Gina Aronstein

It's PRIDE month and an opportunity to reflect on the rights of and celebrate our LGBTQ+ colleagues. As usual, we're reminding you to be more focused on performance versus performative. - The rainbow logos without real actions mean little. I look forward to this report from !Bennett Sung 🍍 (Thanks Kristin Hancock) that will be evaluating those rainbow logo organizations on other factors. https://lnkd.in/gnhqXE9B - We can put emphasis on our LGBTQ+ community during PRIDE month but what do we do the rest of the year? This is your chance to highlight career, education, wellness and benefits programs that are available all-year round or have been introduced since last year. - This is an opportunity to listen and learn. Don't force your Pride ERG Group members to share their stories but provide platforms to give them a voice if they want it. There is also an opportunity to hear from Allies. - Follow advocates on LinkedIn so that you understand their issues and concerns. I recommend that you give Pride at Work Canada / Fierté au travail Canada or an equivalent organization a follow. - Listen to our A Leader Like Me podcast guests who have shared their own experience and the work they are doing in their own organizations including Courtney Williams of the Obama Foundations, consultant Garry Clarke-Strange who worked with Greene King. - Reflect with colleagues on instances where what your organization and leaders say was supported by real action or appeared disconnected. You will learn far more from what goes wrong so that corrections to every day language and behaviors can be influenced. Later next week, I am very excited to be speaking at the DEFY conference in Montreal alongside Jade Pichette as we discuss the impact of our present political atmosphere on supplier diversity initiatives. Image: Rainbow lines, swirls and hearts splashed across this image. Image purchased from StoryBlocks.

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Your vote is needed (see the link below). This session during SXSW 2025 will feature Kristy Williams Fercho Kennon Harrison, Jr. and Kristina F. discussing the topic of Changing the Color of Work. Description: The future of work is bright—from blue to white to grey collar, the “color” of the American career is changing rapidly. We’re still seeing dynamic, macro-level shifts both in diversity as well as in the range of jobs in the workforce of today and tomorrow. These changes continue to influence what we consider "work" and what a good career might look like as the skills needed to succeed continue to become clear. In this dynamic discussion, we'll unpack how inclusive practices are driving innovation, fundamentally reshaping work today and propelling economic growth.

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My non-paid side gig is to help people who are seeking communications roles build their "candidate narrative." These could be folks that have been laid off, moving into communications from a different role, or just making a change. It's not recruiting support or writing resumes. It's helping someone best tell their story to stand out, because there are too many great people in need of roles. And for me it's good karma and building new relationships -- it's giving back to the community that has given me so much. Here are a few tips that continually rise to the top when we've built successful candidate narratives: 1) Take all the best practices in communications and apply them to yourself: Build key messages that have an agenda (what you want them to believe, know, feel, do), identify stories that bring your most important successes/lessons to life, and use media training tips to stay focused and tight. 2) Always focus on S-A-R: Every example of success should be a tight situation-action-result. Otherwise, you'll end up wandering for five minutes talking about the great initiative you led. Everyone has a great initiative, and interviewer is now checked out. Not everyone can succinctly hit the S-A-R. Doing this right helps you be sticky in recruiters'/hiring managers' minds. Data, results and transformations are sticky - if you're tight with them. 3) It's hard to read the label from inside of the jar: get a trusted friend, colleague or acquaintance to review your materials, hear what makes you unique, or do practice interviews. Sometimes what makes you special and what people will remember of you is hidden in a lot of words on paper or in conversation. And sometimes it takes someone else to unearth the right expertise or points to make. 4) Speak to cheerleaders/advocates. The one thing that seems to help the most, and what I've found I've delivered to others (if not unintentionally): confidence. Sometimes you need others to remind you of your awesomeness, or see the forest from the trees on what amazing things you've done (then, got back to #1 and #2 to get those messages, stories and results right). 5) What did you look for in candidates? How soon we forget sitting on the other side. If you have some experience, you likely conducted interviews and hired people. Who stood out as the best? Why? What did they do? Can you learn from that and apply? I'm grateful to have helped some folks - it fills my cup. Hopefully this helps some others out there.

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advocacy + action = a winning combination. this graphic emphasizes the importance of sustainable efforts that go beyond moments of celebration. 📍the takeaway: invest in communities yearlong with actionable initiatives.

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I'm thankful to be at a company that values DEIB, especially with the skepticism DEIB initiatives have been facing recently. Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) sheds light on how to effectively communicate the value of DEI initiatives to critics and build a more inclusive narrative. Adopting some of these strategies can provide support when advocating for DEI initiatives and demonstrate their value in creating more equitable and dynamic workplaces: - Empathy over argument: Understanding and addressing the concerns of critics can pave the way for constructive dialogue. - Impact: Highlighting tangible benefits and success stories can help bridge the gap between DEI goals and skepticism. - Engage with authenticity: Building trust through transparency and authentic engagement fosters a more receptive environment for DEI discussions.

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A disturbing trend I’m seeing in this job market is the shockingly low salary ranges for highly experienced marketing roles, where a vast majority of women will fill these roles. Have folks already forgotten that women power the economy? With tech companies continuing to eliminate roles that are filled with majority women (and moms!), then hiring women at a lower rate, and questioning why they can’t hit revenue or subscription goals… it’s time to look in the mirror. What you’re doing on the inside of your business impacts the ability to acquire the drivers of discretionary spending. Think about the massive economic stories in 2023… Taylor Swift concerts, Beyonce concerts, Barbie movie (and ALL the businesses that jumped on that trend👀). That was driven by….. women. Understand that the value of these roles is more than what they’ll do inside your company, but what they will drive to your company. Offer the value they deserve. *steps down from soapbox*

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