Barbara Taylor
General Counsel
BDO Seidman, LLP
"Literally every phase of Work+Life Fit's engagement was a revelation. From the data assessment process to the leadership readiness process to the partner readiness process, it all rolled up into a very powerful strategy for both individuals and our organization as a whole.
We originally began working with Work+Life Fit as part of our women’s initiative, but data made it abundantly clear that work-life flexibility was an issue for everyone. Work+Life Fit’s process was amazing and extremely effective. Without a doubt, work-life flexibility has become part of our business strategy. The impact of working with Work+Life Fit has been tremendous. From establishing a foundation and gathering data to taking the firm through a powerful change management process, they held our hands every step of the way.
Work+Life Fit’s message absolutely resonated with the BDO Seidman team. Discussions showed that this was different and people were excited about it. They could tell the firm had put a lot of resources into figuring this out, and were proud to work at an organization that cared so much. Moving forward, we are now using the lessons learned from Work+Life Fit to inform and strengthen our other initiatives. The informal feedback on our work with Work+Life Fit has been tremendous. It’s been a very powerful process for our people.
With any new initiative, you always expect some pushback, but because of all the readiness work we did with Work+Life Fit, we had far, far less resistance than we would have had otherwise. They helped us develop effective processes around change management. When it came time to give people the tools and training for our flexibility strategy, we were able to present it in a way that they were most likely to be receptive to it. The collaborative nature of the Work+Life Fit program was highly effective. They gave participants the tools they needed to draw their own conclusions.
The feedback from our partner readiness program showed that 95% of participants rated the meetings extremely or very effective. Individuals in our organization were given the tools to evaluate their situation, assess the flexibility they’d like to have, and how they could possibly get there. Supervisors were trained how to listen and respond in order to create a situation that fits the needs of the individual as well as the business.
Cali Yost is an absolute pleasure to work with, and very skilled at working with and managing the expectations of people at the highest levels of an organization. She is extremely intelligent and gets along with pretty much anyone, even at the highest levels of management. When people can be demanding and challenging, that’s where Cali’s strength lies. We have the same high regard for the entire Work+Life Fit team."
Jennifer Swanberg, Ph.D
Associate Professor & Executive Director
Institute for Workplace Innovation
University of Kentucky
"When our Employer Partners wanted to further explore the business case for flexibility, the first person I thought of was Cali Yost because she could speak to the business case — why it’s fundamental to operations in the 21st century.
Our Innovative Employer Roundtable brings together Kentucky businesses to learn about innovative workplace practices. When Cali spoke to the group, she presented both the theory and the practical aspects of workplace flexibility, then worked with participants to help them think about applying it to their own organizations.
During our Innovative Employer Roundtable meetings, it’s important that we give participants the ‘how to’ as well as the conceptual. During Cali’s presentation, participants were able to work through examples of how to apply workplace flexibility as a strategic business lever and ask, ‘Could we really do this?’ They were given concrete tools to begin the process.
In a business community with traditional values, it’s often tough to get people to rethink their ways of operating. During Cali’s presentation, you could see that participants were highly engaged, and excited to take what they learned and apply it to their organizations. She presented applicable tools and resources on how to apply flexibility to their workplaces.
Fundamentally, workplace flexibility is about learning and is about creating an innovative and effective workplace. Cali delivered an exceptional session that gave people the framework to integrate workplace flexibility into their strategic plans, and the concrete tools to use it as a business strategy."
Lynette Chappell-Williams
Director, Workforce Diversity, Equity, and Life Quality
Cornell University
"Cali Yost presented at our Annual Life Quality Meeting, which always includes a mix of believers and those who have yet to reach their ‘ah-ha’ moment. For those already on board with the importance of flexibility, she got them totally pumped up. For the skeptics, she used terminology and examples that really resonated and helped make the concept real. One attendee at Cali’s presentation commented, ‘It all clicked for me. I know what I need to do to make this work.’ On an organizational level, that’s huge. If an organization is looking for someone who can help them think differently about the work-life fit concept, Cali is that person.
During the planning process, Cali made terrific recommendations for making the presentation more relevant and of greater benefit. Rather than simply talking about flexibility in the workplace, she suggested talking about flexibility as a strategic mover. It was an enlightening, different way of looking at the concept that was very appealing to strategic thinkers — they thought about work-life flexibility in a whole new way. People have definitely started thinking differently about flexibility. It’s not a scary concept where everyone’s going off and doing their own things. This is actually a way to create greater productivity and accountability.
My take on Cali’s presentation and the feedback we received is that her thinking is almost like 20 years ahead — the concepts, what can be done, what we need to be doing to make this work. It’s all about what flexibility looks like for the individual, and how to balance the needs of the employee with the needs of the organization. I was fascinated with how well she understood our environment — not just employees, but students who don’t view their educational pursuits as ‘work.’ Thanks to Cali’s terminology and examples, everyone saw themselves as being part of this overall effort. After most workshops you have to go back and figure out how to apply what you just learned. After Cali’s presentation, people walked out knowing exactly what they needed to do.
