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While most teams have managers and team leads, many also have something less official, but just as recognizable: the workplace parent. Theyre the go-to for advice . . . even for things that may not even be related to work. They remember birthdays, organize celebrations, and somehow have everything you might need. Paper clip? No problem. Jumper cables? Of course. The phone number for the receptionist youre too scared to calldont worry, they did it for you. But what does it really mean to be the caretaker of your workplace? And can that caring nature sometimes hold you back professionally? Here are four signs that youre the workplace parent, plus the risks . . . and how to pull back if needed. Youre the one who has everything for everybody Jamie Jackson has been an HR professional for 21 years. She says she herself has been known to be the workplace parent, and that theyre not too hard to spot: look for the person regularly doling out batteries, a Band-Aid, Tylenol, she says. Jackson explained that when cleaning out her old office, she realized just how much shed leaned into the role. I had things like birthday candles, a lighter, every kind of pain reliever you can think of, she says. Oh, you dont take ibuprofen? No worries, Ive got Aleve and Tylenol. For her, it wasnt just about being preparedit was about making sure everyone around her felt supported. I dont think its necessarily just an HR thing, she says. I just want to make sure people are taken care of and have what they need. If it meant me having a few of these things in my desk at all times, I was going to do it. Youre the go-to helper Another way to spot a workplace parent is by how often people turn to you for guidance or advice. If they know they can trust you to help them, then you’re probably the workplace parent, Jackson says. It often shows up in the small momentswhen colleagues seek your help on something theyre unsure about or just need someone to listen. A clear sign? When a colleague comes to you saying, I need help. I dont know what to do. And you hand them a tissue box, close the office door, and just let them vent. Youre in charge of the fun Being the workplace parent often means being the fun committee for the office. You might be the person who remembers all the little things, like colleagues anniversaries or what kinds of pets they have. At the beginning of every month, Id check whose birthday was coming up, get the cards ready, make sure they were signed, and send them off a few days before. Not too early, because I didnt want it to feel forced, Jackson says. Or you might be the default event organizer, planning happy hours, team celebrations, even bridal or baby showers. I was often the one saying, Lets do this in the break room, she adds. While being a workplace parent is an honorable, nurturing role, it can come with some drawbacks. Why do people do this? According to organizational psychologist Erica Pieczonka, a workplace parent often stems from a better-known term: people-pleasing. A people pleaser measures their self-worth by being helpful to others; what motivates them is being helpful, Pieczonka says. This might look like someone who simply cant say no, or the moment a coworker needs help, theyre already jumping in with a solution or offering to fix it. The behavior could come from a fawn response someones had since childhood, in which theyre constantly trying to please authority figures for validation. Being the go-to helper can quietly sabotage your career if youre not careful. Sometimes it distracts you from your real job, Jackson says. While admirable, it can become risky if the president starts to wonder, What does that lady actually do? Jackson notes. Pieczonka says workplace parents often end up neglecting their own career goals because theyre so focused on everyone elses. They may also struggle with delegation. They might feel like, If I ask somebody else to do this, it’s going to be a burden to them, so I need to do it myselfor think, It’s easier for me to just do it. On top of that, they wind up carrying the teams emotional load. Theyre the ones scheduling social gatherings, and the people colleagues go to when they have emotional issues. Even in situations where they need to give criticism, they may hold back. They’ll often soften it or pull back because they don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings, Pieczonka says. But then, the other person doesn’t benefit from really understanding how they could improve. By constantly solving others problems, workplace parents inadvertently create dependency, keeping colleagues from learning to tackle challenges themselves. The workplace parent is taking away the challenge, Pieczonka explains. This pattern can accumulate over time, making it harder to sustain performance and satisfaction at work. Burnout is my biggest concern, Pieczonka says. The Fix? Boundaries Jackson started protecting her time by scheduling support instead of providing it on demand. If someone stopped by in crisis mode, shed offer, Todays not a good day. But what if I give you 15 to 20 minutes tomorrow? she explains. Often, people would sleep on it and no longer need to talk. And when someone insisted on immediate hand-holding, shed shift into tough-love mode: This is a big-boy, big-girl job, shed say. Youve got to take charge and handle it. Pieczonka adds that setting boundaries starts with understanding your own capacity. Ask yourself: Really, where am I investing time? Is this the right investment of time, and what are my true priorities? she says. She also recommends asking before assuming someone needs your help. A lot of workplace parents assume that they have to be the person to help, or that the person wants their help, but they may not. If you find yourself doing this, ask yourself: Am I the right person to help right now? Do I know this person needs my help? Finally, she emphasizes reframing self-care as strategic rather than selfish. Workplace parents can feel selfish taking care of themselves because their worth is tied to helping others, but you have to fill your own cup. Schedule itfive minutes of meditation, a walk, a workout, whatever you needand treat it as nonnegotiable on a weekly basis. Being the workplace parent comes from a good place, but protecting your time and setting boundaries ensures you can keep helping otherswithout losing yourself in the process.
