Rebel Podcast: Life and Work on Your Terms

Episode 44: Mental Health for Gen Z with Aleah Vaske

May 18, 2021 Kyle Roed / Aleah Vaske Season 1 Episode 44
Rebel Podcast: Life and Work on Your Terms
Episode 44: Mental Health for Gen Z with Aleah Vaske
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Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Join Kyle as he speaks with Aleah Vaske about her journey to become a HR professional, and her work on the area of mental health. 

About Aleah: I am a Junior at the University of Northern Iowa double majoring in Digital Media Marketing and Business Management with an emphasis in Human Resources. My interest in human resources stems from my leadership experiences, as well as having a passion for people and recognizing their talents. I also love using my creative design skills towards a goal that will enhance a person or entity, which is why I chose to study marketing.

I've had valuable work experience as an Administrative Assistant to three Principal Financial Advisors and as a Human Resources intern at the Regional Medical Center. These roles have allowed me to develop many skills relevant to the human resources field, such as benefits and payroll, along with enhancing my marketing skills through shooting and editing videos, coordinating client outreach events, and following compliance procedures to perform email and postal mail marketing.

In my free time, I love to bake, do yoga, thrift shop, and work on starting my own company, Custom Bra Co. Also, I am involved in UNI student organizations such as the Society for Human Resource Management and Entrepreneurs Club.

Aleah’s Profile

linkedin.com/in/aleahvaske

Websites

Email

aleahvaske@gmail.com

Twitter: @makeup_mental
https://weblab.uni.edu/makeup-mentalhealth/

Rebel HR is a podcast for HR professionals and leaders of people who are ready to make some disruption in the world of work.

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Kyle Roed:

This is the rebel HR podcast. If you're a professional looking for innovative thought provoking information in the world of human resources, this is the right podcast for you. All right, Rebel HR listeners, I'm extremely excited to welcome back to the rebel HR podcast. Aliyah Vasquez, one of our common guests here and some of that I'm sure that you're going to love to catch up with. So Aaliyah, thank you for joining us again.

Aleah Vaske:

Of course. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to do this again.

Kyle Roed:

Absolutely. Well, we're glad to have you back on the show. I think you were on our third episode ever, when we were trying to uncover the mystery of Gen Z. So that's been a few months ago now. So why don't you let our listeners know kind of what you've been up to?

Aleah Vaske:

So yeah, um, I actually after recording a podcast with Kyle was inspired to kind of start a project of my own with my team at you and I on you, and I Sherm, and we actually started a podcast called generation HR, which is not just about Gen Z, but a lot about all the different different generations what they care about, and how they can intertwine in the workplace. Our first segment was focused a lot on the new LGBTQ law that was passed in June with the Supreme Court ruling. So that's what I did most recently. And now I actually have a blog that focuses a lot on makeup, and mental health is what it's called. So focusing on mental health in the workplace. So those are some of the recent things that I've done. I'm still going to school for human resources, and marketing and getting my industrial organizational psychology certificate at the University of Northern Iowa. And so I'll wrap up this semester, in a few weeks, and then I'll be a senior, which is very weird to think about.

Kyle Roed:

Well, your college experience was way different than mine was. We'll just leave we just leave it at that. Let imagination run wild.

Aleah Vaske:

like doing like five podcasts in college?

Kyle Roed:

Well, first of all podcasts didn't exist when I went to school. In fact, you know, Facebook was was at the point I was going to school was only available for college students. And it was like a brand new thing. Let's just say the Facebook messages, the Facebook memories that pop up from like, you know, a long, long time ago are pretty humorous to read. And I'm just glad that they're all private at this point. Well, good for you. Sounds like you are just already starting to make waves in the world of human resources. And congratulations on almost getting there. Although I'm sure that you and nobody in your family ever was concerned about you graduating from whatever institution he wanted to go to. So. So kudos to you. So I know, I appreciate the opportunity to be the guest on the generation HR podcast, and the perspective that you brought there. I'm curious to dig in a little bit more into your, some of your research on on mental health makeup, I'm not going to be able to talk about much, but I'm really interested to learn about the mental health aspects.

