Building Psychological Safety, Soggy Snow and Gen Z’s Career Change: What I’m Reading This Week

This week, I started reading a historical cookbook. It’s been humbling to reflect on our past and to realize the innumerable blessings in our present. It’s also been a good reminder of our ability to create, change and endure.

This week, I’m finding inspiration in some unlikely sources. The common thread for me is that they emphasize our shared humanity. Because even when things don’t go as planned, we choose how we respond. I firmly believe there is always—always—time for kindness.

Until next time, stay safe, be well and be kind!

Building Psychological Safety

I believe there’s always something to learn from others, and it’s especially important to learn how others talk about workplace safety. I will always stop and read (or listen) when a general interest consumer audience covers workplace safety. Gloria St. Martin-Lowry writes for Fast Company about how her team, perhaps unknowingly at first, built psychological safety in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

She touches on the uncertainty, the fear and the complete chaos that we were thrust into in the spring of 2020. St. Martin-Lowry says that her employees were more open and forthcoming than they ever had been. The experience taught her some important lessons about what it means to be a leader and how to foster psychological safety.

St. Martin-Lowry writes: “Psychological safety isn’t a climate to be fostered when things are easy; it’s an operating condition that must be designed into the team’s DNA for when things get hard. The true test isn’t harmony, it’s conflict. It’s about making it safe enough for people to be uncomfortable—to disagree, to challenge the status quo, and to admit when they’ve failed.”

I appreciate how St. Martin-Lowry uses this lens to reexamine meetings and interactions that put employees first. She offers many examples of how she rephrases or speaks differently, but one that stands out to me is introducing a new idea and inviting others to “poke holes in it.”

Without psychological safety, employees aren’t likely to raise questions or share their opinion. But by specifically seeking constructive feedback, St. Martin-Lowry is signaling that it’s not only safe to share but that she wants you to share; she also communicates that it’s important to share so the company can offer the best final solutions possible. In doing so, everyone is better served.

That is impressive leadership. I encourage you to read the full article here.

Soggy Snow

Recently, we’ve had a reprieve from the snow, and the mercury even reached a balmy 41 degrees Fahrenheit the other day. The snow has nearly melted off the rooftops, and the snow piles on the streets, driveway aprons and makeshift mountains in parking lots have started to shrink, though they’ll probably be here till May; it’s been an extra snowy winter thus far.

If you have a car, you’re familiar with the distinct patterns the snow and salt leave on the exterior of your car—and worse, the rust they cause underneath. If you have a dog, you’re familiar with the dangers of them stepping on road salt. It’s no wonder, then, that melting snow, especially the compacted gray gunk, releases a rapid onslaught of pollutants (and frozen dog poop) in the sewer systems, watersheds and other precious bodies of water.

Reporter Hiroko Tabuchi writes:

“Snow is super absorbent. It even absorbs noise, which is why a snowy morning feels so quiet. And like a giant chemical sponge, it can absorb or carry all manner of pollution including road salt like sodium chloride (which is good for de-icing roads but can contaminate drinking water and harm wildlife), car exhaust and soot that settles onto the snow, rubber particles from car tires and antifreeze or other automotive fuels that can contain heavy metals.”

Rising salt levels in freshwater is a growing problem, especially for the fish, animals, plants and others that rely on those life-sustaining bodies of water. There’s nothing we can do to change the release of pollutants in the melting snow, and there are no readily available better alternatives to road salt (at least not yet). But perhaps, we can try to use a little less road salt before the next snow fall. Personally, I’m inspired by some social media videos to ditch the salt and shovel altogether and cover my front porch steps with a tarp that I can then peel back.

Read Tabuchi’s full article here, and view a gorgeous gallery of the United States covered in snow and ice here.

Gen Z’s Career Change

It’s a tale as old as time: the mocking of the youngest generation in the workforce. Gen Z, who range from ages 14 to 29, have been taking it on the chin for the last several years, during which important milestones were amended, cancelled or went remote because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These young people have been dealt another blow with hiring freezes, reductions in force and the adoption of large language models (e.g., Copilot and ChatGPT) that have made entry-level jobs more difficult to come by. Those fewer openings, which may or may not be real (also known as ghost job listings), are consequently more competitive.

It wasn’t surprising—but still a little disheartening—to read that some early-career white-collar workers are already switching careers when they still owe tens of thousands of dollars in student loans.

Forbes published an overview of the job market, and the painted picture is bleak. A survey from found that 60% of Gen Z workers plan to embrace blue-collar work in 2026, including half of those with college degrees or higher. That’s because nearly half of those surveyed believe that blue-collar jobs offer better long-term security than corporate work.

Those attitudes are also starting to permeate other generations of workers who have had their hours or workloads reduced, are worried about their financial future and are proactively preparing for a forced career change.

In an article for The Guardian, Angela Joyce, the CEO of Capital City College in London said: “We’re seeing a steady growth in students of all ages coming to us to do trades-based qualifications,” in subjects such as engineering, culinary arts and childcare—jobs less likely to be replace by AI, at least not right away.

Read the full article from Forbes here.