May 3, 2021

Dispatches from People & Ops

Engagement survey progress report

Last week, we shared with the Management Circle and Team Leads the results of the March 2021 engagement survey and the Focus Areas the P&C team has chosen for the next 6 months. Over the next ~2 weeks, Team Leads will be sharing their team's results with any managers on their team. Team Leads may begin sharing their results with their full team as well, but please be patient and understanding if that process takes some time.

Rest assured that all staff will receive access to their own report in Culture Amp on May 17 in preparation for the P&C + JEDI town hall on May 21. We will also be sharing the 2020 JEDI report and P&C report on May 17. In other words, keep an eye out for the next edition of the B Keeper: It will tell you everything you need to know to prepare for the town hall!

The town hall itself will offer an interactive space to discuss culture change at B Lab Global in light of our newly reintegrated structure and as we enter a new era of our JEDI and P&C work.

Wellness Week: Shifting beyond self-care to community care

We're planning to "kick off" that focus area with our upcoming Wellness Week the week of May 24. That week will include several sessions related to our theme: Shifting beyond self-care to community care. Those sessions include:

• Fostering community care at B Lab (People managers session) - May 17
  This session, led by our in-house therapists, will help people managers prepare for Wellness Week through a conversation about their critical role in creating a culture of community care. We hope managers will leave this session with clearer idea of how they can promote and protect employee wellness - including their own! - and give the P&C team guidance on how we can support managers toward that end.
• Shifting beyond self-care to community care ("Keynote" for all staff) - May 25
  This session will be led by our in-house therapists and will help set the stage for the rest of Wellness Week as well as P&C's focus on wellness over the coming months. We hope this session will both mark a shift in the way we think and talk about wellness at work, as well as help us build empathy across different levels in the organization (e.g. wellness is a challenge for managers and individual contributors alike!). We hope all staff will prioritize attending this session.
• Unpacking "self-care" (All staff) - May 26
  This session will be led by our in-house therapists and will address the concept of "self-care" directly: What is it and what is it not? How does self-care show up differently for different people and how do racial and socio-economic factors play into that? We encourage attendance, but it is optional.
• Setting & protecting your boundaries at work (All staff) - May 27
  This session will be led by our in-house therapists and will tackle boundaries at work. Have you ever felt like your needs were disregarded at work but not known how to address it, or even wondered if needs were unreasonable to begin with? Do you have a hard time identifying or communicating what those needs are? This session is for you! We manager attendance, but it is optional.
• Making remote work work with fewer & better meetings (All staff) - Date TBD
  Are you guilty of thinking that in order to get collaborative work done virtually, you have to schedule a meeting? We know the feeling! In this session, we will be covering tips and tricks for getting work done virtually without a meeting when possible, and with shorter and more productive meetings when necessary. Attendees will be expected to review the Virtual Meetings training in Thinkific before this session. Note: This training is not finalized yet but we're hoping it will be led by our friends at Habitus, Inc. We encourage attendance, but it is optional.

Upcoming Half-Day Holidays: Ramadan and Yom Kippur

We have two upcoming half-day holidays:

• Ramadan on May 11
• Yom Kippur September 15

Please remember that these holidays are half-day holidays only. For a refresher on what this means, please see the holidays and organizational closures policies. 

Namely is unfortunately limited in its ability to process half-day holidays, so please also be aware of the following:

• If you would like these days to show on your calendar, download the RSS feed from Namely.
• Staff who wish to take a full day off will not be able to enter it for that day - we are recommending that managers choose the working day before and add a note (e.g. "full day off for Ramadan/Yom Kippur"). This is unfortunately the best solution currently available.

Please submit a Freshdesk ticket with any questions.

Update to Freshdesk Article on Office Closures

In response to a number of recent queries concerning the difference between holidays and office/organizational closures when it comes to leave and partial days of work, we have updated the "Organizational Closures" article in the handbook on FreshDesk.

Please review the updated article and familiarize yourself with this policy.

Inside the Lab

Check out the B Climate Tools Base 🌎

New Global Network Newsletter

• This is a monthly newsletter that will be sent at the end of each month. 
• This is an internal letter, so we ask that you please not forward it to non Global Network staff or board members.
• Our aim is to have this newsletter be reflective of the entire network. 
• If your preferred reading language is not English, we suggest you open the letter in the browser version. 

B Lab US/Can CEO search update

• Manage your sidebar preferences
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• Marie Kondo your computer: delete your downloads file, clear out those saved tabs, clean up your Google Drive folders
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• Refresh your workspace (See here for inspiration)
• Incorporate these productivity tips (and these ones!) into your day