Aleah Vaske:

Yeah, so I wouldn't necessarily say that I've conducted a lot of research, which is kind of the tone that I wanted to set for my blog in the first place. I really like it to be very authentic, coming from the heart, if you will. I know that sounds very fluffy.

Kyle Roed:

But it's very HR.

Aleah Vaske:

Yeah, a lot of the topics that I've wrote about are actually things that I've been seeing on social media. We also just had someone on Kaylee's podcast, helpful resources. Her name was Madison, and she's from the UK. And she has her own platform called mental health matters at work. And her story is kind of what inspired me to get into this realm and talk about some of these issues. I've always been passionate about it. But that was kind of just what launched me with all these topics that I could talk about. Um, the first step that I took was going on my social media and asking my followers, what topics Do you guys want to hear about? And I got a lot of feedback, which actually kind of opens up another can of worms that maybe these people you know, aren't seeing these things talked about anywhere else and I know that mental Even though it's come a long way, there's still a certain sixth stigma around it, especially and the workplace. So I definitely took the opportunity to be the person that talked about some of those topics, even if I hadn't experienced them. Personally, I kind of dove into asking some of the people that suggested the topics, why they did what their story was. And that's kind of where I started.

Kyle Roed:

So as you were digging into mental health, and specifically, you know, mental health in the workplace, did you see any common themes present themselves.

Aleah Vaske:

So actually, it's been pretty all over the place. Um, I would say one of the common themes would definitely be work life balance. A lot of people I know are struggling with that, especially now, since there is a really hard, not hard separation between work and life, as we're all kind of some of us are still working from home, and a lot of concern going back into the workplace, because then you have to really completely rework your balance again. So I would say that was the topic that I saw come up the most is the work life balance.

Kyle Roed:

Interesting. So from your standpoint, do you do you actually think that work life balance? is appropriate? Is your generation view it that way? Or is it a situation where it's more of a work life integration,

Aleah Vaske:

I would say this is how I view it. I feel like we are almost living to work rather than working to live, if that makes any sense at all. So I think there's, there's just been too much emphasis sometimes whether it's, you know, you personally are putting too much emphasis on it, or the culture in your organization puts too much emphasis on it. But my perspective is that your whole life shouldn't center around work, like, yes, you should work as a part of your life. But you know, life is really about enjoying life, enjoying family, making relationships, and work is a part of it, I want to do what I'm passionate about. So that especially helps if you're passionate about what you're doing. But that's the way that I view it, if that makes

Kyle Roed:

sure. So you're in the camp of do what you love, and you never work a day in your life. Is that the is that is that encompassing what you're saying?

Aleah Vaske:

I wouldn't say so. Because no matter how much I love something, I know that some days, I'm not gonna want to go to work. And that's just the way it is. That's kind of how humans are. And that's, especially with the mental health thing. Like, it's not always going to be perfect, I could meditate every single day and still have insecurities, and struggles and all of that. But I my perspective is kind of what you said, I feel like, if work is something I am passionate about AI and working to live, like work is part of my goals in life, and how I want my life to look like. But it's not everything. That's my take on that. And I'll go into a little bit of a project that I've been doing. So my friend from entrepreneurs Club, which entrepreneurs club talks about this all the time, because we really struggle as entrepreneurs to find a work life balance, when you pretty much have to put your whole heart and soul into something, if you're starting it from scratch. She came up with this idea with her family, that instead of setting a new year's resolution, which often doesn't work for a lot of us, including me, you instead pick a word to think and reflect on and make that your goal throughout the year. So actually, this year, my word is balance. So I don't know. And I was kind of thinking of ways like what is balance even mean, really. And the best definition that I could come up with or measurable way was the eight dimensions of wellness, which we learn now. It's a required course for all the college students that you and I to take dimensions of well being course which I'm not going to remember all of them, but it's like emotional well being social, financial, environmental, intellectual, occupational, and then there's a few more that I must be forgetting. But

Kyle Roed:

I'm sorry, there's no test here. Yeah, I don't know.

