S3:E23: Building a More Human Workplace with Melissa Swift

Melissa Swift is the US Transformation Leader at Mercer, and the Author of the book Work Here Now: Think Like a Human and Build a Powerhouse Workplace.  With expertise in leading human capital transformation across multiple industries, Melissa has a keen eye into what is and isn’t working about work, and in her book, offers a look into the ways in some of the broken and challenging components of the underlying fundamentals of work and the workplace, especially for knowledge workers and what we can do about it to think differently about work.

During our conversation, Melissa dove into a history of work, including how elements of work, including the history of human resources, accounting, and performance management impact our workplace today, and how those negatively impact employee engagement, belonging, well-being, and productivity. We also spoke about some of the mindsets and constructs of work, such as “greedy work” and the “anxiety monster” harming companies and organizations, and ultimately, what leaders and organizations can start to do in order to fundamentally shift the way of thinking about how to construct work and create better workplaces.

Links:

• Melissa’s Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swiftmelissa/ 
• Melissa’s Book: https://www.mercer.com/en-us/insights/people-strategy/hr-transformation/work-here-now-think-like-a-human-build-a-powerhouse-workplace/ 
• Al’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsaldea/