Surfing Corporate

In this first episode of a two-part discussion, Glenda and Aileen tackle a topic that affects many employees at some point in their careers--the corporate tsunami--that incredibly stressful period of time when new leadership takes over the company, and nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next. From restructuring to layoffs, from being demoted to being promoted (or perhaps even being escor...

Real talk about corporate life doesn’t get more real than this. Our guests are outspoken leaders in the HR space, and they’re also the co-hosts of the popular “People Problems” podcast. Alexa Baggio and Tyson McKenzie tell us with zero sugar coating what HR gets wrong, what people get wrong about HR, why we need to stop treating employees like children, and why “feces revenge” is a thing at work....

Surfing Corporate is back for its third season, starting February 15th! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For part 2 of our conversation about burnout with Dr. Kim Hollingdale, we discuss how corporate America has historically rewarded behaviors that lead to burnout, and how leaders today can shift that mentality without sacrificing commitment and quality work from their employees. An unexpectedly entertaining episode despite the seriousness of the subject! EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS The role leaderships play...

Everyone is talking about burnout these days, and although it’s not a new concept, it certainly has gained exponential fame and recognition in the past few years ––like Zendaya or Harry Styles. Corporate America has thrived for decades on cultures that reward behaviors that lead to burnout, so how do we shift this mentality? To tackle this timely topic, we invited Dr. Kim Hollingdale, an executive...

To our amazing Surfing Corporate Listeners: we want to know who you are ( not in a creepy way). Fill out this quick survey here and you might win our sweet Surfing Corporate swag bag!  ---- When Covid hit, having to adapt from in-person dynamics to being fully remote from one day to the next put corporate citizens to the test in countless ways. But as hard as this process was, it was also an oppor...

Performance reviews are usually not employees' favorite part of their corporate jobs (and that's putting it mildly). Going through this process can be tough on both employees and team leaders, and the experience can leave people feeling disappointed and frustrated. However, if it's done well, the performance review process can really benefit both the employee and the team (what a concept!). On tod...

Being a great boss is not easy; it’s a delicate and complicated act of balancing abilities like, • Being incredibly inspiring, but at the same time highly down to Earth and approachable • Having a special demeanor that says, “I’m understanding and humane, yet I’ll hold your ass accountable if you take advantage of that.” • Being a good listener who at the same time won’t be easily manipulated • Ca...

Did you know that 40% of Americans have been laid off or terminated from a job at least once in their careers, and 28% of Americans have been laid off in the past two years alone? For this second part of our layoff special, we discuss what the experts suggest you do to better cope with being let go and how to successfully move on to your next professional chapter. While things may seem quite gloom...

Have you ever been laid off? Or had an awesome coworker get laid off? Or perhaps YOU were the one that had to lay employees off. If you haven't experienced any of these scenarios, then you’re lucky, because unless you live under a rock, you’re probably aware that layoffs are happening across multiple industries right now. UGH. It’s an extremely difficult experience for companies, for leaders, and,...

Fill out this quick survey for a chance to win a Surfing Corporate swag bag, that will make your life instantly better.  ----- In every office, there’s at least one person who intentionally makes everything more difficult than necessary; people who thrive on conflict, stir up drama, and exude negative vibes. They could be a colleague, a client, or even your boss. *Cue Law & Order SVU’s DUN DUN eff...

LinkedIn is the world's most popular professional social network where its community shares important ideas about work. It’s also a platform where some professionals feel the constant need to let others know they’ve been promoted, that they’re connected to very powerful and influential people, and that they’re “thrilled for this amazing opportunity to ___________ (insert corporate phrase).”  But t...

Picture this: you're the young and trendy person at the office, enjoying the start of your career and taking on all sorts of challenges, but you decide to put your career on pause to raise a family. Flash-forward ten years, and you decide to re-enter the workforce only to discover that everything has radically changed--from corporate jargon, tech and productivity app to the fact that you now feel...

Have you ever been brutally honest with a coworker or an employee? Or do you tend to sugarcoat difficult conversations like a Starbucks Triple Caramel Frappuccino with whipped cream and sprinkles? For today’s episode we tackle the concepts of brutal honesty, radical transparency, and radical candor. We do a deep dive into what they really mean, where they came from, which leaders implement them “c...

For the first time in history, four generations -Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Gen Zers -are co-working together and making things more complicated, they are navigating an unprecedented post-pandemic work and workplace experience. Spoiler alert: it’s not easy. Each one of these generations is very different, with very particular needs, motivations, triggers, and sensitivities. For this...

What happens when instead of planning a career path, you’re open to saying yes to opportunities that could sound slightly insane to others? This mind-set is what led our guest, Cristina Espejo, to leave the comfort of her hometown in Madrid, Spain, and accept work offers in Taiwan and Angola at a very young age. These uncommon choices (for a young recent college graduate) plus Cristina’s fearless...

Despite the standard acceptable corporate behaviors (being proper, polite, serious), recent studies conclude that using humor at work leads to more engagement, productivity, and trust. Glenda and Aileen dive into the research and provide examples of why using humor and embracing levity at work can help you in your career. Our guest is a senior director of operations who started her career as an in...

Research shows that 70% of people experience impostor syndrome at some point in their lives. We talk about its negative consequences, but also, how having impostor syndrome can actually help you if you know how to channel it properly. Our guest is Kira Copperman, a board-certified executive coach and keynote speaker who has built quite the expertise on this topic. Her clients include major corpora...

We talk with Dr. Stav Fainshmidt (professor of Strategy and Business at the College of Business of FIU­) about the hot topic of psychological safety at work and how we can take action to make our work environments a space where we can give our honest opinions without fear of retaliation. - Resources discussed in this episode: The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplac...

We're back! Surfing Corporate returns for its second season June 8th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aileen and Glenda talk about the upcoming Season 2 of Surfing Corporate, and they share an episode from the podcast "She Knows The Way,"with Lara Dalch about the hot topic of burnout. (You can find more episodes of She Knows the Way here or wherever you listen to podcasts.)_ “I called my boss Nick in tears…I had been a top performer most of my life and here I felt like I was completely drowning. B...

For the Season Finale of Surfing Corporate, we talk with Christine, an HR Vice President with 15 years of experience who worked 8 years at Yale and is currently at a global media company in the area of Corporate Functions. Christine gives the best actionable advice we’ve ever heard about how to tackle performance reviews if you're a manager and/or an employee. Here are a few key moments of the sho...

Aileen and Glenda tackle the dreaded topic of performance reviews in a way that is –– against all odds–– interesting and entertaining. Their research shines a light on HOW and WHY performance reviews were created in the first place, how they’ve evolved since then, and where they’re headed now in this weird COVID era. Don’t miss this episode that can be a definite icebreaker for your next awkward m...

Office politics are the unwritten rules that determine who gets what, when, and how--and who the hell doesn’t. Deciphering these unwritten rules of corporate politics isn’t easy, but the fact is, there’s no way around them. To better your chances at long-term corporate survival, you have to learn how to play the game. In this episode of Surfing Corporate, we talk with Frank Sutera, a veteran corpo...

Joel Willis is the Editor in Chief of "The Dad", one of the biggest digital parenting brands in the US, with over 15M followers across its social media platforms. But Joel actually started his career with a corporate job as an IT leader at one of the most high-profile, top tier Fortune 500 companies in the world. Despite a true passion for Excel and spreadsheets (yes, that’s a thing for some peopl...