AI in HR - Creating Value With New Technology

AI in HR: Creating Value With New Technology

/, , , , , /by

As artificial intelligence becomes more deeply embedded in everyday workflows, it is rapidly transforming the way businesses operate. For example, the recent rise of generative AI and data-driven insights provide an exciting glimpse into future possibilities. In fact, McKinsey estimates that AI could contribute an additional $13 trillion to the global economy by 2030. But what does this mean for AI in HR?

Many employers are eagerly embracing new AI-driven capabilities. And as the co-founder of an innovative HR tech platform, I’ve had a front-row seat in witnessing AI’s early impact.

But despite the enthusiasm, a central question remains: While navigating these uncharted waters, how can employers make sure AI has a meaningful, positive impact on their workforce as well as their business results? Here’s my perspective…

Moving From Hype to Measurable Value

In the HR tech sphere, many tools and service providers are racing to integrate AI into their platforms and processes — often to demonstrate tech prowess. But this, alone, doesn’t create business value.

That’s why problem-solving must be a top priority. Especially now, in this early adoption phase, it’s paramount for solutions to address the real needs of HR leaders, practitioners, managers, and employees.

If this is the goal, what truly matters? AI isn’t just about automation — it’s also about helping organizations save time, improve performance, enhance the employee experience, and provide actionable insights when and where they’re useful. In our world, this translates into feedback processes that are more responsive, managers who are more effective at coaching their teams, and employees who are more engaged and empowered to grow and perform their best.

Mapping AI to Employment Cycle Stages

To understand the tangible benefits of AI in HR, it’s helpful to look through the lens of the employee lifecycle. From talent acquisition to performance management, and from training to retention, AI is shaping each step in the employee journey. Let’s examine what that means for each stage:

1. Rethinking Talent Acquisition: Beyond the Resume

As the initial touchpoint in the employment cycle, hiring is pivotal in defining the employee experience. Traditional recruiting methods may be effective, but they often fall short in capturing the intricate nuances that determine a candidate’s fit for a particular role. This is where the transformative power of AI can propel employers beyond the limits of a conventional resume.

An excellent case is HireVue. This platform uses AI-driven predictive analytics to evaluate a candidate’s suitability based on numerous factors, including facial expressions and tone of voice during interviews. These innovative capabilities work hand-in-hand with recruiters to complement and enhance their human observations. This leads to a more comprehensive assessment that looks beyond surface-level qualifications and reduces unconscious bias.

How AI Adds Value

In a world where first impressions and gut feelings tend to drive decisions, AI adds a more objective layer of analysis. Plus, it helps “read between the lines” of a candidate’s responses for a more holistic, data-driven approach to talent acquisition.

As a result, employers can feel more confident they’re hiring people with personal attributes that fit their company culture and long-term objectives, as well as the right skills and experience.

But the true magic of AI lies in its potential to help decision-makers rethink their perceptions of candidates. Suitability indicators shift from qualifications, alone, to a nuanced combination of skills, culture fit, and long-term potential.

Ultimately, this promises to improve employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention by making it easier to find the strongest talent for each role, right from the start. However, AI can’t run on autopilot. For the best outcomes, employers and platform vendors will need to work together so they can avoid bias in AI algorithms while preserving the human touch that elevates the candidate experience.

2. Redefining Performance Metrics: Objective Evaluation

Performance assessment has long been a foundational HR function. But now, AI adds a new dimension to this process, reshaping how we track and evaluate employee contributions.

With AI algorithms, employers can extract insights that were once beyond reach. This means organizations can more quickly and accurately pinpoint high-potential talent, predict employee burnout, create a comprehensive analysis of any individual’s performance, and identify where they’re making the biggest impact.

How AI Adds Value

To illustrate how this works, consider the case of Fractl, a fast-paced digital marketing firm that relies on the WorkStory platform to drive employee pulse surveys, streamline performance reviews, and support continuous development for its fully distributed workforce.

What’s next? According to MIT Sloan, some organizations are taking this a step further by using AI to generate employee key performance indicators. These KPIs are carefully calibrated and dynamically adjusted to consider each employee’s past performance, while also considering their team’s objectives and their organization’s broader mission.

Although momentum is growing for AI-supported employee evaluation, several fundamental challenges remain. Employers need to foster workforce trust by ensuring their process is transparent and free from bias. As success stories become more widespread and best practices emerge, these barriers to adoption should diminish.

The shift to AI-enabled performance evaluation marks a pivotal moment in the evolution of HR practices. By providing more objective, dynamic, data-driven assessments, it’s possible to unlock new levels of employee potential and improve productivity, while significantly enhancing employee engagement and retention.

3. Empowering Growth: Tailored Learning Experiences

Continuous learning is vital in today’s fluid business environment. And AI is already transforming employee development from a formal one-size-fits-all experience to a personalized and highly adaptive journey.

For instance, imagine tailoring training modules and performance support resources to an individual’s organizational role, career aspirations, and learning patterns. With AI-enabled tools like Degreed, Coursera, EdCast, Docebo, and Cornerstone OnDemand, you can easily identify relevant skill gaps and deliver targeted learning, assessments, and coaching.

How AI Adds Value

These AI-powered platforms curate personalized learning paths, recommend relevant courses, and analyze individual learning behaviors, so employees can develop the knowledge and skills they need to thrive in their current roles. At the same time, they can prepare for future opportunities.

Organizations are rapidly embracing AI-based learning strategies because they see tremendous value in helping employees take charge of their professional growth while remaining aligned with existing business goals.

4. Fostering Retention: Finding the Pulse of Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is the lifeblood of every organization. With AI-based analytics tools, employers can gain deeper insight into subtle engagement indicators. By analyzing informal and formal feedback and communication patterns, organizations can better understand the strength and direction of workforce sentiment and proactively work to improve engagement.

How AI Adds Value

Organizations like KPMG are using an internal AI chatbot and predictive analytics to identify employees who are at risk of quitting, so they can intervene. And in 10-20% of cases, these interventions succeeded.

In this context, predictive analytics depends on historical data and AI algorithms to forecast future outcomes. For employee engagement, it can mean predicting which employees are more likely to leave based on their interactions, sentiments, and previous work patterns.

When the system identifies “at risk” employees, HR can take timely action to address underlying issues. For example, to resolve conflicts with a manager, a disaffected employee may respond to job restructuring, reassignment, coaching, or new development opportunities.

This proactive, personalized approach contrasts with traditional talent management methods that rely on periodic pulse surveys and subjective assessments, both of which may miss real-time fluctuations in employee sentiment.

Fusing AI and HR: Beyond Today’s Challenges

Integrating AI with HR is a journey filled with endless possibilities. But despite the benefits and buzz, HR professionals need to recognize the risks and ensure AI tools are used ethically and effectively.

This isn’t just about efficiency. It’s also about building a workplace that is more empathetic, empowered, and engaged.

In a few short years, AI-enabled HR tools will be ubiquitous. The burden of routine, repetitive tasks will fall more heavily on machines. At the same time, information will flow much more freely, giving business and HR professionals the ability to better understand their work environment, anticipate the need to adjust, and prepare for the road ahead.

As Harvard Business Review says, “These new capabilities remove barriers of expertise and time from the process of data preparation, insight discovery, and analysis and make it possible for ‘citizen data analysts’ to create insights and take actions that improve their businesses.”

We will learn and adapt. New jobs and industries will emerge that we haven’t even anticipated yet. In fact, The Institute for the Future predicts that most of the jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t been invented yet — and many of those jobs will be created as a result of AI.

As employers move toward a world where AI is seamlessly integrated into HR processes, I think one guiding principle will determine the difference between failure and lasting success. When you’re trying to balance tech innovation with the human touch, ask yourself, “Will this truly help members of our workforce feel more connected, valued, and supported in their professional journey?” If so, you’re on the right track.

Leaders Do You Connect Employees With Their Noble Purpose

Leaders: Do You Connect Employees With Their Noble Purpose?

/, , , , , /by

TalentCulture Content Impact Award Winner - 2023When employees feel disconnected from their jobs — or their work doesn’t bring a sense of purpose to their lives — they’re more likely to quit. Unfortunately, this is happening all around lately. Troubling signs like productivity theater and resenteeism are flooding the work zone. Clearly, many employees are struggling to connect their organization’s purpose with their own.

According to McKinsey, 70% of employees find a sense of relevance through work. This doesn’t mean people expect their job to define them 100%. But when personal and business purposes align, everyone benefits. Workforce engagement and loyalty tend to improve significantly. As a result, employees become more willing to advocate for their employer and recommend prospective applicants.

Why should leaders care? Because when you create a culture of psychological safety and compassion, you empower people to be authentic at work. This, in turn, drives commitment, satisfaction, and team performance.

Keys to Connect With Employee Purpose

1. Start by Ensuring Psychological Safety

In a world overflowing with toxic workplaces, psychological safety is more important than ever. No one should have to fear humiliation or punishment when they share concerns, ideas, and mistakes. Everyone should feel free to speak up and support one another without rejection or embarrassment.

The definition of psychological safety isn’t everyone being nice to others all the time. Rather, it is a work environment where everyone is welcome to:

  • Share feedback
  • Challenge the status quo, and
  • Work together to resolve disagreements.

But these conditions don’t materialize out of thin air. They depend on supportive top-down leadership.

2. Facilitate Open Communication

Purpose-driven cultures thrive when leaders consistently encourage a free flow of communication. This is possible when everyone feels a shared sense of ownership and trust.

