This is the abridged (tidied up) transcript of Episode 77 on the Coffee and Contemplation podcast. If you’d prefer to listen to the audio podcast, you will find the 2.5-minute sound-bites OR the full 37-minute audio episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or follow these links to my YouTube Podcast:
Susan Dunlop: Welcome back to the Coffee and Contemplation with Susan Dunlop podcast, where we explore stories and insights that inspire and empower individuals to live fulfilling lives. Today, I’m excited to have Shaté Hayes, founder and CEO of Career Steward Inc., in Atlanta, on the show. Shaté is a creative career strategist with a unique background from professional dance and choreography to corporate leadership in workforce development.
Her mission is to help professionals find purpose and joy in their work, leveraging her experiences with identity crises, self-doubt, and overcoming challenges. Shaté’s journey can guide you to step up or reach your full potential to create a career that fully resonates with who you are at your core, in your heart, mind, and soul.
I have included Shaté’s professional bio in the show description on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube, and I’m really keen to start this conversation now.
Welcome Shaté!
Shaté Hayes: Thank you so much for having me, Susan. It’s such a pleasure to be here.
Susan Dunlop: I’m looking forward to our chat, and it rolls on from where I’ve just been with a miniseries that has talked about organisational culture that respects the people that they have within their organisation.
When you and I spoke in our first chat, it was like a perfect link to where that conversation was leading to. So thank you for saying yes to coming on the show.
Shaté Hayes: Yes, yes. I’m excited too, I can’t wait!
Susan Dunlop: In terms of the flow of the conversation, you emphasise the importance of career fulfilment and aligning work with personal passions. What are some common signs that someone might be experiencing career dissatisfaction and how can they begin to address these issues?
Shaté Hayes: That’s a really great question. And I’ll draw from my own personal experience, as well as an experience being a people manager. The way it showed up for me is that I was all of a sudden not looking forward to doing the work in the way that I used to, and it was surprising.
I’m speaking of my dance career. I worked semester after semester teaching a number of courses, and then I always looked forward to the end-of-semester concert, where I got a chance to choreograph all my students. You know, it was the show I loved. Stage performance and preparing for a live show.
And so this one particular semester, I remember sort of thinking, huh, here we go again, versus Ooh, what am I going to choreograph this year? So there was a shift that had taken place and I still went through it and worked in excellence, but there was something about it that just wasn’t as exciting anymore.
I think there are moments in everyone’s career when there are things you don’t like to do, like every job, even if it’s a dream job, has parts that aren’t super exciting. But this felt like it was persisting, more and more. I felt like I had sort of outgrown it is the best way that I can explain it.
And then I’ve seen it in people on my team’s direct reports when someone isn’t happy at their work. They’re disengaged. The work isn’t that great, quite honestly, like they’re not performing at their highest level. I’ve probably experienced this one, too. Maybe some frustration, like everything annoys you, you know what I mean?
You can’t get on the same page. There’s friction about everything. And so there’s just an angst about the person and energy that is not aligned. I know what alignment feels like. It feels like ease, flow, and peace. And not that there isn’t any friction or challenges, but it just feels like the right path.
Whenever there is not alignment, it just feels like stuck energy, stuck, stale, anxious, angry, frustrated, disconnected energy. And that’s what career dissatisfaction is, in my opinion.
Susan Dunlop: Okay. Yeah. And from an organisational perspective, so we were looking at it from the side of someone who may be experiencing that, but when you’re looking at the organisation that those people were in or coming to you from, what do you see is something that’s missing in those organisations for those people?
Shaté Hayes: I’ll speak from the organisation where I was. I can’t speak for every organisation, but what I’ve seen is that someone’s role has usually changed. So especially in the tech space when jobs are changing so quickly, strategic priorities are shifting, right? Things that mattered yesterday might not be as important.
You’re having to reprioritise. And so if the nature of a job is shifting that quickly, certain skill sets, I think that were super important at one point, they start to shift as well. And so now, we need adaptable professionals who might, I don’t want to say who are generalists, but who can probably shift and still perform well in ever-changing environments that way.