Aleah Vaske:

Keeping track of what I do hour by hour every single day and putting it in a spreadsheet and then sorting them to see how much time I spend on each dimension of well being. Which obviously, it's not Going to be equal, I knew that going into it. I'm in school right now, that's my priority. So school should take up most of my time, which based on my data it has. But it's still important for me to spend at least one hour doing one dimension of the well being each week. So that has been my goal. And it's been, it's been interesting to just see, like, how many hours in a day, you know, I don't know, that I'm working on stuff. Just been interesting.

Kyle Roed:

I don't I, I have, I cannot be a role model or speak about work life balance, it doesn't, it doesn't exist. For me. It's very much just work life integration for me, where, you know, I'm just I'm always connected. And part of that's the product of my role. Being a global HR person. I have employees operating 24 hours a day, six days a week, at least. My day anyway, so yeah. And then, you know, other, I do side hustles, and all sorts of different things. And I think the one thing, the one thing that I struggle with the most or have the most guilt about is the, the balance between family time and work time. And that's where I get off kilter. So definitely, you know, I feel that, you know, that balances is tough for me, and I think it gets, I think it gets tougher, the, the more responsibilities you have to others. You know, it's, I think it was easier for me to have balance when it was just me, and you know, my girlfriend, my future wife, versus now when I have, you know, three kids and a dog and a fish that I have to change the water for, you know, those kinds of?

Aleah Vaske:

Yeah. I can't relate to that. So once I have kids and a fish and all of that, maybe my outlook will be different on the work life balance. I'm sure it will. But I'm trying to be proactive. Well,

Kyle Roed:

I think do I think, I think I think what you're hitting on is really critical is trying to trying to figure out what's healthy now. While you are, you know, still in a in a point in your life, where you have that luxury, I think is critical so that you have that healthy relationship down the road. So I think what you're doing is, is very smart. Are you finding as you're talking to people and sharing this content and interacting with others that that other people are feeling the same way? Or that this, this type of focus resonates with them?

Aleah Vaske:

As far as the work life balance? You mean? Yes. Um, yes, I would say that what people really resonate with is the work life separation, so that when you're not at work, you're not working, you know, kind of like what you were saying, it's very integrated for you. People, I think, have a hard time understanding, like balance, and really, how, how what that means and how much hours should go into each thing. And because obviously, our work is going to be taking up most of our time, you know, because that's what we're doing in our life, we're working nine to five, whatever. And then let's be honest, none of us actually get done at five, it's like, get supper and then continue working if you have to get something done. So I think it's just especially for me, I'm like, there's just a point where you have to not check emails for like an hour, or just like, unplug a little bit and have that separation. And if I'm with my family, right now, I'm definitely not checking emails, like I'm separated from work. So that's what people I've resonated with a lot, I think the most. And I've come up with some creative ways, and heard creative ways from other people to make sure that I hold myself accountable to that. So I know a friend who literally does not get notifications at certain times of the day. So you can set it on your phone where you do not get any emails coming through if your phone is plugged in the charger. So it'd be like at night, if you wanted to plugged in the charger or if you want to have dinner, go plug your phone in the charger, you're not getting an email, because I know that I get an email automatically want to respond to it if I see it. And then some of the other things, let me think. I think it's just a lot about setting boundaries, which kind of goes to what you were saying before. Like, I'm glad I'm doing this now so that I make the boundaries for myself so that when it gets tougher to hold those boundaries later on in my life, I know Okay, well this is my boundary, I said while I'm having dinner with my family. I'm not going to check my email. So like, I've done it for my whole life. Now it's a habit. It's a boundary that I know. So I'm going to try to continue that. Right.

Kyle Roed:

Right. Good for you. Yeah, I think it's, it's an interesting challenge. And I think it's very similar. You know, I'm just reflecting on my personal interaction with work. You know, getting that little notification on your phone that you have an email. It's, it's about the same thing as getting like a notification on this is gonna make me sound old Facebook, or what's cool. What do you use? What's the cool social?

Aleah Vaske:

I use Facebook? Is Facebook. Okay. Yeah. Snapchat is probably, like the notification from Snapchat would probably be like, more comparable to email for me.