In practice, trust emerges when all team members are willing to offer peers a “soft landing.” In other words, when a teammate is in a vulnerable position, others recognize and respect their situation and honor their point of view.

When teams approach authenticity with grace, it sends a powerful message throughout the organization. But this won’t start until leaders establish ground rules and set a consistent example for others to emulate in day-to-day settings. As team members become more familiar and comfortable with others’ abilities, personalities, and perspectives, respectful collaboration can naturally take hold.

3. Measure What Matters

Finally, companies that recognize people as their most valuable asset apply appropriate metrics to measure engagement, growth, and satisfaction.

Quarterly pulse surveys can include some probing questions to assess employee sentiment about psychological safety and leadership communication. This provides meaningful data you can use to compare results against historical trends and statistical norms.

Benefits of Connecting Purpose and Work

Studies show that people who live their purpose at work are more productive than those who don’t or can’t. They’re also more resilient, healthier, and less likely to leave their company.

Most of us find this kind of culture appealing. In fact, more than 80% of employees want their employer to value them as humans — not just worker bees. Yet, only 45% actually believe they’re seen this way. This gap is important. It means too many of us feel like mere cogs in an endless wheel designed for others’ benefit.

So, where does the concept of engagement fit into this picture? Successful performance doesn’t happen by accident. It comes when organizations tap into employees’ passions and strengths. People who feel engaged, seen, and heard are more likely to contribute their full selves to work whenever they’re working.

Of course, in today’s “work from anywhere” world, leaders often find it difficult to understand what team members feel internally. This uncertainty can cause them to respond in unhelpful ways. No wonder remote and hybrid employees often find it harder to connect with their organization’s purpose!

The best solution is for leaders to reach out proactively to ensure that team members are finding meaningful value in their work. Building and maintaining those connections takes time, space, intention, and investment. But eventually, as you engage in conversations and build camaraderie unrelated to business tasks, trust will develop and the rest will follow.

Compensation and benefit packages matter to employees. But even the best salaries and perks can’t compare to a purpose-driven culture. People need regular reinforcement to confirm that they are contributing in ways that make a meaningful impact. This kind of human connection only comes when leaders take the time to develop genuine relationships with everyone on their team — and encourage others to do the same.

Building a Culture of Authenticity: One Idea That Works

Although connecting with each employee’s purpose may take time, it doesn’t need to be complicated. Start by committing to bring everyone together in person, even if only periodically or on an annual basis. People naturally want to form human connections with team members, and in-person meetings are the best way to promote that kind of relational energy.

At Authenticx, we’ve established a practice that helps. We invite each team member to choose one word as their own personal beacon for the year. The goal is for everyone to select a term that describes how they’re trying to grow as an individual.

Part of living that word comes from the act of sharing the word’s meaning with others and the journey each of us travels with that intention throughout the year. So we all know each other’s words. Each quarter, we schedule word-sharing sessions to discuss where we’re struggling, where we need to be accountable, and where we’re finding success.

Recently, one of our employees shared the word “engagement.” It’s a perfect word for capturing the need to tap into people’s passions and strengths to achieve business success. When people feel seen, heard, and engaged they’re likely to contribute more fully when they’re working.

We’ve found that this practice opens a window into each employee’s mindset and often offers a new insight into their work role and performance. By learning more about what matters to team members, we can spark more useful discussions. And we see this “single word” exercise as a starting point for these conversations.

A Final Note on Purpose at Work

When people feel empowered, respected, trusted, and valued, they’re more likely to challenge themselves, remain committed, and stay on board. These are worthwhile outcomes for any organization, no matter what the mission may be.

This is why purpose-focused leaders don’t hover, but they do pay close attention. They listen to employees’ needs, tap into their passions, and promote connections across teams. As a result, team members can develop a healthy emotional commitment to their work and resilience that keeps them moving forward — even during difficult times.

Want to engage future leaders? Empower them. Learn how to help with this expert's advice.

Want to Engage Future Leaders? Empower Them

/, , , /by

Leaders, do workforce engagement issues keep you up at night? If not, here’s a powerful wake-up call from Gallup. Last year, the global employee engagement rate was only 23%. Although that’s the highest level since Gallup started tracking global data in 2009, it means 77% of the workforce still misses the mark. Plus, it falls far short of the 72% benchmark seen in best-practice organizations. So, how can your company move in the right direction? Empower people — especially younger team members.

Empower employees - Gallup global employee engagement trends as of 2023

 

Engage? Or Empower?

Employers recognize just how vital engagement is for workforce well-being and satisfaction, as well as overall business productivity and profitability. As a result, the desire to improve engagement has spawned an endless number of programs, initiatives, and tools to help keep employees interested and engaged in their work. Yet still, strong engagement remains elusive.

Why? Sometimes, the best solution is not about adding more layers to an already complex leadership strategy. Instead, it’s about understanding and adapting to changing workplace trends. This is precisely what’s needed now.

Today’s work dynamics require leaders to understand, appreciate, and adapt to the interests and motivations of an increasingly younger workforce. Those who master this subtle art of purposeful empowerment are more successful at inspiring their staff with a new sense of focus, connection, and commitment.

What Do Next-Generation Engaged Workers Look Like?

As the president of a leadership development consulting firm, I often speak with managers about the most difficult challenges they face. Recently, their answers involve a common complaint. “Kids today!” But what exactly do comments like this mean? When we dig deeper, a more specific profile emerges:

  • Employees from younger generations seem uncertain, yet confident.
  • They continuously demand more, even when myriad choices are available.
  • They introduce new ways to communicate, and are fluent with digital technologies that are typically beyond the grasp of senior team members.

These generational differences may cause frustration and friction. But in truth, every generation can point to differences in others that create difficulties. Instead, we need to challenge our own mindset and operate on positive assumptions rather than negative ones.

This means that no matter what younger employees bring to the workplace and how they shape the work culture, leaders play a vital role in helping them evolve into more engaged, committed individuals and teams. You can’t change the characteristics of people who are entering the workforce, but you can adapt to their reality and meet their development needs. And in the process, you can make your workplace more inclusive and resilient.

To Empower Employees, Where Should You Start?

When adapting to Gen Z and Millennial needs, it’s wise to emphasize working styles. For example, to feel comfortable and focused at work, younger people expect employers to demonstrate an ongoing commitment to their wellbeing. This may include flexible schedules, remote or hybrid work options, shorter workweeks, the ability to take extended mental health breaks, and other creative benefits and work choices.

Support for mental, emotional, and financial health is the new bread and butter of Millennial and Gen Z work experience. And if you resist these needs, you risk losing the best and brightest young talent.

Younger members of the workforce know many possible career paths are available to them. They don’t need to commit to any particular company for the long haul. Now, these individuals are more open to participating in the gig economy and going solo as professional practitioners and entrepreneurs.

Their work/life expectations are also more than a wish list or a passing phase. Here’s why: After years of pandemic disruption, intense remote work environments, and economic challenges, 46% of Gen Zers and 45% of Millennials are feeling burned out. As they see it, their demands are not whims — they’re about physical and mental survival.

How Can Leaders Empower Employees in a Meaningful Way?

Millennials and Gen Z are predicted to comprise 75% of the workforce by 2025. So, if you don’t learn how to empower and engage them now, you’ll soon be outnumbered. To start creating a work environment where younger team members can thrive, try these three strategies:

1. Consider What’s Driving Various Demands

First and foremost, seek to understand the logic behind requests from younger employees. For example, a Gen Zer may prefer remote work because they live in a smaller, cheaper town so they can make ends meet and avoid an expensive commute. Or a Millennial could seek schedule flexibility so they can pursue a side job to improve their financial stability.

There are often serious, valid reasons behind younger workers’ expectations. Recognizing these underlying drivers can help you respond effectively and build a work environment where every employee can thrive.

2. Give Younger Employees a Seat at the Table

One of the most damaging assumptions you can make as a leader is to assume you’re always the most intelligent person in the room. If you let go of this notion, evolution and innovation will immediately become easier, more people will feel included and involved, and ultimately, your business will become more successful.

Invite other voices to join the conversation. Acknowledge the importance of their input, and accept the value of their perspectives. As a result, you can expect a more loyal, committed workforce. In fact, Deloitte research indicates that when younger employees feel empowered to share their ideas and influence in decision-making, 66% stay with their employer for at least 5 years, compared to only 24% who do not feel empowered.

3. Don’t Just Delegate — Empower

Many leaders stop short of empowering employees merely by taking tasks off their own plates and delegating them along with explicit instructions. But if you move from delegating tasks to actually elevating employees and giving them power, they will take ownership and accountability for projects. And ultimately, they’ll be more engaged.

The key is trust and a willingness to let go of control.

As leaders, we’ve been conditioned to jump in with ideas, answers, and solutions — but when we do, we take that opportunity away from others. Whether your team comes to you with an idea, a problem, or a recommendation, take the time to really listen to what they say and why it’s important. And when you ask questions, ask with an intent to understand, not to solve.

It’s Time to Empower the Future

As leaders, we all must recognize and embrace the fact that the world is changing, and organizations are changing, too. This is an opportunity to grow in new, interesting, productive, and profitable ways.

Younger generations are here. They are looking to us to help them transform the way we work. So, don’t dig in your heels or bury your head in the sand. Instead, consider the possibilities and leverage this new source of talent that, with our support, can build a brighter future.

