Unlocking More from Vision 2024: How HR Can Prioritize Themselves
HR teams are the key innovators behind many of our workplace strategies, from benefits to talent to culture. But how often are you leaving yourself off of your priority list?
It’s no secret that HR does a lot of behind-the-scenes work when it comes to building cultures of excellence and empathy.
Our annual Vision conference is an opportunity for HR to connect with their peers, partners, and industry experts about all things benefits strategy and workplace culture. These connection points are an important part of how we keep a pulse on the latest trends so we can stay connected to the future of work and HR.
2024 keynote speakers, Grammy recording artist, Common, and leadership coach Kelli Thompson both focused on how to prioritize yourself right alongside those needs of your organization and your teams.
“Taking care of yourself affects your professional workplace. One of the greatest things we can do is serve, but there also has to be a certain serving of self. You were created with a purpose. Self-care is a practice, [you] didn’t come here to only do work for others. You have to practice [care] daily. What things are you doing for yourself?”
–Common, 2024 Vision Keynote
If you’re on social media at all, you may have noticed how “self-care” has different meanings depending on who you’re talking to. Lil’ treats. Massages. Solo trips. Therapy. The list is endless, but it’s also personal.
But self-care goes well beyond the surface level. At a deeper level, self-care is about nourishing our needs, from the most basic, like diet and sleep, to the more complex of holding boundaries and investing in therapy.
And while we each have different needs, where we find common ground is going beyond the surface level feel-goods and taking the time to invest in our own self-care. This care comes in so many forms—time away, boundaries, advocating for yourself, even protecting time to take a real lunch break. When was the last time you woke up and didn’t look right at your phone? Self-care means that can wait.
As Common said in his opening keynote at Vision, “One of the greatest things we can do is serve. But there also has to be a certain love and serving of self.”
“You don’t find your voice. You remove everything in the way of it.”
–Kelli Thompson, 2024 Vision Conference
Self-doubt is your opportunity to exit your comfort zone. As Kelli said, “Confidence is the side effect of taking action.” But for many of us—especially those who identify as women—finding that voice and confidence often gets muffled by doubt and imposter syndrome.
Kelli encourages us to explore within ourselves to identify what is keeping us from advocating for ourselves, speaking up, or even asking for what we need to take care of ourselves? Don’t let our doubts be self-sabotage. Doubt is a healthy and normal human emotion, and it can help us accelerate out of our comfort zones and into career advancement and more joy in our every-day lives. So if nothing else, use the doubt toward us taking action, speaking up, and raising our self-confidence.
Kelli will be joining us soon on the Benefits Pulse vodcast to talk more about what it means to advocate for ourselves in the workplace as a form of self-care. The Benefits Pulse keeps you in the know as we explore many of HR’s greatest topics. Head over to the Benefits Pulse to sign up to get an email when Kelli’s episode drops.
You are your own best advocate… …But having a supportive community around you is just as impactful. A lot of your work in HR requires tactical empathy—balancing priorities between executives and your workforce, navigating workplace challenges, building career paths for your people…we don’t need to detail out a list you’re super familiar with already.
HR also requires empathy to function to your full potential—empathy for yourself and your peers. What better place to find that understanding and support than a community of other HR pros who know exactly what you’re going through?
It’s crucial to prioritize self-care and advocacy in the workplace. Embracing your needs beyond the surface level and advocating for yourself to achieve growth and support pays off long-term for you, your organization, and your employees. Remember, your well-being matters as much as that of your organization and employees.
If you missed Vision this year (or want to re-watch), you can tune-in to the on-demand recordings in the Vision Hub here.
