When you read the news these days, regarding women leaving the workforce, the outlook and reality seem bleak. According to the Wall Street Journal,
“Due to challenges created by the COVID-19 crisis, more than 1-in-4 women are considering downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce completely.”
The White House Fact Sheet, April 21, 2021 also reported,
“There are now 3.7 million fewer women working than there were in February 2020, in large part because of the pandemic, eroding more than 30 years of progress in women’s labor force participation.”
Not only are these the facts, but this has been my reality. I have spent the last decade and a half building a business career in a traditional corporate setting, across Consumer-Packaged Goods companies that span from cereal to mascara. I’ve built a rich network of connections, and grown my skillset to span across sales, marketing, research, and innovation. I’ve invested in my career, but COVID-19 made me re-evaluate where my investment was most needed.
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When the lockdown hit in March of 2020, I added an entire workstream to my day job: manage childcare and distance learning for my two young children. I also lost my part-time nanny, my relief and respite, due to the pandemic. I did not know how I would stay afloat, deliver against my job’s requirements, while also ensuring that my kids got what they needed.
COVID realities created both unreliable childcare and unreliable school days. One exposure could turn any sense of schedule or order upside down. Some of those months went by in a blur. I recognized something had to give. I had to give. I had to make a change for myself and my family. I chose to leave my corporate job to explore something more sustainable for my life.
Fast forward to early spring 2021 and some of the facts and realities haven’t changed all that much. While the nation is becoming hopeful with relaxing Covid restrictions and rise in vaccinations, women have not as readily returned to the workforce. This year, I shifted to the gig economy and started a new career as a Research Strategy Consultant with SIVO’s On-Demand Talent team, a local women-owned agency that really understands what it looks like to do the work you love while also being present for your family.
For me SIVO has been a beacon, offering me a way to continue investing in my career without compromising my family, especially during a pandemic. SIVO is a woman owned and operated business founded on the belief that the world needs more people doing what they love. SIVO recognized 12 years ago there was an overflow of great talent that wanted to work but NEEDED flexibility, especially parents juggling family and childcare demands.
I’ve learned that part of making it ‘work’ as a working mom is to find the type of work that meets your needs. Workplace norms have pivoted to meet marketplace realities. My advice to women is to consider something that fits YOUR lifestyle priorities instead of the other way around.
I love being a part of an organization like SIVO, a company committed to redefining what work looks like. SIVO is helping companies work differently through their On Demand Talent (ODT) practice, which helps fill in resource gaps for short or longer-term engagements. Sometimes a company just needs an extra perspective on a special project, or someone to fill in during a parental leave.
SIVO’s ODT can provide the right talent – at the right time – so that companies can keep moving forward without disrupting workflows or putting additional strain on existing staff. I am currently on an ODT assignment and am loving the opportunity to work on unique business problems while, not only continuing to nurture my professional career, but also be the kind of mom I want to be for my family.
Are you curious what working differently looks like? – just ask. SIVO Insights can help you figure out the best path forward for you or your company to get the resources – and talent – you need. Schedule a discovery call today to get started.
Are you facing these challenges?
More workload and pipeline projects than your team can execute
Questioning how to keep saying “Yes” to internal stakeholders
Not enough time or resources to meet multiple requests for actionable insights from leadership, product development, marketing, or strategy
SIVO Insights On-Demand Talent™ is a solution for Insights talent needs for teams just like yours. We leverage our extensive pool of Insights professionals, with years of experience and expertise, to help you achieve your business objectives.
We recommend three key steps for evaluating and making the case internally for hiring contract Insights talent.
As workforce talent continues to evolve, there is no shortage of options, including interns, short or long-term contractors, contract-to-hire, or direct hire. Below, we highlight the advantages of Contract Talent vs. Full Time Hire:
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We have started engagements in as quickly as one week. To discuss your needs and how we can match the talent with the best expertise for quick solutions in your organization, visit SIVO Insights On-Demand Talent or email Brent.Budke@SIVOInsights.com.
By Kerry Juhl
Do you know how your customers feel about their experience with your brand? Do they love it, or does it leave them feeling frustrated?
If your customers don’t love their experience with your products or services, your market share is likely at risk. According to a study from PWC,
Even if people love your company or product, in the U.S., 59% will walk away after several bad experiences, 17% after just one bad experience.
You cannot afford to not know how your customers are experiencing your brand.
The Importance of your Customers’ Experience (CX)
Understanding your customers’ experience can identify product or service flaws. It can be important, even if you are coming from a place of strength. It allows you to build stronger customer relationships, seize new growth opportunities, and maintain a competitive edge in the market. Companies that prioritize a strong understanding of the customer experience are better positioned to meet the needs of their customers where they are and how they want to be served. This allows companies to thrive in today’s customer-centric business environment
Typical Stages in a Customer Journey
The customer journey is typically divided into sequential stages that represent the key phases of the customer’s interaction with the brand. Stages typically align with the marketing funnel and include “Awareness,” “Consideration,” “Purchase,” “Retention” and “Advocacy.” These stages may differ, depending on the industry, category, or channels that the brand is competing in.
What is a Customer Experienced Journey Map?
A customer experience (CX) journey map is a visual illustration that outlines the steps a customer takes when interacting with a company, brand or specific products or services. It helps organizations gain a deep understanding of the customer’s experience, including their motivations, decision moments, delights, pain points, and emotions that come into play, across all the touchpoints with a brand. Companies may also map the customer journey for competing brands to better understand product strengths and opportunities in a competitive context.