Managers need a toolbox for the "post-everything" era. Here are ideas for elements that organizations should include - by Ron Ricci of The Culture Platform

Managers Need a Toolbox for the “Post-Everything” Era

/, , , , , , , /by

TalentCulture Content Impact Award Winner - 2023
Sponsored by The Culture Platform

What tools actually help managers manage their people? That’s the most important question every organization needs to ask itself as the workplace enters the “post-everything” era. Post-pandemic, post-work-from-home, post-boomers, post-engagement-software’s-failure-to make-a-difference, post-wondering-if-AI-will-affect-work. You get my drift.

I believe this new era will be defined by how well organizations adapt their approach to managing people, as well as the responsibilities they put on managers’ shoulders.

Inside the “Post-Everything” Manager’s Toolkit

“Post-everything” has created a new starting line for managers. Expectations have changed. Most importantly, the number one reason why individuals leave a job today is a lack of growth opportunities. In fact, more than any generations in history, Gen Z and Millennials are ready to quit their current job for another role that promises better opportunities.

This is why managers need to focus on setting clear expectations. But here’s the catch — it requires human-to-human communication.

I’ve managed about 5,000 people in my career. My on-the-ground experience taught me that no two people are exactly alike. Career planning is a process of ongoing communication. It’s a give-and-take conversation about strengths and weaknesses, about roles and responsibilities, about goals and metrics, about performance and results.

As every manager knows, it’s remarkably easy to make mistakes when setting expectations. Being consistent is hard. But it’s even harder if your organization is also inconsistent.

Think for a moment about your career. Ask yourself this question: Have you ever seen an employer dedicated to providing a single, consistent, unified process that helps managers set expectations about career opportunities for team members? Is this happening where you work now?

The “Post-Everything” Process

Of course, a toolbox is only as good as the process it uses.

I’ve spent a decade talking to hundreds of organizations around the world about the role of the manager. Along the way, I’ve repeatedly heard that if we want to help managers set clear expectations, inconsistency is the biggest problem to solve.

Inconsistency comes in many forms. It may come from a lack of formal goals or goals that are continuously changing. You may see it in a failure to establish metrics or metrics that mean different things. It could be about reorgs or reductions in force, weak communication, managerial changes, or language differences. The list goes on and on.

At its heart, inconsistency breeds distrust in management’s ability to be accountable and follow through on an employee’s career growth. These triggers cause people to move on in search of better opportunities. And that’s why I think organizational inconsistency is failing managers today and is the real reason employees are so disengaged at work.

3 Steps For Success

I’ve come to believe that every unified process to help managers consistently set clear expectations must include three essential steps. Individually, each step is helpful. But linking all three end-to-end is the key to empowering managers, especially at scale. So this is my call to action for leaders:

1. Embrace a Common Vocabulary

Communicate with common terms. Think of company-specific languages like V2MOM from Salesforce or standardized vocabularies like OKRs. A common organizational vocabulary eliminates communication gray zones or ambiguities. What words do people use in running your business? You need to define the meaning of those words. For example, what does strategy mean to your organization? How do you distinguish a priority from a program? What is an initiative, and how does that differ from a project?

2. Emphasize Shared Goals

To be clear about which activities matter to operational execution, develop and publish shared goals. These goals are the way people can connect their job role to what will be rewarded. Shared goals serve the important role of distinguishing what’s important from what’s urgent when communicating. Do we care about growth? Or do we care about efficiency? Shared goals help managers align job roles to what the organization actually values.

3. Focus on the Standard Metrics

Are you measuring everyone’s success the same way? A single taxonomy of metrics sets up what employees really want — a consistent accountability system. If people can’t communicate with facts about their performance and results, it leads to an insidious way of getting ahead: relying on who you know. And we all know what that leads to.

Alignment Matters in the “Post-Everything” Era

A common vocabulary, shared goals, and a single system of metrics. Together, they form an end-to-end process that minimizes inconsistency when setting expectations.

Yes, this process is more difficult than buying a software tool. It requires leaders and managers to do the hard work of agreeing on specific elements of the process. But that said, it’s no different with Six Sigma or Lean/Agile methods. And the results are worth the effort.

The “post-everything era” is defined by what the best employees want — growth and advancement. This era demands end-to-end alignment. That means every employee in an organization should be able to align their job role to current and future opportunities. It is hard work for any manager, but it’s the new “post-everything” reality.

Want to Manage Well? Alignment is the Answer

End-to-end alignment requires human-to-human communication up and down the organization. It’s why I believe employers have been getting engagement wrong. It’s upside down. Instead of being engaged, employees want their leaders and managers to be engaged in conversations about their individual career success.

The core premise of The Collaboration Imperative, which I co-authored about Cisco’s best practices, centers on the idea that any great productivity leap forward or new strategic direction requires the alignment of process, culture, and technology. In other words, it may be tempting to depend on a tool for this, but technology alone cannot substitute for a complete process.

Organizations already put significant weight on managers’ shoulders. In the “post-everything” era, it’s time to lighten the load. It’s time for leaders to carry some of the weight by giving managers what they need — a process that consistently and systematically eliminates inconsistencies in expectation-setting. Let’s give managers the toolbox they really deserve. Your people are depending on it.

I want to give you a head start with this process. Send an email request to me at TheCulturePlatform@gmail.com and I’ll send you a PDF of Chapter 4 from The Collaboration Imperative: Creating Commitment to Shared Goals.

Is remote work failing Generation Z? What can employers do? Take a closer look with a diversity and inclusion expert.

Is Remote Work Failing Generation Z?

/, , , , , /by

When the pandemic arrived in 2020, everyone’s definition of work changed in a heartbeat. Most people headed home, leaving their offices, cubicles, water coolers, and daily commutes behind. After making it through that massive disruption, employers found an even tougher challenge on the other side. They’ve had to figure out how to sustain a positive, productive work culture outside of a shared space. Even now — more than 3 years later — many HR and business leaders still haven’t filled in the blanks. But the delay isn’t helping anyone, especially Generation Z.

What exactly is happening here? And what are the implications? Let’s take an in-depth look at what employers should consider…

Why Generation Z Matters

It’s not surprising to learn that what we know about Gen Z on the youngest members of our workforce.

Imagine starting your first adult job at home. You have no peer relationships or experience in how to navigate organizational life. Think about how overwhelming it would be to move through each day without knowing how to find context, where to look for the right resources, or who can most easily steer you in the right direction. But this has become a norm for all too many younger workers.

No one recruits people to fail. And despite a shaky economy, talent is increasingly hard to recruit and retain. So employers are understandably concerned about onboarding and upskilling Generation Z staff more effectively in today’s remote work environment.

What’s the Next Step for Employers?

Some organizations already had a head start on this new world order. For example, virtual teams have long been what we know about Gen Z. This company continues to improve remote work processes and systems. And recently, Buffer has focused on preventing issues that keep recent graduates from succeeding as new hires.

Buffer is the exception rather than the rule. Most companies had not considered challenges like these before the pandemic, so they were totally unprepared to support young hires in a remote climate. Now, organizations everywhere are actively seeking insights so they can make it work.

Unfortunately, useful data about key issues and best practices is still limited. But smart employers are thinking ahead, so they can minimize negative consequences. For instance, it’s especially important to consider how remote work potentially limits access to equitable opportunities for career growth and development among younger workers.

Here’s a central question to address: “Compared with recent generations, do our Gen Z employees have what we know about Gen Z and develop in their careers?”

Defining Generation Z

When talking about how young people are affected by remote work, we want to be clear. This group includes working-age people born after 1996. This aligns with Pew Research, which selected 1997 as the starting point. Before then, Gen Z was too young to be affected by political and cultural changes that notably influenced Millennials.

Currently, Gen Z and Millennials are experiencing very different life stages. Therefore, when researching these groups, it’s important to apply different measures of security, financial stability, and so forth.

For example, many Millennials are starting a family, buying a home, and settling down. Meanwhile, Gen Zs are finishing high school or college, moving out of their parent’s home, getting their first job, and becoming more independent.

Gen Zs are the definitive internet generation. All members of this cohort were born after the internet became widely available, and they came of age surrounded by the abundance and complexities of social media. Theoretically, Gen Zs are ready to thrive in a highly connected business world. But are they ready to thrive in a remote-first world? 

Remote Work Benefits for Generation Z

Remote work has created an unprecedented opportunity for people who want more autonomy because they can more directly manage their work schedule, location, office set-up, family time, and more. So understandably, remote work is popular among older workers who want to improve their work-life balance. But what about Gen Z?

Here are some reasons younger workers value remote work:

  • Lower commuting expenses
  • Less commute time (and more time for other priorities)
  • More professional opportunities for people with accessibility needs (when commuting is difficult or impossible)
  • More time/flexibility to pursue further education while earning an income
  • Potential to work for multiple employers at once (increase income and expand skills faster)
  • Likely exposure to a more diverse spectrum of people across roles and geographies (compared with onsite jobs)
  • Reduce the risk of toxic management (because behavior is captured in communication channels such as email, slack, and Zoom calls)
  • Freedom to reduce stress by taking breaks for self-care, or spending time with family/friends
  • Potential to start a family at a younger age (if desired) by leveraging flexible scheduling
  • Ability to take time for caregiving, if older or younger family members are at home

Remote Work Risks for Generation Z

Although Gen Z can benefit from remote work, there are downsides, as well: 

  • More obstacles to informal learning. Fewer chances to overhear and join relevant conversations, discuss questions in the hall and on breaks, or be invited to meetings and activities on-the-fly
  • Fewer 1-on-1 relationship-building opportunities
  • Lack of face-to-face community connections
  • Risk of isolation
  • Missed opportunities for on-the-job learning (skills and institutional knowledge)
  • More difficulty finding support networks and career networks
  • Threats to personal time (Digital days at home may start earlier and end later than normal)
  • Potential for increased stress if micromanaged from a distance
  • Zoom and screen fatigue
  • Pressure to create a proper workspace, even if it’s not affordable for a young person
  • Higher out-of-pocket expenses (equipment/workspace, internet, phones, hardware)
  • Regular remote office distractions that affect focus and concentration (for example, neighborhood construction, power outages, housemates)
  • Greater burnout risk (from a persistent lack of boundaries, unclear scheduling, or unrealistic expectations)

Long-Term Equity Implications 

Some of the problems noted above could have a serious, lasting impact on young workers’ professional and personal lives. For example, without in-office experience, Gen Z staff are more likely to suffer from a lack of mentorship, advancement opportunities, informal learning, and professional community.

