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Erica Keswin is an internationally sought-after speaker, bestselling author, and…
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Onboarding in the Hybrid/Remote Workplace20m
Onboarding in the Hybrid/Remote Workplace
By: Erica Keswin
Articles by Erica
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Erica Keswin shared thisAs we wrap up Women’s History Month, I want to dedicate today's post to Margaret Meister, CEO of Symetra Financial. I had the opportunity to meet Margaret last week and hear her speak at the Symetra Operations Summit, where I was giving a keynote the following day. To me, her remarks were a masterclass in human leadership. Here’s what stood out: ▶️ Connecting people to purpose: Margaret kicked off the conference by reminding the team why their work matters: “You exist to help our customers have financial freedom. You have a critical voice with our customers. These are long-term relationships, and you are the heart of our future success.” Yes, these are nice words to hear, but they are also smart business. Research shows that companies where employees feel a strong sense of purpose outperform the stock market by nearly 7%. Being a Great Human Leader is not only good for people, it’s great for business. ▶️ Connecting people to others: A lot of employees are on edge right now, especially with ongoing articles and conversations about return to office. Hybrid work is hard to do well, and many companies are giving up. Margaret addressed the uncertainty head on: “We are committed to remote work. But we know that in-person is important as well, so get to know each other this week.” There was no question about her or Symetra’s POV or commitment to remote work, and she acknowledged how challenging working from home can be. But Great Human Leaders are willing to put a stake in the ground. Clarity is kind and good for business. ▶️ Connecting people to themselves: Margaret also spoke about Symetra’s commitment to learning and development and her view on everyone’s favorite (or not so favorite!) topic – AI. “AI is here, and it offers us potential. We can expand what we can offer our customers and do our own jobs faster. But there are risks, and we need to make sure it doesn’t hurt us.” What I appreciated most was her mindset. She wants her people to engage with AI thoughtfully. And she backed it up by highlighting the opportunities to learn, including multiple sessions at the conference (yes, even one on creating your own AI headshot, which was really cool). That’s what it looks like to help people grow: Showing them change is coming AND supporting them through it. None of what Margaret shared was rocket science, but that doesn’t make it easy. In fact, the human stuff is the hardest stuff – especially these days. As I listened to her, I was reminded of something I believe deeply: Great leadership isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about being intentional about how you show up for your people. And as we close out Women’s History Month, it felt like the right moment to recognize a woman who shows up as a Great Human Leader. Who is a woman in your life who shows up as a Great Human Leader? I'd love to know! photo: Yours Truly speaking at Symetra Operations Summit
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Erica Keswin shared this“Performance has never been a location problem. It’s an energy problem.” I love this take on the hybrid argument. Because for most white collar work, where it happens is less relevant these days. If you’re demanding full RTO without designing a day in the office worth the commute, you’re signalling that attendance is the priority. So what can you do? Andrew Deutscher suggests creating four “energy contracts” – physical, emotional, mental, and personal ownership. ▶️ Physical: What work structures do you have in place to support sustainable performance? ▶️ Emotional: How are you building a high-trust environment where contribution, respect, and inclusion are valued? ▶️ Mental: Does your work environment reduce friction and improve decision making? ▶️ Personal Ownership: Do your people sense both autonomy and accountability? The leaders who take into account these energy contracts are looking at the employee experience more holistically: “That means designing offices for collision, not attendance—spaces that accelerate mentorship, innovation, and interaction. It means clearly articulating why gathering matters and what improves when people are together. And it means treating flexibility as a strategic business imperative, not a perk.” I totally agree. What do you think? Dive in deeper: https://lnkd.in/gt7eh7Xg
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Erica Keswin shared thisOnboarding AI agents?? When I read the headline, I immediately thought, okay we’ve gone too far. But it’s not onboarding the way we think of it for humans. Instead, author and Harvard Business School management professor, Joseph Fuller, asks us to think of AI agents like colleagues designed specifically to ease our human paint points. Then supervise them and evaluate them to make sure we’re getting what we designed them for – yes, their AI job description. Here are just some ways to “onboard” your agentic AI: ▶️ Give it a job description: What exactly will this AI agent be doing? Be specific. ▶️ Have it ease human pain points: You want buy in for AI? Let it take on tasks that are “dull, dispiriting, and deterministic.” ▶️ Conduct regular performance reviews: Is what you’ve tasked your AI agent to do working? Is it reliable? Timely? ▶️ Supervise it: This is the human person held accountable for the actions of the AI agent What do you think? Have you started onboarding AI agents into your org yet? If so, I’d love to hear about it. Read about the other ways to onboard your agents here: https://lnkd.in/eZRd9GZS
