Transcript: Panel discussion from Mental Health Exploration Kickoff

In our latest podcast episode, Maureen talks with Penelope Bustamante, Scott Garka, CPA, Monica Dalwadi, CPA and Dylan Hendrickson from our Mental Health Exploration Kickoff about wellness, stress and looking forward. Listen to the full podcast here.

Maureen:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Leading Forward. On today's episode, we have a special panel discussion that was recorded during our Mental Health Exploration Kickoff. Enjoy. We have four great folks on the line with us today to tell us about their experiences and what they've been wrestling with for the last 10 months. So we have Penelope Bustamante, Scott Garka, Monica Dalwadi and Dylan Hendrickson. So I want to thank them for giving us their time today, but I do want them to start off with some introductions. So you know, a little bit about themselves, where they work their organization, and that will help you maybe have a sense of their perspective. So I'll start off with Penny. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Penny.

Penny:
Thank you for having me on the panel. So I'm the Chief Operating Officer at an accounting firm in Norfolk, Wall, Einhorn & Chernitzer, P.C. And I've only been here a couple of years, but I've been in the industry in this role for over 14. So I'm, I've worked with a bunch of different organizations, either through consulting or through actually being COO and I've seen a lot of changes in the industry, so. Awesome. Great. Thanks Scott.

Scott:
Good morning. And thank you for having me on the panel. So my name is Scott Garka. I'm the President of CultureWorks. We're a nonprofit in Richmond focused on strengthening artists and arts and cultural organizations to drive a greater impact in the community. Prior to coming to culture works, I spent 20 plus years in public accounting as well as in industry at capital one. We've got a small team of four folks at CultureWorks and I think we'll leave it at that for now.

Maureen:
Penny, how many people do you have at your firm

Penny:
At this firm? We're about 75 to 80. Okay.

Maureen:
75, one location,?

Penny:
One location.

Maureen:
Okay, great. Monica.

Monica:
Happy New Year everyone. I'm Monica Dalwadi and I'm the DC Metro region, managing partner for Baker, Tilly, and I've been at the film for the past 17 years and in the profession for about 20 years. I have 400 people in my DC region and we have 4,500 nationally. So I know I'll have a different perspective than some of the others on the call. And I used to serve on the board of the Washington improv theater. So it's got, I'm very curious to see how arts and culture will come into this conversation.

Dylan:
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for having me glad to be here. My name is Dylan Hendrickson. I'm an assurance associate with Dixon Hughes Goodman in Richmond, Virginia. I started at DHG on November 30th. So I've been here for just about a month and a half coming up on two months now. So did the whole onboarding process during the pandemic completely remote? So that's unique experience. I just recently finished up my master's at VCU to get the credits for the CPA exam. So right now I'm in the middle of, you know, studying, taking my CPA exams. I just recently passed the first one. So I'm moving on to the next three. So looking forward to finishing that up sometime soon.

Maureen:
Give, give Dylan a big, thank you, Monica. I want to start off with you when we were preparing for this presentation. You said that the last 10 months have taught me more leadership lessons than all of your, your business school training, all your leadership training. Tell us a little bit what you mean about that and maybe how it relates to the mental health of your team.

Monica:
Absolutely. and, and I'll start off, Stephanie, you did such an excellent job of sharing something, you know, personal at the beginning of, well during her session and in the beginning of this whole morning here. And it was seven years ago when my son was born and I developed Bell's palsy. So half of my face paralyzed couldn't speak, couldn't hardly eat. Speaking was definitely a challenge. And you, you wonder through that, like how can you get through a mental health type of issue when you're trying to deal with the physical element, as well as how this impacts everything that you work with.

Monica:
And I thought that would be an exceedingly challenging time period. And it was, but when I look at this past year and the confluence of events from everybody going remote to racial equity issues to a coup on attempted to coup on the government, I mean, this is an area where every single dynamic that I can think of has been thrown in to the workforce when we're not actually together in a way to connect. And so finding a way to keep that connection alive. Interesting, and also maintain your mental health is the reason that I made that comment because we're trying to find a way to bring people together when they can't be there, keep it engaging, perform challenging, work for our clients in an environment they haven't been in as well. And how do you do so? And so I look forward to talking more about that.

Maureen:
Right? Right. Great. So how Monica, just to follow up on that quickly, how would you say the mental health of your team is, do you have a way that you would describe it right now?