In addition, remote and hybrid work models often blur the lines between home and work. If you’re home, you could be working. And if you’re working, you could be doing something else. Distractions are all around. Is this decision fatigue or a lack of discipline? When remote workers don’t separate these roles at the start of their careers, boundary issues can potentially follow them all the way to retirement.

That’s why it’s especially important for business leaders, managers, and older team members to understand why remote Gen Z workers need extra support to establish a foundation for success.

Remote Work FAQs

Why Do Employers Oppose Remote Work?

Some employers don’t support virtual teams because they have multiple business concerns. They may expect the worst: weaker productivity, collaboration, informal learning, and a loss of tribal knowledge. Or they may be concerned about employee wellbeing: increased isolation, stress, and disengagement.

Has Remote Work Decreased Productivity?

Depending on an organization’s workload and scheduling, remote work can lead to a decrease in productivity. Employees may be more distracted when working remotely, or if their workspace is chaotic they struggle to focus.

Many other factors can reduce productivity in a remote or hybrid work setting, so this is an important consideration to discuss openly on an ongoing basis.

Why Is Remote Work So Exhausting?

Remote work can feel exhausting, especially if you haven’t established a clear separation between work space and home space. Juggling these blurred lines can add a psychological load that increases stress and eventually leads to exhaustion.

Setting People Up for Success

Given what what we know about Gen Z and remote work, how can employers create a culture that helps young workers feel comfortable working at your organization? It may seem like in-office work is the best answer for anyone at the start of their career. However, some digital solutions can make remote-first teams feel more connected, supported, and included. For example:

  • Establish consistent office hours
  • Encourage everyone to rely on collaborative communication tools
  • Practice knowledge sharing as a way of working
  • Build and promote remote-first mentorship programs
  • Regularly ask Gen Z workers and managers open-ended questions about what is working (and what is not)
  • Schedule periodic digital water cooler chats and invite everyone to suggest agenda ideas

It’s important for leaders to build on what many of us have learned about remote and hybrid work over the past few years. Challenge yourselves and others to think outside the box. Put yourselves in the shoes of each employee — not just younger people — and think of ways to help everyone feel more connected and included. Experiment. Hold on to what works, and integrate it into your culture.

Belonging Where Does it Fit Into Your Work Culture - TalentCulture

Belonging: Where Does It Fit Into Your Work Culture?

/, , , , , /by

We all share a deep desire for belonging. From Abraham Maslow to Brené Brown, experts agree that this “indescribable feeling of being welcomed” is a fundamental need. Even the earliest behavioral scientists recognized that the need to belong is an integral aspect of the human experience. 

Cut to today. The year is 2023, and the state of the global workplace is … confusing. For example, in the United States, people spend a massive portion of each week at work. And increasingly, we’re questioning the way we manage our careers.

All around us, full-time employees are shifting to part-time work, office workers are becoming digital nomads, and teams are dissolving. The apple cart has been tipped. And frankly, no one is really sure where all these changes will lead.

Despite this season of flux and indecision, employers can help people find clarity. By prioritizing an inclusive work environment, leaders can create an authentic culture of belonging that attracts talent from all walks of life.

Belonging is not just a powerful talent acquisition strategy. It’s also an effective way to engage people, whatever their values may be. It appeals to everyone, from full-time employees to contingent workers, no matter whether they work onsite, offsite, or in a hybrid capacity.

How Inclusion Impacts Employee Retention

Workforce inclusion and retention are deeply intertwined. According to a Deloitte survey, 80% of full-time employees consider inclusion an important factor when choosing where to work. It also remains significant throughout the entire employment relationship. In fact, 23% of respondents told Deloitte they’ve quit a job where inclusion was lacking.

These statistics speak not only to inclusion’s influence on recruitment, but retention, as well. When people feel included, they’re naturally more engaged. And although engaged people care more about their work, they’re less likely to suffer from anxiety or burn out.

A genuinely inclusive work environment promotes a sense of belonging. And a sense of belonging lifts team morale. As a result, businesses benefit in multiple ways. For example, inclusive organizations tend to be more productive and more profitable. This means fostering an inclusive work environment is not just a good thing to do. It’s also a good business move.

All of this ties back to people who feel included and engaged. So the message is clear: If your culture is inclusive, people will feel more connected to your organization and invested in your success throughout their relationship with you.

How to Foster an Inclusive Work Environment

What strategies and practices help build a culture of inclusion and belonging? Focus on these fundamentals:

1. Educate Around Diversity

Diversity and inclusion are closely linked. But diversity alone is not enough to move the needle. After all, what’s the point of creating an inclusive environment only for one kind of person?

Instead, ensure every member of your workforce is welcome to bring their authentic selves to work. This starts by consistently communicating your commitment to diversity, and illustrating that commitment with action. In other words, look for ways to openly support and celebrate different skill sets and abilities, backgrounds, accessibility needs, gender identities, and ethnicities.

Leaders can also educate employees by raising awareness and encouraging people to interact in appropriate ways with co-workers. For example, neurodiverse team members may need noise-canceling headphones to stay focused and productive at work. Or on Zoom calls, hearing impaired participants may need to rely on captioning. Educating teams about these adaptations and how to apply them will help everyone feel more receptive and comfortable.

2. Prioritize Inclusion, Even in Stormy Weather

In this time of reshufflings and resignations, your commitment will be tested. Maintaining a culture of inclusion and belonging is essential, even when your business is facing a downturn.

In times of crisis, many leaders may default to outdated practices, especially when managing reductions in force and communicating about these decisions. But remaining open and intentional about layoff practices can help you keep your inclusivity promises.

Above all, insist upon treating all employees with an equal level of respect and appreciation throughout disruptive organizational changes. This tells everyone that the way you let go of team members is just as important as how you hire and retain them.

3. Offer an Environment of Care

Inclusion not only means people feel welcomed at work, but also that your organization cares about the quality of their employee experience. Demonstrating care can take numerous forms. For example, you could:

  • Reserve time each day for wellbeing check-ins or social activities that promote team care and bonding.
  • Reward employees for inclusive, caring actions toward others.
  • Ensure that everyone receives training on how to develop emotional intelligence skills and put them into practice at work.

The possibilities are limitless. But whatever mix you choose for your organization, keep in mind that creating an environment of care reinforces a sense of belonging. So the sooner you craft this agenda, the better. Also, the sooner employees experience a sense of caring, the better.

Start with the onboarding stage, or even earlier. Think about how you can help applicants and news hires understand how much your company values and prioritizes inclusion. Then consider how you can keep checking in periodically to ensure employees’ needs are being met and they’re actually developing a sense of belonging.

A Final Note on Inclusion, Belonging and Employee Retention

For better or worse, the nature of your work environment directly influences workforce recruiting and retention. If you learn how to foster a culture of belonging, you’ll attract, engage and retain people who appreciate sharing their talent with an organization that makes them feel wanted.

Making a meaningful impact on your culture may require you to invest more time, attention and funding to inclusion. But, as many employers have discovered, it is well worth the effort.

Want to Improve Engagement Focus on Employee Expectations - TalentCulture

Want to Improve Engagement? Focus on Employee Expectations

/, , , , , /by

TalentCulture Content Impact Award Winner - 2023

When it comes to implementing a successful engagement strategy, HR teams can’t afford to ignore employee expectations. Yet, research suggests that too many organizations forget or overlook this pillar of engagement. For example:

If you’re an HR professional or business leader, statistics like these should alarm you. Clearly, something about the process of managing employee expectations is going awry. And if you care about engagement, the sooner you address this disconnect, the better.

A Related Issue: Labor Market Trends

To understand this challenge, it’s helpful to consider the bigger picture. For example, in the UK and elsewhere, the talent pool is shrinking, despite a sharp decline in permanent staff recruitment. This decrease is fueled primarily by demographic factors — experienced workers are retiring early, the birth rate continues to fall, and immigration rules are changing. Plus, the pandemic has caused many people to rethink their career goals.

As a result, when organizations need to recruit, finding the right people at the right time is becoming increasingly difficult. And in terms of retention, it means employers must work much harder to keep their best and brightest people engaged and on board.

In other words, recent labor market dynamics have shifted power from employers to the workforce. Individuals now have enough latitude to be more selective about their career moves. They’re also likely to expect more from their current role — for example, higher wages, better recognition, or stronger professional growth opportunities.

With all this in mind, organizations need to understand what people expect from their employment experience, and proactively address these expectations. This makes it easier to create a positive work environment and improve employee satisfaction. Both of these metrics are essential for effective talent attraction and retention. So, how can HR successfully manage employee expectations?

