Trailer

Podcast with Giselle Mota Part 4

Summary:

Giselle Mota emphasizes the importance of taking a multidisciplinary approach to understanding how humans make money and how they add value or give value or share their skills. Andrew Liew Weida and Giselle Mota have been reading a lot about inclusion and how it plays a role in the world of work, such as subtle acts of exclusion by Tiffany Jana and Bernard Mar's books about artificial intelligence. Organizations are having to follow suit due to research showing that diversity has a positive impact on business outcomes. Companies should legislate inclusion and diversity from a societal perspective, as studies show that companies that do have more revenue, loyalty to the brand, and innovation. Companies are finding it more risky to take on people with disability due to uncertainty and lack of clear return on investment, but the concept of diversity metrics and inclusion is changing.

Giselle Mota's number one app or software is mobile apps, especially social media platforms, while Andrew Liew Weida's is reading, podcasts, eBooks, audiobooks, and social media. Stay curious, learn broadly, and find your own voice in the future of work. Giselle Mota's advice is to be curious about other people, put an inclusion lens on, and be positive to create a better future for everyone.

[00:00:00] Andrew Liew Weida: Okay. So coming back to the next interesting question is how do you learn?, how do you en enrich your learning? What is the best book that you read about digital transformation or any books that you recently read that is useful in the course of your life or work?

[00:00:12] Giselle Mota: There's a lot of different things that I read, especially because the space that I'm in, there's so many different friends that are office. So I'm not gonna pick one particular one, but I will say that I think it's so important to stay curious to learn broadly.

[00:00:28] Giselle Mota: And like I just mentioned to you just a moment ago, I think that we have to take a multidisciplinary approach so that we have a holistic view of what it means when we talk about the future of work. We're talking about the future of how humans make money and how they add value or give value or share their skills.

[00:00:50] Giselle Mota: And so we're thinking about something that's you gotta understand what motivates people and how they work, right? Design, understand design, understand anthropology. I talked about economics, understand marketing and history. What is the history of how work evolved? Human resources didn't even start really until people were trying to create policies and laws to protect people. Labor laws and things like that. Because children were being put to work because women weren't being paid the right way because there was like unions that had to be formed. And so then this practice of human resources or human management came to play at the beginning.

[00:01:31] Giselle Mota: And that's how we've evolved into what we know today as human resources. So the world of work is, again, people worked to begin with because it follows how we value money. We went from a barter system and we went from other decades in centuries of slavery to now people earn a wage. And then how do you ascribe value to a specific role and how much wage goes to that specific role?

[00:01:58] Giselle Mota: Why does an entertainer make a certain amount of money versus someone who cleans a hospital? So there's just very,

[00:02:06] Andrew Liew Weida: it's very interesting. I totally agree with you that there's so many discipline that we need to be curious and learn from. But is there anything that is unique, any recent things that you have read?

[00:02:18] Andrew Liew Weida: Something like you mentioned, for example, history. It's very new to me. Like any interesting book that, or resource material. You are able to share with the audience who wants to learn more from a get-go, from a start, yeah. The things that I've been looking at so far has been a lot about inclusion.

[00:02:36] Giselle Mota: I've been really immersed into that because it's just very interesting to me. How that plays a role in the world of work. So I would say that there is, there was a book that I read and I can't remember the exact title right now, but it had to do with it had to do with how gender and race and all of that came to play.

[00:02:58] Giselle Mota: And it was made by a cultural, I believe it was like a cultural anthropologist, and it just started to shine light into where did that concept even come from to begin with? There is a book called subtle Acts of Exclusion by Tiffany Gina and I would recommend that book for people to read . What's been all this talk globally and especially in the United States over the past several years especially in 20 20, why did that come to play? How come that got exasperated during the pandemic? Why is that such a big deal to where now organizations are starting to mandate and certain laws or certain legislation around, Hey, you have to report, like the Security Exchange Commission has put this call out to organizations that if you're publicly traded, you have to report your diversity metrics and analytics in order to be in good standing.

[00:03:49] Giselle Mota: And then private equity firms are also starting to say you have to have a certain amount of women on your board of directors. You cannot just be a bunch of men on the board and they can't just be of the same race things like that. It's very interesting. So I, again, subtle acts of exclusion by Tiffany Jana. Then there's some great books out. Bernard Mar has some books. about artificial intelligence.

[00:04:11] Andrew Liew Weida: Let's just stick to this too for our audience, but I, because even for myself, I'm gonna put it on my Good Reads list to read.

[00:04:16] Andrew Liew Weida: So Subtle Acts of Exclusion by Tiffany Jana and bernard marr big data in practice

[00:04:22] Giselle Mota: Yeah.