So I think sometimes, or what I have seen in one specific case, is that because the nature of the job shifted, the person wasn’t as successful in that shift, or maybe just wasn’t even that fond of the shift to begin with, and so that compromised their happiness with the role.
I can also say that if a team member doesn’t feel like their personal career is valued, like they have somewhere to go, and that the leadership is mindful of what they personally care about, then that also impacts their satisfaction. If that’s not at play, if they don’t feel safe, they don’t have psychological safety.
So it’s a little bit about the nature of the role, the culture of the team and the organisation, and, you know, psychological safety and whether or not a person feels like they have room to grow in the role. I think all play a part in satisfaction for sure.
Susan Dunlop: And seeing as we’re on the other side of COVID-19 times and people obviously have had quite a disruption to how their day-to-day work was, what did you see as the impact of that on people that you work with?
Shaté Hayes: I think the largest impact that I saw was that people are way more mindful of career fulfilment. People no longer want just to have a job, just to have it. It brought to the forefront how fragile life is, and what folks want to be doing with their days. If life is “short”, how do I want to be spending my days?
I want to be working on things that matter; to be working with people who are kind. I want an organisation where we have shared values; or an organisation that is speaking out about injustices. What mattered to people shifted. And so you see that increasingly in the jobs that people left, and in the jobs that people are looking out for to join.
It just shows how many people have left corporate to start their own businesses. They called it the entrepreneur’s exodus. People want to have values aligned with their careers or jobs, and they also want to have the flexibility to live their lives and have their careers on their own terms.
Susan Dunlop: I know Melbourne went through something like six lockdowns in Australia during the time of COVID. My youngest daughter was part of that. Her university was closed, so she had to stay at home to attend university. And that was so not in her way of being present when it had to do with architecture, and hands on work.
Most of their jobs were gone. So it was a really tough thing to watch, but we also saw what we call the quiet quitting that people were deciding long before the lockdowns finished, that they were heading out of Melbourne. I live in Southeast Queensland and people just flooded up here and bought up property and have done what you said, that entrepreneurial creation has come out in them and they’ve said, I’ve got to work for myself. I can never do that again.
Shaté Hayes: Yeah, definitely an awakening. I feel like across cultures, the globe. Awakening of some sort.
Susan Dunlop: Shaté, you shared with me earlier the value of seeing people in their right roles to ensure they feel heard and have a voice. How do you identify the right roles for individuals, and what strategies do you use to match the people with positions where they can thrive?
Shaté Hayes: Mm hmm. That was probably one of my favourite parts of being a leader when I got to match. And it’s not surprising that it’s one of my favourite parts of the work that I do in my own business, like matching people with careers or jobs that would light them up. If I know that someone’s not lit up, right, that sort of clues me into paying attention, but it rarely ever got to the point where it was that bad.
One of the things that we had as part of a system was to have quarterly career conversations, and it could happen more than quarterly, but there was an official. This is when we’re talking about what’s going on with your career. It was like a check-in; how are you feeling about the work? What do you want to be doing in the future? Do you feel like the work you’re doing right now supports that vision and those types of things? I used that along with what I knew about them as individuals and what was important to them.
I used that to be mindful of the projects coming down the pike and what was going on. Who would be matched to what? And we would also do these things each quarter, like retreats. We would have team building activities where we would do exercises, I forget the official name of the exercise, but you have four columns, A, B, C, D, and as a team, each person puts what parts of their job fits into the A, B, C, D column.
So your favourite work is an A, B, C is like, eh, I’ll do it. You know, I’m not that happy about it. And D is just, oh, I hate when I have to do this. With the understanding that every job is likely to have some D portion of it, we want the overwhelming majority of your work to feel like A and B work.
And so we would assess those types of things. And with that information, the conversations we were having regularly, and the way that the work was changing, and the business was evolving, I was always able to sort of be like, okay, how would you feel about if you owned this project?
That doesn’t mean they completely dismissed the role they were hired for. However, I looked for opportunities to give them projects doing the work they were most excited about, especially if it would make way for them to transition into that type of work in the future.