6 Ways to Manage Employee Expectations

To elevate employee engagement across your organization, first step back and evaluate existing HR strategies and programs. If you’re falling short in any of the following areas, this is the time to rethink the tools and techniques that support your engagement efforts, as well as broader leadership and management practices:

1. Communicate Clearly and Consistently

Access to relevant, useful, accurate information is essential, right from the start of the employment journey. When you approach candidates and new hires with clear, open communication, their job expectations are much more likely to align with yours. What’s more, it sends a powerful message about the importance of transparency and inclusion in your work culture.

Be sure you center communication activities around your organization’s vision, mission, and values. You’ll also want to be sure important company policies are readily available.

In addition, showcasing updates and insights from senior leaders is a highly effective way to reinforce priorities and build trust. In fact, as our 2023 staff satisfaction survey shows, many employees value communication from senior leaders as part of a positive workplace experience.

2. Revisit and Revise Job Descriptions

As mentioned earlier, inaccurate job listings are all too common. The problem may not be intentional on an employer’s part. Regardless, it can derail the employee experience from day one.

Candidates naturally form expectations based on the job posting that prompted them to apply. So, when actual responsibilities don’t match, new hires aren’t likely to stick around. And even for those who stay on board, this mismatch can permanently jeopardize trust and goodwill.

Now, imagine how badly your employer brand would be damaged if numerous employees experienced the same kind of disconnect. This is why HR teams must ensure that job descriptions correctly outline roles, responsibilities, and performance expectations. And ideally, these descriptions should help people envision what it’s really like to work at the company.

HR must also recognize that developing a job description isn’t a one-shot process. For best results, you’ll want to review descriptions regularly and update them as business needs change. All this will help new employees understand what’s expected and avoid misunderstandings over time.

3. Prioritize Performance Management and Feedback

When organizations are able to measure, evaluate, and improve workforce performance, they operate more efficiently and profitably. And the best way to ensure that employee expectations are on point is with support from a robust performance management program.

Underpinning this program with an integrated performance management system makes it possible for HR to establish company-wide workforce goals, track progress, and provide regular feedback. It also helps support line managers in conducting more meaningful employee evaluations.

By working in concert to set clear objectives and provide constructive feedback, HR and line managers can continuously guide and improve employee performance. Plus, they can effectively manage expectations about job roles and career progression.

4. Ensure Fair Business Practices

An HR professional’s core duty is to maintain fair, consistent decision-making across an organization. This includes adhering to fair and unbiased practices in areas such as annual performance and salary reviews, promotions, and disciplinary actions. Ensuring fairness and consistency helps manage those all-important employee expectations. It also helps build trust.

HR can’t afford to ignore the element of trust. When it comes to successful engagement strategies, the employer-employee relationship is critical. And as with any relationship, it depends on a solid foundation of trust. But trust isn’t just switched on like a lightbulb — it is earned in numerous ways, over time. Fairness directly contributes to this process.

5. Provide Ample Training and Career Development

As our research on successful company cultures reveals, staff members want more than just competitive salaries. They also expect to develop new skills, so they can grow professionally.

This is why the best employers invest in building workforce competencies and knowledge through various learning opportunities — training, mentorships, stretch assignments and more. By committing to a culture of learning, organizations demonstrate their faith and confidence in employees’ future success. As a result, these organizations enjoy higher retention rates.

6. Pay Attention to Exit Interviews

Lastly, exit interviews offer a perfect opportunity to discover if departing employees feel their expectations have been met. When people decide to move on, they’re typically more comfortable providing unfiltered feedback, for better or worse.

By conducting exit interviews, you can gather valuable insights that help the organization compare actual employee experiences with expectations. By analyzing and acting on this intelligence, your HR team will be better able to identify areas for improvement and manage future employees’ expectations.

A Final Word on Managing Employee Expectations

These suggestions offer a framework for HR planning. Still, this is only a starting point. Every company, culture, and workforce is unique. So, wherever your organization may be on the employee engagement spectrum, remember that improvement is an ongoing process. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither are employee expectations. Just stay focused on improvement and keep moving forward.

How do you design internal communications for remote teams? Check these ideas from an employee communications leader - on the TalentCulture blog

How to Design Internal Communications for Remote Teams

/, , , /by

A strong internal communications function is essential for every company, both culturally and operationally. It helps keep employees aware of relevant news and updates, excited about how they contribute to the organization’s mission and success, and committed to continued progress.

Keeping everyone on the same page is tough enough when employees work at the same location. But now with the rise of remote work, internal communications is even tougher to manage. Distributed teams must remain connected, informed, and engaged. But how can you ensure that people are aligned and productive when they’re located in different cities, regions, countries, and time zones?

Avoid the Easy Solution

Many companies have adopted a “lift and shift” approach to internal communications. However, this is risky. You can’t assume whatever works in a physical office location will make sense in a virtual environment. For successful results, carefully consider your organization’s unique situation, issues, and needs.

As the manager of internal communications and events at a remote-first company, I understand how challenging it is to keep employees in 70+ countries connected and in the loop. Here’s what I’ve learned about leveraging internal communications to take far-flung teams to the next level of engagement, effectiveness, and wellbeing.

The Power of a Smart Internal Communications Strategy

My daily activities focus on coordinating events and communications that showcase company news, updates, and policy changes. But at a more fundamental level, I’m responsible for developing strong connections and community within the organization.

Why is this so important? According to Gallup research, 85% of the global workforce is either not engaged or is actively disengaged at work. This gap translates into a sobering $7 trillion of lost productivity.

The good news is that an effective internal communications strategy can move the meter on engagement and productivity. This is especially important in a remote or hybrid work environment, where you can’t rely on casual office interactions to facilitate social connection and cohesion. With a viable approach you can:

1. Unlock Valuable Insights

From an operations perspective, improving information flow between departments and functions breaks down information silos. This gives people clearer visibility into work priorities and progress across the organization. It also means people can work together more efficiently and productively without needless duplication of effort.

2. Separate Signal From Noise

Solid internal communications also cuts through organizational noise. This gives employees better access to essential company information. It also clears the path to resources people need to perform their job, so they aren’t overwhelmed by Slack messages and email threads. Ideally, it helps everyone feel more supported and empowered to succeed in their work.

3. Connect Critical Dots

From a culture and engagement perspective, internal communications is uniquely positioned to foster connection and community in multiple ways, by:

  1. Facilitating connections between employees, so people develop a sense of community and belonging.
  2. Linking people with work that is happening across the company. This helps them understand the organization’s collective progress and impact.
  3. Connecting people with the company’s mission and vision, so they feel they’re contributing to something meaningful and purposeful. That’s the ultimate goal — to give people a sense of belonging and purpose through their work.

Designing Internal Communications for Virtual Teams

When remote-first companies rethink internal communications with inclusion in mind, employee wellbeing and engagement follow. But what does it mean to be intentional and inclusive? Here’s an example:

Imagine you’re launching a new company-wide program. You’ll want to think carefully about the purpose behind your communications. What outcome are you seeking? What kind of response do you anticipate? What’s the ideal timing and structure for your message? Putting intention behind your plan helps you determine the who, how, when, where and why of information you’ll need to share.

Also, where does inclusion fit in? It ensures everyone has equal access to the information you share and equal opportunity to participate in events. For example, you could launch your new company-wide program by announcing it at an all-hands meeting. Then you could follow-up by sharing a video recording and a written summary. This reinforces the message for attendees, while helping those who couldn’t attend come up to speed.

After the initial announcement, people are likely to have additional concerns and questions. So you may want to set up a dedicated Slack channel where employees can ask questions openly or anonymously.

These are just a few ideas to illustrate how multiple communication tools and channels can help people quickly find, consume, and respond to new information at their convenience. It gives individuals more choice and autonomy. And because they’re in control of when and how they engage, it supports workforce wellbeing. In short, it shows that your organization cares about employees.

Building a Sense of Community and Belonging

Increasingly, we hear about an “epidemic of loneliness” that is eroding workforce health and wellbeing. The impact on organizations is steep. Related absenteeism costs employers $154 billion a year, not to mention the cost of poorer job performance.

Employers can’t afford to ignore this issue any longer. Investment in promoting deeper workplace social connections makes sense, especially for remote team members who don’t see colleagues face-to-face each day.

Virtual organizations can reimagine communications and events in ways that enhance a sense of community. This contributes to a stronger, more unified company culture that spans locations, language differences, and time zones.

Paradoxically, it may actually be easier for remote-first organizations to foster social connections than their traditional in-office counterparts. That’s because working on a distributed basis levels the playing field, bringing everyone together on the same virtual terms.

For instance, think about your regular all-hands meeting format. Is it a one-way broadcast where leaders outline business updates? How could you transform this forum into a fun, engaging event people actually want to attend?

What if you set a lively, upbeat mood by playing music while people join the call? How about weaving interactive elements into the agenda, like polls or game-based challenges? Or you could ask employees to suggest topics prior to each meeting. Then you could develop content and programming based on their interests.

Imagine an all-hands that’s not just about business, but about coming together as a team to celebrate the people who make your business special. What would that look like? Intentionally redesign that event. Then start experimenting so your vision becomes reality.

Virtual community building can also happen through online spaces focused on common interests, values, or identities. For instance, you could offer informal social Slack channels where people can discuss pets, parenting, travel, mental health, and so on. When people get to know each other based on personal interests that cut across departments and geographical boundaries, it builds familiarity and trust. Ultimately, this leads to stronger, more productive work relationships.

