What an amazing year it has been. Difficult at times – in business, and elsewhere – with many workplaces feeling the personal effects of larger events: armed conflicts around the world, cost-of-living anxieties, and so on. These things are out of our control, but their emotional impact places huge strain on individuals, teams, and systems.
This year has also been exciting and thought-provoking. Every new day presents new opportunities, after all. For us, they’ve been opportunities to make the workplace better – to work with some of the world’s most successful companies in creating spaces where people feel they can be their best selves.
“We know that it is a challenging time in the business world,” says newly appointed Talking Talent CEO Dr. Mary-Clare Race. “What a privilege it is to be working with organizations that are facing these challenges head-on. We’re thankful to be partnering with them, making things better. In the workplace, first and foremost, but we also know that the impact of what we do filters into people’s everyday lives.”
For Talking Talent, it’s been an especially exciting year of innovation and evolution. We’ve bid a very fond (and, we’ll admit, tearful) farewell to our founders, Jo Lyon and Chris Parke. In their place, Mary-Clare has stepped forward with new ideas and perspectives honed from nearly two decades of experience.
Mary-Clare was instrumental in one of our biggest projects of the year: the new Keystones perspective. We spent A LOT of time getting this right, with individuals from all sides of our business contributing their knowledge, experience, hard work, and passion for building a better workplace.
Keystones is a fresh take on implementing diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I), which applies the latest research and science. We looked at what was working in the DE&I space as a whole, were honest about what wasn’t working, and used this knowledge to forge a new path.
“When I think of all the work that we have put into Keystones I can’t help but get excited for 2024,” says Mary-Clare. “We’ve got something really special and unique to share with our clients. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the impact that this new perspective will have.”
You can learn all about our new Keystones approach by clicking here. The project speaks to Talking Talent’s desire to always stay ahead of the curve and help businesses respond to a constantly changing landscape.
Within our Talking Talent family it’s also been a year of births and weddings, of fresh beginnings and farewells. As the year draws to a close, we’ll each be gathering with our loved ones to celebrate our personal and professional good fortunes. We hope that you will be doing the same.
We’re pretty lucky to be doing what we’re doing. And that spirit, that first-hand knowledge that success comes from belonging, will inform all that we do in 2024.
And we’re going to do a lot. Thank you so much for working with us to make the workplace (and the world) better. We wish you the very best for the holiday season. We can’t wait to see what the new year will bring.