Kyle Roed:

Okay, so Snapchat, so we'll go, we'll be hip. I think I have like, 12 people on Snapchat. And I don't do I don't there's no content on Snapchat. For me, I don't really get it, except that my kids like me to turn the phone around and do the cat face in the puppy face or whatever you can do the age face. That's depressing. But yeah, those kinds of things. So that's the that's the level of maturity I have with social media. But yeah, so you know, as I get an email, you know, I get a little, you know, you get the little red notification on your phone. And it's the same thing, we click in, like, Oh, what is that? And then, and then like, 510 15 minutes later, you're like, into your email, and completely disconnected from wherever you're at, you know, you're not present with whoever you're around. And that's, I think that's part of the challenge with, you know, with, with building those boundaries, and truly, you know, disconnecting, I think part of the struggles I have is, you know, you mentioned earlier that, you know, life is about more than work. But for me, I like my work, I really enjoy it. And you know, I do get to I get to learn about, you know, different cultures, and I get to interact with people, and I get to build relationships, and I get to interact and solve problems. It's fun. So it is, you know, there is an element there where that is, it's enjoyable for me to work actually like it. Not every day, sometimes it sucks, you know? And I mean, that's just that's just what it means to work. But I don't know. So a question that sometimes whether that's healthy, or whether I'm the mild, workaholic,

Aleah Vaske:

there are things that I love to work on not everything, especially not school, sorry, school.

Kyle Roed:

I don't think any of our listeners are identify as school, I think you're saying.

Aleah Vaske:

I'm just like, if any of my professors are on here, love your study. But yeah, no, I do enjoy working on certain things. However, this is where I am making sure that I set the boundaries. Like when I'm working on stuff, your mind is just like so immersed, solving problems, doing all these things, even if I am, you know, it brings me joy while I'm working on it. I feel like my mind still needs a break from that, like total immersion. And I was talking with Kaylee actually about this the other day, because we are both, like, we love to multitask. And so I'll be like, Oh, I'm working on like, oh, whatever, and then have Netflix or whatever in the background. And it's like, I'm trying to get my work time and like my personal time and at the same time. But it's actually like more harmful to your brain. And your brains like doing two things at once. When really like your brain is craving that break. It's craving that, you know, monotonous just like watching a silly Netflix show and not having to think about problems and all of these different things. So that's where I think yes, I do enjoy my work, of course. But I am recognizing that sometimes my mind needs a break from the complications of work and just needs to chillax for a little bit.

Kyle Roed:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think I think what you're hitting on there and there's been some really interesting research and studies done on the on your brain's ability to context switch, and truly go from one task to another comfortably. So like the the actual the, I'll call it the myth of multitasking is actually potentially very harmful and if if not harmful, at least very very fatiguing to your brain because your brain doesn't it can't continuously switch context from one thing to another. So email was Call email, zoom call email, Zuko. Like, eventually your brain just like it's tired. Right?

Aleah Vaske:

Right. And that's the other thing that we were just talking about with like, the email, like your brain switch from like, okay, family mode, okay, work mode. And then you just like, get into a tunnel, especially if it's the end of an email, like, please get this done. And, like, let's be real, if I see that, I'm going to be like, Oh, my gosh, I need to get this done working on it hour later, after solving all these problems by brands like, okay, now I have to go back to this. And it's so confusing for us. And just really, that's the type of things that, you know, where we see burnout happening is just not having not giving our brains that break. And that's very true, like chemical physical thing that happens.

Kyle Roed:

Yeah, that one time, I tried to put my five year old on a corrective action plan. It didn't, you know, didn't work so well, that I was still in workboats. Yeah, there's no performance improvement plans for five years. That's good. Yeah. It's it's an interesting, really interesting approach. And I think one of the things that's been really encouraging over the last, at least the last few years is the focus on mental health in the workplace, and the fact that mental health should not be stigmatized, it really is, it's medical health, it's brain health. Just because somebody is having mental health struggles, does not mean that they should be ostracized or are made to feel less than we should be supporting them as employers and supporting them in the workplace. So have you? Have you given any thought to the workplaces that tend to do that successfully and support their employees successfully? And as you're finding out about that, what are you finding they're doing? Right?