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Erica Keswin shared thisGiving difficult feedback is never easy. Even for someone like me who spends a lot of time in the people space, coaching others on how to give and receive feedback! Sometimes it’s easier to just let it go, but last week I didn’t. Spring is keynote season, and I’ve been on the road quite a bit for both business and pleasure. I’ve been working with a travel agent on a few upcoming trips, and I was starting to feel that her response times weren’t as timely as I needed. It had happened before, but I’d never said anything. I had a few choices: ▶️ I could get frustrated and just “deal with it” ▶️ I could take my business elsewhere. ▶️ I could address it head on. I decided to follow some of my own advice, so I picked up the phone: “I have a lot of travel coming up, and I’d love to give you the business. But I have to be honest, I don’t feel like you and your team have been as responsive as I need. Is there someone going on I should know about it? If we’re going to keep working together, we need to figure this out.” Her first response was what most of us say, “Thank you for the feedback.” However, she then went on to explain why the past few weeks had been “unusual.” I get it. Life happens and work gets messy. But that isn’t what you want to hear when you’ve taken the time to be honest with someone. But I brought it back, “I hear you, but I’m sharing my experience because I want to see if we can work this out.” Instead of continuing to explain why her response time had been “off,” she moved into problem-solving. She said, “Let’s talk about how we communicate. Sometimes we’re emailing, sometimes texting, and things might be getting lost.” She went on to share some best practices that she uses with other clients, and together we figured out some better ways to communicate moving forward: ▶️ One clean email thread per trip ▶️ Keep all communication for that trip in that thread ▶️ Text only when something is truly time-sensitive We got off the phone, and I immediately felt better. Giving her the feedback made me feel like a weight had been lifted. And, at the end of the day, if it doesn’t work out, at least I know I tried and was honest. Great human leaders know that the best feedback conversations don’t end at “thanks for sharing.” Ideally, that feedback creates clarity around how to best work together moving forward. Have you encountered this before in work or life? I’d love to hear about a time when having a difficult conversation, though tough, made a situation better for you and the person on the other end of it. Maybe you were even on the receiving end! Let me know in the comments 👇 Photo: I ran into my friend Karen Benett at LGA on Sunday which made the two-hour security line a little more bearable!
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Erica Keswin shared thisThank you for having me! In these uncertain times, the best leaders never pretend to have it all figured out.Erica Keswin shared thisWhat makes a great human leader? Author and workplace strategist Erica Keswin says it's a combination of vulnerability, empathy, experimentation and the willingness to say that you don't know it all. During her inspirational Opening Keynote at the 2026 AFP FP&A Forum, Erica highlighted three things that great human leaders do exceptionally well: 1️⃣ Connect people to the purpose, mission and values of an organization 2️⃣ Connect people to others 3️⃣ Connect people to themselves and how they want to develop #FPAForum2026
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Erica Keswin shared thisLeaders are pulling back. In the midst of uncertainty, chaos, and instability, leaders are experiencing “psychological withdrawal.” And this creates a vicious cycle of lost agency: “Leaders hold back and refrain from doing what they need to be doing; problems pile up, momentum is lost, and opportunity is left on the table.” I get it. There’s never been a harder time to lead. Which is why I’m grateful for this piece from Merete Wedell-Wedellsborg, PhD on how to overcome the urge to withdraw. It requires a personal leadership reset, which starts with building “negative capability.” Negative Capability means leading well “when the map no longer matches the terrain, when the normal rules no longer apply, and when facts and reason are suspended.” Negative capability helps leaders “tolerate not knowing without collapsing into avoidance or coercion.” Aka, leaders grounded in negative capability know how to be calm in the storm. Once you’ve unlocked negative capability you can start restoring agency in 8 ways: -Redraw the map -Normalize volatility -Create anchors -Foster negative capability in others -Co-pilot rather than empower -Break patterns -Make it playful -Monitor habits For more details on each of these agency-restoring moves (I especially love the “create anchors” strategy), read the full piece here: https://lnkd.in/eQyqfuqBLeaders Feel Their Agency Eroding—and They’re Starting to WithdrawLeaders Feel Their Agency Eroding—and They’re Starting to Withdraw
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Erica Keswin shared thisWhat is a ritual? I define it as having three component parts: ▶️ meaning and intention ▶️ a regular cadence ▶️ goes beyond its practical purpose What do I mean by that last one? Imagine lighting a candle every Friday at 5 pm to signal the end of the work week. You don’t do it because you need light necessarily. You do it to mark the transition from work week to weekend. It’s an opportunity to pause with intention, maybe reflect, and take a few breaths to wind down. That’s rituals gold! Do you have any personal rituals you do regularly? I’d love to hear about them! For more, check out Part 1 of my conversation with Rebecca Shaddix on her podcast, Time Billionaires: https://lnkd.in/eCe5FkDb
