The Workback: Moving Work Forward With Asana Head of Editorial Emily Anne Epstein
In this episode of Redefining Work, I sat down with Asana Head of Editorial Emily Ann Epstein. We discuss her background in journalism and her role with Asana’s publication, The Workback.
Before Emily came to Asana, she worked in journalism for 16 years in publishing and digital media, including leadership roles at Bustle, the New York Observer and The Atlantic. “When you're a journalist, it's a really mission-driven profession,” she says. “You have to believe in it. You have to know that your purpose is to connect different communities, to create empathy across those communities and to find stories that surprise, delight and educate people.”
In her current role, Emily is bringing Asana’s mission to life with a publication that offers actionable steps for changing work.
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Developing A Deeper Respect for HR’s Role in Work
Emily has always had a high level of respect for HR’s knowledge of leadership, coaching and attracting the right talent. When she came to Asana, she learned even more about HR’s ability to access data in real time.
“What are we doing with pulse surveys? How do we act on that? What is the engagement of different teams? How do we move things? How do we motivate people? What's psychological safety? What are different types of leadership?” Emily says. “It's really a very robust field that is just driving things forward every day. I think it’s taking a much more prominent place in the way businesses are organized because there is this essential focus on ‘Are your people happy?’”
The Workback Origin Story
Asana is dedicated to helping teams collaborate effectively to meet business needs. And The Workback fulfills that mission by being “for leaders who seek specific data, tangible insights, and authentic stories that are as useful as they are enjoyable to read.”
The publication’s name refers to how Asana operates: “It's all about setting a goal. Creating that concept, creating that vision, and then working back from there,” Emily says. The workback is the step in between the idea and execution.
The Workback’s content is sometimes inspired by internal communications, such as a recent memo from Chief Product Officer Alex Hood, “The 8 Rules For Co-Creation.” When Emily and her team saw the memo, they knew that this type of content was valuable to businesses and leaders outside the Asana community.
Bridging the Gap In Media
Business media tends to live at either end of the spectrum. There’s what Emily calls “business pop culture trends, hot takes” on one end, and the more academic tone of Harvard Business Review (HBR) and MIT Sloan Management Review on the other.
The Workback’s goal is to split the difference: “Something that's just as useful as HBR, just as insightful, but just as delightful to read as those business pop publications,” Emily says. “We saw this as a strategy that nobody's been doing and nobody's really doing well. We want to contribute and we want to help bridge that gap to make these ideas more accessible.”
The Workback exists to help business leaders looking to make evidence-based decisions. “We're thinking about the future of work, but we're also thinking about the future of leadership,” Emily says. “What are the tools and the strategies that people who are bringing this new era of the office, of hybrid work, what do they need to know?”
This focus is meant to help these leaders make better decisions while naturally associating with how Asana changes and organizes how people work. This is how brand journalism delivers business impact, Emily says.
Asana makes a “commitment to transparency, authenticity, research, curiosity, and we combine it with brand storytelling so, that way, the voices of our employees and of our customers can be seen alongside business leaders in all industries,” Emily says.
People in This Episode
Emily Ann Epstein: LinkedIn, The Workback