Aleah Vaske:

Yeah, so I think my sister had a company, which when Coronavirus happened, like they already had stuff in place to help out their employees. And then this huge pandemic happens where you need it. And it's like, Okay, great, like we're doing the right thing. So I think that being proactive is everything you talked about, like, which I'm gonna go two ways at this. So there's, you know, the existing mental health problems that employees have that you can make accommodations for, and those things, and then there's like, preventing the mental health issues, which is where, you know, making sure that you have a cut off time that people aren't, you know, in your office that we are, as of the night working 60 hours a week, which is just my opinion, I think that we need to take some preventative approaches as well. So the companies that I've seen, do these things really successfully. And one of the things that actually attracted me to my internship this summer, is like having those shorter workweek. So my internship this summer is a 35 Hour Workweek, which is five hours different from the 40. But I do think it makes a big difference, because it's speaking to their employees, like our culture values, the work life balance, and that is why we have this 35 Hour Workweek, if that makes sense. Because if you don't, and it's kind of, like ambiguous, and that's not something that you are really advertising to your employees. I just feel like they might kind of ignore the hours in their workweek altogether. Whereas shortening it a little bit, at least sends a message like, you know, we want to be proactive, and try to help you guys out and give you a little bit more of a break, even if it's getting off a half hour early each day. The other things that I find really important are obviously like having some counseling in your inch, like benefits plan, somehow employee assistance programs, focus groups, you know, I've we talked about it, like inclusion and diversity groups with different cultures and minorities, if your organization is big enough for that, having those types of support groups for employees, things like that.

Kyle Roed:

Yeah, that's interesting that they're doing shorter work weeks. Are they doing that over just shorter days, or is it four days? How are they structuring that?

Aleah Vaske:

Yeah, so this one, it's you get off instead of getting off at five, I'll get off at 430. So that's how they're 35 Hour Work Week is when my sister She also has a shorter work week. However, hers is all on Friday, so they get off at two on Friday instead of five On Friday, so whatever way you do it in 35 versus 40, doesn't seem like that much. But it sends a message to me that they're trying and that they care. And that, yeah, I think it's all about sending that message and making sure that your employees know that there is some sort of, you know, expected cut off time, rather than just having it be ambiguous like it has in the past, like, kind of an unspoken rule or psychological contract that you have to stay so late, in order to get this promotion or do that or get all your work done. It's it sent a message to me that's,

Kyle Roed:

so you interpreted that as a as a message about work life balance?

Aleah Vaske:

Yes, I did. And I actually saw a tweet the other day, that was about how much job descriptions tell you about the workplaces culture, and why did they care about mental health, and I am going to do a tick tock on this, I need to find some job description and blur out all of the company's information and then analyze it. But I was thinking back to when I was looking for an internship, and some of the key words that like, made me not even want to give it a second look, I was like, I'm not applying there. Because, and I think that the keywords from my generation that we see are way different from your generation, probably, like one of the keywords that came to mind was like, a fast paced environment. For me that has a negative connotation. But I know that it's been used in so many job descriptions. So I know it's probably negative to me, but not for everyone.

Kyle Roed:

Not cheese, I probably have that on every single one of my job descriptions. And

Aleah Vaske:

it depends on who you're hiring. Like, if you're trying to hire, you know, you want to be honest about what's happening in the environment. But for me, that kind of had a negative and I'm not saying that I that's the only thing that I judge the job off of. But I couldn't help but think might have like a bias towards that word. I don't like that word. It means something negative to me, it means that like, yeah, in my brain equalled stressful environment. That's what he told me. I don't know.

