Watchen Nyanue

As companies navigate the evolving workforce, understanding and managing Gen Z employees has become critical. With over 60% of college seniors feeling unprepared for the transition to work, and 82% of employers noting gaps in essential skills like communication and teamwork, organizations must bridge this gap to ensure Gen Z’s success. In this talk, talent strategist Watchen Nyanue will share how businesses can effectively onboard and develop recent graduates by providing them with the tools, mentorship, and understanding they need to thrive. Learn strategies to empower your Gen Z hires, improve retention, and create a workplace where young professionals can contribute immediately and grow into future leaders.

Many make assumptions that everyone with a college degree understands how to navigate Corporate America, but, in reality, a lot of your employees are moving along blindly with hope as their number one strategy. In this talk, Watchen explores the areas of professional development that will help put your employees in the driver seat of their careers, while lessening the burden on your management team. Not all skills impact your career in the same way, so she guides audiences on how to focus on building a solid professional development foundation that your employees can then build on.

While corporations invest a lot of resources into mentorship programs, many of them are not successful because the one size fits all approach to mentorship and mentor matching has not proven to generate consistent results. Often, employees are seduced by titles, and leaders are driven by a savior complex. Fit becomes an afterthought. In this conversation, Watchen shares some strategies that have proven to result in high-impact mentorship and a different lens through which to consider the role of mentorship in employee retention.

Over the last year, Watchen has led conversations with brilliant corporate leaders and thousands of Black women and learned that the two groups are like two ships passing in the night. Both groups are very well-intentioned and want to see change, but there is a blockage preventing the conversations that need to happen to see impactful change. The myth that there is a way forward towards a more inclusive workplace that is strategic, but does not include having really tough conversations, will negatively impact retention rates—hard stop. But the elephant in the room is that while conversations are being had, they only go so far because, Black employees are not saying what needs to be communicated to help inform the strategy, out of fear of retaliation or getting fired. Employers aren't saying what needs to be said out of fear of saying the wrong things, being labeled, or even worse, sued. In this talk, Watchen shares her insights into how to bridge the gap between employers and their Black female employees to help companies retain their talent. This talk serves as a bridge for decision-makers who intellectually understand the value of a workplace where everyone feels welcome, but may not have the data that transparency provides to help inform their retention strategies. Through her own goals with I Choose the Ladder, Watchen can help your organization examine and rectify the issues to help grow and improve Black talent.