Monica:
It, it really depends on the level within the organization. I'm seeing partners, senior managers, directors who were on the road all the time or at events in the evening. And in the early mornings, they've embraced a little bit about this challenging time that they're in and they've embraced the fact that they get to spend some more time with family, that they can spend some more time on their health. They've got the means to buy themselves their Pelotons times and other equipment so that they can be able to have that really focus exercise during this time period. But when I look at our staff folks like Dylan that have to onboard themselves in a completely virtual environment, they were looking at work as a place to have a social connection, as well as a fulfilling place for career-related growth.

Monica:
It's so it's so challenging from that front. And so what we're trying to do is really focus our efforts and activities as much as we can on those that need the support more and figuring out a way for those less experienced professionals to have a connection and to work to their colleagues, to see for each of them, do they have their own Doris? Do they have somebody that they're talking to a family member, friends, a network, if not, how can work, help, support and be that network.

Maureen:
Right. Right. Great. So Scott, you obviously have a much smaller team. So how, how are you, how would you describe the state of your, your team?

Scott:
I think like many folks like me personally, it's mixed and it depends on the day, honestly, I in, you know, so in, in the nonprofit space, we talk a lot about how we need to take care of ourselves because in nonprofits and, and I think this is true in business as well. It's, it's, it's not just a marathon. It has been sprint after sprint, after sprint in the last year. You know, of first it was, there's a pandemic let's figure out how do we, you know, the classic phrase pivot and do, you know, ha and make sure we continue to meet the needs of the community. And then it's the black lives matter movement and the riots in Richmond particularly and then again, how do we meet the needs of the community there? So it, each one of those has had its own change group and now the events of last week.

Scott:
And so just, it, it's a, it's a roller coaster as it is for all of us. However, I think the, the thing that the team has going for it is that we've been able to be focused on helping other folks. And, and so we've done my team has done a tremendous job of meeting the needs of the community that we're serving. And I think they take great pride in that. They take great pleasure in that, and that helps offset a lot of the stress when, when they're able to see, okay, we are doing really good things, we're making a difference. And that makes it all worth it. I think they're, they're able to focus on that more than, than the negative emotions and feelings, but we're able to also talk about those negative things too. So I was thrilled last week when frankly, I was like, wait, I have to go talk about emotional wellbeing at a, at a seminar next week.

Scott:
And I would say late last week, we were at, at a lowest point where it felt like yet another thing. But I was thrilled when on, on Thursday, one of my team members put out an email to our whole, our whole team of four saying, Hey, I'm feeling really uncomfortable and upset about what's going on. I bet others of you are too. If anybody wants to talk, just give me a call. And, and that was after several times where I've done that with my team. I hadn't done that yet with them. And I was, I was thrilled that they felt comfortable enough in our environment. And they've said later how much they appreciate what a supportive team we have. So you know, I think where long answer to your question, sorry, if I'm rambling. But overall I'd say we're, we're having a, having a difficulty as everyone else's, but also finding ways to work through it.

Maureen:
Right? One thing that stood out to me, what you just said is the nature of your organization has a very clear mission and could be inspiring. And I think that is something that we all need right now. And, you know, especially the folks in public accounting where I'm guessing it could just feel like a grind is to keep talking about, well, what is that mission? Why are we here? Who are we helping have you and I'll open this up to know penny, Dillon, Monica, have you been having those conversations about what is our mission and why, why are we sticking through this?

Penny:
Yeah, my, my partners are definitely having those kinds of conversations and talking about, you know, we know our purpose and w and why we're doing what we're doing, but how we bring that to life. And, and is that purpose really going down through everything we do and what we're expecting of our people and how we're reacting to the pandemic. So those are really honest conversations that they're definitely having around that executive level table it's been, and, and they're repeatedly looking for feedback and input from the employees as well, which I think is so important to have them be part of how we're navigating it and not just a top down parental, almost like, you know, dictation of how we're going to be responding to the changes in the environment. So that's been, been really exciting to see.

Maureen:
Right. Great. Any other comments on the purpose, that connection?

Monica:
It's just, it's been amazing to me. We've really, you know, continued to shift the dialogue in that area. And we had one particular large engagement where over 250 people were helping on it. And so we went back to everyone and I talked to them about the importance of the work, the impact it was having on people's day-to-day lives for what we were doing with what you could just view as a compliance type of activity. And for some of the people that really went above and beyond, they were, you know, onsite in a remote area for months on end. We gave them some monetary awards and it told me how much it spoke to them, the mission and purpose of what they're doing, where they turned around and donated the monies that they got back to this community that they were helping and supporting. And that's when, you know, you're like, okay, we're making a difference.