Understanding the Experience
Building a customer journey map requires comprehensive qualitative research exploration and is often followed by quantitative validation. CX Insights Experts start with a combination of observation and qualitative methodologies (e.g., mobile missions, bulletin boards, shop-alongs, in-home visits) to facilitate in-depth conversations with brand or category users. This allows them to delve deeply into each key milestone and brand touchpoint within the customer journey. With the qualitative exploration completed, experts will often conduct an online quantitative survey to validate the journey and quantify the consumer experience with statistically significant sample sizes. Note that the journey may differ for various user segments (e.g., younger vs. older customers, multicultural customers, households with kids vs. no kids, etc.) so the research must be inclusive of customer groups that are important to the business.
Activation Planning with a CX Journey Map
Once the CX Journey Map is complete, it is time to bring the team together to immerse and align on the learning and develop an activation plan. SIVO recommends a 1-day workshop with key team members and stakeholders to:
A Key Asset to Customer Journey Mapping
Hiring a strategic market research agency with proven CX experience, or a fractional Customer Experience (CX) Insights professional to lead the journey mapping process will set you up for success. You will need experts who have a strong background in CX research design, journey mapping, research execution and activation planning. They will help your team:
Contact SIVO, Inc. at Contact@SIVOInsights.com to discuss how SIVO can help you map your customer experience. Also, check out SIVO’s On Demand Talent Profiles to learn more about how a fractional Customer Experience (CX) Insights Manager can be an asset to you and your team.
We can all probably agree that we are living through one of the most disruptive events of our generation. With our worlds turned upside down, it comes as no surprise that the way people work in America has also vastly changed.
Just as news stories cropped up about 2021 being the year of the Great Resignation, other stories followed asking the question ‘where have all the workers gone?’ I’ve pondered this question as well, seeing the ‘short staffed’ signs everywhere I go and hearing from countless businesses about their struggle to retain talent.
The answer to what is causing the Great Resignation might lie in the reframing of the phenomenon. A smart colleague of mine, Vina Klein, astutely calls it the “Great Values Reset.” I really like that. It gives more insight to what is happening. People seem more attuned to their values when choosing how to live and how to work. At the start of the pandemic, we were sent home and we slowed down, we took stock, and we re-evaluated our lives. That experience impacted our choices in 2021 and beyond.
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Now enter the gig economy. The gig economy has always been around, but something interesting happened as a result of Covid-19. Gig workers represented around 35 percent of the U.S. workforce in 2020, up from between 14 and 20 percent in 2014. The number of companies that fully operate on gig work has increased by 85% since 2014. That growth has only accelerated as a result of Covid-19. As workers reset values and put more focus on having some control over their lives, employees are leaving the confines of a 9-5 and corporate bureaucracy. The gig economy is where they land, and SIVO Insights has the perfect launchpad for these workers.
I’m very fortunate to lead SIVO Insights On-Demand Talent. I’m passionate about helping my consumer insights consultants find fulfilling roles that match their skills and talent. I’m also very much “in the zone” when I’m able to help our clients fill a specific need on their team or find the right talent for a project. Matching our clients’ needs with SIVO’s On-Demand Talent experience and skills is the best part of my job.
SIVO Insights On-Demand Talent allows people to choose how they want to work. It provides the flexibility and work-life balance that comes with the gig economy. For companies, On Demand Talent delivers flexibility, too. Whether an organization is struggling to find and retain talent or is not in a position to commit to a full-time hire, tapping into SIVO On Demand Talent is a win-win!
By Kerry Juhl
Managing a business is non-stop, full-time leadership. Typically, 90% of a leader's workday is focused on the daily needs of employees, customers, supply chain, marketing, sales, financials... and the list goes on. However, it is also a leader's job to present their team with a vision for the future, a "north star" that provides direction and goals for the organization, allowing them to compete effectively and transform opportunities into growth.
A great step in looking toward the future is to take stock of the landscape that you operate within, especially when there are changing dynamics in the external environment. The future growth of your business requires you to have a point of view on how your business will be impacted by changing consumer behaviors and preferences, the actions of your competitive set and external partners, and possibly the impact of new technologies. In other words, you need to have a vision of what your category/industry will look like in 5+ years to remain relevant in that future state and capitalize on future growth opportunities.
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Our team at SIVO has experience with helping clients build their category vision of the future. In fact, we have developed a step-by-step process that results in a defined Future-State Category Map to inform the Category Vision and Key Strategies for growth. A Category Vision not only demonstrates category leadership and anticipates the future, but it allows clients to take control and literally create their own destiny…a future where the business can thrive.
Define Current State:
Clients need to define the space that they currently play in. For some it might be narrow, for example, Skin Care. For others it might be broad, for example, Beauty Products. (There are pros and cons for how narrow or broad your category definition is and SIVO can guide your team to get to a definition that is relevant and actionable through our consumer insights solutions).
This step requires the gathering of category, competitive and consumer intelligence from a variety of sources, to answer questions, like:
Articulate Future State:
SIVO facilitates the client team through a small series of assignments and working sessions to envision the Future State of the category and to prioritize where to “place bets” within the category to maximize growth.
Create a Vision & Strategies to build Future State:
With the future state of the category defined, SIVO facilitates client teams through the creation of a Category Vision that serves as the "North Star", and Growth Strategies that the organization can put into action to drive category and brand growth for years to come.
A solid process with proven success. Are you ready to help your business create a category vision for the future? Schedule a discovery call today or reach out at Contact@SIVOInsights.com to develop strategies and plans that not only anticipate the future but create it!
SIVO Insights brings together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence. Have a business challenge? Let's talk!
We bring together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence
