Why should you trust us with your team or your company? Through an interview with the founder, Denise Brouder, we’re showcasing the team behind SWAYworkplace, our vision for the Future of Work, why SWAY exists, and why we deserve your attention in the hybrid work conversation.
First of all, what inspired your passion for the Future of Work and the mission of SWAY?
Denise: I came to the United States from Ireland after college on a one-way ticket, with a dream of working on Wall St., and a belief that I could make it. In Ireland, the concept of work has been part of our lineage: work has defined our whole essence for millennia. The Irish have left their homes and moved around the world in pursuit of work, and that instills a strong work ethic culturally. So I was very aware of the importance of work to a home, person, and community.
I was truly shocked by how much people work in the US and how that creates this imbalance between work and life. In Ireland, people live and then work. Here, people work, and then live. There’s such an obsession with work.
In early 2019, I was struck with the realization that we were moving towards a paradigm shift. I knew we were about to change everything about when, where, and why we work. I felt that we had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rethink the way we work to create balanced, purposeful, and meaningful lives. I knew I had to build something to bring this to life before the opportunity slipped away.
Why the name SWAY? And tell us more about the logo:
Denise: SWAY goes back to our “Work-as-a-Lifestyle” concept, which is the antidote to the concept of work/life balance. From my own work experience at Goldman Sachs and high-growth start-ups, I found that balance isn’t a thing. You’re not one person at work and a different one at home. You’re one person, living one life, endeavoring to make it count through the language of our work. We don’t want “balance,” we want an empowered singular feeling that you can SWAY at ease and have positive momentum in your work, home, family, friends, and personal lives.
The SWAY logo is a triangle, which we see as the strongest shape, and our Creative Director, Jenève, brilliantly incorporated it into the A in our name. Our triangle has one straight side facing a curved angle: the straight side reflects the structure and routine of work, and the curved angle is the personal side coming together as one shape, representing one person.
Throughout SWAY’s content, you use the phrase “Work-as-a-Lifestyle” often. What does that mean? How do you contrast that with the trendy “quiet quitting” we see all over social media?
Denise: “Work-as-a-Lifestyle” is our North Star. This statement implies you can sway in and out of all parts of your life with ease. Now, work is emerging as a lifestyle choice: the question is, how does work serve you as you serve the work?
Quiet Quitting is a result of our culture of burnout and disengagement. We’ve lost the distinction between who we are and what we do, and we don’t know how to not work. So instead, people mentally quit.
Our goal is to do more by working less: hybrid is a more intelligent form of work in the way that it allows you to spend you time and invest your energy with intention. We increase productivity by reducing the noise, creating a personalized work environment, and taking back some of our energy.
You call yourself a “Workplace Futurist.” What does that mean to you?
Denise: The premise of futurist thinking is that we are empowered to make decisions today that shape the future we want to live and work in tomorrow. So as a Workplace Futurist, I’m empowering others to modernize their approach to work: moving away from the centralized office with a set 9-5 schedule and towards personalized, meaningful work.
How did you build your team?
Denise: My first team member was Jaimie Voehl, a close personal friend of mine. She is a former A&E Studios director and producer. One time our families were on vacation together, and we were sitting on the beach lamenting and asking, why is work so difficult for mothers? Why is it so inflexible?
We made the decision on the beach that day to start a company and do something about it. Honestly, we created SWAY to solve our own pain points.
Next, I met Amy Young, a former CBS and Google executive, who was just starting out in her coaching career. I knew coaching would be critical to the SWAY process: we were working against decades of work based on the assembly line of the Industrial Revolution. As a result, at least 50% of our workshop is mindset coaching directed by Amy.
Then finally, I hunted down Jenève Dubé to be our Creative Director after working with her through a marketing agency. I knew there was something special about her creative vision for our brand that we needed.
SWAY has quite the lofty mission to “level the playing through the power of hybrid.” How did you get there?
Denise: We actually started with a vision for a community app to convene the conversation around new ways of working. At the time, there was no place to think critically about work. Flexible work was the exception, and not the rule.
Soon, we realized we couldn’t just sit in a circle and talk: we really needed to do something. We saw the need for a mindset shift through coaching-based training, so we began consulting for companies on building their hybrid work strategy at the end of 2019.
We were ready to do the hard work of normalizing flexible work, but once COVID happened, the conversation took off.
The pandemic accelerated our vision, which was great but also a challenge. We had to throw out our business plan AGAIN and start over.
So where is SWAY today?
Denise: Today, SWAY is a boutique consultancy focused on optimizing hybrid work models for mid-sized companies. Most companies know their hybrid “what” (two days in the office, three days remote, etc.), but they get stuck on their “how,” bringing the model to life in a way that drives performance. And that’s why they come to us.
Now, we have a simple, holistic, systems-based change management solution to building Happy Hybrid Teams through our unique coaching-based training programs.
What questions have we missed?
Anything else you want to know about SWAYworkplace? Send us an email to learn more about our change management solution and how it’s guiding the hybrid policies at J.P. Morgan, LG Electronics, Salesforce, and other leading companies. We can’t wait to talk to you about creating a better Future of Work for all: it’s what we live for.