After working at a few nonprofits, I realized I wanted something different for my career. Then,  over a decade ago, I had the opportunity to transition to the corporate world and work at IBM. I didn’t know exactly what I was getting myself into, but it is one of the best decisions I’ve made in my career. I learned A LOT! People are people and we all bring our issues to work with us! I spent the bulk of my tenure in Human Resources and Employee Engagement positions and have found a wonderful alignment with what I learned as a social worker. Corporations need social workers too.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What kind of jobs should I look for in the corporate world?

A. Many HR jobs are an easy transition for social workers. I recommend looking at roles in Employee Experience, Employee Engagement, Leadership Development, Change Management, Internal Communications, and Diversity & Inclusion.

Q. How to do I update my resume to highlight skills that matter to corporate recruiters?

A. Let your resume reflect how your experience provided opportunities to deal with difficult people situations. Those counseling skills might be well suited for HR Business Partner and Employee Relations types of jobs. Highlight how you are an expert in “soft skills” and how you have coached people in developing those skills.

Q. What resources do you recommend to help me prepare for the corporate world?

A. I tell everyone who will listen about Brené Brown. She is a social work rockstar bringing social work to corporations. And the perfect ice breaker in interviews! Read her latest book, Dare to Lead, for inspiration and understanding about how social workers can make a difference in the corporate world.

A few of my favorite types of employee engagement that I’ve built

Champion groups: for career development support and social business advocacy. The Career Advisor Network was a global team of 300 people in the company brought together to help with the deployment/change management of a new career framework. I loved working with this group to facilitate training, communication, and collaboration. Secondly, the GTSgetSocial team helped with the transition to social business — the new way to work. As a group of social advocates, we held training and engagement programs with executives and employees to encourage them to be more collaborative and open in their work.

Mentoring programs: including language mentoring for those going on international assignment. Experience-based learning programs are low-cost and very engaging. When we have friends at work, we are happier and more engaged!

An elevated town hall experience: making it more fun and relatable. Maya Angelou tells us that people will forget what you tell them, but they will remember how you made them feel. I use that principle as the basis for the town hall experience.

The top trends in employee engagement, in my opinion

1. I’m a huge fan of Dr. Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability in the workplace. Her research and teachings are powerful and can transform leadership and the employee experience. As a trained social worker, I imagine the ideal work environment as one that is open, transparent, vulnerable, and shame resilient.
2. Also, as technology moves us forward, we can evolve the way we work with collaboration tools; AI capabilities that personalize our HR experience; and data that can provide the knowledge we need to better understand how to proceed. People analytics are invaluable. We now have access to real-time data – from Glassdoor to social media. We’re able to find out what’s on people’s minds more than the once-per-year engagement survey. We need to harness this data and celebrate what we’re doing well and make corrections where we need to improve throughout the year.

When you’re new to employee engagement, start here

Manager engagement and training: Research says that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Managers play a very important role in employee engagement and need the appropriate skills to be thoughtful and caring leaders. They need to understand what motivates and drives employees and how to execute with the help of the organization. Managers should also be recognizing individual and team accomplishments on a regular basis.

Invest in strengths: I’m a huge fan of Gallup’s StrengthsFinder. They’ve done a lot of research around employee engagement and using our strengths in the workplace – employees who use their strengths are happier and more engaged. And managers who understand and talk with their teams about strengths have highly engaged teams. I’ve led team-building workshops around strengths and the feedback has been very positive.

Communication basics in relation to employee engagement

Clear communication that is transparent, direct, and fresh is key. And one size doesn’t fit all so it’s important to use several different tactics. Town halls and in person events are invaluable. In larger organizations, it’s necessary to have several avenues of communication – email is still very valid, as is an internal intranet.

The value of using social media for employee engagement

Employees are the best and most important brand advocates for a company. If employees are happy and thriving, then they’re happy to share their experiences with the world. This can be a very effective way to use social media. When employees are proud to promote their organization, it’s a huge win for both.

