Hello Friend,

Welcome to my virtual office. Yes, yes, cheezy I know. If you give me just a few minutes I want to talk to you about our current NEW NORMAL.

Yep, you’ve heard it in the news, the media, everywhere.

This awkward space we’re in where we’re pretending life can go on as usual and we’re all ok and equipped to handle ever news headline that comes our way.

We are human, right?

Before the pandemic I met clients in my office as well as on Zoom and FaceTime.

But now, I’m meeting clients 100% virtually. And despite the fact that you landed on my site and I’m based in Atlanta, GA , I do in fact have clients that I coach across the country.

It’s always been a bit of a conundrum whether to focus in Atlanta or to expand – but that’s another story for another day.

So what’s your new normal?

Are you working from home every single day customer do you go into the office rotating with your team so that 100% of you are never there at the same time?

We all want to do better and we’re all trying to make the best of the situation.

But there’s one thing that’s become completely honest apparent, some of our careers are at a standstill an even stagnating.

And where is the professional development you were promised this year?

Now that there’s no traveling, is your boss or your leader going to support virtual training with virtual conferences?

What’s more, online courses may be booming, but how do you know which one to take? And how do you know someone isn’t just trying to take advantage of this online education boom we’re in.

And then on top of everything else, do you really want to sit in all day Zoom training ? Sometimes that just isn’t cool and it’s just not engaging.

Right now organizations or actually changing, shifting and reorganizing. You just may not be aware of it and you may even be the last to know.

Your manager who you built so much trust with, may be on his or her way out at the end of the year. Thinking about that early retirement, aye she shared? You spent a lot of time getting her to see your vision and believe in your goals and dreams in your organization. All that work may have been for nothing.

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Now you may have another leader or manager to on board? And virtually, not so easy

You built a reputation and you built your name in your division. Is your leader going to just plug in to the career path that you set?

What’s more, if your manager hasn’t retired maybe they’re having to pitch out in another Department, so maybe they have less time to talk to you right now.

Working virtually now you’re likely not getting as much time and attention from your boss. Everyone’s preoccupied . Some people are working shorter hours. You may have a young family and you’ve had to shorten your hours. Perhaps you’re doing double duty right now and you and your spouse or partner are taking care of a couple of little ones for having to rotate your conference calls.

So right now the worst scenario is you were up for a promotion this year before the pandemic hit. You needed that raise to put more money into the household and prove to yourself it’s worth sticking it out with your company.

Now what? The work you’re doing virtually may not be as rewarding or valuable to the growth of your company or even to you in your career path and your next raise. What are you supposed to do now?

I know that many of you are working inteams right now. That’s what you do. You collaborate, you constantly meet and review each others ideas. You come back with your individual contributions and you put it together to keep your team goals and deliverables moving forward.

The pandemic has disrupted your team

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…and you’ve gone from having to go through the stages of teams: forming, storming, norming –  you guys stay in the storming mode now.

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And the conflicts that got buried with having time away from the office and seeing each other everyday. Now it’s hard to hide those conflicts on zoom meetings.

Did you know 86% of workers were disengaged – and that was before the pandemic. So where are the employees who are thrilled about their jobs right now, is it you?

The high performers that I coach are still engaged, but they have questions – like more questions than ever before.

“How do I get my message across to my leader in this virtual call?” 

“How do I go after my promotion in the midst of the pandemic, is it still OK that I need a raise? ”

“How do I tell my boss that I don’t want to do this extra work because someone else quit?”

and the quintessential……

“Why doesn’t my boss know what I do?”

The list goes on and on. So in fact, the pandemic has brought more questions and answers.

Just the other day, I was speaking to a coaching client, who hasn’t had a one on one in over 2 months. She asked me “does that mean I’m gonna let get let go?” Close quotation are they thinking about firing me?

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What are the signs that your company is thinking about letting you go? Do you know? Have you even contemplated that everything could change for you with a simple Zoom call. Just as the folks at Weight Watchers who were fired en masse earlier this year:

So here’s what we know is happening right now.

You and your colleagues are probably working at least 45 minutes to an extra hour during the work week during the work day.

You’re in more meetings per day in your getting a lot more email.

Some of you are being asked to take pay cuts if you move away from your company’s Home Office such as San Francisco or New York.

So, how do you justify your worth right now?

Is your worth based on the zip code you live in or the value you create for your company?

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