Maureen:
That's amazing. That's amazing. Wow. I Think that, that's a, that's a great message that they heard it from you, and then they heard it so deeply. They appreciated that recognition, but then they were able to give back that's. That's awesome. I'd like to Dylan, just for a second, you know, you've, you've started a new job you're studying for the CPA exam. That's stressful in a normal time. What are you experiencing right now? How are, how are you getting through this? How are you taking care of yourself? What what's, what's going on?

Dylan:
Yeah. So yeah, like you said, I, I just started a new position about a month and a half ago. I just finished up school at the end of August and started studying for my first CPA exam. I'm, I'm sure a lot of people around my age were just out of school and trying to get the same thing done might have a similar schedule as mine, but I'm hoping it's not too crazy. For example, for me, I get up at like 5:00 AM every morning and start studying until I work around eight or eight 30. And then, you know, this being busy season at the same time, I have to put in anywhere from 50 to 55 hours per week. So yeah, it's really just for me, what kind of gets me through it is definitely just staying organized. I know now that we're completely remote it's, it's kind of weird to think about it, but once we first went remote work, almost slowed down a little bit just to have that learning curve for everyone, but it seems like now the pace of work has almost accelerated since everything that you would ever need to get your work done is right there on your computer, through a client portal or in your email.

Dylan:
So you're almost expected to be able to get work done faster. And in order to do that, I've found that you have to be extremely organized. So I make sure to take advantage of all the technology I can. I use this app called Trello, if anyone's familiar with it, it's almost like a a note board, you know, a task board. I set up my tasks and all of my engagements that I work on just step-by-step I walk them through every little detail. So I find that staying organized saves me time so that I have more time to study by getting my work done quicker. And if I have more time to study and I'm more efficient with that, then I have more time to take care of myself. I I'm fortunate to live right next to the the canal downtown exa Costa Del Barco, like Shockoe bottom area. So I try to get out and walk along the canal as much as possible. So yeah, just trying to focus on myself, trying to get exercise, get outside, get some fresh air really helps, but above all, just staying organized. That's what I found has helped me the most.

Speaker 1:
That's, that's great. I think that keeping that, that mental kind of control, it seems to be what, what, what you're hearing. So for the, for the others, how are you personally handling the situation? What are you personally doing to, to stay that mentally fit even leader that, that your folks need? So Scott, what are you doing?

Scott:
You know, so I was on from the earlier segment and Stephanie talked about the analogy of take care of yourself before you can take care of others. And that's a mantra that I, that I live by. And so for me, it's been carving out time on my calendar to exercise and come heck or high water. I'm gonna I'm gonna make sure I find time to get my exercise in at least three times a week. And, but that's also come, and this is something that I've gotten better at during the pandemic is saying no to people when they ask for meetings during those times I don't make excuses for it. I'm just not available. And so, so that's been one of the biggest things. The other thing is I'm a very, very social person.

Scott:
And I, during the, when the pandemic first started, I started reaching out to friends and saying, Hey, let's go for a walk in the neighborhood and be safe about it. And, and spend time on the back patio when the weather was nicer it was a lot easier. I find to, to stay healthy emotionally when I'm able to connect with others. And it was easier to do that when the weather was nicer, the cold weather's made that harder, but we're still finding ways to get around a fire pit and be safe. During those times I also started a new exercise routine. My wife and daughter got me into yoga. And that has been excellent. I find myself missing it now, when I can't do that at least once a week.

Speaker 1:
Yeah. Yeah. I love when people say I can't do yoga because I'm not flexible. It's like, well, that's the point. Right. Great Penny. What about you? What have you been doing?

Penny:
Oh, definitely before the pandemic. I didn't really give myself a lot of permission to even acknowledge that I felt stress. Right. So now with this, you have no choice, but to do so I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty creative, but I also am really passionate about what I'm doing. So I find a lot of the things I'm doing to manage my stress involves other members of the team. So I'll send out like 10 minute yoga videos or special you know, Simon Sineck leadership videos to the team, and we'll have little chats about it. Things like that that I like to do to sort of just keep in touch with people. And then also just sort of manage my own breathing, just taking a minute to breathe. And, you know, something Scott said is so important now that we're working from home, the, the lines blur about when you shouldn't shouldn't be should or should not be available, you know, and, and as a leader in the firm, if I make myself available 24 seven, that sets an expectation on the other is that they should be too. And I don't want that. So setting those boundaries, you know, is really important. Right, right.

