Spotlight on Flex – Jennifer Nowlin

The Spotlight on Flex showcases professionals from member organizations who exemplify personal and professional success while working a flexible schedule. Their stories illustrate the long-term benefits that flexible schedules offer to both individuals and organizations.

This month, we are pleased to share insights from Jennifer Nowlin, Associate General Counsel, Labor and Employment, in the Bentonville, AR Office of Walmart Legal.

Jennifer NowlinDiversity & Flexibility Alliance: How have you made flexibility a priority and a success through your career? 

Jennifer Nowlin: I started practicing law as a commercial litigator at a Dallas firm. I’d been practicing for less than one year when my husband was offered a job at Walmart in Bentonville, AR. We had to decide whether it was time for us to relocate, but I knew my marketability was limited with such little experience under my belt. From the beginning, Walmart supported my family’s needs; the company allowed us to stay in Dallas while my husband traveled back and forth to Bentonville. We kept this arrangement for a year and finally relocated to Bentonville when I joined Walmart’s legal department in 2005. I started with the employment practices legal team, but in 2009, I joined the legal team supporting labor relations, and I’ve been with them ever since.

Walmart had developed a Professional Work Option Program, and when I had my first child in 2007, I was one of the early participants in it. I really wanted to spend time at home with my newborn, but I also wasn’t ready to stop working all together. I talked with my supervisor at the time, and she encouraged me to develop different work scenarios that would work for me. If my first choice wasn’t accepted, then I would move on to my next scenario and so forth. My first choice was to work a 3/5 schedule which meant three days in the office, and two days off.

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Action Step – Feedback Essentials Part 1: Delivering Feedback Effectively

The Alliance’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies and policies related to diversity and flexibility.  Members can access full versions of all of the Alliance’s Action Steps in the Member Resource Center. 

FEEDBACK ESSENTIALS PART 1: DELIVERING FEEDBACK EFFECTIVELY

Feedback is critical to career advancement, but research shows women and other under-represented professionals are much less likely than their majority group counterparts to receive the kind of constructive feedback necessary to improve performance. The reasons for this vary, but common ones include supervisors’ concerns they will be perceived in a negative light and fear that the person receiving feedback will leave. These issues are particularly pronounced when feedback is being provided across differences. This introduces additional challenges to an aspect of managing and leading others that many supervisors would prefer to avoid. Overcoming these challenges, however, is essential to fostering the success of all talent, and applying the following best practices provides supervisors with a framework to successfully meet this responsibility….

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Troutman Sanders LLP Welcomed As Newest Member of the Alliance

We are pleased to welcome Troutman Sanders LLP as the newest member of the Alliance! The firm joins a community of over 60 leading organizations that are implementing innovative solutions to promote inclusive and flexible work cultures.

Troutman Sanders

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Flex Success® – It Takes a Village

This is the fifth in a series of seven blog posts featuring advice on our Seven Strategies for Flex Success®. Check back as we walk you through the seven steps that will guarantee your success while working flexibly: Define Your Success; Own Your Value; Activate Your Mindset; Create A Strong Personal Brand; Build Your Networks; Expand Your Ideas on Business Development; and Enhance Your Work-Life Control.

Seven Strategies for Flex SuccessMost successful corporations are led by a CEO who is advised and counseled by an experienced Board of Directors. As a professional working a flexible schedule, you should view yourself as the CEO of your own corporation, and you undoubtedly need a “Board of Directors” to support you. No matter how effective you are on your own, it is critical that you surround yourself with a group of experienced people who can advise you, guide you, mentor you, and open doors for you.

Our fifth strategy for Flex Success® is “Build Your Networks and Personal Board of Advisors.” This personal board of advisors should consist of individuals from inside and outside of your organization. It should include both mentors who can give you advice, and sponsors who invest in and advocate for you. The internal perspectives can assist you in your career advancement and help you to address blind spots in your career path, especially those related to your flex schedule. Your external advisors can provide you with outside perspectives from an industry point of view and can help open doors to new opportunities, if necessary.

As you build your network and personal board of advisors, it’s important to keep in mind that you want to find people who you trust, who you respect, and who will be candid with you. These individuals should be open to constructive conversations about your career as well as the challenges and opportunities your flexible schedule might bring. It’s important to value and maintain your relationships with these mentors and advisors and make sure to meet with them on a regular basis.

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Tracking the Success of Our Annual Conference

On March 16, 2017 we welcomed more than 150 professionals to our Annual Conference. Our guests included 44 Partners, five Chairs, 12 General Counsel, 19 Associates, 34 Directors, five Of Counsel, 12 Presidents or Principals, eight Vice Presidents, 16 Managers, and one Global Chairman.

Our attendees came from financial services firms, professional services firms, law schools and graduate schools, law firms, and corporations. They represented human resources, diversity and inclusion, recruitment, advancement, operations, client services and management, and all were committed to learning how to advance diversity and flexibility in their organization.

For eight hours we learned from three insightful panels including chairs and leaders from myriad firms and corporations. We were honored to hear one very impactful keynote from a global leader. We presented seven awards to those leading the way in flexibility and we were treated to an eye-opening collaborative session on deconstructing minimization. (More importantly, we served 150 delicious Georgetown Cupcakes!) From our perspective, it was a successful day.

As an organization, we at the Alliance love metrics. Numbers and data like this help us to track progress and evaluate our impact. We consistently advise our members to keep such data to help track progress towards goals. However, since our conference was entitled Diversity + Flexibility = An Evolving Culture, the true test of our success and the success of our members will be the impact on the evolution of organizational culture. Will our attendees be able to take what they learned back to their organizations and encourage a shift in attitude and a greater acceptance of diversity and flexibility?

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Paul Hastings LLP Welcomed As Newest Member of the Alliance

We are pleased to welcome Paul Hastings LLP as the newest member of the Alliance! The firm joins a community of over 55 leading organizations that are implementing innovative solutions to promote inclusive and flexible work cultures.

Paul Hastings

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Wait! Why You Procrastinate & What You Can Do About It

April 2017

Featuring — Paul H. Burton, Founder & Principal, QuietSpacing LLC

Do you procrastinate? Ninety-five percent of us do. That’s right – 95%. Procrastination is one of the most common self-destructive behaviors we exhibit.  Procrastination is the result of favoring short-term relief over long-term gain. It reduces our productivity, causes us stress, and contributes to interpersonal and professional conflict. The good news is that procrastination is relatively easy to overcome.

Paul Burton will engage and entertain attendees, teach us why we procrastinate, and what we can do to reduce those behaviors. This Signature Seminar will use a quiz-based format focused on three categories – Fun Facts, Education, and Techniques – to help participants understand the roots of procrastination and how to overcome it through:

– Fun facts of procrastination – entertaining and interesting things that keep our perspective regarding how hard it is to be productive all the time.

– Educational aspects of why we procrastinate – the neurological, biological, and psychological reasons we procrastinate.

– Techniques to overcome procrastination – a host of ways to procrastinate less, get more done, and enjoy greater personal and professional satisfaction.