This week’s Women in Business Spotlight features Emma Slade-Baxter (she/her), Practice Manager at Heidrick & Struggles in London. She earned her B.A. in Philosophy from Wellesley College in 2015, and kick-started her career at Value Retail as a Business Analyst, where she utilized her liberal arts background to address business challenges across a global matrix organization. After two years at the firm, Emma transitioned into a Practice Manager position at Heidrick & Struggles, where she currently works. She is responsible for driving business development through creating and executing EMEA and Global operations initiatives. In her free time, Emma is a passionate equestrian, traveler, and photographer.
Read our conversation about the day-in-the-life as a Practice Manager, how COVID-19 has impacted her work, and how capitalism may emerge after COVID-19.
August 6, 2020 11 am EDT
Written by Sarah Chu
Day in the Life
SC: What does your day-day look like as a Practice Manager?
ESB: The ideal day-day would be 50 percent reactive work and 50 percent proactive work; reacting to colleagues’ requests and urgent business development needs and proactively working on more strategic, long term operational projects. There’s always projects on the backburner that need to be tackled.
COVID-19
SC: I’ve never thought about work that way! How has COVID-19 changed your routine?
ESB: It completely changed my day-day. In addition to WFH, I’m a part of CHRO roundtables where my company brings leaders across all industries to talk about the current state of their businesses. These meetings – and this crisis – has forced us to come together on a more personal level.
SC: Can you describe some ways your work culture has change?
ESB: This new way of working has really brought a sense of humanity to the workplace; you see people’s homes and meet their families as a result of attending Zoom meetings every day. There’s less of a ‘I’m in the office and I’m here to prove that I work hard’ attitude and more trust that we’re doing our work, but our schedules might look a bit different. We’ve seen productivity and trust between employers and employees really grow across the consumer markets, which is both a positive and perhaps surprising outcome from the crisis.
SC: I’m curious to hear your thoughts on which industries have higher productivity.
ESB: Businesses who had an ‘old-school mentality,’ where the only option was to come into the office five days a week have been forced to dramatically change how they work. This forced digital acceleration has happened across all businesses as a result of offices being closed but has been quite disruptive in this subset particularly. It’s required a different mindset from everyone, but from what I’ve heard, it’s been a positive move forward.
SC: Do you think more and more firms will transition to remote work?
ESB: That’s an interesting question: whether flexible working will stay or people will revert to their original habits. Across industries, people have proved that they can WFH successfully, and companies are now changing their flexible working policies to reflect this.
Additionally, flexible working expands the talent pool: if a company has an office in a disadvantageous location, they lose out on some applicants who are unable to travel or relocate. Now that being onsite may no longer be a requirement, companies can hire talent previously unattainable.
SC: I do agree with that sentiment, but there are a lot of negative externalities of remote work. There’s a common misconception with being physically distant and emotionally distant. I’m nervous about seeing spikes in anxiety, depression, and isolation worldwide.
ESB: Definitely. Companies should recognize that this has been a traumatic experience for everyone. We’re seeing that in industry right now; companies, including the one I work for, are ramping up their mental health and wellbeing offers to support their employees as we transition out of lockdown.
The Future of Capitalism
SC: What do you think the economy will look like post-COVID19?
ESB: I think that this is one of the first times since my professional career began where it’s really hard to predict what will happen next. I hope the industry becomes more empathetic in how they operate. People are endorsing businesses that treat their employees well during the pandemic. Putting people-first [in most capitalistic societies] tends to be a tick box initiative, but I’m hopeful that has changed as a result of the crisis.
SC: I recently listened to a podcast by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff about striving for a better capitalism. For the last half-century, capitalism has been based off of Milton Friedman’s philosophy of maximizing shareholder value. Many critiques hold Friedman responsible for the vast income inequality in the U.S. Benioff argues that, now more than ever, there needs to be a change.
ESB: I think so and we are seeing a shift in consumer sentiment, where. If they do, it’ll be an exciting time for the consumer markets.