Maureen:
Monica, what are some of the specific things your firm has done to maybe help with those boundaries or help with flexible flexibility? What, tell us about some of the clear actions that you all have implemented?

Monica:
Sure. Happy to share a couple of different things throughout the year. We've implemented disconnect days. These are days when everybody in the firm is off they're traditionally days that are, might be slower in the year. So it could happen during 4th of July week, but you don't have any pressure that your partner or your CEO or anybody is going to be messaging you. Everybody's going to be off and we're encouraging everyone to take the day off. So it's not that always on culture. We've also implemented what we're calling us silver linings program. This has, and because we're a large firm, you can put this out to everybody, but there's, you know, chair yoga that you could log into for 10 minutes there's comedy night that you could join with your team. So you don't have to put on that event by yourself or with your team.

Monica:
It's something that you could join and talk about. There's wellness, checkups by specialists in the field that you can log into and understand what's happening. And so it's a whole host of resources of different activities that you could join. And we give people a guideline about how much to join, but based on their needs during that time period. And then we've done some care packages out to team members as well, to try to help, not just give them something that's monetary, but give them a shared experience of something that they might have. So if it's a whole host of different types of foods that are coming their way, it might be some fun things for them to talk about. And that doesn't mean that they need to be on Zoom to talk about those things.

Speaker 1:
Right. Right. So speaking of Zoom, we're all on it right now. And, you know, I think a new phrase that we all have in our culture now is the Zoom fatigue. Have any of you experienced that in your work

Penny:
For sure. I mean, I think it takes, it's a whole, it's a whole different level of interaction when your teams are zooming with someone because you're focused on looking at their face. It's like, when you're standing around the water cooler and lunch or something, you don't have that intense, like face to face constantly. And, and it can be, it can be tiring. And I think our, from like a lot of other organizations in the beginning, we were big on like the, you know, the weekly happy hours and the murder mysteries and all those things. And it was great and it still is, but you get, after a while, you'd see the participation sort of dwindle, you know, and then, and then it needed to shift to different kinds of things. I think something that Dylan was talking about earlier really struck me where, you know, he has different avenues for engagement and participation. And so, you know, doing that through zoom, finding ways to do that, it's been really, really interesting to be able to do.

Maureen:
Yeah. Yeah. Dylan, what about, what about you and your, do you have any technology fatigue or zoom fatigue and what have you done about it?

Dylan:
Yeah, I'm coming into my new role. There was a bit of a learning curve for new technology. So that I wouldn't say it gets a bit exhausting. It's just, you know, coming from one job to another. And luckily we, we I, we use Microsoft teams, which I'm familiar with zoom, I'm sure everyone's familiar with, but the new software I had to learn was CaseWare, I'm sure a lot of people use that. It's seeing it for the first time. It can be a little overwhelming, just because there's so many like tiny details. But it went fine as far as zoom. I don't have too many zoom calls per day. So I'm, I'm kind of fortunate on that end. But I mean, I like seeing everyone's face once in a while. I know for example, my girlfriend, who I live with, she gets on zoom calls all the time, but everyone on her call is just no one turns their camera on and it's not, they're not I don't want to say forced to, but the management doesn't ask them to, they're allowed to just keep their camera off.

Dylan:
I think for us, usually we like to see everyone's face and be able to, you know, put a face of voice you're hearing, make it seem like you're connecting with people instead of just looking at a bunch of black boxes talking to you.

Scott:
I definitely feel that that, that zoom fatigue uncertain days, like it just before the holidays, it was getting really intense. And then I took a week off and felt much better than quickly in January. It came back. I find changing, changing scenery helps me incredibly to overcome that. And just if it means walking outside for five minutes between zoom meetings you know, and, and scheduling it that way, it's all for me, it's all about the calendar. And so like, I, I don't let people book me back to back to back to back. I've got to have a time in their work and look away from my screen, listen to some music, do something to clear my head.

Monica:
A lot, a couple of strategies I've learned. If you click the little three dots next to the mute button, you can hit hide self view. I've read somewhere that 20% zoom fatigue comes from just looking at yourself the entire time. It's like, you're looking in a mirror all day. And so hide yourself view. So you don't have to worry about that. You wouldn't do that on a conference call. And then for every 20 or so minutes, you're on zoom. Just look away, let your eyes take a rest. And then I also have started doing with our team some connection before content. So if you were getting together in person for a meeting, you'd have some small talk. And so I asked people to do small things, like pick up something from your home and tell us about it that we wouldn't know about you. Maybe we wouldn't know that you're so religious that you read the Bible every night or that you collect a stamps or something like that. And so we can get a chance to really get to know one another and try to use zoom for some good in the conversation as well.