Kyle Roed:

So what else? Give me some more I'm writing this down, I gotta get the answers to the test. Okay, so take off fast paced, what are some other words,

Aleah Vaske:

so I need to figure out, um, one of the ones that I was looking at, though, it was just like, I could just tell that it was an internship by the job description, which is probably their intent, like, you don't want to have a job description that makes something seem like it's not because then you're gonna have turnover and things like that. But it was an internship for a bank. And I could just tell like, it was very, you know, like a coffee run internship, like you're just there to do paperwork and get coffee. And like, I knew that wasn't what I wanted. I wanted something where I was going to be like, real life work. And it's just crazy that we can make those assumptions based off of a job description.

Kyle Roed:

Yeah, that's interesting. What did it What did it actually have been better? Would you have potentially applied if it said, you're going to get coffee and do paperwork? This is an internship deal with it.

Aleah Vaske:

I would not apply.

Kyle Roed:

Like radical

Aleah Vaske:

to Honestly, it would have saved me some time.

Kyle Roed:

Yeah, yeah. How would I, let's see, how would you turn that one. So ensure that your your office is fueled with, you know, energy, and the culture is sustained through value added impact, you know, something like that, which basically means getting coffee for, for people. That's a good,

Aleah Vaske:

that's a pretty good way to twist it. I must say.

Kyle Roed:

I've been writing job descriptions for years,

Aleah Vaske:

especially since you put that culture piece in there, because I think that my Gen Z brain is like, culture. I don't know, we just had that, like, engraved in our brains, like your companies have a good culture.

Kyle Roed:

That's awesome. You know, it's fascinating. I'm just, I'm just reflecting on this. And this is maybe maybe the first time that it's been articulated this way, but you know, just thinking through the way that your, the way that you state things in a job description, you know, could be you know, for lack of a better word, you know, turning people away, you know, unintentionally and, you know, I'm sure I'm guilty of this as I look at some of my job we got we got really long job description. I have a lot of really technical jobs, which tend to have longer job descriptions, a lot of them sound kind of the same. So yeah, candidate is going to get a feel for your company, depending upon the words in your job descriptions. And so a good reminder. So, yeah, we'll, we'll plug the blog, once you get that one up, I'm sure you'll have a number of interested parties looking, looking for that. So. So I'm just, I'm still I'm still fascinated about 35 hour week thing, because your perspective is all they care about my mental health, and they care about work life balance, my perspective is Oh, they just save payroll, and they don't have to worry about overtime.

Aleah Vaske:

It's for the salary employees too. But no, I never thought of it that way. I really did. I guess, here's the other thing. Here's the other thing to know about me, I am more motivated by working less hours than I am, like getting more money. I've just noticed that about myself. And I know that's probably a really backwards considering I'm a broke college student. But I have noticed that about myself, like if somebody was like, Oh, yeah, you get weekends off, and you know, you get off at 430 instead of five, like this job over here, like had more money, just because you're working more hours, I would still value the other job. And I think that's, you know, probably true for a lot of your employees to like, some of them are like, I don't care that much about money, I want more free time to achieve that work life balance, and to be, you know, the best version of myself. And that's just aligning with my goals and values that I have for myself.

Kyle Roed:

So that's good. I think that's really healthy. I think one of the areas that, you know, I think causes a lot of mental health challenges is an unhealthy relationship towards money. And viewing it is, you know, the The only thing as opposed to viewing money as a tool to get the goods and services that you need to, you know, live the lifestyle you want to live and, and if that gets, if you care too much about money, you know, demons are gonna present themselves one way or another right it, whether that's mental health, unhealthy, you know, working relationships, unhealthy relationships in general. So I think that's a really healthy, healthy way to look at it. So. And hey, while you're a broke college student, you might as well, I mean, now's the time, you don't have to care about money. Because,

Aleah Vaske:

yeah, I mean, I do care about money. But the trade off for me, presents more value with the time off and you know, having a little break during the summer and yeah, doing fun things and getting off at 430 versus five out of no entities. Yeah.

Kyle Roed:

Well, good, good for you. Although I have a feeling that you, you were a little bit of a harder worker than you're making yourself sound right now.

Aleah Vaske:

That's probably true. That is probably true. But yeah, just, that's the message that it sent to me.

Kyle Roed:

Thank you. I think you're an aspirational slacker.