3 Tips to Optimize Internal Communications

Essentially, internal communications professionals are marketers, responsible for keeping employees aware, interested, involved and enthusiastic about all the meaningful work happening across an organization. With that in mind, here are three tips for optimizing remote team  communications and events:

1. Be Intentional

Think about the purpose of each communication campaign, event, or experience, so you’ll use employee time and attention efficiently and effectively. Keep inclusion top of mind, so people can engage and consume information when it’s best for them.

2. Build for Your People

Design and create with your audience in mind. Proactively listen and work with stakeholders to develop content and programming that resonates and enhances the employee experience.

3. Focus on Your Company’s Specific Needs

Every organization is different. What works for one won’t necessarily work for another. Consider your unique challenges, goals, and context. Then design custom solutions that are purpose-built for your organization and your people.

Internal Communications: Looking Ahead

Remote work may not be for everyone, but it is here to stay. In this new environment, organizations can elevate the employee experience by reimagining internal communications. If we do this well, employees will connect around a common purpose, regardless of their work location. And because they’re more informed, engaged and excited about work, they’ll hopefully be happier to show up and contribute each day. Now that’s something worth striving for!

Menopause at Work What We All Should Know - TalentCulture

Menopause at Work: What We All Should Know

/, , , , , , , , , , /by

Sponsored by Peppy Health

When you think of menopause, what comes to mind? If you’ve already experienced this transition, you know the symptoms can disrupt your work life in unexpected ways. (Imagine a hot flash suddenly coming on when you’re leading an important team meeting. Didn’t your body get the memo?)

Concerns like these are causing far too many mid-career women to leave their jobs at a critical stage in their work journey. In fact, research says 1 in 4 menopausal women consider resigning, while 1 in 10 actually do walk away.

This is a double whammy for the world of work. It damages the earnings potential of women in their prime, while simultaneously jeopardizing business momentum for employers. After all, replacing experienced talent is tough — especially in today’s competitive market.

What to do? Let’s dig deeper…

Meet Our Guest: Barb Dehn

Please join me in welcoming Barb Dehn, VP of Menopause and Women’s Health Services at Peppy Health — specialists in gender-inclusive healthcare. Barb is a practicing nurse practitioner, award-winning author and nationally recognized health educator. She is certified by the North American Menopause Society (NAMS), and is also a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP).

We’re so fortunate Barb is bringing her expertise to us today, so we can learn about the all-too-often underestimated impact of menopause on today’s workforce. So let’s dive in!

The Stigma of Menopause

Welcome, Barb. Why don’t we start by discussing the stigma surrounding women and menopause. Do you think this is a byproduct of ageism?

Absolutely, there’s a stigma. And it directly affects a lot of women for several reasons:

First, we don’t want to let our biology telegraph that we’re getting older. So if you’re having a hot flash or a night sweat, or maybe you’ve noticed a little chin hair, you may feel like you’re not in control of your biology.

Also, you may wonder if others notice you’re not as young as you used to be. You may suddenly go blank in a presentation because you’re one of the 67% of menopausal women who experience brain fog.

We want to be part of a team and we want to be super productive. But that can be difficult if we’re not sleeping well. And sleep issues can last for 3-7 years before menopause even begins.

Linking Menopause With Wellbeing

Since the pandemic, wellness has taken center stage at work. What kind of menopause support can employers provide?

There’s so much companies can do. They may offer health insurance, but it can be difficult to get an appointment with a specialist about menopause-related issues. Even then, specialists sometimes dismiss people or minimize their symptoms.

So employers are stepping up and offering easy access to specialized health-related services for women, men and the LGBTQ community.

The Impact on Midlife Careers

I was surprised to see that 25% of menopausal women have considered leaving the workforce. Why is that?

Women may struggle because they’re juggling other stressors. Perhaps they’re caring for family members — elderly parents or maybe teenagers at home.

But then if their sleep cycles are disrupted by hot flashes or night sweats, they’re up all night. So it’s not surprising when they feel they can’t function.

Resources for HR

So, what kind of resources are available to managers and HR?

Well, listening to this podcast is a start. We need to be open and more curious about this.

Also, an anonymous survey might help you find out what people are experiencing so you can respond to their needs, rather than making assumptions.

Plus, you don’t need to be an expert to offer a safe, open door policy and give people some flexibility when they need it.

And of course, I invite everyone to visit Peppy.Health online, because we have all sorts of free resources, from anonymous surveys to downloadable PDFs you can use to help people talk with their managers about this…

For more insights from Barb about how to help people manage menopause at work, listen to the full podcast episode. And be sure to subscribe to the #WorkTrends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.

Also, to continue this conversation on social media anytime, follow our #WorkTrends hashtag on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Employee satisfaction is an inside job. To understand workers' motivations, check these three key points of view

Employee Satisfaction is an Inside Job: 3 Points of View

/, , , , , , , /by

If you lead a business of any kind, it’s essential to understand the factors that influence employee satisfaction in your organization. This kind of insight starts with awareness of needs, wants and desires of people across your workforce. Especially now, when employers are struggling to find strong talent, knowing what motivates your staff can play a central role in attracting and retaining top performers.

That’s what prompted the Agency Management Institute to take a closer look at  employee satisfaction issues in the marketing and advertising realm. Although this research focuses on professional services firms, it can be useful for leaders in other industries to consider, as well.

For example, with 72% of agency leaders saying they want to empower their staff, there’s no more powerful place to start than by learning what interests, inspires, and energizes team members. By leveraging these insights, you can improve internal communication, build individually tailored development opportunities, improve overall team performance, and more.

3 Key Profiles Behind Employee Satisfaction

When employees feel connected, engaged and satisfied with their work, their organizational culture is likely to be built on knowledge of who they are as individuals. When looking at various attitudes and characteristics associated with employee satisfaction, three types of personality profiles emerge:

  • Enthusiastic 27%
  • Self-reliant 45%
  • At-risk 29%

In other words, an employee’s primary profile is highly likely to indicate their level of commitment, work performance and overall workplace satisfaction.

Employee Satisfaction Types Up Close

Each employee segment brings unique characteristics to the table. But responding effectively to these diverse needs requires keen leadership and a strong work culture. So, what makes each group tick? These snapshot descriptions offer helpful guidance:

1. “Enthusiastic” Segment

Only 27% of survey respondents are considered “enthusiastic.” These people tend to give their employers high marks for professional development, career opportunities, work culture, and even compensation. More importantly, they feel that a long tenure with their company is the best way to build a career. They’re loyal, excited, and engaged. In short, any company would consider these individuals dream employees.

Historically, the enthusiastic group is the smallest segment. Naturally, employers want to know if and how they can attract and develop more of these valued employees. The answer lies in recognizing issues that matter to employees in the other two categories.

2. “Self-Reliant” Segment

Representing 45% of respondents, “self-reliant” employees are by far the largest group. Although these employees tend to think of themselves as responsible for achieving their own success, this isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Generally, self-reliant employees believe leaders don’t acknowledge or appreciate their struggles or contributions. In fact, many in this group feel “invisible.” And their discontent extends beyond a lack of recognition. They’re also skeptical about whether employers know how to develop their skills, provide opportunities for advancement, or improve their financial position over time.

Interestingly, 63% of these employees are millennials who tend to work for larger organizations. It’s also worth noting that women are heavily represented in this segment, and they tend to feel their opinions and ideas are heard less often than their male peers.

Although these issues are more of a concern for at-risk employees, high stress, difficult clients, and unrealistic expectations about working outside of conventional hours contribute to employee dissatisfaction in this segment. The same can be said for scope creep, job insecurity, and turnover. For all of these reasons, 22% of “self-reliant” employees have thought about leaving their job for greener pastures.

3. “At Risk” Segment

29% of employees are classified as “at risk.” They tend to work for smaller organizations and rely on their employers to engage with them and support them. They’re also much more likely to be women. In fact, 66% of at-risk workers are women.

It should seem obvious, but “at risk” employees are most likely to resign. In fact, research indicates that 50% of people in this segment have thought about seeking other employment. These individuals are looking for more, whether it’s with their current employer or elsewhere.

What’s driving this restlessness? Typically, at-risk workers are looking for a better (or different) workplace culture. Perhaps their current workplace doesn’t suit them, or company policies don’t align with their principles. These people want their employer to care about their wellbeing, align with their values, and provide more opportunities for collaboration and growth.

“At-risk” employees also crave more collaboration. They care deeply about their work. They’re often at the center of an organization’s activities, because they desire opportunities to collaborate with peers in meaningful ways. However, they’re less satisfied with their career trajectory, compensation, and path for advancement than others.

But these people aren’t operating in the shadows. In fact, they’re often spearheading key roles, including strategy, leadership, project management, and account management. Because these employees are central to an organization’s success, losing them could cause major setbacks and shouldn’t be taken lightly.

3 Steps to Strengthen Employee Satisfaction

With all the responsibilities that come with running a business, it’s easy to forget that employment is a two-way street. Here are a few considerations to help you improve engagement and satisfaction among your team members:

1. Encourage people to invest in their own development

Professional development must be a shared responsibility between company leadership and staff. Individuals can’t develop themselves entirely on their own. They need your active guidance, support, and resources to develop themselves. Giving people an active role in mapping their growth plans and decisions about where to invest their time and energy can make a measurable impact on their commitment and satisfaction.

2. Take time to craft a personalized development plan

Because you’re working with individuals, it’s important to recognize that professional development isn’t a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Every employee deserves a growth plan that’s personalized for their unique goals, interests, and aspirations. Without a plan they can “own,” no amount of time or money will improve their engagement, performance, satisfaction, or retention. What’s more, employees who don’t see any promise of growth won’t be employees for very long. Your commitment to their future success can make all the difference.

