be able to come back to work and focus on work when I was there, but also be able to step away and focus on my life when I needed to.
4:29
And it was at a time when I had other leaders in the same position who were not extending that grace, who really were questioning if I was a high performer, if I could really work and be a mom at the same time.
4:43
And this leader, Amy just, I hadn't worked with her before.
4:47
She was a new boss to me after I came back from maternity leave.
4:51
And I'm so grace, grateful and gracious to her this day because she helped me see I could find balance and I could have both.
5:00
And allowed me to continue my career to do the things that I'm doing today.
5:03
So, so thankful to her.
5:06
Shout out big shout out to Amy.
5:09
It, the story pains me.
5:12
It's a great story.
5:14
But I think that could even happen in today's world which is so wrong.
5:20
You know, I the pandemic, it was interesting, I think for all of us in a variety of ways, hr folks, probably more so than other people.
5:29
And I started to talk about, you know, we talked about work life and you mentioned work, life and balancing, kind of juggling all those things, being a mom and a wife and a friend and like a A V P of talent enablement, whatever the role is.
5:42
And it, it's tough and it's all, to me, it's all just life now.
5:45
work is just a subset of it.
5:47
And like I am a big workplace flexibility fan, I am a big let people choose fan.
5:57
I kind of take on some companies on linkedin about this, returned to force return to office stuff.
6:01
But, but the bottom line is if somebody is and to your point, if you can do the job and you can produce good work unless you're a Starbucks barista, somebody in a retail like, you know, I, I, I completely get this doesn't apply but in a role like yours, if you can get it done, does it make a difference if you get it done after 10 years ago, after your, your baby went down at six o'clock and you were, you know, plowing through stuff from 7 to 10 and then going to sleep and making sure you were ready for the morning and whatever that entails.
6:32
Does it make a difference if somebody is taking care of older parents because that's becoming a, a more normalized thing?
6:40
Now.
6:41
and they're, you know, offline for a couple of hours.
6:43
It does, it really make a difference when you do the work.
6:47
And that's why, like, I think I want people to choose and, or where you do the work, like, if somebody wants to go into an office, that's great.
6:54
But other, other folks with, with families and with Children or with other needs or other, you know, pressures don't, if they don't need to go in to do good work.
7:03
Does it really make a difference?
7:04
And I think that's, you know, the again, shout out to Amy for understanding without maybe making you uncomfortable and talking about it because I do think it's interesting that you never really talked about it.
7:17
But she understood enough that and, and clearly was even though she hadn't been your leader for, I would assume, knew of you and knew of your work and used that as like, ok, this person has done this and I get, you know, they're going through something family is important.
7:37
We have one life, it can be short, it can be long we should enjoy every day.
7:43
And raising a child is such an amazing experience.
7:47
I, my husband and I have not experienced that, but I, we have nieces and nephews and grand nieces and nephews and you see kind of these little humans form and it's like, oh my gosh, like, you know, they're whip smart and everything and like you should be a part of all that.
7:58
So I, I again, this story, it hurts to listen to it.
8:03
I'm glad it happened.
8:05
I'm glad your daughter is 10.
8:08
You know, I feel I still feel old but but that, that is such an amazing story.
8:14
Thank you so much for sharing it.
8:16
I'm sure our viewers will, will get a lot out of it.
8:19
So I appreciate you.
8:20
Thanks for having me, Paul.
8:21
Absolutely.
8:22
Thanks for joining us on 52 Humans.