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E-Commerce
When AI wearable company Friend blanketed New York City with ads last month, there was significant backlash. Many of the company’s ads (which included rage-baiting copy like, Ill never bail on our dinner plans) ended up defaced with graffiti that called the product AI trash, surveillance capitalism, and a tool to profit off of loneliness. Despite the campaign running in New York, it struck a national nerve as it became a lightening rod for people’s feelings around AI. It was only a matter of time before the brands got in on the debate. A couple weeks after the campaign’s debut, beer giant Heineken joined the chat, posting on Instagram: The best way to make a friend is over a beer. It touted its own social wearablea bottle openerthat bears a striking resemblance to the AI-powered Friend necklace. [Image: Heineken US] Now, the brand has turned that into a new outdoor ad campaign around New York, adding that the brand has been social networking since 1873. Created with agency Le Pub New York, it is a silly poke at the NYC-centric zeitgeist for Heineken. But its also the latest in a consistent string of work by the brand over the years that has aimed to remind people to put down their phones and log off social media in favor of IRL social interaction. The new ads feature the hashtag #SocialOffSocials, harking back to the Social Off Socials campaign the brand launched in April. Built around the premise that adults spend too much time online, but also feel trapped in a vicious cycle of social media addiction, it starred Joe Jonas, Dude with Sign, Lil Cherry, and Paul Olima. For that campaign, Heineken commissioned a study of 17,000 adults in the U.S., U.K., and seven other international markets and found that more than half of adults feel overwhelmed keeping up-to-date with social media. And nearly two-thirds say they are nostalgic for the 1990s when there were no smartphones. More social, less social media Earlier this year in South Africa, the brand created an installation in a mall so that people watching soccer on their phones alone could actually combine their screens to make one giant, collective viewing experience. The brand also created a limited edition phone case called The Flipper, that would flip your phone over to screen down when it heard the word, Cheers. Meanwhile, last years The Boring Phone tapped into the dumb phone trend among Gen Z. Created with streetwear retail brand Bodega, Heineken made 5,000 Boring Phones to give away. But the message is very much the same: It’s time to ditch the phone for a real social life. I reached out to both Heineken and Le Pub for comment, and to find out if the Friend-like bottle openers will be available to the public. This story will be updated as soon as I hear back.
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E-Commerce
As tech companies shell out millions for top AI talenteven reportedly billionsregular rank-and-file employees are left wondering how to get in on the action and land a job in artificial intelligence. One report found that job postings that mention needing at least one AI skill had salaries 28% higher than other jobs, which translates to $18,000 more. Jobs that required two AI skills had a 43% salary jump. To begin with, its worth considering where the AI jobs are and how this intersects with your interests and existing skills. Many jobs in AI can roughly be divided into five different categories: researchers engineers business strategists domain experts policymakers Researchers bring a deep understanding of neural networks and algorithm design to the table and can push the technology forward, but this is a very small pool and typically requires a PhD. Engineers typically have programming skills that they can use to build AI applications. Business strategists can fold AI into their companys workflows and processes, or spearhead product development. Domain experts understand how to apply AI to their field, while policymakers can craft AI ethics and use guidelines. But what do you do once youve identified where you want to go? Getting experience in AI, and developing skills in it, is a tricky proposition because the field is still so nascent. Plus, things are evolving at breakneck speed; what worked a couple years ago may not be a silver bullet today. But some strategiesbeing scrappy, curious, and adaptablecould prove timeless. We interviewed both HR and recruiting pros, as well as people who have managed to build up their AI skills to land a job in the industry, to learn: What AI industry insiders at LinkedIn and Amazon recommend are the surefire ways to get a hiring manager’s attention How workers are turning their regular jobs into “AI jobs” to get experience Where one talent recruiter looks to see if someone is working on developing AI skills 1. Figure out ways to learn on the job While companies such as Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Thomson Reuters are rolling out company-wide initiatives to ensure their entire staff gets trained in AI, that isnt true of most companies. Only 2 in 5 employees report receiving AI training on the job. If your company doesnt have AI training, get on projects that do involve AI. Get some experience at your existing company before you try to jump into a truly AI-focused role, says Cheryl Yuran, chief human resources officer at Absorb Software, an AI-powered learning platform provider. Have something on your résumé to talk about from an AI standpoint. Yuran points out that Absorb isnt able to find enough people with AI experience for all of their teams. Thats how few people are out there in the workforce with an actual background in it. Instead, the company makes sure there are one or two members with AI experience on their teams. The remaining jobs go to candidates or insiders who demonstrate they can add value, whether its deep product knowledge or excellent communication skills. If there arent AI projects or initiatives at your job, create them. Or experiment with ways to use AI to help you do your job. Gabriel Harp, a former product manager for multiple companies in academic publishing, oversaw the launch of an AI-powered writing assistant in 2023 at Research Square, an Inc. 5000 company. Although my degree is in English and German, I’ve spent more than a decade building software products, Harp says. For the AI writing assistant, Harp set the initial vision and scope of the project, working on the branding and go-to-market