3. Find ways to push autonomous workers to new heights

Don’t forget to give “self-reliant” employees their share of attention. While they may not speak up often with complaints, “self-reliant” employees can be a tricky bunch to manage and develop. These folks often need a side hustle to feel engaged, creatively. If they’re asked to do additional work or contribute to a new project, they may engage less with their primary work. To better support these employees, consider pairing them with mentors. This way, they always have access to someone who can help them stick to their agenda while moving forward on their career path.

A Final Note

Building workplace satisfaction is as much about striking a balance as it is about understanding what makes people tick. Investing in your workforce’s professional growth and creating a supportive environment are both key. In fact, if you read between the lines of this survey, it’s clear that employees often believe these actions are worth more than money.

Creating a Culture of Recognition What Works and Why - TalentCulture

Creating a Culture of Recognition: What Works and Why?

/, , , , , , , /by

Sponsored by Blueboard

Great employers know that creating a culture of recognition can be a game-changer. An appreciation-first environment naturally attracts high-quality talent and helps people feel more connected with the organization’s mission and values. In fact, research says employees are 69% more likely to dig deeper when managers recognize their efforts.

But creating this kind of culture is easier said than done — especially in today’s challenging post-pandemic world of work. That’s why I’ve invited an expert in employee appreciation and recognition programs to share her expertise with us.

Meet Our Guest: Shireen El-Maissi

Please join me in welcoming Shireen El-Maissi, a seasoned HR and talent acquisition professional who currently serves as Director of People and Talent at Blueboard, a platform that helps organizations implement and manage effective employee recognition programs.

Shireen brings nearly eight years of experience in talent strategy, recruiting, people relations, and employee development to this conversation. And her creativity and enthusiasm for workplace appreciation is infectious. So I invite you to join us as we discuss factors that can make or break employee rewards and recognition…

The Importance of Creating a Culture of Recognition

Welcome, Shireen! Let’s start with a central question: Why do you think creating a culture of recognition is important for all companies?

Human beings need acknowledgement. It is part of our survival. Gratitude helps us connect with something larger than ourselves. So, when appreciation and recognition are built into an organization’s culture, engagement increases.

In fact, companies where appreciation is embedded into the culture see about 6x higher employee engagement and retention.

So when you say thank you — whether that’s verbal or through something like Blueboard’s recognition platform — it creates a much deeper connection with your larger organization.

Linking Recruiting With Recognition
When attracting new talent, where do recognition programs fit in?

Interviews should be a sneak peek into your work culture and the employee experience. That means you’ll want the process to be highly authentic.

Think of interviews as an opportunity to help people understand what it would actually be like to work for your organization. For example, showcase some ways you recognize people by giving them the gift of time and opportunities to experience life outside of work.

Recognition as a Process

Great advice, Shireen! If we oversell or we’re not transparent, we’re not doing ourselves any favors. Because that will come back to haunt us down the road. Why not just be real upfront?

Absolutely. That’s one reason why we conduct “check-ins” with new hires after 30 days, and again at 90 days. A key question we ask is if the job matches their expectations.

Plus, we want everyone to know what Blueboard rewards are really like, so all new hires receive a “welcome” experience on day one. Then at 90 days, we check back to see if they’ve used the experience and ask them what it was like. This helps us verify if these reward experiences are helping them connect with our organization’s broader mission.

Key Metrics When Creating a Culture of Recognition

How can HR get leadership buy-in for recognition programs like yours?

Throughout my career, I’ve focused on how to hire the best people and how to incentivize them to lean into the company’s mission. We know these people can do the job, but what will they contribute if they truly feel valued and connected with the company’s mission?

At Blueboard, we have a spot recognition program that is manager driven and leadership approved. It’s intended to be part of the organization’s broader ecosystem. And programs like this are leading to increased motivation and productivity. That’s the kind of data executives are looking for…

For more insights from Shireen about why and how to create a culture of recognition, listen to this full podcast episode. And be sure to subscribe to the #WorkTrends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.

Also, to continue this conversation on social media anytime, follow our #WorkTrends hashtag on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Leaders: How can you keep your cool at the end of the world? Check this advice inspired by The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Leaders: How Can You Keep Your Cool at the End of the World?

/, , , , , , /by

The world of work is a little rough these days, to say the least. Companies large and small continue to scramble in the face of serious economic and cultural uncertainty. Ongoing inflation, workforce automation, post-pandemic burnout, and “The Great Reshuffle” are just a few of the many challenges eroding confidence among employees and employers alike. Every day seems like an exercise in digging deeper to find the patience and strength needed to keep your cool.

Most HR, business and finance leaders are focused on making do with increasingly tighter budgets while bolstering employee retention. This isn’t a viable long-term strategy, but it’s one way organizations can minimize damage while pushing through lean times. No wonder many professionals feel like they’re moving in quicksand.

But don’t lose hope! I’ve been there before and have come through it intact. Here are five proven tips you can use to alleviate some stress and avoid sinking further than necessary…

5 Ways to Keep Your Cool During Tough Times

1. Take Inventory

Imagine you are Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. You’re in a strange new place where anything could happen — not all of it good. It’s intimidating to feel adrift in the unknown. But I recommend adhering to the same advice the Hitchhiker’s Guide shares with every wayfarer: Don’t panic.

Take in the situation around you. Make an inventory of what’s happening in your organization, in your industry, and in the world at large. Who is most affected by today’s realities? What are they saying? More importantly, what are they not saying? What kind of ideas are floating around? Which of these ideas seem most useful and actionable?

Document the resources available to you. Specifically, insist on gaining better visibility into your workforce costs. Account for all of your employees, freelancers, contractors, temporary workers, and consultants — everyone who is paid to get work done. Consider not only their salaries, but also related benefits and employer taxes, which can add an additional 30%-60% to your costs.

For most companies. employee costs represent the most significant budget item. However, many organizations lack a comprehensive view of these costs. A single dashboard where you can understand all of these costs can improve visibility and clarity. Both of these are critical to making smart management decisions now and going forward.

With a clearer, more holistic perspective, you can begin to formulate a broader plan. In fact, I recommend that you develop multiple plans. Scenario mapping is a smart strategy that can help you keep your cool as a leader. Prepare for as many “if/then” scenarios as possible. That way you won’t be caught off guard when your ideal plan goes awry. Just look for indicators that Plan A is in jeopardy, and switch to Plan B, or whatever plan aligns best with the changing climate.

2. Take Action

Once you develop one or more plans, do something. Pick your most promising path and act. While it might be tempting to wait out the storm, in my experience, this strategy rarely succeeds. By taking initiative, you can seize the opportunity to exercise some control over the situation at hand.

No doubt, a crisis creates challenging circumstances. But it also presents opportunities for change. Through action, you position yourself to take advantage of opportunities that can ultimately benefit your organization and your team.

For example, as a business or HR leader, you can advocate for more inclusive hiring practices, so your company can attract new sources of talent. Also, you can talk regularly with employees about challenges they are facing. Through these conversations, you can identify small but meaningful changes that will improve operational workflows and work culture.

This proactive approach creates an environment that helps you keep your cool. And perhaps more importantly, it can help you improve the employee experience, rather than allowing it to erode.

Finance leaders can take a similar proactive approach to identify areas where it’s possible to trim overhead and increase efficiency without damaging fragile employee engagement and satisfaction levels.

3. Get Lean

Pack light and pack smart. This is a wise rule of thumb for any adventurer, but now more than ever.

This is a great time to put agile methodologies into practice. With greater uncertainty in day-to-day work, and fewer people actually doing the work, teams need to stay flexible, be adaptable, and adjust when opportunities arise.

Whether it’s too much bureaucracy, an excessive budget, or too many cooks in the kitchen — a glut of resources can actually impede progress, rather than facilitate it. By  streamlining resources and workflows, you’ll be better prepared than a top-heavy organization to recognize and respond to unexpected internal or external changes.

Empower your team to do more with less. Audit your process, considering where you can improve by cutting out unnecessary steps and removing unhelpful roadblocks. Rather than assuming you should continue doing things as they’ve always been done (because they’ve always been done that way), create a culture that actively pursues and rewards improvement.

Ask yourself and your team what your customers really want. Then focus like a laser on delivering precisely that.

4. Question Everything

Crisis creates an opportunity to reevaluate the status quo. You may be tempted to wish for a return to how things were in the “good old days.” But consider this a chance to take a closer look. Were those days really as good as they seem? What actually worked, and what didn’t?

If you’re already rethinking your resources and workflows, you might as well reconsider how everything is done. A holistic approach can help you improve systemically, rather than in a piecemeal fashion.

One of the best ways to learn how something works is to look at all the pieces and evaluate how they work individually and as a whole. You can even apply this to your company’s business-as-usual standards.

Critique your operational best practices. Are these ways of working truly the best way to accomplish specific objectives? Question conventional wisdom. It may not actually be as wise as you think. Put organizational traditions under a microscope. Could your cultural norms be creating more discord than cohesion? Don’t leave any stone unturned. This is the ideal time to expose, examine and resolve underlying issues.

5. Recognize That Talent is More Crucial Than Ever

The four previous tips won’t amount to much if you don’t have the right team in place. It’s easier to keep your cool and act effectively when good people are supporting you. It’s also easier to ask questions and restructure an organization when you’re challenged and encouraged by sharp minds. Now is the time to invest in the kind of talent that will step up to this challenge.