As a speaker, Cali is very down to earth — though she clearly knows her stuff, she presents it in a way that anyone would understand it and feel good. She is a very engaging presenter. It’s almost like you’re being entertained while you’re learning something that’s really important and really significant to your organization."
Shelley Shepherd
Senior Manager, New Category Innovation
Pepsico Chicago, Quaker Foods & Snacks
"Cali’s presentation was incredibly well received. The audience was unbelievably engaged, asked many questions and stayed to talk to Cali after the presentation. Every single one of the attendees filled out an evaluation form — which is unusual — and all had glowing comments concerning how relevant and motivating it was.
The bottom line is that work-life fit is always something that people want to learn more about and really want to solve. I think today people are extremely busy and stressed about work. Every person in attendance at Cali’s presentation was incredibly engaged. It was clearly highly relevant and motivating to everyone who attended. It was very, very well received.
By surveying her audience ahead of time and conducting several in-depth interviews, Cali had real-life PepsiCo examples that showed she really understood what Pepsi currently offered, what challenges we faced, and what we could do to make it even better. She really did her homework. The people who were there really, really want their fit to be better, so they were in the perfect place to hear about solutions.
This is a harder year than usual to achieve work-life fit. It is an on-going issue that people are continually trying to manage. Cali suggested very specific actions to address work-life fit, which I thought was the most motivating part of her presentation. She had real, everyday examples — the small things you can do to build fit into your life. It was immediately actionable and relevant."
Aparna Mehrotra
Focal Point for Women
The United Nations
"The feedback on Cali’s panel was possibly the best I have ever received. In fact, several people have now requested contact information for its brilliant panelists. Cali Yost went more than out of her way to assist me in assisting to arrive at an appropriate presentation format, organizing the panel itself, and structuring good questions. Without format, organization and appropriate questions no panel can be sufficiently structured to be effective. Everything should have been thought out prior to the event without removing the spontaneity of the panel and its panelists. This is a skillful task, and Cali’s dedication in this regard went way beyond the call of duty. We could simply not have been half as effective without her experience and willingness to share it.”
The United Nations as an organization still needs proof that work-life fit works and, in fact, that organizations will not achieve their potential or be able to compete in the workplace without it. Cali brought to our panel credible examples from a range of industries what is being done in this area. Her input should go a long way in offsetting the concerns of skeptics."
Connie Dato English
Director of Alumni Career Services
Darden Graduate School of Business
University of Virginia
"When I read Cali Yost’s book, I was intrigued and ended up reading her blog on a regular basis. So when we were looking for someone to speak at our conference, it seemed like a natural fit — I knew she’d be an engaging speaker for the group. Cali made it her job to find out what the participants’ views were and where they were coming from, so she could talk to the issues that were important to us as career coaches.
What’s fabulous about Cali’s book and her work is that it gives practical solutions for how to ask for what you want and not to think of every solution as all or nothing. Her presentation gave our audience of career coaches another perspective to take back with us, and a resource to help make us better counselors to our clients. Interestingly, an audience member had read Cali’s book and employed some of her strategies to achieve work-life fit on her own, and she was an in-person testimonial to the kind of process that Cali recommends.
Cali is definitely energetic and a good speaker. Her engagement of the audience was good, her overall energy was fantastic and her content was spot on. She presented work-life fit as a tool of negotiation, but in a really practical way that gives people the courage to ask for what they need."
Lt. Stephanie Miller
Director, Women's Policy
Chief of Naval Personnel
U.S. Navy
"Work-life flexibility has become a strategic imperative for the U.S. Navy in retaining our people.
What lends Cali so much credibility is that she worked with us to understand what was driving us and tailored her remarks to the military audience. It’s difficult to explain work-life fit in the military and some of the programs that we’re doing. Right from the start, Cali understood where we were coming from and where we were trying to go, but also the reasons why we were trying to get there. We felt like we were speaking to a kindred spirit.
Work-life fit is such a foreign concept to a military organization, especially to our ‘middle management’ — commanders and captains who can find it difficult to implement within the fleet. Work+Life Fit helped us strategize ways to engage personnel at that level so they have a better understanding of how small changes could have a big impact on the individual level. One senior participant was getting ready to take command of a ship, and she stood up during Cali’s presentation and said, ‘I really had an ah-ha moment,’ realizing that small changes could have a significant impact on people’s lives.
It’s not easy to tailor your remarks to a military audience. Presenters often get the reaction,
‘You’ve never lived this life.’ Cali’s presentation went over amazingly well. She didn’t talk about
corporations or Fortune 500 companies, but used her own personal experiences to highlight what
changes people could make on an individual level. The examples and situations Cali crafted were dead on — they really resonated with the audience, which included both junior and senior personnel.
Military personnel don’t have a tremendous amount of control over their own work-life balance. Work+Life Fit excelled at getting people to look at it from an individual level, and finding ways to present it as a partnership to their leaders. That’s what resonated with our audience; they were given the tools to improve their own quality of life while still working within the chain of command.
Cali Yost is infectious in her passion for work-life fit. She got the crowd involved right from the start, and reinforced her credibility by handing challenges from the audience in an honest, responsive way. By the end of her presentation, you could tell she had succeeded in helping participants shift their thinking.
