The Future of Work Is Already Here
We Are Rosie’s Stephanie Nadi Olson built a business with diversity, inclusion, and life balance in mind. As COVID-19 has changed everything about work, hers is the model to follow.
Carmen Rios May 6, 2020
Stephanie Nadi Olson doesn’t look like your typical start-up founder and that’s the whole point. The first-generaDon college student and daughter of a refugee founded We Are Rosie in 2018 to challenge our naDon’s noDon of work and dismantle the structures craLed to keep women and people of color from claiming professional power.
Olson sees remote work as an equalizer for people of color and women: “We believe that freedom and security can, and should, coexist,” she says. “We know that modern enterprises are truly people-powered, and the organizaDons that embrace open talent models are promoDng a new version of the American Dream: freelance talent as entrepreneurs, innovators, and small business owners.”
We Are Rosie helps their community of nearly 4,500 markeDng experts at the intersecDons with specialDes ranging from content creaDon and media strategy to CSuite leadership achieve that dream, and their model of curaDng teams of talent for corporate projects has proven to be a boon for marginalized workers. People of color made up 40 percent of the talent We Are Rosie placed on projects last year, and women landing work through their pla\orm in Q1 of this year were paid higher internal and external rates than their male counterparts.
The business itself is booming, too. Olson’s company boasts 100 percent client retenDon, and they signed 20 Fortune 500 brands in two years. During this current economic crisis, Olson hired three people to her own staff. The company’s first-ever Rosie Report in June will also serve as a blueprint for the corporaDons and businessowners across the country who have been so impressed by the work of Rosies that they’ve gone ahead and put them on their staffs.
It’s clear now, as the country’s workplaces collecDvely cope with the consequences of COVID-19, that Olson was on to something. Long-term flexible work is finally on the table, and feminists are fighDng to rebuild the economy on their terms as our naDon grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, which has disDnctly hurt women workers. We Are Rosie has become a powerful blueprint for a way forward and a direct anDdote to our federal government’s failure to adequately support women workers and businesses owned by
people of color, and especially the women of color set to face the largest losses in this disaster economy.
I always start with an incep0on story. What inspired you to launch We Are Rosie?
I grew up in a very diverse household Arabic and American, Muslim and ChrisDan and from an early age I learned the power of diversity, as well as the insidious ways we marginalize people in this country, parDcularly through work. ALer spending 15 years in the markeDng space, I felt I had enough inside knowledge to support my hypothesis that there is a beeer way to get work done.
I received the kick in the bue to go do something about it aLer becoming a mother to my two young daughters. When I quit my job to start We Are Rosie at the end of 2017, I was driven by the noDon that I could improve opportuniDes for my daughters through this business. I named the company aLer my youngest daughter—a constant reminder of the change we are working to create for this generaDon and those to come.
Talk to me about the be=er way of working. What’s the We Are Rosie model, and how is it changing the game for workers?
At its core, We Are Rosie serves as an access point for major corporaDons. We provide though\ul access to 4,500 of the most talented marketers in the world by dismantling the tradiDonal constructs around how agencies and consultancies operate we’ve removed any waste by tapping into a freelance or independent talent pool for our projects. We are nimble, diverse, prescripDve, quick and sincere.
We are also an access point for those 4,500 marketers to all the good parts of work camaraderie, training, upskilling, resources, community, weekly pay, access to healthcare and 401K. TradiDonally, independent talent in markeDng is found by word of mouth. Our model bridges the gap and widens the opportuniDes. The fact that we take care of our community changes the game for freelancers. The very noDon of freelancing is that you’re out here on your own, and any mental or financial safety net is on you. We don’t agree with
that. We prioriDze caring for our talent whether they’re working or not with resources, networking, mentorship, and a sense of community.
The mission is to provide access for our Rosies to the career they want and the life they deserve: working on their own terms.
What does that mean for the industry?
We vastly overcomplicate what it takes to be inclusive and though\ul in how we care for people doing work. This is why I am a huge proponent of underrepresented founders gehng into the entrepreneurship game: We need more people out here creaDng the world they want to see. SomeDmes I wonder if it’s even possible for huge companies to retroacDvely inject an inclusive culture and pracDces into how they do business. I take solace in the fact that more and more underrepresented people are emboldened to speak their truth in these organizaDons so that we can make progress on this front—and generaDons aLer us can take it even further.
