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Susan White (00:02)
Prior to making a presentation, many of you — like me — may start to sweat, have their mouth go dry, their stomach start gurgling, or you get the onset of a tension headache. Today, what we wanna do is explore how can we get rid of all those jitters?

Susan White (00:22)
Welcome to The JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast, where we help people leaders embrace joy in the workplace. I’m Susan White, owner of Susan Tinder White Consulting, and with me is my good friend JoDee Curtis, who’s owner of Purple Ink, which is a large-scale HR consulting practice that I’m an executive collaborator in.

What is the one thing that can make even the most competent professional suddenly forget their own name? Getting in front of a large audience with every eye in the room on you, waiting for you to entertain, educate, or impact them. Some professionals absolutely thrive in that kind of an environment, like my dear friend JoDee here, who truly comes alive in front of a group.

Now, let’s put me next to that, and I will tell you that prior to making a presentation, many of you — like me — may start to sweat, have their mouth go dry, their stomach start gurgling, or you get the onset of a tension headache. Today, what we wanna do is explore how can we get rid of all those jitters? How do we perfect our presentation skills for all of us who wanna get better at public speaking or even privately speaking up in front of a group within your own organization?

Presentation skills are not just nice to have. ZipDo Education Report 2026 says that 81% of hiring managers say presentation skills are critical for promotion. JoDee, does that surprise you?

JoDee Curtis (01:53)
It surprises me. I believe — I think the statistic is important in that I think they’re critical also. But honestly, I’m surprised that 81% of hiring managers recognize the importance of that. Because most hiring managers, I don’t think are typically so comfortable with those either.

Susan White (02:17)
Maybe they want to hire somebody who could do the public speaking for them. Who knows? Right? Oh my gosh. I’d much rather be in the audience for sure.

So why does it really matter? Why getting our presentation skills better than they are today really matter? Well, according to ZipDo, the average audience attention span is 10 to 15 minutes, and that’s actually from a WifiTalents report in 2026. Which means that usually halfway through a 30-minute presentation, people are mentally planning what they’re going to have for dinner that night, right? Only 30% of people say that they ever feel prepared to do a good presentation. And according to Worldmetrics Report 2026, 55% of presenters admit that they read directly from their slides.

JoDee Curtis (03:07)
I do believe that one too though, because I think so many people stand up and read slides.

Susan White (03:15)
Yeah, they spend a lot of time getting those slides ready. They love their slides. But please don’t read your slides to the room. Yeah, we can lose people really, really fast. So what actually makes a good presentation? Having good content to share absolutely is important, but it may not be as important as you think. And this statistic always surprises me, but I try to remind myself of it. Only 7% of impact is usually attributed to the content, while your voice and body language carry much more weight. WifiTalents reports that 55% of success in a presentation is driven by the nonverbal communication. Isn’t that just wild?

JoDee Curtis (03:54)
Yeah. Yeah. And yet we — I think there’s been some statistic around for a while that says, like, we spend 90% of our time focusing on the content, right? Not the other. Yeah.

Susan White (04:08)
The delivery of it. Right. Wow. So true and a good reminder for all of us.

So JoDee, let’s share the six points that we think are important for you to consider as you prepare for that next time you’re going to be up in front of the room or up in front of a large group.

JoDee Curtis (04:29)
Yeah, number one is to start strong. If you don’t start out strong, that you may never get their attention at all. So those first impressions matter. People judge quickly and they stick with it. So if you walk out on the stage or in front of the room and you’re shaking and look nervous and… you may lose them before you even open your mouth. So a strong opening is really critical. So start out with a story, a bold statement or a surprising statistic.

Susan White (05:05)
I love that. And unfortunately, that’s when my mouth is dry — at the very beginning. It’s before I feel very comfortable. Good reminder, though. Maybe if I have a good story, something that has good data in it, something that’s surprising, maybe that will help launch not only their interest in me, but also my confidence. So I think telling stories is really valuable. And you, I know, feel really strongly about that, about making sure you capture people through stories.

JoDee Curtis (05:34)
Right. I do, do. It’s critical. People want to hear the stories behind it. They don’t want — just want data and research. They want to hear that too, I think, but it’s the stories they remember. So, yeah.