Maureen:
I have to agree with you on the the self view. You know, it's like, okay, if I've never about my hair so much, since we've been on sale, it's ridiculous.

Penny:
Maureen, I want to just share something that my organization is doing because it might help other accounting firms do something similar. One of our senior managers here had this great idea where, because we were feeling zoom fatigue, but we wanted to stay connected. So what our managers and supervisors are, are going to start to do, or are some already have been doing is when they, when they're doing their daily work, they'll connect them on teams with one of the staff or seniors and just have them shadow, share their screen. They're not looking at each other's space and they're just shadowing and explaining what they're doing in their normal daily work and taking them through different bits. And it's been nice. It's like, they're kind of watching from their shoulder, but you're getting that connection that you ask them some questions it's sort of helping, you know, it wouldn't help.

Penny:
It's supposed to help replace that, like organic in the office, walk up to somebody, sit next to them and show them. So that's something that might be, might be useful to others.

Maureen:
I've heard about, I've heard of different versions of that. And it's kind of what someone described it as that shoulder to shoulder training, where I'm not, you know, taking you through a course, but it's like just that shared experience. And I think it's in the more so in the it area that I had heard about it, where people are just jumping on a call and they're just working. They're not really there to have a conversation, but it's like, okay, we're in a conference room together and Hey, I need to shout this out to ask you a question. And that, that just sounded strange to me, but it also brought me to the realization of how that the, the missing connections that everyone's having are we're finding creative ways to, to help with that.

Scott:
One other thing our team is doing. I agree with everything everyone's sharing, by the way. One of the things our team is doing is we had a tendency early on when, when we'd get on a zoom meeting, we would start with the business at hand and kind of jump into that. And, and, and then when the meeting's over, you know, the zoom call ends and everyone's gone, you don't have any of that before and after our conversation. And so we started allowing really encouraging the five minutes of before the meeting starts, let's just talk to each other. And one thing that one of my board chairs did once upon a time at in-person board meetings was she had a habit of really weird questions. And she would just pass it around the room. And like between each segment of the board meeting, somebody would draw from the hat and people would answer it. And so we've started trying to do some of that just to get interesting conversation, going, get to note, continuing to get to know what's going on in people's lives. It's just been really helpful.

Maureen:
Dylan, how have you gotten to know your teammates, your new year new colleagues?

Dylan:
It kinda sucks to say, but I haven't gotten the chance to really get to know them. You know, there's, you can't really get to know someone over a few zoom meetings like you can person. It's kind of crazy. The, the office for the firm is two blocks away from me down the street in the the James center. So I could go into the office if I really wanted to, but no one's there. So I am really looking forward to dating back in there. So I could finally in person meet my colleagues and managers and partners. I think that would be, you know, the time where we can really bonding it to know each other. It's kind of unfortunate that we have to go for however many months it's going to be before we can get back in there and meet each other. But there's a few select people like my seniors or managers who I work with a lot. And, you know, we've been on zoom calls for like hours at a time over the last few weeks. So I've gotten to know a few people pretty well, but I haven't gotten to know a lot of people.

Maureen:
One of the things that so the onboarding, it definitely is a new experience. How, how can you speak to that?

Dylan:
Yeah. So this was my first time. I honestly never thought that I would be doing a remote onboarding first time for me. And I'm sure it's been a first time for a lot of others. I think something we spoke about earlier is you know, students coming out of school and this being their very first time in the, in the working world, having their very first job completely remote. It must be a crazy feeling. But yeah, going through a remote onboarding process, it's pretty much just a few interviews over zoom. And then after I think it was like three different interviews. They really just send you everything in the mail. I, I thought I would have to take a nice little walk, a couple blocks over to pick up a laptop and all other equipment. But the next thing I know I had a knock on my door and someone gave me a giant box full of my laptop, a book bag monitors, travel, monitors, keyboards. So I think they really have it down to a science at this point. So I wouldn't say it's difficult, but I can definitely understand how someone having this be their very first job in the profession. It being kind of stressful.

