DriveWealth has been in a period of hypergrowth in the past year, adding over one hundred new employees to the organization. In March of 2021, a new group was started to support women in the organization through networking and development opportunities. Women at DriveWealth meets monthly with varying topics and activities during the virtual sessions. Since the group has begun, there has been a desire to provide structured professional development opportunities to the group participants. Based on participant feedback, the planning team chose to offer Gild Collective’s Communicating Confidently and Assertively workshop.
Case Study: Cintas WAVE 2021 – Effective Communication
Women Adding Value Everywhere (WAVE) was started 5 years ago as the Cintas women’s Professional Business Resource Group (PBRG). As the Cintas team was planning the WAVE event for 2021, they decided to take a virtual approach to still provide valuable programming during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our focus for the session was on giving employees a thorough understanding of their personal and professional strengths as an integral first step to creating equitable pathways for communication in the workplace.
Case Study: Guggenheim Partners, Effective Communication
Like most organizations, Guggenheim Partners came to us as they were adapting adapting to the unexpected shift from in-person to remote work. Existing communication challenges had been highlighted, and new ones had been created. In partnership with their women’s network we planned a program focused on building effective communication skills specific to remote work and advocating for oneself and demonstrating value in negotiating.
Case Study: Confident Communications During Job Searching for Xavier University Alumni
The economy, like every other aspect of life, what rocked in unprecedented ways when COVID-19 hit in early 2020. The Xavier University Office of Alumni Engagement (a longtime partner of ours) decided to provide the graduating seniors and alumni community with resources for the daunting task of job searching during an economic downturn. We created this session, Confident Communications During Job Searching, to help them on their job search journeys.
Case Study: Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati
In March 2020 we began working with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati (FHLB Cincinnati) for two workshop sessions: Mapping Career Strategy and Building + Communicating Confidence. As we all know, March 2020 was when the country began to undergo massive shutdowns due to COVID-19, forcing many businesses to begin remote work. As our workshop approached, FHLB was managing a remote workforce for the first time, and could have decided to halt the programming but didn’t.
Case Study: Tech Company Women's Leadership Program
As part of an ongoing relationship with one of our clients in the technology industry, we delivered a women’s leadership program to women’s ERG participants within the organization. The two-day session leading up to International Women’s Day offered participants the rare opportunity to set daily responsibilities aside and focus on their personal and professional development. By taking a step back and looking at their careers–past, present, and future–participants had space to clearly articulate their values, vision, and goals for success. Participants left the session with an expanded network, both through the cohort they bonded with over the two day program and through the intentional planning they completed to create purposeful networking, mentorship, and sponsorship goals.
Case Study: Midwest Communications
Early in 2019, two members of the sales and marketing team at Midwest Communications (specifically Midwest Radio) approached us to begin a partnership. Their goal was specific: to elevate and empower the women of their local Southern Indiana community. They knew that their listeners and sponsors consisted of many small business owners and growing professionals that wanted and needed professional and personal development, and they wanted to ensure they could find it.
Together we designed a series of four workshops to take place across 2019, with the final session wrapping up in October.
Case Study: Midwest Communications
Earlier this year we were invited to develop and facilitate a women’s leadership speaking series for Midwest Communications– specifically their Southern Indiana division of Midwest Radio. Midwest Radio owns and operates the premier radio stations of the Southern Indiana Region, and play an integral role in growing and fostering community in Evansville, Indiana and the surrounding areas. Specifically, Midwest Radio is dedicated to elevating their female community, who play a valuable role for their stations.
Case Study: Terumo Medical Corporation
Case Study: Jones Day Women's Affinity Leader Group
The Women’s Affinity Leader Group at Jones Day hosted a session focused on Communicating Effectively for all employees. The session had a great mix of participants from new law-school grads to partners in the organization—both female and male—all together for an interactive session to develop communication tools.
Case Study: WillowWood
We partnered with WillowWood, an organization that designs and manufactures comfortable, functional prosthetics and orthotics, and their recently formed Women in Leadership initiative to present a workshop titled: Uncovering Unconscious Bias to Communicate Effectively. The event’s focus was on understanding unconscious bias and its impact on women in the workplace, and how to communicate effectively to overcome the barriers that bias builds for women progressing to leadership. We were thrilled to see the number of motivated and curious men who attended this training. \
Case Study: Small Team Workshop in Medical Technology Industry – Creating Communication Solutions and Team Understanding
In January we had the opportunity to work with an intimate group of sales managers who, while located across the country and managing different regions, work closely (although remotely) together on a daily basis. These managers all have highly scientific backgrounds but less experience in managing teams and co-leading management initiatives. We were asked to create a highly tailored workshop session with the goals of building a culture of mutual respect for one another’s unique management styles and creating communication pathways going forward.
Case Study: Episcopal Retirement Services
In November 2018 we had the opportunity to partner with ERS’ Young Professionals group to present a Building and Communicating Confidence workshop to kick off their offsite. We assisted the participants in articulating their strengths into their “30 second commercial” that will help them communicate their contributions with people in positions of influence. Then, we worked with participants to develop and practice personal and professional assertive communication strategies that can be used in various workplace situations, increasing their confidence in daily interactions with colleagues and supervisors.
Socially Constructed Gender Norms for Communication (and How to Begin Ignoring Them)
When we explore the socially constructed gender norms for men and women, it does not take long to recognize that the ideal behavior for men aligns with key characteristics we expect to see in leaders, while the ideal behavior for women aligns with the supporting roles. This is especially true when we outline expectations for how each gender communicates.