Susan White (05:53)
Third point is to use visuals, you know, now, but don’t abuse your PowerPoints. You want to make sure that you do think about what do I have up on the screen? Is it something that is going to entice people’s interests? They say people retain 65% of information when you use visuals, as opposed to just 10% of recollection when you only talk to people, when you use words only. So visual aids approve understanding up to 43% according to WifiTalents again.

JoDee Curtis (06:23)
Yeah, nice. Number four is to make it interactive. WifiTalents report that 63% of audience members are more engaged with interactive presentations, like leveraging the Q &A or using polling questions and getting individuals talking with you. And you know, our technology today allows for so much more of that, for people to be able to vote or answer a polling question. So use them.

Susan White (06:57)
That really makes sense. I think my fear factor that enters is when I think I’m going to try to get people to talk is that I’ll have crickets. You know, anyone? Anyone? And then people start to feel sorry for me. I’ll get some pity hands raised. So see, that’s just that negative voice in your head. You gotta let that go. And then your thought, use technology. You could have people voting from their phones on something and have live reactions. So I love that point. Thanks for that.

Number five tip is, you know, practice. Yes, actually practice for your presentation. Practicing at least three times, statistics show, makes you much more likely to succeed. Yet, over half of presenters don’t rehearse enough. Winging it is not a strategy. It’s really a gamble. Nobody will ever accuse me of not practicing enough. I over practice. So it blows my mind to think that there’s people out there that make a presentation that they don’t practice for. I don’t get it.

JoDee Curtis (07:56)
And some things to avoid or some common pitfalls when speaking as — or training, by the way, too, any — any kind of presentation. As we mentioned earlier, reading slides like it’s bedtime storytelling, right? Or saying “next slide” like it’s a personality trait, right? Bringing 87 slides for a 20-minute presentation. And then ending your talk without sharing the clear takeaway, right? Forgetting to emphasize what is your message about.

Susan White (08:37)
I love that. I have to admit I’m guilty. I did a presentation a couple of weeks ago and it was a webinar, so I did have a really large audience, but it was all over the screen. And I had probably, I had an hour to do it and I probably had 25 slides. I could have used six. And then I realized, like, halfway through, I am only, I’ve got more than half of my slides left to do. And then boy, I start going on high speed, which you know, that was nuts. So I love that. Think about what do you really need? And don’t be so reliant on your slides. Yeah.

So JoDee, you know, we often interview experts on whatever topic we’re talking about. Well, I consider you my expert on making presentations. I know that you are a Certified Professional Speaker. I would love to ask you a few questions, if I may. So what does it mean to be a certified professional speaker? How do you become one? What is that all about?

JoDee Curtis (09:31)
Yes. So I’m a member of the National Speakers Association, which is a part of a global organization, as well, too. And they have a process of certifying speakers. It is grueling process, I can tell you, and there are less than 700 people in the world who have this certification. And I think it’s — that doesn’t mean, you know, they’re not good speakers because they don’t have that, but, it’s committing to the process of doing it.

And it’s based on, of course you have to send them a recorded presentation of you. So, you know, part of it is, can you speak and tell good stories and, and all those types of things. There’s a lot of rules about, like, ensuring that you have sources and you quote the source and things like that too. So some kind of compliance-oriented pieces to it.

But you also, before you even get to the video, you have to show that you’ve had so many presentations and that you’ve been paid for those presentations. So it’s a process that looks back seven to 10 years on the number of presentations and how much you got paid and where it was and who was the contact. And they actually reach out to those, you know, a meeting planner that might have hired you or a conference, someone — a chairman of a conference or a client that paid you to present.

It can be training and speaking opportunities — that’s relatively new. It used to just be speaking only and not training courses, but now it’s a combination of the two. So if anyone is even thinking about maybe getting this certification, start tracking all of your engagements because going back to gather all that information… it’s voluminous amount of data.

Susan White (12:03)
Well, thank you. Very, very interesting. So JoDee, what is the first thing that you focus on when you are preparing for a brand-new presentation? How do you approach it?

JoDee Curtis (12:12)
Well, I think it’s hard for me to say the first thing because I really want to say two things. Number one is understanding your audience. And number two is, of course, the content, right? But how do you determine the content if — you can’t determine the content if — unless you know your audience.