Our POV into the markeDng industry gives us a peek into a wide variety of organizaDons we serve from Fortune 500 companies to holding company ad agencies to tech companies. One of the things we saw before the global shutdown was that remote work is a form of inclusion. By breaking down the physical boundaries of hiring, companies inherently open themselves up to a wider pool of talent. Why hire only in your city when you can hire pros across the country who bring something fresh to the table? We’ve put together what we call our “unicorn teams” hand-picked teams of talent for projects and the talent doesn’t always live in the same place, might not have ever met in-person, but we always see incredible thinking from them. This is a lightbulb moment for our clients: They realize the magic in our model, and the ripple effect is that they end up going back and evaluaDng their own organizaDon’s pracDces.
We have learned that all boats rise when you care for people with dignity and respect. Our internal moeo is “happy people do beeer work.” When the talent is empowered and emboldened to work on their own terms, on any project they want, we’ve learned that they produce beeer work. The old paradigm told us to stay in one place for a long Dme, but we see that when people are able to do a variety of projects that light them up, they thrive.
That old paradigm may be the way of the past—because aCer COVID-19, we may reemerge into a new way of working. What was broken about our workplace before, and what should we leave behind when we rebuild it?
Where do I start? Patriarchy, hierarchy, racism, wasted hours of life commuDng for more wasted hours in meeDngs, rigid work structure that alienates and marginalizes people who can’t conform to the mean, reliance on a linear career trajectory that oLen sidelines women who choose to have children there are so many things we’ve been doing wrong, and we won’t be able to fix them overnight. But I think we can fix several of these with one big change.
My primary hope for the future of work is that we start taking inclusion seriously. That we recognize that remote work and flexible work arrangements are a form of inclusion, enabling racial, neurodiverse, and gender parity in many ways. And that we give DE&I officers actual influence and power and money to bring their vision to life. I hope that publicly traded companies start to include diverse voices in the C-suite and at the board level. Honestly, if we can get more types of people in posiDons of power, all of our other problems will fix themselves.
If we allow employees to work in a hybrid capacity in an office when they truly need or want to be and remote otherwise, we will create a more empowered workforce. People who don’t like going into an office because they feel tokenized, uncomfortable, or marginalized will be able to work in a way that suits them. They won’t leave the workforce, and they will actually be playing on a slightly more level playing field. In the long-term, that means a more inclusive workforce, environmental sustainability, innovaDon from a more engaged workforce, happier employees and lower overhead.
How can we ensure the future of work is one that embraces the needs of women, and what can women do to prepare?
My primary hope for the future of work is that we start taking inclusion seriously.
We are heading for a double-edged sword as we emerge from this. So many women, parDcularly mothers and caregivers, are about to get what they’ve always wanted: the ability to work from home so that they can achieve some level of harmony and balance in their personal and professional lives. On the other hand, it’s enDrely possible that our new “normal” includes an expectaDon that we parent or care-give and work simultaneously, as we have been doing for so many weeks now, which is not a win for women in any way. On the other side of this global moment, it’s going to be important to maintain the same levels of empathy and compassion we are holding in place now. This won’t be a light-switch recovery systemaDcally, operaDonally, or emoDonally for people. As things improve, let’s conDnue to support one another in the new world, however that unfolds.
How has the pandemic impacted We Are Rosie?
Our business was prepared for this moment. We’ve effecDvely spent the last 2.5 years living in this future. It’s just that now, the rest of the world has joined us. We’ve been fully distributed, remote-first, and have leveraged our own bench of talent for burst and overflow capacity since day one.
The amount of flexibility in this business model has allowed us to conDnue to thrive financially. That being said, the psychological toll and uncertainty in front of us is preey extensive. We have had to make sure we are doubling down our efforts—an increase in community outreach, resources, and one-on-one connecDons for our Rosies and no furloughs or layoffs, Fridays off, and an open forum to ask for help without judgment or shame for our core team.
What advice would you offer women looking to make their own leap to freelance work or women entrepreneurs looking to launch their own businesses?
You’ll never be 100 percent ready. I got advice early on in my career that has stuck with me: When you are about 60 percent ready, you’re ready. Women put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get it perfect from the jump, but that’s just not possible. Those expectaDons we place on ourselves will keep us small.
Whether you want to build a billion-dollar empire or a one-woman freelance business, the process starts with single steps. Don’t get overwhelmed by the enormity of your dreams. Every great business, including my own, was built one step at a Dme.
This is the first in our new series, Future Shi1: The Leaders Shaping Tomorrow, in which we profile women leading movements, changing systems, and otherwise reshaping the framework of our lives so that more of us can succeed.
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