Aleah Vaske:

That is probably a great definition. That probably is it? Yeah, that would be true. And I think that the reason that I value time so much, because I feel like I never have enough of it. Like, I want to do all these things, I have all these different side gigs. And, and just like, you are saying, Okay, well, you're getting paid five hours less each week. But for me, if I wanted to do I could, you know, get contracted for a website and make up that money times? Actually, two, because I get paid twice as much doing my website work. So if I wanted to, you know, make up for the financial impact? I could, yeah, but

Kyle Roed:

I think that's a critical point too. And something that employers are going to have to figure out because there is there has been a power shift. And a lot of it has to do with just the ability to earn money from anywhere, doing almost anything because of the internet over the last, you know, 20 years, the the power balance has shifted from the employers having pretty much all the power to dictate, you know, time that people are going to be in the office and how much we pay you for that time. And, you know, we expect everybody to work 50 6070 hours a week, to an economy where, you know, somebody wants to go do something else and do a side hustle, start a gig, maybe work two part time jobs, but you know, make as much as we I mean, the, the opportunities are pretty endless. And some of these jobs are also relatively passive in nature. And so I think there's a Interesting nostalgia for like, you know, the work ethic of yesteryear, you know, everybody used to be such a hard worker. The truth is people are working hard. They're just working differently. And the definition of hard work is actually continuing to change. So what's, what's your reaction to, to some of the changes of those dynamics in the economy facing you today?

Aleah Vaske:

Yeah, I had this in my presentation for disrupt HR, the side gig thing is huge, and it's going to become even bigger, especially now that we've seen COVID, and some of the grocery instacart doordash, all of those things have blown up even more, and people aren't going to keep with those same habits of getting delivery stuff after they'd done it for half a year. So I'll say, a benefit that I can see is, you know, increasing that motivation, potential score. So I personally, design out my day, which this is a blog post, like design out my day, because I have multiple jobs that I'm doing. But I find myself so much more productive, so much more motivated, doing all these different jobs, spreading them out throughout my day than I would be like last semester, I had two days in my schedule a week to work for 10 hours to get my 20 hours in for my internship. And after that, I was like, No way, I spend the same amount of hours each week doing the same stuff. But I get so much more done. Now that I have added things in there, but spread out the different things throughout the week that I'm doing and even throughout the day, and I say I'm working no more than two hours on each thing. And I get a whole lot more done. So I feel like that could be a benefit that we possibly could see down the road with the gig economies. And I also feel like, I'm able to get out all of my passions, which I don't know, I'm sure that other people have this too. But I'm not really just passionate about one thing. You know, I really like marketing, but and design and all of those things. So I'm able to have my HR work for this half of the day. And then, you know, design a website a little bit for this half of the day. And granite working from home is what makes that possible right now. But I still think that that could be something in the future that could make people more motivated to work because they already got this passion out of the way for the day or filled their cup that way, and then they can go to work and do this one. I don't know.

Kyle Roed:

It sounds good. But I also am sitting here thinking, jeez, that sounds complicated. From an employer standpoint, you know, I think there are certain businesses that that works really well for right, you know, where where you construct your work around an objective, as opposed to, you know, time spent, or work that can be done relatively, on collaboratively? Right. You know, I think that I think one of the challenges we're, we're facing in my organizations and I'm hearing other HR professionals struggle with is, it's it's those collaborative jobs that have a relatively squishy, work content that can't be measured, but really just works better when you've got an entire group of people working on the same thing in the same space. And I think that, I think that's where it gets challenging. And ultimately, I do think that the future of work is going to be much more up to the up to the employees to determine what kind of structure works best for them, because I think there's going to be more opportunity to do exactly what you described. But then there's also going to be an opportunity for those that prefer a little bit more, you know, maybe stability, structure and, and, you know, cohesion in collaboration in a, you know, on a longer term project on a larger team. So,

Aleah Vaske:

and that's why I am hopeful happens that, you know, the different organizations will be able to be transparent about what the job is going to look like. And if that person is a right fit for the job based on if they like structure and routine and working with other people and being there from nine to five, or if they want to have all these different things. And I think there are both of those people on the world. I think there's people who are in between there. So I don't know in the future if we would anticipate that being a problem. But based on all of the different people and all of our unique characteristics. I feel like it might It worked better for us if we have that diversity in perspectives and the way we work.