strategy, conducting quality analysis, and much more. Harp wasnt an engineer, yet he still leveraged his background to get great AI experience just before it was popular (or needed) to have any. Since then, hes served as head of product strategy at a startup that uses AI to build privacy tools. When Harp went on the job market, he had plenty to discuss during interviews, although he has a degree in the humanities. Since Id been using AI in the workplace, I was more familiar than the average person with these tools, he says. He recently landed a senior staff product manager job at Mozilla. Were seeing a lot of emerging talent or people who want to shift their career path, says Prashanthi Padmanabhan, VP of engineering at LinkedIn, who regularly hires for AI talent. Nothing beats showing youve actually [used AI] on the job.” 2. Take a course If getting close to an AI project at work isnt an option, you can always take courses. Right before the pandemic, Amanda Caswell was working as a copy lead at Amazon when she became interested in AI. She started listening to podcasts about AI and signed up for courses, including an online prompt engineering class at Arizona State University, an AI boot camp by OpenAI, and a generative AI and prompt engineering master class by LinkedIn. Start at the 101 level, even if you have some experience, she says. That way youll know industry best practices, which can help you teach others. Because who knows? You might have to do a job in AI training. In 2020, Caswell started getting gigs as a prompt engineer at Upwork and has made close to $200,000 on the platform, only working about 20 hours a week. In addition, her knowledge of prompt engineering helped her land a job as an AI journalist at Toms Guide. Similarly, Cesar Sanchez, a full-stack engineer (who is now an AI engineer) became interested in AI in 2023. He immediately signed up for a Coursera course on generative AI with large language models to get an understanding of the fundamentals. It was a great decision. It offered me a strong foundation and helped me understand the theory, Sanchez says. He also signed up for another course that offered im access to a network of AI engineers. While I didnt necessarily learn new things, I was able to connect with other engineers and compare my skills to what else was out there in the market, he adds. Plus, I got lots of free credits for using tools and platforms. 3. Take on a side project However, even if you arent able to fold AI into the job or take a course, recruiters say theres always the trusty side project. Having a side gig is often a privilege thats unavailable to some, but having one can sometimes grow into something that’s more full-time, sustainable, and meaningful, regardless of the field. AI, experts say, may be no different. A lot of candidates will say, I just focus full-time on my current role, says Taylor King, CEO of Foundation Talent, which recruits for top tech startups. But the ones really thriving are the people who dive headfirst into new AI or LLM tools, constantly experimenting and building on the side,” he adds. “An active GitHub tells you theyre genuinely curioussomeone whos growing beyond the boundaries of their job, not defined by it. (A McKinsey report found that people who are adaptable are 24% more likely to be employed.) Nico Jochnick had no background in AI, but managed to land a job as lead engineer at Anara, an AI startup that helps research teams organize and write scientific papers. He says he got a job in AI because of his experience using AI for side projects. I was fascinated with AI and using Cursor to code side projects, and was doing hackathons, he says. [Anaras founder] and I knew these tools were giving us tons of leverage, and we connected over that. While Harp, now at Mozilla, was job searching, he also worked on AI side projects, such as using AI coding tools to create a bingo game for his favorite podcast, as well as a recruiting tool in ChatGPT that allowed recruiters to ask questions about his work experience. I was worried about getting rusty, he says. I needed to continue experimenting with the tools out there. 4. Create your own job Ben Christopher, a screenwriter, taught himself to code in order to keep the lights on. He started experimenting with AI in 2022 and built Speed Read AI, a tool that summarizes scripts and provides business insights, such as budget estimates, for Hollywood executives. I started showing it to some people in the industry, and got enough feedback where people said, Well pay for that, Christopher said. Today, his team is five people strong with a growing customer base. (Christopher is careful to stress the point of Speed Read AI is to help Hollywood executives dig through massive slush piles and find more unique scripts.) Meanwhile, Victoria Lee originally trained as a lawyer but then took a coding boot camp when she felt like she was getting pigeonholed in her career development. She graduated from the boot camp and got her first coding job in 2022, a few months before ChatGPT launched publicly. In her spare time, she had started putting publicly available legal contracts into ChatGPT for analysis and comparing them with her own. She built an understanding of what ChatGPT did well, and where it had gaps. Lee realized the legal industry was embracing AI, and that she was perfectly positioned to fill a gap; she knew what lawyers wanted and also knew how to speak to engineers. She landed a job in product strategy at eBrevia, which uses AI in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) due diligence. However, Lee realized she could add more value by creating her own company. Today, she provides legal services for, as well as works with, mid-market law firms to help them implement AI and craft AI policies. Lee recommends that people who want to go into AI should identify their specialty and build knowledge to understand how it can work better with AI, or where AI currently falls short. Jochnick has since left Anara to found his own AI-powered company, which is still in stealth mode. The people Id hire are already building projects and putting them out in the world, he says. In fact, Jochnick notes the biggest mistake you can make today when experimenting with AI is not trying. Its insane to see how much more powerful you can become in a few months. This is a really fun journey to be on. Everyone should be upskilling themselves.”
Category:
E-Commerce
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