There have also been cases where folks were looking to transition, like change jobs, maybe they were looking for a promotion, they were ready to move on and they just kept applying for things, and it never worked out. And so even sitting with those folks and saying, okay, what is it that you’re trying to accomplish? Let’s take a look at your background. You’re probably looking for the wrong types of work. Let’s talk about how we can tell the right story. So you can like to move into something that is more aligned with you.
And this is so rare. This is definitely the exception, not the rule, but in a situation where maybe the team is growing, maybe it’s a little bit young, we’re still sort of establishing different roles. I’ve had the opportunity to design different roles for folks. Yes, based on what work needed to be done.
And so those were always really exciting moments, too.
Susan Dunlop: A lovely way to approach it. But when they’re doing that, do they understand how that fits into the bigger picture of the organisation’s overall outcomes?
Shaté Hayes: I believe so. It’s all a matter of how you approach it. I had the pleasure of working with a very high-performing team who always wanted to know the why and the context of it.
We had a system where you clearly knew the overall company’s goals, the larger department’s goals, and how our team’s goals fit into that. And so we sort of had these roadmaps where these are the projects that need to get done over the next couple of quarters.
This is what it looks like to lead them. This is what it moves, what needle it moves for which team, the department, and the overall company. So, that type of conversation always happened. And if it ever was unclear, I had a team that was very vocal about, you know, saying, Hey, I don’t understand why we’re doing this. Or, you know, can you help me help me understand what’s going on here?
Susan Dunlop: Okay. So you talked about that being a youngish team is what you’re saying.
Shaté Hayes: At a certain point, it was. So when I first joined the team, I would say this particular team, there were probably like two people, two or three people on it. By the time I left the organisation as a senior director of that team, there were 20 or 30 people on a team. So it had grown, like evolved over several years.
Susan Dunlop: Okay. Yeah. And can you say that with organisations that have been established a long while, there are issues between the demographics, say, the ages of the people, and how they used to like to work like, and then they need to bring this new blood, this new thinking, the people who are interested in the why? Have you seen any clashes that you’ve had to help unravel to help them smooth out the path forward?
Shaté Hayes: That’s a good question. I’ve seen clashes in some ways, but it doesn’t have to be to do with age. Some people have a preference for a more stable work environment.
So even on the team, within the same age ranges, I had people who were like, I’d like to show up to work every day and know exactly what’s happening, and I want that to stay the same most of the time. I’ve actually had to have conversations with people who said, Hey, I totally understand that, and there, that is a reasonable request. And it’s just not necessarily the culture of this organisation. It also depends on the industry that you’re in. And so in the space we’re in, which is ed tech. It’s a tech organisation, first and foremost, so it’s moving quickly. But if this person came from higher ed, where things move much slower, right? So then you could understand where that sort of gap, a culture shift, or culture shock kind of came from if you’re coming from higher ed into an ed-tech space.
Susan Dunlop: When I started my organisation, it was back in 2000. I owned that company for 16 years and we employed over 6,000 nursing staff and care staff as labour hire.
We had everyone, absolutely everyone, but I could tell there was that sort of positioning of people going back then, when it was called Gen Y, Oh, Gen Y. It was like this really sort of disparaging thing, but then it also put this barrier up, or what I’m thinking was the barrier that came up. We’d go, well, I don’t know how to deal with that, so we’re going to have to make them come our way, or we’re going to have to make our organisation fully shift to accommodate people we don’t really understand. And I feel that that could still be part of organisational issues.
Shaté Hayes: I’m sure there is. And I remember reading this great book, Leaders Eat Last, by Simon Sinek. And it’s talking about some of those generational differences in terms of how you’re leading people, which I found helpful to have an awareness around. We were talking even before you started recording about learning companies and whether those perks really work, and I think a lot of the perks that I’ve seen, at least in the ed tech space, really speak to some of those expectations, quite frankly, now of maybe like younger generations.