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Erica Keswin shared thisWho wants to join Bode's Book Club?? As I shared right after the New Year, I made two resolutions: lifting weights and reading more. So far so good as I’ve stuck to both…and it’s almost April! While I love to read business books, there’s something about an amazing fiction book that transports you to a different place. My friend recommended Culpability by Bruce Holsinger, and I dove in without even knowing what it was about. Without giving anything away, the book centers on a tragic car accident and the ripple effects that follow. The car happened to have AI-enabled driving technology. What makes the book so interesting are the very human questions it raises about responsibility, judgment, and accountability when something goes wrong. Because here’s the thing: AI doesn’t eliminate human responsibility. Or, does it? I will let you read the book to learn what happens. But in many organizations, a human makes a choice, designs parameters, and approves or trusts an AI model. And as organizations race to redesign work and to adopt AI, we need to ask, will there ever be a fully hands-off system? Or should we always ask ourselves, "where is human in the loop?" If you’ve experimented with AI, you know it often answers prompts incorrectly (aka - makes sh*t! up), responding with a shameless “Oops!” when you call it out. But what can we do to make sure there are fewer “Oops" moments when we ask our employees to utilize Generative AI? We need rules of the road…pun intended! This tech is still so new (and rapidly changing) that it’s the Wild West out there. Establishing protocols will give AI-users guidance on who is accountable and how for the outputs generated. Here are some companies that are being intentional about protocols: ▶️ At Thomson Reuters, they “require developers and product owners to include the details of their human oversight process in the model documentation template. Post-deployment, teams are dedicated to human-in-the-loop training and monitoring.” ▶️ At MSN, unreviewed AI-generated content is prohibited. MSN also requires disclosure of AI use from their authors. ▶️ At Switch, “if a reliable source cannot be found to verify factual information generated by the tool, that information cannot be used for work purposes.” Protocols may differ from org to org and team to team and should be updated as new AI models are released. What’s most important is that you have them and that you always keep a human in the loop (with accountability included). I’d love to hear what guidelines or protocols you’ve incorporated (if any) into your Gen AI use at work. Comment your best AI protocols!
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Erica Keswin shared this“I can’t believe this is my life!” In this episode of "Honestly, We’re Learning" from ClearEdge, I share the story of how I first discovered the power of technology back in ‘98 when I worked remotely from Bermuda. My trusty Blackberry (which I still miss), enabled me to work from the beach. Mind blown. I remember saying to myself, “I can’t believe this is my life!! 😀” Fast forward ten years and three kids later, I was rocking TWO devices because the iPhone had just come out and apps were the shiny new toy. This time though, I was wrangling crying kids and incessant pings and dings from both phones. In the overwhelming chaos of it all, I remember saying to myself again, “I can’t believe this is my life! 😩” What a difference a decade makes. That juxtaposition between those two moments ten years apart kicked off my journey into finding the sweet spot between tech and connect: utilizing tech for all its greatness…but also knowing when and where to put it in its place (aka, away). And in the AI era, finding that sweet spot matters more than ever. I loved joining Leslie Vickrey and Lesly Cardec on this episode about Human-Centered Leadership in the Age of AI. Thanks for having me! Catch the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/e9fBTWgM
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Erica Keswin liked thisErica Keswin liked thisHarvard just dropped some really compelling research. Augmentation roles up 22%. Automation roles down 17%. March 2025. It looks like we've been asking the wrong question. Everyone's obsessed with "will AI take my job?" But the bigger, tougher question, the one that actually matters, is toward what? The companies pulling ahead aren't picking sides. They're asking, "What can our people become when we treat AI as a force multiplier, not a threat?" Novartis changed its whole frame. Not, "what can we automate?" but "what can you become?" That shift shows up in hiring, training, and how managers talk to their teams. And the data backs it: when you design roles around augmentation, people step up, grow, and stay. The fork is real, though. One path: squeeze more out of what people already do. The other: free your people up and point them at the highest-value work your company has never had enough human energy to tackle. Most companies are still picking the first path and calling it a strategy. Which path are you choosing? Which path are you taking? #HumanAdvantage #FutureOfWork #AIAugmentation #TalentStrategy #Workquake
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The Business Case for Conversation
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See publicationThis blog is about the Business Case for Conversation. In it, I will share not only my journey as an organization and leadership development expert seeing the challenges the business community is facing, but also an analysis of what companies can do to address them
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