And I’ll tell you a little story of a huge mistake I made. I presented once at a construction industry conference in Las Vegas, and I told a story at the beginning of my presentation. I forget what it was about, honestly, but that alluded to my background in public accounting and as an accountant. And I did not realize until after I gave the presentation that everyone in the audience were finance people in the construction industry. And I thought I was, like, speaking to construction industry people, which I was, but not just the accountants. And my story was actually about accountants in the construction industry.

I didn’t make the connection that that’s who they were specifically. Talk about being horrified afterwards. And I don’t know, maybe they didn’t catch it as much as what my intended audience I thought was, would appreciate the story. But, anyway, know who you’re talking to. And I mean, I can speak about things like conflict, but am I speaking about it to HR professionals, to construction industry professionals, to accountants? How do I want to approach the content based on the audience?

Susan White (14:21)
That’s great advice. So JoDee, how do you — you’ve talked about how important it is to really know the audience. How do you adapt your message for different audiences? Do you spend time talking to the event planner ahead of time? Like, how do you go deep? Because I know you speak all over the world.

JoDee Curtis (14:39)
Yeah, it is critical. And honestly, a lot of times, as was the case with the example I just gave, I don’t always do this enough, you know, but just understanding, like, what might the age of the audience be? And how might my stories align with that?

I actually started speaking to a lot of college students when I was a recruiter. Actually, I was still an accountant at the time, but doing on-campus recruiting and speaking to a lot of accounting clubs, right? So, you know, if I’m speaking to college students, I wanna talk about early times of my career or choices I made about my career or my first year of work and things like that versus, again, is it more seasoned leaders? Is it — do I want to connect my stories about leadership? And again, even if my topic might generally sort of be the same thing, you know, I might be talking about one of my books or about JoyPowered® workspaces, so the content itself might not be that much different. It’s the stories that I tell is really where I spend my time adapting the message, as you asked.

Susan White (16:10)
I love that. For people like me who do get nervous before presenting, what’s your go-to strategy for managing your presentation anxiety? Managing anybody’s presentation anxiety?

JoDee Curtis (16:24)
You know, I have to admit, I just, as you mentioned earlier, I just don’t have much of it. I, as we’ve talked over the years about our CliftonStrengths®, I have self-assurance, and — which sometimes is a problem. Like, I have too much self-assurance that I may be overconfident.

But I just can’t tell you that — I mean, I think being prepared is my number one and knowing my content and understanding my message and understanding who I’m talking to. But in terms of true… a lot of people say squeeze your bum cheeks, right? Before you’re supposed to speak or doing a superpower stance or, you know, memorizing the first few lines or things like that. I mean, I do — I just don’t have a lot. And I know that’s not helpful to so many people who have that because there’s lots of different ways you can do that.

One thing I think I do at times, I’ll get ready, you know, to walk out on stage or to be introduced and that — what I mentioned earlier about having a strong beginning. Sometimes I’ll think at the last minute, I’m going to change my beginning, and then I get a little bit nervous, but sometimes that happens because when they’re introducing me, they’ll tell a story or they’ll, they’ll highlight something in my bio that maybe I hadn’t thought that much about. And then last second, I’ll think, I’m gonna tell this story or I’m gonna start like this. And then of course, that gives me a little anxiety at the last second, but I do that to myself.

Susan White (18:36)
Sure, but that’s great. What you do is you optimize that opportunity, right? That somebody said something that you can leverage. I will tell you the things that I do. I really work on breathing because I know that I need to come out with long, deep breaths because if I keep my — in the nervousness state, I’m going to talk higher. My voice is high enough as it is, and I will be gasping for air. So I work on doing some deep breathing before I go out or before I start.

I try to have breakfast. I try to have protein. So if it’s gonna be in the morning, that I’m gonna be starting an all-day training or whatever, I’m gonna make sure I have protein. I don’t wait to see what’s in the room. It’s usually gonna be carbs or fruit or sugar or something that’s not gonna be sustainable. If I have an afternoon, I’ll make sure I eat lunch and I have protein.

And I think that I, whenever that negative voice hits my head, like, my gosh, these people, they know so much more than you. I mean, all the things that your mind is telling you before you open your mouth can be so damaging. I’m like, stop. These people signed up for this because they want to walk away with something. They want me to be successful. They want their time to be successful. So I just have to tamp down that negativity voice and try to bring, you know, good, rational, sound thinking. Yeah.

Well, listeners, my guess is some of you have good ideas about how you tamp down your anxiety. Don’t hesitate to send us a note. We’ll be happy to share in a future episode.