So, what’s your professional development looking like? I’ve worked in several different organisations where a direct report might say, okay, What professional development are you paying for? It’s like an expectation. I want to go to this workshop. Are you going to pay for it? And then affinity groups, right? To speak to their values and like who they are, to make sure that they have to belong, and then all of these other types of cultural experiences, whereas before, work was probably just about showing up every day, producing some certain outcome. It’s become so much more about the company’s life, what it stands for and what it feels like to be a part of that organisation.
Susan Dunlop: Yeah. As I said, I supplied healthcare and aged care, and there was a common terminology ‘nurses eat their young’. It was that sort of retiring nurse era.
Shaté Hayes: Yeah.
Susan Dunlop: And they were hard on the new nurses coming through. Nurses who trained probably in the eighties were hospital-trained. And then there’s the university-trained nurses coming through. So it was a really interesting battlefield really in the way they operated. You can see the overall impact on nurses choosing to become nurses, hurrying through, throwing themselves out the other side as quickly as possible to go into different roles and not be that nurse on the floor. So for that particular industry, it was in out, in out, in out, you know, people just didn’t want to stay and put up with the old ways still being allowed to perpetuate workplaces.
Shaté Hayes: Mm hmm. Yeah, there’s, I think you said Gen Y, but what’s it now? Gen Z. Those folks like talking about tenure and they have no desire to stay somewhere, and I’m generalising here, for years and years on end. You know, they’re thinking a couple of years. Let me get what I can out of this and move on to the next thing. So yeah, I can see some of that generational difference that you’re talking about.
Susan Dunlop: You’ve dealt with an identity crisis and self-doubt in your career? How did you navigate these? And, what advice do you have for professionals facing similar issues?
Shaté Hayes: Yeah, I would say, first of all, both of those things caught me completely off guard.
So, I mentioned my professional dance career before. I was starting to feel like I was ready for more, but I don’t know what the more is. I just know that this isn’t it anymore. I’ve outgrown this thing. So I took the leap of faith and then to have this identity crisis was completely shocking because I chose to leave, it wasn’t like I got booted out or fired or, or laid off.
I actively said I wanted to do something different. And so to sort of be then looking for what the next thing was and faced with this question of like, Oh, I’m going to not be dancing now. Like, what does that mean? And who am I, if I’m not a professional dancer to the point where I literally didn’t want to leave the house.
One of the criteria for me in my next role was that I’m going to have to work from home because I don’t know how to face the professional world as anything other than a professional dancer. It just didn’t feel right. And I mean, in terms of how to navigate that, I’ll answer it similarly to someone asked me a question recently, like how do you overcome rejection, and I have to say it’s the same way with this, the same answer here.
There’s no way to go through it except through it. You just have to keep trying the thing. Yeah, I guess if I had to try to find something, I would say, I did have to give myself permission to change. Permission to evolve.
Because of some other mind trash like: why do I want to change careers? Nobody else I know is changing careers. You know, my parents stayed in their job for decades, and my friends went to law school, and now they’re still lawyers, or they went to medical school, and they’re still doctors. Right. And so I was like beating myself up for evolving in this way.
Eventually, I had to give myself permission to evolve and take my time figuring out what the next thing was.
The other thing is that in that transition period, I was still working in some capacity. Before I left being a professional dancer, choreographer, and dance educator, I had already started working with dancers on how to build a sustainable career and teaching them the things that I wish I had known.
So, I started pouring all of my energy into that sort of work. I was blogging, podcasting, writing for a dance magazine, writing for Points, and just talking to people about what it looked like to have a sustainable dance career. And that really helped me figure out that, there’s that saying, the path is made by walking.
I don’t think I could have just sat and thought and reflected my way to the next step. In the practice of sort of building this other thing, it became clearer to me, like, Oh, I actually really deeply adore career development as a field. I want to do more of this and I want to stay connected to higher education.
Then I started creating these sort of markers around my values, and what I wanted us to do next started to become clear to the point where I was like, “Oh”, as soon as I understood what I wanted to focus on, the next opportunity showed up overnight, almost.
Susan Dunlop: Wow. That’s a bit; it’s a journey. It’s a having freed yourself or set yourself free to go and find that. And yeah, a few inner critics are not necessarily our own voices. It’s stuff that other people have said in other places, that can show up in those times. Yeah, I get that.