Work+Life Fit took a great deal of time to understand the theory behind our work-life fit initiative and our strategic communications plan. As a result, Cali did a phenomenal job at our annual conference, and has continued to stay in touch and advise us."
Jessica Ihrke
Vice President, Education/Workforce Development
Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce
"I can’t say enough about how Cali engaged our group in thoughtful discussion and moved us to another level in viewing work-life flexibility as a core business strategy. People who didn’t expect actionable strategies walked out with tools they could absolutely use right away. Cali pulls together a lot of the conversations and hot topics people are talking about — issues like the economy or managing a multi-generational workforce — and ties them into work-life flexibility. She does a great job giving a real definition of flexibility, getting people to understand it, and meeting them where they are in terms of their current knowledge.”
For companies that were ready to take work-life fit to the next level, Cali showed them how to build a culture of flexibility that extends from the front lines all the way to the CEO. Cali’s presentation showed that work-life fit is really about thinking creatively — building cross-sector teams and basically creating a ‘think tank’ to find ways to integrate work-life fit as a core business strategy.
Seventy-five percent of our membership is small business — those with 10 or fewer employees who struggle to implement work-life flexibility. Every business could benefit from the strategic thinking Cali offered, regardless of size. One of our members had its CEO, HR directors and several employees in attendance at the Work+Life Fit workshop. It was great to see them bond and start thinking creatively about how to take their organization to the next level. They went away truly fired up by the possibilities.
Cali is so approachable and engaging…both employees and employers felt empowered by her presentation and excited to be part of this important conversation. She gave people ways to think more strategically about what they were doing. She pulls you in, makes you think, and encourages you to go back and share your new knowledge. Everyone walked away with something they could start with, which is very difficult to achieve."
Malcolm L. Smith, PhD. CFLE
Family Life and Family Policy Specialist
University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension
Department of Family Studies
“Cali Yost delivered a keynote address at our first annual New Hampshire Summit on Work and Family. Cali’s keynote was dynamic and engaging. We gave her an impossible task — presenting during the very last session after lunch in an over-packed conference — and she rose to the occasion. It was a complicated audience to work with — everyone from CEOs and front-line people to legislators — and she did a great job finding common ground. One of the things I was really impressed with was Cali’s preparation. She took the time to learn who was in the audience and how she could best present material that was specifically relevant to them.
There was definitely a shift in thinking at the completion of the conference — attendees started to view flexibility as a strategic imperative rather than an option. Cali left our audience feeling that what might seem a monumental shift in thinking was really a practical, believable, and workable strategy. Cali gave very specific guidance to attendees about how to initiate work-life fit changes in their own organizations — exactly what people were looking for. We feel like Cali has become an integral part of our thinking and planning in educating New Hampshire folks about the importance of work-life flexibility.
The beauty of Cali’s presentation was that it brought our conference together — reinforcing the message of the CEOs, U.S. senators, and HR professionals who presented before her. I think people felt empowered to make some changes or to at least think and begin the dialogue. One of the most consistent comments on our evaluations was, ‘We wish we had more time with Cali.’ We could have based the whole day around her presentation.”
Erica Schockett, M.D.
Conference Director
National Physicians Alliance National Conference
"Every participant at a conference needs bite-size pieces to take away; I encourage speakers to end with what I call “take-home pearls. Cali’s presentation was absolutely studded with pearls. This is an audience that prides itself on a high degree of intelligence and common sense. Their ‘ah-ha’ moments came from realizing that some of the things that would make their day or their week more satisfying were in fact very achievable.
The crisis we’re seeing in the lack of primary care physicians and movement toward specialty practices illustrates the need for a sustainable lifestyle. Cali Yost’s presentation clearly resonated with our conference audience — her session received consistently high ratings and comments like, “Most useful information of the entire meeting.”
I love her presentation style — it was professional yet approachable, with a sense of universality in her examples that speaks to all of us. Cali wove into her presentation specific examples we could relate to as physicians — what it means to be on call, or having a schedule that shifts dramatically from month to month. She incorporates a high degree of understanding of her audience and uses an interactive approach that helps participants individualize information for themselves. Our conference presented a challenge for even the most experienced facilitator. Cali was seamless in her pacing so it was comfortable for everyone. She’s very skilled in assessing her audience to keep the whole group moving forward.
Conferences like these are often overwhelming — the fact that you can leave a session like this with actionable, bite-size ‘pearls’ is the most important thing. Cali’s style assured that everybody left with exactly that, I’m sure of it."
Anita R. Brick
Director
MBA Career Advancement Programs
The University of Chicago
Graduate School of Business
"Thank you again for the wonderful Work+Life teleconference you conducted for The University of Chicago, GSB. The number of participants exceeded our expectations...Both the prework and program were concrete, practical and enlightening and very appropriate for our constituents who are engaged in a variety of functions and industries globally. The feedback from the students and alumni was excellent..."
Amy Reece
Principal
Leadereview.com
"My crowd it still raving about you, your book…One of my favorite clients used your book to engineer a major life change—he is now in a PhD program to work on fixing his industry, the electric utility industry. He is very excited and credits you and your book. I love stories like that."