Maureen:
Yeah. Yeah. Have you all had done much onboarding with folks in your organizations, Monica,

Monica:
We had a 40 new hires join our DC office in the December time period. And a couple of lessons we had had is, you know, in the past, you might've gone into a couple of weeks of day long trainings together in the conference room, but it was just going to be too much via zoom to do that all day long every day. So to break it up into much smaller segments that people could intake have some other work activities that they're doing, each of the teams has set up teams. And, you know, no question is too silly to be able to ask in that particular teams chat. And part of that is just check in and say, you know, I've started my day. Here's what I'm working on. If you need any help, feel free to jump in. And so you don't have to be in zoom.

Monica:
There are some people who have elected to do the shadowing as well. And, and keep their zoom rooms open. Kind of like you'd be in an audit room during the day and see how it's going. I have a check-in with all of our new hires next week to see, you know, how this has been successful or not for them. We've also heard from people that they'd like to connect outside of their teams. You know, Dylan mentioned he has a good connection with the seniors and managers, but he will likely would've met a lot of people throughout the firm had he been on site. And so we're going to try some zoom lunch bunches, where they're just fun topics. What do you want to talk about NFL? You want to talk about comedy night. You want to talk about what you're watching on Netflix and have people in the different breakout rooms we had in the first session before, and just, just have a conversation with folks about different areas that are interesting to them.

Monica:
Yeah. Yeah. Penny, what's been your experience with your, your crews onboarding?

Penny:
Similar to Monica where we're, you know, we're doing a lot of it, most, all of it virtual. If we can, we had an opportunity to bring in our group, we have summer was the first time we had a whole virtual intern class and now we have another one now that just started. You know, and, and if we have the ability to bring them in for a day, we will we have a big enough spot that we can social distance, but but it's pretty much all virtual and the same thing, making sure that they're engaged both. You know, they're, they're learning that they're getting to meet people that they're also understanding the culture, which I know is a big thing. Right? How do you get your culture? How do you bring out your culture virtually? And it's not just games, culture, isn't just games. It's how you do your work and how you make decisions and how you do rewards and how you give performance and feedback. And so all of that is tied into, we, we have a talent and engagement coordinator here. Who's worked hard to really revamp the entire onboarding experience and make sure all of those, those pieces are involved in it.

Maureen:
Right. Penny, one of the things that I remember we were talking about when we were preparing was just the, the employee benefits and the benefit package and how this wellness and mental health emphasis may influence that in the future. Could you tell us more about what you're thinking or what you're seeing?

Penny:
Yeah, sure. I mean, I think, you know, in the past I think our company, as well as many others, I talk to how to sort of approach benefits is like, okay, well, here's your 401k, here's your health benefits. Here's like these tangible items. Right. but there's so much more than that. I mean, there's also the effort to ensure that the benefits that your organization has continues during the pandemic. What I mean by that is things like you know, we have a virtual doctor now, right? So like through our health plan. So promoting that and promoting that health aspect of it even like the stability of like, we didn't have salary reductions, we continued with our bonuses and PR and promotions this year, and like communicating that out to help reduce stress and anxiety around that, which also helps with mental health. You know, just things like that. And along with the actual benefits and also encouraging younger staff who maybe didn't have their CPA license yet to, to go get it, making sure that they're getting extra CPE if it's available. So they can again have another outlet to stay engaged and staying mentally healthy. So those are some of the things that, that we've been working on that I've heard other firms working on as well.

Maureen:
Right. Right. I know that flexibility is one of the, when you just read about what do people care about in their, in their work world. And this was before the pandemic was flexibility. And, but you see companies don't put that in there previously would not be anywhere in there kind of benefits or here's some of the things that we will offer when, you know, they, they would, might start off with the 401k when some people now is that flexibility is, is even more, more so than ever right.

Penny:
Maureen don't you think that people now are, are, I mean, I'm finding with our employees there, how, what they want to do for work and how they want to work is shifted in their mind. Now they know they can work differently. And so organizations have to respond and flexibility as part of that. So,

Monica:
Some unique that types of benefits, one that you might not think of, but it's become so important during the pandemic pet insurance that we offer to our team members, because so many of them have you know, adopted or taken in some new, a furry friends to keep them company during this time period and having that ability to properly take care of those pets has been so important.

Maureen:
The pet puppies or the, the COVID pets that we're seeing everyone have. So you've added pet insurance. Wow. That's really interesting. Kind of maybe connecting what with the onboarding, you know, the, what would happen after the onboarding and down the road is the performance reviews. And I think that a lot of folks are that's anxiety inducing for a lot of people from the get-go. But maybe just wondering how, how is my work perceived? How do you think I'm doing? And then also, what types of questions do you want your, your managers and supervisors to be asking? How, how has the performance review changed for you, Monica?