We can also use social media to take the pulse of the company. For instance, we can use various hashtags and key words to gain insight on how things are going, as well as promote the brand.

Implementing an enterprise-wide initiative in a complex organization

One of my first jobs involved deploying an enterprise wide career framework. What helped make it successful was that we had good relationships with many of our stakeholders, built on trust. The biggest stumbling blocks were that the framework was a bit too complicated. We rushed through the change management piece and there wasn’t enough emphasis on employee engagement. The framework had many moving parts and hoops to jump through. Before implementing such a large project, it’s important to run pilot programs to understand what works and what doesn’t.

Learning from failure in employee engagement

Companies should be employee-centric, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes the higher up you climb in an organization, the more you forget what it’s like to be an average employee. I’ve seen this happen with executives. They can be out-of-touch. Low engagement happens when morale is low because leaders seem to be more concerned with the bottom than their workforce. When times are tough, it’s more important than ever to be clear and caring. Internal communications should be innovative and transparent. When we can’t be face-to-face, we’ve been using video more and it works better when it’s less scripted and more natural. People want to see an authentic leader.

Let me know what you think in the comments section below!

 By Jennifer Pelham

In my previous article, I wrote about how mentors should take it upon themselves to create a trusting environment by being authentic. One way to do this is to be sensitive to cultural diversity. Regardless if you are mentoring someone from another country or someone from your own hometown, we all have differences and similarities. We can learn a lot if we open ourselves up and really get to know each other. Vulnerability is where the true magic of mentoring happens.

I once heard a US-based IBM executive talk about his mentoring relationship with an IBMer in Brazil. He spoke about how he learned just as much from his mentee as his mentee hopefully learned from him. Fully aware of the opportunity to learn about another culture, he shared how he expected his mentee to come prepared for their meetings with something to teach about life and work in Brazil.

This is just one example to illustrate the many instances of mentoring across borders at IBM. We have the unique ability to work with people all over the world. In fact, one of my previous projects at IBM was implementing a language mentoring program available to those going on global assignment. Then, seeing the interest, we used our internal communities to help mentees and mentors connect with each other. Hundreds of people joined the community in search of a language mentoring relationship.

Language is only one component of cultural diversity. Learning about cultural norms is another important aspect. IBMers have access to tools like TMA World Country Navigator to help with this process. It’s important that we take into account the differences between our cultures so we have better understanding and insight in our mentoring relationships.

I heard a great story about this vital understanding – especially when it comes to food and language: A man from the midwest area of the United States was on a business trip in Japan. His hosts brought him to a fancy sushi restaurant. The man didn’t like sushi, so he asked the server for some chicken. The chicken was served raw. You can easily see how this simple misinterpretation could have been avoided with knowledge and communication. The American man should have familiarized himself with Japanese culture before his trip.

With that in mind, here are my tips for mentoring across borders:

1. Do your homework. Nowadays, it’s easy to do a quick internet search. Formalize yourself with some facts. And look at a map if you need to refresh your geography.
2. Don’t assume, ask the questions. Don’t make the same mistake as the man in my story by assuming they will serve you cooked chicken at all restaurants around the world. In other words, be sensitive to potential differences and ask the right questions. Be careful of generalities and prejudice.
3. Try new things. Expose yourself to different kinds of cultures and food. My family recently attended a Chinese New Year celebration at a local museum. A few months ago one of our friends from Chile told us about an authentic Chilean restaurant, so we dined there shortly after.

It is written on IBM’s Diversity & Inclusion brochure that, “Every IBMer is considered a Global IBMer. That means each employee must be able to seamlessly collaborate and enable the business to share resources across borders and business units. Leading and working in multicultural teams to solve complex client problems has become the norm as IBMers do business around the world.”

Collaborating and sharing resources is the heart of mentoring. It’s up to each of us to learn from each other because we are stronger together.

Have you been involved in a cross-cultural mentoring relationship? Drop a comment below to let us know other tips you have found useful in your mentor-mentee sessions.