I set myself free from my own company as CEO. I said I wanted to leave all the titles behind.I want to see who I am beyond being the person who built that company. And at the other end, it’s like, who am I? Who am I really? What did I even do? I don’t know what I did do. And you know, we won awards, we did everything, but I had self doubt. So I just had to keep on moving forward.
Shaté Hayes: Yeah, that’s powerful, Susan. Yeah. Who am I, sort of finding yourself on the other side of that? Yeah, that’s beautiful.
Susan Dunlop: So your company Career Steward, when did you form that?
Shaté Hayes: So actually it was a name that I had lurking around since the fall of last year. So this time last year, but I officially made the leap at the top of this year. February of this year, I officially was like, I’m doing this. I’m going to figure it out.
Susan Dunlop: Lovely. I love your website, too. I had a really good look around when I was doing my due diligence, and yeah, I loved how you set that up. It focuses on helping professionals live their purpose and love their work.
So what actionable steps or strategies do you recommend for individuals seeking, you know, more significant meaning? Satisfaction in their career, apart from just coming and talking to you.
Shaté Hayes: I love that. Yes. Please come and talk to me. Three simple steps. I like to say, and, uh, it is match, make and market. And so, in that match phase, there is no career fulfillment without fully understanding who you are and making sure you’re targeting the right thing. And so that looks like strengths assessments. I love Gallup, those assessments, and DISC; tons of them exist. It looks like reflecting in this phase and then putting together what comes up from that reflection and researching, like figuring out what’s out there, having conversations with people who are doing different things so that you can learn more about it.
It’s literally an inside out approach. You have to start with who you are and what’s inside. What makes me tick? What do I care about? What’s the vision for my life? What are some things that I think have been great experiences in my career? What are some things I hated and why? Like all of that, you’ve got to put all of that into this pot of gumbo, right? And it emerges on the other side of that.
You come up with a target or two or three. And start pursuing those. The second step is the make, where you’re upgrading your language. And so, one of my favorite parts of all of this process is the storytelling of it. So, in my example, I could not go from a professional dancer-choreographer to, you know, a career coach in workforce development space talking about How many jazz classes I had taught or how many productions I had choreographed because that didn’t matter to that new role.
That didn’t matter as much to the sort of professional I was becoming. So I had to find the throughline and consistently tell that story. That part is important. The last step is just to market. That’s how you strategically connect with the people you’re meant to serve.
That could be the roles that you’re interested in; if you’re starting a new business, what your potential clients are like, how are you leveraging your network, fully equipped for that aligned target, fully equipped with that new story? And how are you getting out there? Sort of making the path by walking it, the storytelling, the through line.
Susan Dunlop: That would be deeply important. It resonates. It’d be so helpful for so many people, and we muddle around with it in our businesses. Have you got any particular workshops or anything you do for people or have you got any blogs focused on that part of the work that you do, the storytelling part specifically?
Shaté Hayes: That’s a really good question! I actually have for folks who are on my list. I have been emailing a different career story every week for inspiration lately. I’ve written tons of things about storytelling to them. How do you talk about your college major when you don’t use it anymore? Or how do you tell your story when you don’t think you have anything special to tell? Right. I’m actually going to be turning all of those into blog posts. So this is such a timely conversation, and probably within the next month or two, I’ll have a good collection of some of those stories I’ve already shared with my subscribers out on my website.
Susan Dunlop: Oh, fantastic.
Shaté Hayes: Okay.
Susan Dunlop: Yeah. Oh, that’s really good. As I said, I just feel like it’s just the era of storytelling to understand people at that deeper level.
Shaté Hayes: I love that. And it’s so just a double down on how important it is. It is the difference between staying stuck and moving forward. And it’s something else that I’ve written to my] community about lately is just, if people don’t understand who you are, then you’re not moving forward in what it is that you’re trying to do.
You have to be able to not really just tell stories in terms of, like, one day I went to the store. It’s not that, it’s like how are you conveying the value of who you are and what you have to offer? Like, that’s the story you’ve got to figure out how to tell. And it’s really about spotting the patterns in your background and what you’re trying to move forward to that matters in telling those stories.