[00:04:23] Andrew Liew Weida: Talking about that. Yeah. Because I'm really interested to even learn from your perspective, like you mentioned about there is that movement of talking about inclusion, exclusion, and diversity that suddenly, like you say, like the s e c, basically say any list of companies have to have diversity metrics. Tell me in a very simple two to three minutes, like how does this whole story came about to this movement to enable this thing to be stamped on all listed companies? Yeah.

[00:04:53] Giselle Mota: Ultimately, the Security Exchange Commission deals with you having to report your financials and everything like that. So it's a reporting group.

[00:05:00] Giselle Mota: Ultimately, at the end of the day, organizations are seeing that it impacts revenue if they do not have organizations that are inclusive. If you have everybody that looks the same, sounds the same, thinks the same, you're always promoting the same people, you're only hiring the same people. That affects your bottom line.

[00:05:18] Giselle Mota: Why? Because your customers on the outside and your employees that you would want to attract and retain in the inside are starting to say what's valuable to me? Things like ethics, things like inclusion, things like social justice, things like doing right by people. And so they won't do business with you anymore if you're not holding up to the standards that they believe. So in, in short, the people have spoken and they want more inclusion, and so organizations are having to follow suit.

[00:05:47] Andrew Liew Weida: So there's two components over here. One is research that shows that diversity does have some positive impact on business outcome.

[00:05:55] Andrew Liew Weida: But even then if the capitalists or the shareholders were knew that they would have naturally put in diversity inclusion into place yes. But yeah, on the same time, normally when any country that passed legislation is because there's a societal benefits. It's almost like a carbon footprinting where until when I factor this thing in most companies, they don't really want to think about carbon sustainability.

[00:06:18] Andrew Liew Weida: They don't want to think about inclusion. So how that's the part that I'm interested to know, like, why do you think that the US would legislate inclusion and diversity in, from a societal perspective?

[00:06:32] Giselle Mota: From a societal perspective, there's a lot of ramifications. There have been studies that show that companies that do, that have more revenue.

[00:06:40] Giselle Mota: There's more loyalty to the brand. There's more innovation that comes. All of that happens. The other thing is you've heard the United Nations have put out calls to action that they're saying how many people have a disability in the world? There's a global, there's a huge amount of people with some sort of disability in the world.

[00:06:57] Giselle Mota: They are the least group that we hire. They're the least, they're the most unemployed group, yet they're one of the biggest segments that, that is employable, but not being employed. And so even just for furthering societies and being able to say let's give people job opportunities.

[00:07:15] Giselle Mota: So that economy is in different countries of the world can rise up. Let's put those people to work. Let's give people opportunities. This is which by the way, full circle moment from the first question that you asked. Again, I talked about opportunities. That's why I think I'm passionate about this topic is I'm so about giving people opportunities. Why not?

[00:07:34] Andrew Liew Weida: I agree. Think along that line that you just mentioned about if there's so much benefit, why isn't shareholders doing early and let's say, let's talk about like I said, people with disability or people with alternative ability. That, why can't the government actually offer subsidy to companies to, to use technology to augment capability from the people of disability.

[00:07:59] Giselle Mota: That's a great question. I think one of the issues that many organizations have had is for many years before 2020 and before all this talk about diversity, equity, inclusion was like very big. People were talking about this topic before, but I think companies have seen it as more of a cost and a burden. They're like, oh, if I hire somebody with a diverse ability or different ability, then I have to accommodate them. They have to work in my organization. I'm gonna have to make sure that they have special accommodations and have to invest in that.

[00:08:30] Giselle Mota: Then I have to invest in training my people to deal with those types of of workers. If you don't understand someone with dyslexia, then you need to or who has autism or Aspergers or anything like that, then a manager and their team needs to learn so that they know not to be offended when the person doesn't look you into the eye because they just don't have that social tie. An autistic person will not think that way. Or if it's someone like me, don't get me a plethora of words on pages because I probably need to hear it better to assimilate it. With the sexiest. So I think organizations found it more of a risk factor. Yes. Then, and that's why they've been leery about it or weary about it. I think now we are shining the light better and that concept is changing.

[00:09:16] Andrew Liew Weida: I like the idea that you mentioned about like that companies are finding it more risky to take on people with disability because there's so many different types of disability and there's uncertainty. So peop as companies, like I say, they don't see clear return of investment on things they wouldn't want to invest. So it's a very similar problem where many years ago, before Obama came about that came out to introduce Obamacare or Universal healthcare companies are also like not offering universal healthcare to everybody. And it's only when the government decided to say, Hey, let's, everybody has to subscribe to some kind of universal healthcare that automatically reduce the cost of healthcare or healthcare coverage that enable universal healthcare to be po possible.