Jennifer has her Masters in Social Welfare and is a Social Communications & Engagement Strategist with IBM Global Technology Services. Prior to her current role, Jennifer spent over five years in IBM Talent working on career development, mentoring and social learning where, among other things, she built and consulted on various mentoring projects around IBM.

After defining what success looks like, they focused on using their strengths to evolve the work they are doing to increase community outreach through communications and marketing strategy and tactics. Each member highlighted how they use their strengths to support the success of the team and their goals. The team discussed how their strengths work together in relation to their roles and discovered how to best collaborate as a cohesive team.

Using the principles from my friend, Maureen Monte’s book, “Destination Unstoppable,” I led the team through an exercise to name their formal and “human” roles on the team allowing them to discover how they can work together and best support each other to reach their definition of success. We also did an exercise to highlight what they want to start, stop and continue doing in the various communications tactics they are currently using.  

Sometimes we all need to be reminded that it starts with us — if teams want to communicate effectively to stakeholders, we first need to communicate well with each other. Then we can focus on the goal of a stronger external message. 

It’s exciting to experience a team collectively strategizing and using their strengths to increase effectiveness. I am thankful for this opportunity!

Here’s what the team had to say about the workshop: 

 Jennifer’s passion for our team finding their sweet spot took me by surprise. What I expected to be a routine meeting turned into a workshop on listening well, being heard, and encouraging people to find their voice. In a subtle and curiously positive way, Jennifer rebuked our team for not playing to our strengths. Her leadership was challenging, encouraging, and left us better connected and more engaged for the projects in front of us. Personally, as the leader of our organization, Jennifer reminded me of just how important it is to understand your strengths and the strengths of those around me.  

— Kevin Knox, Lead Pastor 

Jennifer sat down with us and as a team and individually, reviewed our strengths and weaknesses. She had a series of general questions as well as position specific questions for us to answer. As we answered the questions, she would highlight different things from our answers that stood out to her and had us expound on them. After hearing from each of us, she would reiterate what she heard and then give us suggestions and pointers on how we could do our job better, more efficiently and work cohesively as a team.  

She was well prepared and I was personally impressed with the ideas she invited us to implement by only being with us a few hours. Jennifer had helpful plans and resources to elevate our work potential. If your team needs to be refreshed or perhaps needs new perspective, Jennifer will work diligently to make sure your time spent is productive and specific to your task at hand. And she makes it fun too!  

— Dorynda Venable, Director of Operations 

Being on a staff of three can have its advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that we know each other well. The disadvantage is that we know each other well. When Jennifer came in to lead us in a strengths and communications workshop it helped us to see and hear things in a new way. Like I said, we know each other well and often have seen each other from the same vantage point. It was like having a fresh new set of eyes and perspective. It was awesome!  

Jennifer served the purpose as a facilitator, teacher, sounding board, therapist, and coach. She thrives in this position and it shows in her enthusiasm and dedication to leading us. I’ve worked with many people and Jennifer has such a gift of bringing clarity of purpose, direction and execution for a group.  To see someone work in their area of strength is such an inspiring sight to behold. This is definitely Jennifer’s strength! 

— Jeanne Wong, Connections Pastor 

Originally posted on the IBM Jobs blog.

A while back, a new colleague of mine who knew about my background in mentoring, asked for some guidance on best practices as she prepares to be a great mentor for her new mentees. While speaking with her, I thought about how awesome it is for her, as a mentor, to be taking mentoring so seriously by preparing and seeking information.  Many times we talk about how the mentoring burden falls on the mentee – but clearly – the mentors have a huge responsibility as well.

Mentors need to be just as prepared and focused as mentees. It’s really a mutual relationship – so both parties should be giving and receiving as learners and teachers. I hope that all my mentors can say they learned something from me!

So, mentors, take heart. You have the power to make mentoring a success!