Monica:
We've specifically asked people to ask questions about this time period and the impact on their schedule, their ability to meet client deadlines, what other needs they might have during this time period, ensuring everyone knows about our employees assistance programs and how to tie into them. In this past year, we've implemented a whole new system called quantum. I get no benefit from mentioning them, but I think it's a phenomenal system that helps us to very quickly perform evaluations, receive feedback, get feedback, and track how people are doing and where they might need some additional assistance.

Maureen:
Right. Right. Any, anything unique at Dylan's?

Dylan:
Yeah. Sorry, one thing I just wanted to piggyback off that. I think one thing that's definitely a little more challenging in the remote environment is the process of either giving or receiving or even just asking for feedback. I think it's a lot less now that there's no in-person contact and I think, you know, new hires people coming right at a school, even me, for example, it kind of seems like going down the road while we're still in this, a work from home environment, our performance is just going to be based off a few numbers that are populated on management spreadsheet. And there's not really a whole lot of what's the word, like non metric type things that are being used to evaluate performance. You know, I think being sociable with your coworkers and clients is a big part of the public accounting industry, being able to connect with your clients. And I think, you know, just working remote and kind of makes that makes that area a little more gray and a little more fuzzy because what you're being evaluated on is just, you know, numbers and certain hours that you put in. So I think feedback is definitely something that, that might be an ongoing issue.

Maureen:
Yeah. Penny, any comments on, on that topic?

Penny:
I mean, I definitely agree with everything that's been said and Dylan, your insights also, so great. I'd love to hear, you know, to hear the new staff insight as well. I think something that we were is important to remember is as Dylan said, a lot of times with accounting firms, you look at things like billable hour goals, right. Which is great and it's important and it keeps the farm going. But at the same time, how is what they're doing, how is what each person doing tying back to the strategy, the core values and the culture. And you can do that. You can have that as part of the discussion. And there are some metrics you can put around that whether they're tangible or intangible metrics there's definitely, you know, having that conversation and helping people understand their contribution to the success of the firm is really important, especially now when we're so disconnected, physically, our community is so like disbanded right now,

Maureen:
Scott you are a team of four. So you know, a lot of these may be big firm benefits or structures don't really apply potentially. What do you think that as a, as a small organization, CEO has been important or what you would want other small association or small organization CEOs to think about as far as leadership right now?

Scott:
I think it's, it's still important to show your employees that they're valued and that that's something that nonprofits I've always struggled with is not, not being able to offer the same benefits that many of the large companies do. But it's about showing that you value your employees. And so for me, we talked earlier about flexibility. That's been really critical and being able to grant that flex flexibility to our teams used to be a nice selling point for nonprofits that we had that everyone else did. And so I'm nervous now that we all are gonna gonna start running with the flexibility thing, but the so I think being flexible and being being authentic with your teams has been really vital for me. Like just sharing where I'm at in the midst of all this has opened up a lot of conversation among the team.

Scott:
And, and back on the topic of performance reviews. And I'll say I had every intention of doing performance reviews this year, but, but flexibility came back into play again where, you know, we're all trying to figure out how to get our jobs done in this new environment. And there came a time where I couldn't ask my team to do their own self-assessments because they also had all these other things going on. And so we chose to defer those for a little while. Not, not ideal, but we also have a lot of real-time feedback as well. And so to me that that's been important before, after, before, during and after this is the importance of real-time feedback in the moment and as we're all doing our jobs.

Maureen:
Right, right, right. I, when we were kicking off Monica, you mentioned that your w what was it, your comedy improv or that it used to be on the board of the Washington improv theater on you straight downtown. So, you know, your your question about how our arts playing into the, the stress and the quality of life. I know that I love to go see plays love the opera, love a lot of things that I'm like, gosh, hi, I'm really missing that stuff. It's not the same. Just dropping into the, the streaming performance. It is that, that community experience, I believe. So, Scott, how, how are you seeing that play out in the community, how arts are impacting people's wellbeing.

Scott:
Wow. I'm thrilled to hear y'all everyone talked about that. The, so it is different. I, I'm an actor and a singer too. I'm one of those weird right. Brain and left brain folks. And I, I tell ya, performing arts in particular has been hit the hardest and all that, because we can't have audiences like we used to. But I think there's still a great opportunity personally. I've been leveraging everyone that I can find in terms of some of the virtual stuff is really helpful still to take a moment and enjoy what we used to enjoy. Yeah. It's a little bit different. But it's still helpful. Enrichment, there are still some in-person things. There was a theater company called firehouse theater company that did a live show in October. And they did one back in may.