Kyle Roed:

Now, awesome, great, great conversation. I'm loving this topic and and I think I could go for another, another hour or two and pick your brain. And, you know, have you helped me figure out how to work from home policy that we're still working on? But then I'd have to pay you a consulting fee. So we won't do that. All right.

Aleah Vaske:

Remember, my consulting fee is twice as much. So

Kyle Roed:

twice as much as this. I'll pay that is much.

Aleah Vaske:

No joy as much as I am making my day. Joe, I

Kyle Roed:

got it. I thought you were talking to you. This is a non compensated interview. So I was like, I'll pay twice as much as I'm paying you right now. All right. Well, it's been it's been wonderful catching up with you. And and it sounds like you're doing some really great things and are continuing to do that. Congratulations on your internship starting up soon. And, you know, I'm really looking forward to continuing to to follow your college career as well as as, as beyond that. So I want to shift gears and go into the rebel HR flash round. So this is something we started after you were last on the show. So this is the first time you've gone through the flash round. Are you ready? Yeah. Okay. All right. And then no pressure, no stress,

Aleah Vaske:

you're gonna take it harder on me this time.

Kyle Roed:

All right. Question number one. What are you reading right now?

Aleah Vaske:

I am reading Laurie rudiments book Betting on you. So we had her on our pap podcast? Well, I guess I think it's on Kaylee's podcast, we had like a weird transition where like, we were having guests for generation HR. But then we decided they went with Kaylee's platform better. So, it's all about fixing the work of HR. And she signed it in my book and she said Aliyah counting on you to fix HR. And I just love it.

Kyle Roed:

Yeah, she's great. She's got a she also has a podcast called punk rock HR. So yes, yeah. So we're definitely like minded. So great book Betting on you. Alright, second question, Who should we be listening to?

Aleah Vaske:

is like a podcast or music,

Kyle Roed:

whatever. This is your flash.

Aleah Vaske:

Hi, guys. I have I have to plug my girl Kaylee worth. Because I think if you want to hear more of this content, about the Generation Z perspective, you should definitely check out her podcast helpful resources. She has a lot of cool stuff on there. And I know that she's told me a few new people that she's interviewed that are pretty cool. So that's who I'd say should be listening to right now.

Kyle Roed:

Cool. Perfect. I'm just curious. What, what is the music? What's the music genre?

Aleah Vaske:

I don't know. That's, that's because I am a music person. It's almost like I have too many genres to choose from.

Kyle Roed:

Okay,

Aleah Vaske:

I think, I don't know. I just listened to whatever I can pick. My favorite song right now is like peaches by Justin Bieber. We're just so teenybopper what I really like it.

Kyle Roed:

Hey, you, do you? Right? At least I know who Justin Bieber is. So that's a win. Yeah, so that is generation's collaboration right there. All right. Last question. How can our listeners connect with you?

Aleah Vaske:

So first of all, definitely check out my blog, makeup and mental health. I love it. When people leave me comments. I get so excited. I respond right away. Despite everything that I said about turning off your notifications. I'm also I'm on LinkedIn. So Aliyah basket and my email is Aliyah basky@gmail.com. So any of those ways are respond to awesome within a

Kyle Roed:

reasonable amount of time. And we will have all that information in the show notes as well. So great blog, really appreciate the content. Thanks for coming and spending a few minutes with us here and letting our listeners catch up with what you've been up to so Aliyev ASCII people Thank you very much. Check her out on her blog website, sprog and start on the business and she's gonna act like she's a slacker. Thanks you All right, that does it for the rebel HR podcast. big thank you to our guests. Follow us on Facebook at rebel HR podcast Witter at rebel HR guy or see our website at rebel Human Resources calm views and opinions expressed by podcast was the authors and do not necessarily

Jude Roed:

maybe

(Cont.) Episode 44: Mental Health for Gen Z with Aleah Vaske