Avery Francis is the founder and CEO of Bloom, a full-service workplace design consultancy. Bloom helps companies of all sizes grow their teams, scale their HR practices, and develop fantastic employee experiences in a way that’s impactful, equitable, and engaging. They also recently launched Bloom Academy, a digital program for immersive diversity, equity, and learning experiences.
In today’s episode, Avery Francis joins us to discuss why she started Bloom and why companies today are experiencing high turnover rates and mass resignations. We dive into how companies and teammates can start doing the work to build conscious, people-first companies, and Avery shares three radical approaches she’s adopted when building out her own team at Bloom.
Plug into this episode if:
- You want to understand how to increase employee engagement and retention at your organization.
- You want to commit to DEI and doing the work, but you’re feeling nervous about it.
- You want to peek behind the scenes and understand how a people-first workplace design consultancy treats its own team members.
Resources:
Episode highlights
Why companies need to go further with DEI
- Workplaces and work systems weren’t built with everyone in mind — which is why simply saying you’re committed to DEI isn’t enough. Systemic change is necessary.
- Many workshops and trainings simply provide learners with a new perspective, but they don’t bridge the gap to teach learners how to do things differently in an actionable way.
- Real DEI work requires investment — both a financial commitment, but more importantly, time.
Employees are hungry for change
- The pandemic, together with social and political movements, have changed what individuals are looking for out of work.
- The Great Resignation can be thought about as The Great Realization — employees are becoming aware of what’s more important to them.
- If companies want to increase retention and employee engagement, they need to actually listen to what employees want and build their work structures around it. Quick fixes don’t exist.
How Avery builds a people-first culture at Bloom
- Bloom’s staff adopted a four-day workweek four years ago at Bloom. However, there are certain considerations companies need to keep in mind when adopting a four-day workweek.
- Bloom’s period or menstruation budget serves as both a support to employees and an opportunity to educate.
- Avery doesn’t default to traditional employment structures. Instead, employees are paired with a financial advisor on their very first day and they get to decide for themselves whether they would like to work as full-time employees, sole proprietors, or corporations. This affords them freedom, flexibility, and financial independence.
Powerful quotes from the episode:
“We’ve been doing the four-day workweek for four years. As a service-based organization, this has always been something that's been perceived as a bit of a radical approach, because ultimately, there's one day a week when we aren't that available to clients. And that means that we have to hold some pretty strong boundaries, and it means that we can do less work and work with less companies and make less money. But as an organization that puts people over profits. I'm okay with that.”