Speaker 3:
They were both, one person shows, one was a one man show and other, it was a one woman show. So if you're able and comfortable that there are still some in-person opportunities to go out and safely enjoy some arts and culture and quick plug at our, our website, we have a free arts and culture calendar where we highlight in-person and virtual events separately. So you can see what you're interested in. I encourage everyone to check that [email protected]. And so it's, it's been a matter of just choosing to find those moments where you can interact with the arts. I think also I've seen a lot of creativity on social media. There was one group that it was a group of roommates who were an actor, a writer, and a musician, I think. And I can't remember the fourth and they've started doing what they called quarantine theater, and that started about two weeks into the pandemic. And it was really entertaining. So some really great creativity out there encouraged folks to in your own communities look, look for where, where things are still happening.

Monica:
I love that creativity element of what I'm on the board of conscious capitalism, DC. And one of the other board members is a restaurant owner. And so he hosts drive in movie nights where they all deliver your whole meal to your car. And you could also do the whole experience virtually and be able to have the meal order to your house. And I just thought it was phenomenal because like this cat box has been going crazy, the whole session. It's a whole different movie experience when you're, real-time giving people feedback on what you're seeing and how you're seeing it. And so that creativity of how do I keep my business going and still give people experiences that are meaningful, I think is so important right now.

Maureen:
Right, right now, I think it's, I think the, the big fallback that we have had a lot of us is the exercise is important, but there are those other parts of our, our spirit that we need that help us with our wellness. And, you know, I saw several in the chat of liking to dance or, you know, the singing. So it's definitely the release that maybe we're missing out of, but we can ease back into on to help with that.

Scott:
I will say, I will encourage everyone to think about how important that is to you right now. Because those organizations are struggling as businesses. And so we have got to support them now, so that they'll be there so that we can enjoy them when this is over. And there is there's high risk of a lot of these organizations. A lot of these are smaller organizations that are on a shoestring budget. So I encourage you to get out and support your arts and cultural organizations now, so that we can enjoy the later.

Maureen:
Right. Kind of similar to the restaurants who it's hard to tell what will be left when we are able to get out and about. So we have about less than five minutes left, and I just wanted to hear about some silver linings that you have had for this. So, Dylan, do you have any silver linings from the past 10 months?

Dylan:
I would say in my, you know, life of grinding on my 2020, although it's been horrible, I've had some definite milestones for myself. Finished school, passed my first CPA exam. I got a new job, I think, you know, looking back to it and being so isolated during during a quarantine and even still to this day, working at home 10 hours a day, 10 hours plus I think, I don't want to say little things, but just things like that. Excuse me. Just, you know, help me remind myself that I'm pushing forward in the right direction. So once this pandemic's over and then get back to real life, I can hopefully pick up in a good spot for myself and get back to it.

Maureen:
I can't even imagine to see what you're going to issue non pandemic because you've done pretty darn well so far. Penny, what about you? Any silver linings for you personally or your friends?

Penny:
Yeah, I mean, I think as an organization, there's a lot of wisdom that came out of the chaos this year and, you know, we'll be able to really made some really bold choices and some were successful in some weren't, but, you know, I just think we really learned how to be resilient and how do we want to move forward differently in the future.

Maureen:
Great. What about you, Scott?

Scott:
There's been a lot of positive that there was a lot of fear, but out of that came this, these amazing things we had, we created a relief fund for artists. That was absolutely tremendous. We helped over 180 artists so far and 20 organizations that never would have happened without the pandemic. And personally, I think discovering how important personal time with family and friends really is, and being able to make those choices. That's some of the stuff that, you know, already I'm missing the walks with friends back in the summertime. And so I hope that some of those patterns shift permanently.

Monica:
As an organization, I think silver linings are how much technology we were able to put in place in such a short time, our commitment to diversity, not just saying that we're pro diversity, but saying we're an anti-racist organization and we're going to do things that anti-racist organizations do. Personally that commitment to health, I ran a 10 K zero didn't think I would be able to do that. The ability to spend so much time with family, I had my children over the break write down what would their perfect day look like in a COVID environment. And, and they took poster board and they created their perfect day and we executed upon their perfect days. And that'll be a memory that they have, and we have through this time period that I think is very special.