Working Conversations

Episode 168: Telephonobia: How the Fear of Phone Calls Is Hurting Work In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson delves into the phenomenon of telephonobia – fear of using the telephone – and its impact on workplace communication and productivity. She explores the decline in telephone use among both younger and middle-aged professionals, citing reasons like digital communication preferences, anxiety, an...

Episode 167: Too Much of Your Work is About the Work! In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson explores the phenomenon of back-to-back meetings in remote work culture, revealing that 60% of work time is spent on 'work about work.' Using insights from Asana's Anatomy of Work Index, she delves into the inefficiencies caused by unnecessary meetings, duplicative work, and excessive status updat...

Episode 166: Listeners’ Picks: The 5 Most Downloaded Episodes In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson celebrates hitting 20,000 downloads by recapping the five most downloaded episodes of the Working Conversations podcast. From handling conversational narcissists to crafting compelling career stories, she revisits topics that have resonated most with listeners. Dr. Anderson also delves into common lea...

Episode 165: Navigating Negativity Bias at Work In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson delves into the intriguing concept of negativity bias in the workplace. With a keen understanding of how our brains tend to focus on the negative, she provides practical strategies for both combating this bias within ourselves and managing negativity in coworkers. Through a listener's email seeking advice on ha...

Episode 164: Women's Wealth: Unpacking the $30 Trillion Baby Boomer Inheritance  In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson sits down with financial expert Karen Coyne to discuss the profound implications of the anticipated transfer of $30 trillion in Baby Boomer wealth to women by 2030. As a Certified Financial Planner, Karen provides key insights into how this wealth shift will impact industries, w...

Episode 163: Norms Not Working for You? Change Them In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson explores the critical need to evaluate and potentially change workplace norms that emerged during the pandemic and may no longer be useful or are even counterproductive. She provides a comprehensive guide on recognizing, questioning, and revising these norms to enhance effectiveness and adapt to the evolving pr...

Episode 162: Navigating Employee Types: Strategies for Stayers, Players, Slayers, and Glaciers In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson delves into managing four distinct types of employees: Stayers, Players, Slayers, and Glaciers. By understanding and addressing the unique challenges and contributions of each group, managers (and co-workers) can approach employees with tailored strategies to enhance m...

Episode 161: The Tyranny of the Inbox: How Late-Night Emails Impact Your Team In this insightful episode, Dr. Janel Anderson tackles the impact of late-night work emails on employee well-being. She examines whether managers should voluntarily curb after-hours communication or if legislation is needed to enforce boundaries. Analyzing the balance between workplace flexibility and potential stress an...

Episode 160: Five Reasons You Need White Space on Your Calendar In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson delves into the crucial yet often neglected practice of preserving white space in your calendar. She outlines five compelling reasons, including fostering strategic thinking and enhancing creativity, that make unscheduled time vital for both personal and organizational success. By advocating the imp...

Episode 159: Why You Need a Work BFF In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson explores the profound impact of forging close friendships in the workplace, revealing their contribution to both individuals and organizations alike. She notes some of the dramatic business outcomes that arise when people report having a close friend at work, including a 36% decrease in safety incidents and robust profit surg...

Episode 158: Office Peacocking and What it Means for You In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson digs into the trend of "office peacocking," where companies go to great lengths to entice employees back to the physical office through extravagant amenities and perks. She discusses the potential pitfalls of inequity and distractibility that come with such flashy office perks and emphasizes the im...

Episode 157: Exposing Affinity Bias to Create a Fair and Just Workplace In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson delves into the intriguing world of affinity bias in the workplace. Covering the subtle yet impactful ways in which this bias can shape hiring decisions, team dynamics, performance evaluations, and even mentorship opportunities, Dr. Anderson sheds light on the hidden influences that may impa...

Episode 156: Clear Your Mental Cache by Decluttering Your Mind In this episode of the Working Conversations podcast, Dr. Janel Anderson delves into the concept of clearing mental clutter and applies the principles of clearing the cache on a computer to our own minds. Drawing from her personal experience with a glitchy app, Dr. Anderson shares how she discovered the power of decluttering the mind a...