So, JoDee, I’ve got to go back to that statistic that we heard today about that you tend to lose your audience at that 10-, 15-minute window. Is there anything that you do during your presentation to try to keep people engaged? Because so often, I know when you’re scheduled to speak, it’s 45 minutes, it’s an hour. Sometimes you do a four-hour training or an all-day training. What do you do to try to pull people’s minds back into the moment?

JoDee Curtis (20:34)
Yeah. Well, first of all, I want to go back for a second because you just highlighted it too, that I struggle with this because I’m a — I’m a — I feel that I’m a mostly a trainer. I mean, I’ve done keynotes and I’ve done presentations to very large audiences, but I train on a very regular basis.

So how I prepare for training is a little bit different than how I prepare for speaking. that generally in speaking, you are on, say for an hour, right? Now that’s not to say I can’t have some audience participation or polling or talk to your neighbor or get in a small group, but I do feel like as a speaker, say for example, at a conference, that I have to think differently about that I’m on for the whole time.

I’m gonna, I mentioned that, but I’m gonna jump back to training for example. So when I’m training, I am very consistently thinking about every 10 minutes, 15 maximum, I want to have an audience participation, right? And that might be talk to your neighbor, get in a small group… in training, I do a lot more of, like group activities, right? Or let’s stand up and move around. Let’s go talk to three people. Let’s, you know, make a list of 10 things that you would do in the circumstance type of thing. So I…training, I definitely want very interactive activities.

Speaking, you know, even I sometimes will hear a speaker speak who, who says get in a small group, and I’m kind of like, I don’t want to get in a small group. I just want to… Like I — and I’m, I think we’re very social people, but still sometimes I’m like, I came to hear you speak, not the person next to me. Right? So I, even though I appreciate the engagement, sometimes I really just only want to hear them speak.

So I have to think more about every 10 minutes or so — And by the way, I personally would recommend less than the 15 minutes, you know, that report said 10 to 15, but I think people’s attention spans are shorter and shorter every day. I know mine is, right? So, you know, maybe it’s sharing some slides with some facts and then telling a story and then, you know, showing a video and then telling a story, right? So I think the medium becomes more important. Although I do videos and different things in training as well. I think if I’m the only one up there speaking, I’ve got to adjust my pace, you know, I’m not going to do 10 slides in a row with facts and data or, you know, here are the top 10 things you need to do, type of thing. So.

Susan White (24:11)
Fair enough, not really, don’t lecture, don’t use 10 slides to lecture. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So can we talk a little bit about subtle body language or voice techniques that you think people should employ?

JoDee Curtis (24:25)
I’m really big on body language techniques. It’s funny, years ago, I used to do a lot of presentation skills training to accountants. That was my background. I was an accountant and I did a lot of work with CPA firms and really spent a lot of time emphasizing the importance of good body language and gestures, right?

So making, you know, I was with someone who was really tall and I was also with someone who was really short. Or I have three things I want to share with you, you know, and holding up fingers with numbers. And so I think all of those things can really emphasize the points you’re making.

Now on the flip side, you gotta be careful that you’re not constantly gesturing, right? That you’re using hand motions that aren’t adding any value. Or I see people speak who have what, in my training, we use the term “dinosaur arms,” right? So think about if your elbows are attached to your sides, but your hands are moving so it looks like — a dinosaur has very short arms, right? I just want to scream when I see people do that. And I know it’s a habit, right? Know they don’t realize they’re doing it. I can think of one speaker in particular I’ve seen speak three or four times to an audience of 15, 20,000 people who constantly uses dinosaur arms and I cannot listen to one word they say. Right? And it’s so distracting to me.

Now, I have learned that particular skill. Doesn’t mean I don’t do some of those things occasionally too, but the way I learned about gestures has sunk in with me so much that I will catch myself doing it, right? I may do it for a bit too long and then I’ll say, like, stop, put your arms down, right? But gestures can really make a big impact in presenting, so.

Susan White (27:04)
Yeah. I think that’s fair. And my natural inclination is to be still, and so I have to tell myself, you need to move. You need to move your arms. You can make a point. Because I just, you know, kind of like hibernation. Get all the information out and then move on. Nope. I got to let people breathe. And I think by moving around, it causes you to slow down a bit. So all good advice.

