🌟 Future of Work Community: December Reflection & A New Beginning

December 2025 Club Meeting Recap and Our Future Together

There are moments in community spaces where something shifts. Not just in what we discuss, but in who we allow ourselves to become together. Our final club meeting of the year was one of those moments. It was honest, emotional, connective, and full of the kind of humanity that reminds us why we gather in the first place.

We opened, as we often do, with music. (“Have a holly jolly Christmas…” 🎶) Because as our speaker for the 2025 Webinar series, Dr. Frank Gonzalez reminded us, music is the bridge between the rush of our day and the pause of community presence.

And from there, this group - our group - did what it always does: show up with courage, curiosity, laughter, and truth.

Navigating a Season That Feels Different for Everyone

One of the most meaningful parts of our time together was our shared honesty about the holidays. December is not universally joyful. For many, it is tender. Grief can surface, memories feel sharp, and the pressure to be festive can feel heavy.

We named it together:

• the complexity of celebrating while missing loved ones,

• the emotional weight of year-end expectations,

• the realities of employees who don’t celebrate certain holidays,

• the financial pressures of workplace potlucks and gift exchanges,

• the need for workplaces to offer choice, permission, and compassion.

As Anika Harris shared, her organization reminded employees they do not have to participate in holiday events, potlucks, or gift exchanges if they don’t want to or don’t have the capacity. That is leadership. That is inclusion. That is care.

Members added how they remember feeling pressure early in their career when multiple holiday expectations stacked up financially, and how powerful it is when workplaces normalize that opt-out is okay.

These reflections weren’t theoretical.
They were human. And human is exactly the future of our work.

A Moment of Vulnerability: Why This Community Matters

I shared something deeply personal during our time together. The story of a painful feedback moment from months ago that made me question whether I should continue holding these spaces at all. Not because the work wasn’t meaningful, but because I carried the fear of unintentionally causing harm.

And maybe the most healing moment was hearing members affirm what this space means to them. As Dr. Tammy reminded us:

This is the place where conversations should stretch us. Where we practice discomfort safely. Where we learn how to speak truth with care. Where we model what equity-centered dialogue looks like in real time.

This club meeting felt like our collective turning point.

Key Takeaways from Our December Club Gathering

1. Inclusion is not seasonal.
December invites us to practice empathy, flexibility, and consent, because not everyone experiences the holidays the same way.

2. Community is a form of care.
Being seen, remembered, and held in safe conversation matters deeply. It shifts us.

3. Vulnerability is not weakness - it’s fuel.
Naming hard moments helps us realign to purpose and recommit to impact.

4. The Future of Work requires a widened lens.
Talent, culture, technology, leadership, equity - they’re no longer separate conversations.

5. We build the future together.
This community is an ecosystem. Your stories, your questions, your perspectives make it whole.

⭐ Announcing Our Next Chapter: The Future of Work Community

During our gathering, I shared the news that beginning in 2026, our community is expanding and evolving into:

The Future of Work Community:
Exploring Workplace Talent & Culture

This isn’t a departure from workplace culture, belonging, or culture work, it’s the expansion of it. It’s the work we’ve already been doing, with a wider lens and a stronger voice.

This evolution allows us to bring together the topics that are reshaping our workplaces every day:

✨ Human-centered AI
✨ Skills transformation
✨ Leadership evolution
✨ Organizational psychology
✨ Culture design
✨ Workforce wellbeing
✨ Inclusive, equitable futures

We’re not moving away from anything.
We are moving toward a bigger opportunity to serve and share space.

And most importantly: it’s where YOU belong.
Your brilliance, your lived experience, your voice - this community is shaped by you.

As part of this evolution, we’re also introducing the Future of Work Readiness Index - a new way for organizations to understand where they stand and how they can grow in this rapidly shifting landscape. This index doesn’t measure perfection. It measures possibility. It highlights strengths, uncovers opportunities, and honors the intentional work leaders are doing to build cultures that are adaptive, human-centered, and future-ready. In 2026, we’ll begin recognizing and celebrating organizations across our Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum tiers - lifting up the teams who are modeling courage, innovation, and care in how they prepare their people for what’s next. Because transformation isn’t just something we talk about. It’s something we witness, support, and celebrate together.

Holding Space for Each Other as the Year Ends

As we closed our meeting, we talked honestly about the emotional texture of this season. Joy. Hope. Grief. Stress. Gratitude. Loneliness. Exhaustion. And we also acknowledged that all of it can be true all at once.

As Dr. Tammy shared, grief is “love with no place to go.” And sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is simply sit with each other in our humanness, without forcing cheer or pretending everyone experiences this month the same way.

This community is that place.
A place to show up as you are.
Especially now.

✨ Looking Ahead: 2026 and Beyond - Together

As we step into 2026, we step fully into our evolution.
Next year we launch:

• The Future of Work Monthly Series

• The Future of Work Club

• The Future of Work Readiness Index

• A growing library of on-demand tools and conversations

• New opportunities for community-led co-creation

This is more than a rebrand. It’s a renewal.
A widening of the lens. A deeper commitment to people, talent, culture, and possibility. We’re not simply adapting to the future of work - we are shaping it.
And we are doing it together.

To every person who attended, shared, listened, reflected, or simply held space:
Thank you. You made this gathering meaningful. You made it human. You made it hopeful.

As we move into a season that can be bright or heavy, or both, may you feel grounded in the truth that you are not alone. This community is here, holding space for the complexity, the questions, the becoming, and the path ahead.

Happy Holidays, in whatever way this season meets you.
May it bring peace, rest, and moments of clarity for your own future of work, your own future of living, and your own future of becoming.

We’ll see you in 2026.
And the future?
We’re creating it, boldly, courageously, humanly, together. 🌟