It’s important for people to be able to be their authentic selves in the workplace, says Subha Barry, CEO, Seramount.
WorkingNation sat down with Barry at SHRM 2022 Annual Conference & Expo in New Orleans.
She says, “People come in and are busy trying to hide one piece of themselves or another. Women feel sometimes they have to be more male-like to be successful or to be thought of as bold. Somebody that deserves to be the leader.
Barry continues, “A person who is a member of the LGBTQ community may think, ‘Oh my God, that’ll never flow. I have to somehow hide it.’ Obviously, someone that is Black, Hispanic, Asian may not have the opportunity to hide who they are, but they are trying to hide some piece of them that they believe will not be acceptable.”
She notes the pandemic cast a real light on the burdens carried by working women. “The pandemic in some ways, was a great equalizer. Everybody was in a box. It didn’t really matter what your gender or race was. You had an opportunity to be part of an equal size box, but that’s where some of the equity ended.”
“If you were a parent with young children at home where you didn’t have schooling available to them, and you didn’t have childcare available, the burden on you was just unbelievable. You not only had to get work done, you had to mind your children’s schooling issues and daycare issues. You had to take care of parents for whom you may have had an obligation or relatives with health issues.”
Barry says employers should participate in solving the issues that working parents face – as that will not only help the employee, but the company, too.
Learn more about Seramount.
© Copyright 2024 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation
Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.
Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.
Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.
Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.
Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.
Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.