[00:10:04] Andrew Liew Weida: Do you think that it's a very similar parallel in that by creating that legislation of diversity metrics and inclusion, it compel universal employment?

[00:10:14] Giselle Mota: Yes, I think so. I think now certain organizations who have been motivated by metrics may just be trying now this time to fix their numbers, right? Yes. And make sure that they are doing better. So it's like getting forced into good behavior and doing what's right. Yes. But then those other organizations who have their hearts in the right place, they, they recognize that maybe they never had a diversity office before and that they should now and so they're not only deploying those offices, hiring those new roles, but training their associates on unconscious bias training or racial terminology that should not be used in the workplace or in product development. So many things are happening. So there's progress and I think whatever is spurred by either way, it's progress.

[00:10:58] Andrew Liew Weida: I agree. It's a big step towards a better humanity on universal employment. Like you said. There are companies that are more progressive. They already see that it works and let's double down investment on creating universal employment on my people for my company, but maybe. There's a large proportion of companies that they are not foresighted, that the government has to bring that foresight to people by putting metrics on these companies so that they can wake up. .

[00:11:25] Giselle Mota: Yeah. And that's how change starts a lot of times.

[00:11:28] Andrew Liew Weida: Agree. So now coming back to that next interesting question, and I wanted to ask you, Giselle, is what is the number one app or software that you use almost on an everyday basis?

[00:11:37] Giselle Mota: I'm gonna have to go with anything mobile apps, especially things of information that I can consume. So I'm gonna say social media platforms number one, top answer. Because. , I always have to say reading. So any podcast channels social media channels where I'm listening to what people have to say, that right there. eBooks or audiobooks, that kind of thing.

[00:12:00] Andrew Liew Weida: So any particular app like iBook or Amazon Kindle or

[00:12:05] Giselle Mota: yes, the Amazon Kindle is good. Those kind of things. And then of course I stay on things like Spotify, apple for podcasts. Social media is great too, by the way social media is crazy and the little bit like we've seen the downfalls of it and how it affects people negatively, but there is a positive side. If you're an information seeker you can learn from your YouTube app or you can learn from Instagram and Twitter. You can learn a whole new topic that you were never exposed to just because you're following people's threads and look, looking at the little video snippets for a minute or 30 seconds. It's really good. Very helpful.

[00:12:39] Andrew Liew Weida: I totally agree with you and like the way that you think in terms of always look on the bright side of things. Now help those audience who are keen to start a career in the future of workspace or in the digital space. What are your top three tips for them?

[00:12:52] Giselle Mota: I'm gonna say, to stay curious. We just talked about so many things on this podcast today, and I think stay curious learn as much as you can. Make sure that at the same time that you're learning as much as you can. I would encourage you to specify in something so the future of work, for example, such a broad area. I just it's about the worker. And it could be the gig worker, the contingent worker, the full-time worker, the different types of generational workers the different types of races and ethnicities and genders. And there's so many different types, right? Yes. Then you have the workplace. You got people working from home. You got people working in the office or a hybrid of that, and soon you'll have people working and they already are in a metaverse. And so where you work, and then the work itself is constantly evolving. Before we would do production lines and assembly lines. Today, people are working on projects, on gigs. They're sharing their skills. So I'd say just like specifying an area. Get good at it, and finally find your voice. What is your voice? What is the message that you wanna say in an arena like the future of work? Don't just be a repeater of what everybody else says. Build your own brands. Have your own opinion and stick to that.

[00:14:08] Andrew Liew Weida: Cool. So the, let me repeat the few tips. It's really great. Nuggets, stay curious, learn broadly finding out a niche and finding your own voice. These are very great, brilliant tips up there. So let me do the last question. Because you have given so much to the audience out here, even for me, I really learned a great deal. So last but on least, what is your request from those listening to this podcast? What is your ask so that we can do our best to help?

[00:14:36] Giselle Mota: I'd say listen to more of Andrew's podcast. I would say for everyone listening, no matter what your culture is, no matter where you live in the world and you're listening to. Be curious about other people. And when you do that you expose yourself to other people, the way of life, the way that they think, the way they approach things. I know that we are almost married to the way that we are upbringing our worldview, our countries, but the world is global and there's so much more out there. So I would just say everything that you do, put an inclusion lens on, put some glasses on of inclusion, and think about people that approach the world differ from you. And once you can do that, I think that we can have a better future work for everybody.

[00:15:16] Andrew Liew Weida: So you see, so the final advice is, put a good inclusion lens, be positive. Create a positive future of work for everybody. Thank you so much, Giselle. We have come to the end of the podcast