JoDee Curtis (27:29)
You also asked about voice techniques. I think just — especially in storytelling, right? To make changes and, you know, are you speaking softly to louder to “wow!” you know, just using more expressions, right? And especially in a story, I think. But even if I’m sharing facts, like, if I said [monotone] “50% of people who give a presentation,” or I said [animated] “50% of people who give a presentation,” right? You can really emphasize words and use a tone of voice that’s different that helps people stay engaged as well.

Susan White (28:18)
Yeah, good advice. So if one of our listeners or more than one of our listeners have a big presentation tomorrow, JoDee, what should they do tonight to get ready?

JoDee Curtis (28:28)
Well, they have to understand the content. Even though, you know, we just shared earlier in the podcast about only 7% of people may remember the content, it has to be there, right? I think it’s important to add the gestures, to add the voice changes, you can do all of that and not have any meat to your story. So I think it’s — it might not be their takeaways all the time, but you have to have a message.

You know, understanding again, I’d say who’s your audience? What’s the message I want to take from them? And then doing the things that they may need to work on. Like for you, maybe it’s that, what’s my go-to strategy? What’s my breathing? What’s my stance? Am I working on my gestures, right? So even — you mentioned about practicing something three times. Practice your — not just the content, but practice gestures and practice those voice changes. So when I get to this slide, I’m gonna do a big gesture there, and specifically even write those in your notes to remind yourself of them.

Susan White (29:59)
That’s great. You know, a question I just thought of is about having notes. I know it’s really important when you give a presentation not to be too reliant on your notes. But do you recommend to somebody who’s not a seasoned presenter have the notes up there with you just in case, or what’s your philosophy?

JoDee Curtis (30:15)
100%. I think it’s totally fine to have notes with you. Now, you, you don’t want to be staring at a script and reading it the whole time. Even– something I’ll do a lot is if I have different statistics or points I want to make, I’ll even just say, I want to read this because I want to make sure I get this statistic correct or this data point or this quote, right? And so I won’t even always try to memorize it, but just to say, this is important and I’m going to read it. Now, I definitely don’t like reading your slides. Although occasionally if I have a quote, I might do that, but I’m not talking about reading slides, just to emphasize that, but it’s okay to check your notes.

Susan White (31:18)
That’s great. That’s great. Thanks for that. What is the most joyful part of making presentations for you?

JoDee Curtis (31:24)
Yeah, well, I love the connection with people, right? I love to look out into the audience and see people smiling or taking notes or nodding their heads, right, and getting that affirmation, I guess, of the message or the way that I’m presenting it, so I just love when I can make an impact or send a message to people about something I think is really important for them to know, right? And I wanna do it in a way that is engaging and makes them feel good about it. Or even “I can do this,” right, or “I understand this,” or “I wanna try this,” whatever that might be.

Susan White (32:17)
Definitely joyful. Yeah, very good. Well, thank you very much.

JoDee Curtis (32:22)
Thank you.

Susan, here’s our listener question. “Do you have any tips on how to get the team more engaged during meetings?”

Susan White (32:32)
We have done a couple of episodes in the past that may be of interest to the listener with the question or any listener really. In 2018, we did an episode entitled “Meeting Skills,” and then in 2024, we did another one called “How to Run Effective Meetings,” and in there, we do have some tips about how do you get everybody who shows up at the meeting physically to hopefully be there mentally with you.

So some quick tips that I have, and then JoDee, I’d love any that you want to piggyback on or add. First of all, I would invite suggestions for the agenda in advance of a meeting. If you know you’re going to meet next Tuesday on a topic, set down a note to everybody who’s going to be there and say, hey, we’re going to be meeting on XYZ next week. Is there anything you want to make sure we cover? Is there any questions you want to bring? Is there anything in this arena that we can add to the agenda?

Second of all, if you’ve got that agenda and maybe nobody else had any input, no problem, but trying to send it out at least a day ahead of time to say, okay, it’s Monday, tomorrow we’re gonna meet on this topic, here’s what I’ve got on there to cover. What it does is helps people that may be introverted, that like to process things, that may come with some really good ideas, that opportunity to let their brain do their magic. So think about getting it out in advance.