Episode 155: Handle with Care: Return to Office or Not? Research at the end of 2023 projected that 90% of companies would be requiring staff to return to the office by the end of 2024, but remote workers are saying “not so fast.” The tension is continuing to mount and returning to the office has become a hot-button issue between many employees and the companies who employ them. “Why go back if the...

Episode 154: Tulsa Pays You $10K to Move There Tulsa, Oklahoma will pay you $10,000 to move there as a remote worker. You get not only $10,000, but also a housing stipend, co-working space, and a built-in community of other remote workers. All you have to bring is your job. The program, called Tulsa Remote, is now in its fifth year and it has landed Tulsa a whopping 2,800 new remote working reside...

Episode 153: 6 Tips for Better Virtual Meetings Virtual meetings are here to stay – that’s not up for debate. And Zoom fatigue is real. So are disengaged meeting participants and multitasking. But with a few new tips and tricks up your sleeve, you can drive engagement, interest, and collaboration in your online meetings. In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson shares some of the latest research on vir...

Episode 152: The 10 Best Things I’ve Done in My Career In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson shares the 10 best career decisions she’s ever made. From being on both sides of mentoring relationships to investing in her own professional development to getting a certification that few in her industry attain, she shares universally applicable strategies she has followed to build a thriving career. Regar...

Episode 151: 7 Things to NEVER Do in AI Generative AI can be incredibly beneficial in many aspects of your life and it is tempting to think it can do it all, but there are a few places you should absolutely not be using ChatGPT and its counterparts. In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson explains where relying on ChatGPT or Google’s Bard will lead you astray. Join her on this reality check so you can...

Episode 150: 7 Things to Try in AI Generative Artificial Intelligence has a multitude of uses in everyday life, not just at work. In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson explains how ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and other similar tools can be of great use across a great many areas of your life. From boosting creativity to improving your technical understanding of complex concepts to learning a new language...

Episode 149: The Power of Generative AI to Transform Meetings Imagine showing up 10 minutes late to a meeting and instead of wondering what you missed, or worse yet, having the meeting facilitator catch you up, the meeting platform’s Generative AI bot catches you up as soon as you enter the online meeting room. It shares all the details that are the most relevant to you, including Amy in the marke...

Episode 148: Is the Return to Office War Over? A recent headline declared that the return to office wars are over. Dr. Janel Anderson says, “Not so fast.” One of her predictions for 2024 is that hybrid work will become the norm, but she believes the battleground between work from home and return to office is not behind us yet. In this episode, she offers a two-fold explanation of why senior leader...

Episode 147: The Epidemic of Loneliness at Work It's not uncommon to make friends at work. Your coworkers become your work friends and your work friends become your real friends. But these days, that is happening far less frequently. We have emerged from a global pandemic and found in its place a global epidemic of loneliness.   In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson shares what caused the epidem...

Episode 146: My Digital Detox Results If you’ve ever thought about doing a digital detox where for a set period of time, you significantly cut back on your screen use – especially smartphones, then this episode is for you. Six weeks ago, Dr. Janel Anderson shared on this podcast her plan to do a digital detox. Now she’s back with the results of her experiment. Tune in to this episode to find out a...

Episode 145: The Dos and Don’ts of Performance Reviews Performance reviews: the annual ritual that brings a mix of anticipation and anxiety to employees worldwide.  We’ve all been there – the dance of feedback that includes the good, the bad, and the sometimes downright awkward! In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson shares practical and informed techniques for what TO DO in the performance review an...

Episode 144: Do This Instead of New Year’s Resolutions Every year, millions of people make New Year's Resolutions, only to have them fail within a few days or a few weeks. They simply don’t work. In this episode, Dr. Janel Anderson shares a different ritual for the beginning of the year. It’s called Your Life: An Annual Inventory. This is a time-tested process she developed for being complete...