🍂 Septembers to Remember
Best Practices, Interviews and Culture Guides
This month, the Kindness at Work Honor Roll celebrated its one-year anniversary! As I reflected on the inspiring honorees, I took a stroll down Switchboard’s memory lane to look at best practices, interviews and culture guides from September’s past.
This edition begins with those 21 stories of kindness. I hope they inspire you to encourage the executives you might write for to embody empathy and if you’re planning hybrid gatherings, there’s guidance for inclusivity and care.
Interviews with Sara Glick and Chase Meyers remind me of the power of building internal communications functions from scratch and championing culture — where this edition ends with ideas to bring joy to the workplace. As we continue to celebrate Latin-Hispanic Heritage Month, I share best practices from the year I celebrated every holiday, including Howl-a-ween. Here’s to Fall!
❤️ Celebrating the Kindness at Work Honor Roll
This summer, I went in search of finding kindness with an invitation for all of you to join me. Kindness is the quality of being considerate, friendly and generous with our time, energy or resources. With all the ways work has transformed over the past two and a half years, moments of kindness in the workplace matter now more than ever.
Best Practices
🖋️ Learn to Write for an Executive
Over the years, I’ve written speeches, talking points and emails for several executives. But, my first job after college was one of the most memorable when I wrote speeches for a philanthropist. After months of getting to know his voice, I finally persuaded him to include a joke in his remarks.
🎡 9 Ideas for Fostering Inclusive Hybrid Team Retreats
In today’s working world where team members live in multiple time zones, juggle life responsibilities and express varying comfort levels with travel, team retreats are being thoughtfully planned for hybrid gatherings — customized for both the conference room and remote-friendly.
Interviews
🏦 Internal Communications Introductions: Meet Sara Glick
It’s my job to wake up every morning and think about what our people need to help them align with our purpose and ensure they are best prepared to act on behalf of our organization. I help people make sense of what’s happening at their organization in a way that feels authentic and relatable to them.
🧪 Internal Communications Introductions: Meet Chase Warner
I help connect dots for people internally. Whether it is they didn't know we had a service to address a client challenge or they are searching for a benefit/perk, I can share that with them. All of my direct partners have a huge impact on an employee’s day to day. I help crystallize narratives with my colleagues in IT, HR, Legal.
Culture
🎆 The Year I Celebrated Almost Every Holiday
Hispanic and Latinx Heritage month marks one year since I celebrated almost every holiday. As so many internal communications stories begin, it all started with a post in an employee communications platform asking a question — how would we celebrate this month as a company?
🐶 Why You Should Start Planning Your Howl-i-day Pet Show Now
While 2020 was officially the year of the rat in the Lunar New Year, it was unofficially the year of the dog as they made their debut on our work video calls… Once upon a time when we worked from home pre-2020, we kept our pets off-camera and apologized if they made an appearance. But, when the pandemic hit, something changed: dogs were introduced and c…
Me Looking back fondly at past September posts | Generated by Canva AI☎️ Thank you for reading. The Switchboard is a passion project by me — Julia Levy. I interview every leader and write each article. It gives me great joy to hear from readers — reply with what resonated from this edition.
To help others discover the stories I share, would you consider giving it a heart, commenting with your thoughts or posting on LinkedIn, Threads or Twitter (tag The Switchboard so I can reply)? Here’s why I write and the Index of past posts. Enjoy exploring the ways we communicate and connect at work and beyond!