L.A. Care’s Communications Director Joins a Work-Life Balance Panel at the Los Angeles Business Journal’s 2021 Women’s Leadership Series

Throughout the pandemic, many have struggled to maintain a work-life balance as home became the workplace. Today, Misty de Lamare, L.A. Care Director of Communications, is among four professional women who will share how they managed to find work-life balance during a grueling year of working from home. The Work Life Balance panel is one of three today in the second part of the Los Angeles Business Journal’s 2021 Women’s Leadership Series.

With two young children at home, de Lamare discovered it was critical for her to set up a home office. Working at the kitchen table where the children were also homeschooling was not a functional system. She also learned that she had to set firm times for shutting down. That included turning off her work devices before dinner and not turning them back on until after the children had gone to bed.

Self-care outside of the “work from home” accommodations she made was a must for de Lamare. Walks helped in getting away from the home office, but she also took to indulging in mini-spa products that she says she would rarely consider pre-pandemic.

As a department director managing more than two dozen employees, she says it was important for her to support her team, understanding that some were suffering their own stressors and that the pandemic was impacting everyone in different ways. She says being a good listener was important. She also offered flexibility to those who were now caring for the children or another loved one. Just as she worked on her own self-care, she encouraged her staff to do the same, which including frequent reminders about the free counseling services available at L.A. Care.

Other speakers on the Work-Life Balance panel are Patty Juarez, the National Diverse Segment Leader at Wells Fargo, Jackie Keller, the founding director of NutriFit, LLC, and Dr. Michele Nealon, the president of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

The other two panels today are Organizational Inclusion and Leading through Change. The session starts at 2:00 pm. You can register here.

Updated June 18, 2021 - You can watch all three panels here.