Worst case, if you want people engaged in a meeting, before you jump into an agenda, stop and say, here’s what I want to cover today, so that they, at least at the beginning, kind of understand the roadmap. It will, I think, help people think, okay, they’re going to get to this or they’re not going to get to that. Maybe I need to say something at the get go. So I’m just a big believer in using your agenda as a tool for engagement.

I like to on my agenda say how much time we’re allocating for each item we’re going to get through. And the fact is sometimes you’re going to be on item three of eight and you’re halfway through the meeting. You have the opportunity there to call an audible and say, obviously we have a lot of energy around this topic. I know we want to cover X, Y, and Z the rest of today. Let’s talk about it. Do we want to just really focus on this and we’ll schedule another meeting or handle the other items differently or do we want to cut this to a close at this moment. So make it a, I think, kind of a interactive, live, real-time agenda that is agile, right? So I do think that, so the agenda I know I’ve spent a lot of time on as a tip, but I think it’s probably your best tool in the toolkit.

The second thing is before the meeting, if you have a history with people and you realize some people come to the meetings and they’re kind of bystanders, they don’t really actively engage, think about doing some pre-work with them to say, I know that you and I have talked about XYZ before on Tuesday when we had this meeting. I’d love for you to share with the group your thoughts. So anything that you can pre-entice people so that they’re ready when they go in the meeting to actually participate. I think that if it’s the first time you’ve ever met with people you don’t know who’s gonna engage, who’s not, but many of you meet with the same people with some frequency, figure out how can I help break down the wall?

I had somebody in one of my prior jobs who I just knew he was gonna be talking all the time, all the time in meetings. It kind of took the air out of the room because the focus was always on him. I learned to get with him ahead of time to hear his thoughts and say, hey, I love all of your ideas. If you’re okay, I’m gonna summarize where your position is and invite other people to react to it. So I would try to make sure that I could harness that over-communicating to get other people engaged.

I guess my next idea is I use icebreakers. I believe in icebreakers. Some of our listeners are rolling their eyes saying, please don’t make me do two truths and a lie again. Please don’t make me do an icebreaker again. The reason I value them so much is that I think it gets people opening up and talking a little bit. And once the ice has been broken and somebody has uttered words, they’re more likely to utter words later.

Plus, I think you can help build relationships and trust among the team when people get to know each other at a deeper level. So one of my kids, my daughter works for a large organization and their team meetings, whoever’s running the meeting comes with an icebreaker. She always says, oh, mom, I have to do an icebreaker today. She hates them. And I love them. So.

I guess my next tip is that be sure and thank people who participate in your meetings. So when someone adds an idea, whether you agree with it or not, say thank you for bringing that up. Thank you for jumping in first. Showing appreciation for people speaking up, engaging and talking gets other people to do it too. So having that mindset of gratitude when people talk, you can be sickeningly, you know, thank you, thank you, thank you. No, be deliberate, intentional, but be respectful and thankful when people talk.

JoDee Curtis (37:29)
Yeah, I love that advice, by the way. think that’s really important.

Susan White (37:32)
Good. It kind of sets a tone that invites more people. So I love it. And then my last thought is use polling, voting, small group brainstorming, partnering up, just as if you were training, JoDee, or doing a presentation, just even in a meeting, getting people, instead of the focus being on you as the meeting leader, get it on each other. Get somebody who maybe doesn’t talk much in the group, they’re more likely to talk to that person next to them. say we’re going to partner up, we’re going come up with ideas, but I know it’s always easier to do it in a small group form first. So I think that can help keep the energy high. Jodee, how about you? Anything else that think that I’ve missed?

JoDee Curtis (38:13)
I think you hit all the key areas. One, just really want to emphasize that I think is so important is to invite others to participate, you know, like, before the meetings even to think. I think a lot of times in meetings, if we’re leading the meeting that we think we need to do all the talking or the presentation. So have different areas where someone, you know, I know, okay, on this topic, I want Susan to lead this section or I want John to lead this section and don’t — it can be like a presentation, it’s boring, can be boring just to hear one person talk on and on. So invite other people to share topics.

Susan White (39:11)
I love that. Share the leadership of the meeting with others can be very empowering and good development. So yeah, good point. Good point.