Susan Dunlop: And you’ve done that beautiful work with your clients beforehand, in going into those strengths and what went well before and really drawing on all that richness of them. And I think in our very first chat you talked about how you see there’s a spiritual connection to all of this and I loved that piece as well.
Can we just talk about that for a moment?
Shaté Hayes: Absolutely. And just to touch on why that match phase is so important is because that’s where the uncovering of the patterns happens, right? You have to lay it all out on the table. I don’t know if anyone likes puzzles as I do, but, you know, like getting a puzzle, you pour all the pieces out, and you just turn them all over, and you’re like, okay, what is this thing?
And then you start to put the pieces in place. That, I think, is how it is with all of us and all of our professional stories. It’s like, okay, let’s pull out all the pieces of who you are. Let’s turn them all over, and see, what’s the story the pieces are telling us? The reason I feel like it’s so spiritual is because I think we all came here wired for something specific.
That is why we all have different interests, strengths, and skills. When I was in grad school, I did my graduate research on the intersection between creativity, dance, and spirituality. And what I was trying to get at is, you know, this thing that I do that I love, it feels beyond passion.
When I’m teaching someone some movement. I was thinking about being in Shanghai and teaching for a couple of months and not being able to speak their language, but they were able to keep up with me in a class. Like, there was something in that. Or being in class or on stage and I can rehearse till I’m blue in the face, but even when I get on stage, something’s going to come through that I had not rehearsed because I’ve sort of opened up and just been a vessel for this project and for this experience.
And so trying to put language to what that, that part of it is, and there’s nothing that I can say about it except that it is spiritual because it’s like otherworldly. It is not something that I could take credit for, you know, the way that I’m able to show up and do certain work or perform at a certain level.
You know, some of it is preparation and skill building. And then I think that there are some parts of it that is just divine.
Susan Dunlop: To be able to take people through the steps that you are, you’ve got a much higher chance of getting them into a space where they will find a job. With a little more confidence and less doubt, they will be able to speak their truth as they’re sitting there in that interview space, not sort of scrambling for words.
So we’re nearly there. And that’s once again gone really quick. What are your hopes for listeners who hear your story and advice? How do you envisage that your message can help them navigate their career path and find greater fulfilment?
Shaté Hayes: I would say if you don’t remember anything else from this conversation: Remember you CAN [period] You CAN have the career that you dream of, you just have to give yourself permission to do it.
One of the things we discussed before recording, were some of the stats about the workplace and careers. And one of the things that I like to bring up often is how career dissatisfaction negatively impacts your wealth and your health. So health wise, if you hate your job, if you’re tolerating your job, eventually it’s going to show up as a physical symptom, sleepless nights, gut issues, anxiety, depression, right?
I don’t know if anyone’s ever followed the find a path thread on Reddit, and it’s like all these people trying to figure out what they’re supposed to do for their careers. And, oh, I didn’t use my college major. I feel like such a loser. Like, that weighs on you. You know, people feel like they don’t have a purpose. They don’t have a passion. Then why am I here? What’s the point of my existence? That’s some heavy stuff, right?
Finding a way to work through that and then emerge on the other side, doing work that you care about, is really important to your actual health as a human being.
And then also with the wealth part of it, the studies show like from business insider, like I was saying, people who love their jobs, they get rich fast, or faster. They accumulate more wealth than people who don’t love their jobs, and they accumulate it faster. When I read that, I was like, why aren’t more people talking about this? Why are we still walking around tolerating jobs? We don’t have to, if it’s detrimental to our health and our wealth. And so back to your question, you can do work that matters to you, live your purpose and love your work.
Susan Dunlop: I have seen reports lately on that, saying ‘look at your bank account and the way your bank accounts are set out and how they’re being managed, that’s a sign of how you’re feeling about what you’re doing, your purpose, and all of that’s not really aligning.
Another one I heard it was a psychologist who shared a blog, and he said, when someone’s at the stage where they’re not feeling great, they are potentially going to drop into that depressive state, that they’re feeling pressured because they have to keep working in that job they don’t want.