Here are my top tips for mentors:

• Create a safe and trusting environment by being authentic. This is the most important thing for a mentoring relationship to be successful and effective – and it’s up to the mentor to create this type of environment. Try breaking the ice and starting each meeting by sharing something personal. When building the rapport, talk about non-work related things and laugh together! The most effective mentoring relationships are those when mentors and mentees have great chemistry – and that often happens naturally when people can be their true selves.

• Be present. Truly BE with your mentee in the moment. Don’t multi-task when spending time with your mentee. Give him/her your full attention. This is harder when you’re on the phone, so trying using skype or another video service, if you can’t meet in person. Also, if you’re pressed for time and can’t meet for 60 minutes, then be honest, and only set aside 30 minutes.

• Listen and ask questions. Many mentors get caught up in giving too much advice at too soon a time. Ensure you fully understand the scope of the purpose of the mentoring relationship and what your mentee is looking for. Most of the time, people know the answers they are looking for already. It’s the mentor’s job to help pull out those answers.

I do hope you find these tips useful as you consider them in your mentoring session.

Have you been a mentor before? Drop a comment below to let us know other tips you have found useful in your mentor-mentee sessions.

Jennifer is a Social Communications & Engagement Strategist with IBM Global Technology Services. Prior to her current role, Jennifer spent over five years in IBM Talent working on career development, mentoring and social learning where, among other things, she built and consulted on various mentoring projects around IBM.

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She also led me through a challenging exercise to develop a strengths and talent profile. The process forced me to think more deeply than I had before about what motivates me, things that I love to do, things that frustrate me, how I measure myself and how I want my colleagues to see me.

I am glad I participated in this practice as it helps me better define myself and articulate and remember my strengths in a tangible way so I’m more engaged and productive. Additionally, it comes in handy with new managers — I give them my profile so they can immediately see a clear picture of my strengths and talents.

Every so often I review my profile to ensure it’s up to date and finally decided it was time to share publicly; so, without further ado… my top strengths are:

1. Woo – winning others over, breaking the ice, making people feel comfortable, keeping the conversation going in a group. I use this strength to help teams work together more effectively.
2. Includer – making sure team members feel involved and are participating. I use this strength to make sure everyone is heard.
3. Arranger – organizing, recognizing others strengths and coordinating responsibilities, seeing the big picture, planning. I use this strength to keep others organized and on track.
4. Communication – telling a story, helping people understand what’s going on and making connections. I use this strength to influence others by helping them see the big picture and recognize connections among one another.
5. Connectedness – ensuring that people know what’s going on and can see the big picture. I use this strength to help others recognize common connections that contribute to the overall success of the team.

I am most motivated by:

• Meeting new people and seeing where we connect; building relationships and mutual trust to help us succeed.
• Telling a story or presenting in an engaging way while communicating with impact and influencing people to make a change.
• Helping others – whether it be learn something new or see the big picture – so they are more effective and productive.
• Harnessing other people’s passion and creativity to help individual and team success.

3 things I love to do

1. Collaborating with others about our ideas to inspire change while also bridging gaps.
2. Spending time getting to know people; listening; and seeing their vulnerability; creating a safe place for all to share their talents.
3. Organizing large events and projects and focusing on the employee experience; working in big teams to achieve results.

3 things that frustrate me

1. When I get the impression that people don’t trust I will get the work done and done well.
2. When people are left out – anything to do with exclusivity. No one is served by excluding the talents of others.
3. When I feel I am not being valued or challenged.

Professional Performance – how I measure myself and how I want my colleagues to see me

• Creating change and positive impact by being easy to work with, collaborative, responsible, friendly, creative, out-of-the-box, positive, respectful.
• Demonstrating my sense of responsibility and becoming a trusted advisor. I am good at keeping up with or arranging my work priorities – I have an internal checklist. I work very well with deadlines. And I am a team player – I can see other people’s strengths and know how to harness them.
• Leading by example through cultivating my natural abilities. I’m particularly adept at leading in crisis situations and helping others navigate difficult waters. This comes in useful when I’m part of a team.