JoDee, it’s in the — it’s in the news time. A March 19th, 2026 article by Cathy Bussewitz on the AP News hit our radar. It is entitled “Microshifting puts a new spin on 9 – 5 schedules.” The term microshifting refers to a flexible work style where employees break their workday into short, non-continuous bursts of blocks (for example, 40 to 90 minutes) which could be between early morning and bedtime rather than devoting a concentrated eight-, nine-, or 10-hour shift. The purpose is so the employee can focus on being productive for focus times that fit around their personal commitments, like childcare, elder care, pet care, exercise, side gigs, running to the grocery.

In Bussewitz’s article, she says a microshifter’s performance is judged by their output with less emphasis on the number of hours logged in. The advantages include giving the brain breaks to recharge, enabling you to put time and energy into all aspects of your life and not just the work day — so we’ve got better work-life balance — enables more creativity when the brain has time and space for ideas to bubble up, gives employees the flexibility they crave and the autonomy that can increase engagement, and it enables staff to have better outside of work lives and relationships as they can flex as personal needs and opportunities arise.

JoDee Curtis (40:51)
I love those ideas and I’ll tell you, I have not… I would say over the course of my career, I’ve not been one to take many breaks. And 14 years ago, we got a dog and I was working from home with the dog and started taking the dog on walks throughout the day, you know, to get him out and get him some exercise. And I couldn’t believe the difference it made in my work. And I never would have believed it if I hadn’t actually kind of been forced to take the dog out, right? And so I really am a big believer in this.

Susan White (41:37)
You’d come back with better thoughts; you’d come back with ideas. That’s great. Yeah. Great example.

JoDee Curtis (41:41)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just get — I mean, for me, it was getting outside in nature and in the sun and sometimes the freezing cold. And I just would always come back with a different idea or a different thought or a renewed energy or whatever it might be.

Susan White (42:01)
Beautiful. Well, there are downsides that this article does point out. You know, first of all, professional relationships can suffer as you aren’t as available when others are. If you’re microshifting in bursts from when you wake up to you go to bed, you may not be there when there’s a critical problem to be resolved or online when somebody wanted to vet some ideas with you.

It is harder to offer microshifting to the front line, lower-level people who need to be present at specific times, right? The production line needs to be filled Customer service roles need to be occupied. So whereas higher level people are probably microshifting now when they need to, right, without policies around it, which can really build class system, it can build resentment.

And then even the people that are actively microshifting today, they may sometimes feel like they’re always working because they feel they need to keep putting in bursts to offset any non-employer time that they leaned into that day.

JoDee, I see the pros and the cons. Personally, looking back to when I worked for an employer, I enjoyed having a fairly regular start and stop time so I could walk away at the end of the day. However, now as a consultant working for myself, I certainly microshift, but if I still worked for a company, I’m not sure if I would feel guilty when I microshifted to go to an exercise class or to go get my nails done or something if I microshifted, since some days could end up employer work heavy and others employer work light. You know, my guess is even though you yourself is not — probably haven’t microshifted a lot, the staff that you have at Purple Ink, it looks from the outside in that they’re microshifting.

JoDee Curtis (43:47)
Yes, yes, yes, all the time.

Susan White (43:50)
Because you don’t care what time people deliver product or work with their clients.

JoDee Curtis (43:53)
Right, right, right. You know, I remember when I first started working and a lot of guys I worked with would get their hair cut in the middle of the day. And I would think, what in the world? Why would they get their hair cut in the middle of a workday? I just thought that was crazy. And I have to admit today I’m getting my hair cut in – like, I’ve been doing that now for like 10 years and it just, I — every time I do it I think about those early years when I was appalled that people would take a break in the middle of the day, you know? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Susan White (44:24)
Yes. Mm-hmm. And I bet they were executives doing it. So there’s that resentment, right? Yeah. Of course, men get their hair cut in 10 minutes. yeah, we women take a lot longer. Well, that’s fun.

JoDee Curtis (44:43)
Right, right, right. That’s right.

Susan White (44:50)
If you’re SHRM certified, you can get credit for listening to this episode. To get the code, go to getjoypowered.com slash SHRM and fill out a short evaluation. When you finish the evaluation, you’ll get the code and a link to a proof of participation certificate. The code will expire on June 1st, 2027. Again, that’s getjoypowered.com slash SHRM to get the code. And it’s going to expire on June 1, 2027. Thank you for listening and thank you for your dedication to the HR profession.

JoDee Curtis (45:26)
And as always, make it a JoyPowered® day.

Susan White (45:30)
Thank you.