Shaté Hayes: Mm hmm.
Susan Dunlop: There’s that sort of pressure. If you leave it too long, it’s really hard to come out and find that creative space by yourself in your heart to go it alone and do this. So asking for help, like having someone like yourself to be that steward, is such a gift. To reach out and say, Hey, I can’t really get this clear in my head right now. Can someone please guide me through this? It’s really important to know it’s okay to not know how to do this yourself.
Shaté Hayes: One thousand percent. That’s why there are therapists and coaches, as well as business coaches, right? I rely on all of them. To help me get me out of my stuck places and live a life that I’m proud of. So absolutely, I would second that deeply. Get the help. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Susan Dunlop: Before we wrap up, there’s a couple of things. What I did last week in the episode with Sheri Lawrence is I included some of those background facts and stats in the blog, the digital transcript. So they will be there.
That might even help someone who wants to know more to reach out to you to look at those first, or it’d be just that person who likes to understand reports, research and studies. Also you shared with me about your link. Can you just talk to that for a moment?
Shaté Hayes: Absolutely. When we were talking before about how to move towards career fulfilment, what are those steps? I mentioned match, make and marketing as the first step in terms of figuring out what the thing is that you want to do. This is what I have to offer. It’s a career or business match guide, and it just walks through some assessments. You can check out how to do the reflection for yourself and then what to do with that information once you’ve done it.
I also included some additional resources on what that could look like for a business instead of just a job. It will at least get you started by reflecting on what you could be doing. And so you all can grab that, and then you’ll also be tapped into my daily career inspiration stories at lightmycareermatch.com.
Susan Dunlop: Excellent. Okay. Well, I will include that with anything that I’m sharing beyond this session today. So thank you.
Thank you so much for being here and joining me. I really appreciated having this conversation. As I said, when we met in the intros, it was perfect timing that you showed up as a beautiful segue from what I’ve just covered with Sheri, who is also a specialist really focused on people loving what they do. I can see that you’re into empowering people. And I have heard everything you’ve shared, which resonated with me. And yeah, I just really wish you all the best with this newly launched business to empower people in the work they choose to do through connecting with you.
Shaté Hayes: Thank you so much, Susan. It’s been such a pleasure. And please let me know if there’s anything I can do to support your business.
Susan Dunlop: Listeners, what was the one key takeaway you got from today’s conversation and all that Shaté has shared with us here? If you have any questions for her or me, please use the contact form on my website. You can also message me on LinkedIn or connect there. I’m on Instagram as simply leadbelievecreate.
I’m forever thankful to my beautiful guests for allowing me to understand them more and to share their stories. Trust that you are blessed even when you forget that you are blessed. Take care of yourself and I look forward to being back soon and bye for now.
Here are some background facts and statistics for those who want to understand this subject from a report, research, or study perspective.
Career Satisfaction Statistics
- According to Gallup, only 15% of employees worldwide are engaged at work, meaning the majority still need to invest in their roles fully (Gallup, 2023).
- Forbes reports that 70% of employees who receive regular feedback feel more engaged and motivated (Forbes, 2022).
Impact of Career Fulfilment
- Research by the Harvard Business Review highlights that employees who find purpose in their work are more productive and have lower turnover rates (Harvard Business Review, 2021).
- A Deloitte study found that 83% of millennials and 73% of Gen Z employees want to work for an organisation that provides a sense of purpose (Deloitte, 2022).
Role of Leadership in Employee Satisfaction
- A report from McKinsey & Company shows that effective leadership is a critical factor in employee satisfaction and retention, with 65% of employees saying their direct manager is the most important factor in their job satisfaction (McKinsey & Company, 2023).
- The Center for Creative Leadership notes that leaders who actively demonstrate empathy and support their team members’ growth significantly boost team performance and engagement (Center for Creative Leadership, 2023).
Shaté provided this Link as mentioned in the conversation:
Go to: lightmycareermatch.com for Shaté’s Career or Business Match Guide plus access to all my career insight and inspiration stories.
Take care,
Susan