Of course, in a candidate’s job market, this is easier said than done. But a more equitable approach to talent sourcing and a more intentional, streamlined hiring process can tip the odds in your favor.

AI-powered talent acquisition platforms can help eliminate bias associated with ethnicity, gender, age, or education. They can also help identify untapped skilled candidates from nontraditional backgrounds.

Consider how you can improve hiring outcomes by improving your candidate experience. For example, would recruiting results improve if you focused on 1-3 targeted interviews with key stakeholders (people who actually understand the position and the work to be done)?

Also, this is the ideal time to seriously invest in internal talent mobility. For example, what can you do to improve upskilling among existing employees? The more skills each individual develops, the more effective your team will be at adapting to inevitable changes and completing projects successfully.

Keep Your Cool By Embracing a More Stable Today

Although today’s business environment may be unclear, any organization can develop a more resilient foundation that can withstand chaos and change. Leaders can take ownership of this process by challenging past assumptions, rethinking outdated business practices, and channeling resources where they’re needed most.

It may not be easy to keep your head above water — let alone thrive — in the midst of this crisis. But it is possible to keep your cool and carry on without giving in to forces you can’t control. By applying these principles, you’ll be better prepared not only to weather the storm, but to get ahead of it. Just don’t forget to bring a towel!

 

How Can Internal Video Help You Lift Employee Morale

Why and How Can Internal Video Help You Boost Employee Morale?

/, , , , /by

For most office-based employees, “work” no longer represents a physical location. In fact, 84% of people who worked remotely during the pandemic said they intended to mix home and office-based work when the lockdown ended. Now, with hybrid and remote work models defining so much of modern work life, employers are rightfully concerned that employees are feeling increasingly disconnected and disengaged. This is why many are turning to technology like internal video to help improve employee communications.

For some time now, savvy HR and marketing professionals have recognized the importance of video communication. And they’re onto something. For example, research says employees are 75% more likely to watch a video than read an email. People have discovered the convenience and effectiveness of video. And they’re not going back.

How Can Internal Video Improve Employee Experience?

This post-pandemic era promises greater scheduling flexibility, improved work/life balance, and happier employees. But it is also introducing a variety of challenges for employers to address.

For example, it’s harder to reach and engage people who work on a remote or hybrid schedule. When left unchecked over time, this distance can erode connections with managers, colleagues, and company culture. Without access to clear, consistent communication and recognition from managers, employees are at risk of feeling increasingly undervalued, disillusioned, and unmotivated to work.

If the pandemic taught us anything about the future of work, it’s that organizations must evolve so people stay connected, even when they’re not at the office. Over the past three years, video has played an important role in filling that gap, connecting leaders and teams through video conferencing, webinars, online learning, and study resources.

Every great company wants to create a positive employee experience and a strong company culture. And one of the most effective ways to achieve this is through enhanced communication. So, in today’s digital world, what better way to ensure that team members stay connected and informed than through internal video?

Benefits of Internal Video

There are multiple reasons why it makes sense to leverage internal video to boost staff morale. For example:

1. Video is highly effective

Whether it’s a company update or new sales strategy, internal video is the best communication format available. But it can be even more effective when combined with the power of email. Email is a great tool — and it’s clearly the most dominant business communication tool. But you can achieve much more by incorporating video.

For instance, instead of writing a hefty block of static text to communicate an important employee update via email, try writing a brief introductory one-liner and embedding a video into the message.

Video is much more engaging than written copy. That’s because people absorb video content more quickly and effectively. You can also convey much more with video than a text-based message. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then as Dr. James McQuivey puts it, a single minute of video is worth about 1.8 million words.

2. Video can illustrate complex information in a simple way

The success of a business is measured by more than just revenue and profit. It’s also about communication. Without effective internal communication, important information can get lost in translation and employees can become frustrated. This is where videos can help to transmit information in a simple, clear, and digestible way.

Studies show that videos can improve a person’s ability to remember concepts and details. In fact, when people watch a video message, they retain 95% of the message, compared with only 10% if they read the same message in written form.

3. Video helps employers connect with employees

Communication is a two-way street. It’s not enough to simply pass information along to team members. Particularly when working remotely, it’s important that staff actively develop trusted working relationships, and feel they are working together toward the same goals.

By sending regular video updates, you can bridge the gap between your onsite team and those who work remotely at least part of the time. When employees feel more connected with each other and your organization, they’ll be in a frame of mind to collaborate and perform well.

When Internal Video Can Help You Improve Company Culture

For internal corporate videos that will improve your company culture and boost morale, you’ll want to build a library of video templates. This can help you jumpstart new content production, and simplify updates whenever they’re required. Here are some recommended types of internal video to help you improve employee morale:

1. Make onboarding easier for new employees

A proper new-hire orientation is a highly effective way to help people feel welcomed and valued. In fact, thoughtful onboarding is proven to help people become more excited about their role, which in turn reduces turnover.

But onboarding can be overwhelming. New hires are typically required to absorb huge amounts of information from Day One. Traditionally, this process involves serious paperwork and in-person training.

This is one reason why induction through video training is gaining popularity. Pre-recorded videos are an efficient, effective way to present orientation information in a reusable format that significantly reduces the need for one-on-one training. By watching and learning at their own pace, employees can quickly get a sense of your company’s culture and what’s expected of them. 

2. CEO messages

In larger companies, employees — particularly newer or more junior staff — have minimal contact with the CEO. This limits opportunities to develop workforce trust and loyalty. However, by broadcasting internal video messages, a CEO can communicate about the organization’s ongoing objectives and challenges in a personal and convincing way.

It can be difficult to achieve this same direct connection with text-based email. That’s because a memo or letter can be written by anybody. Also, many people are better at in-person communication than in writing. A video demonstrates executive leadership qualities in real time, and shows how much your leaders value the opportunity to speak directly with employees about issues that matter to them.

3. Company updates

One thing is for certain — everything changes. But this doesn’t mean people are always comfortable with change. If employees are left in the dark about organizational change, it can damage staff morale as well as productivity. Timely, clear, transparent communication can minimize anxiety about business change. This is why well-crafted internal video content can help.

Internal video can be used not only to discuss the details of any organizational change, but also help employees understand the beneficial impact expected from these changes. Video gives organizations more control over the type of messages you’re sharing, as well as the pace and timing. This can minimize rumors, cut down on speculation, and give employees a forum where they can address common concerns.

4. Training and education

Training employees can be time-intensive. It can take days or weeks to address all the  requirements of a role, and how to perform effectively in that context. But new learning tools make it easy to develop and deliver internal video content for job training, how-to tutorials, skills development, compliance, and more.

Video media is particularly valuable for continuous learning, because it lets people learn at their own pace, without disrupting day-to-day responsibilities. Whenever an employee has a break in their work schedule, they can simply click on a relevant training video and resume watching from wherever they left off in their previous session. It’s a highly convenient option.

What’s more, video can help employers standardize training content and learning experiences in ways that one-on-one or even group training cannot.

5. Team and morale building

Video is a highly personal form of communication. After watching a video, people are more likely to feel a connection with the speaker. By creating this type of personal relationship with employees, they’re likely to feel part of the same team.

To rejuvenate employee connections, create some fun and exciting video updates about what’s happening day-to-day across your company. Did you recently bring on a new client? Did you just close a huge deal? Are sales up from last quarter? Has a team just completed an ambitious new project?

These are things employees want to hear about. Everyone wants to feel they contribute to their company’s success. Seeing these accomplishments highlighted in video honors the moment and reminds employees how important they are to your organization’s achievements.

Final Notes on the Power of Internal Video

Communication is the backbone of any company’s culture. And video media is a highly personal way to reach out to employees, build connections, and strengthen cultural bonds.

Employee-focused videos keep everyone in the know. They offer understanding about rules and standards, shared values, accomplishments and business progress. Now that video communication has become a highly accessible medium for all of us, it’s worth investing time and energy to embed video messaging into every aspect of the employee experience.

Developing-Your-Team-versus-Driving-Performance

Developing Your Team Versus Driving Results: How Do You Strike a Balance?

/, , , , , /by

Faced with increasingly turbulent economic times, businesses are rapidly learning the importance of strong leadership. The world has had enough problems dealing with the Covid-19 crisis and its aftermath. And companies that lacked strong leaders have been struggling to move through a nonstop stream of business problems in recent years. Many organizations have responded by emphasizing short-term performance. But the truth is that you’ll ultimately achieve better results by developing your team, as well. It’s a long game. However, this strategy pays in multiple ways.

Developing Your Team Builds Strength for the Future

During difficult times, it is natural for businesses to focus on achieving essential near-term results. The burden of generating more leads, maintaining a strong sales pipeline, and sustaining profitability normally falls to leaders. But these objectives also need to be balanced with broader business interests.

When teams are successful, it’s clear that their leaders are effectively managing people, strategy and resources. But when the inverse is true, it can underscore leadership problems that shouldn’t be ignored.

Here’s a contradiction that makes things even more complicated: as companies push harder for better results from team members, staff are likely to feel underappreciated, especially if individuals aren’t encouraged to develop in ways that help them grow professionally.

So, you may get the results you need in the short-term. But it can come at the cost of long-term company success, as skilled team members decide to move on and pursue more promising opportunities.

In this article, we look at how business leaders can strike a better balance between driving great results and developing their teams.

Great Leadership is a Journey, Not a Destination

The first thing to consider is that it is important to understand your own expectations of leadership, and determine if you ought to adjust those assumptions. Being a leader means making measured decisions and balancing their consequences every single day.

You can always learn more and understand more. But this isn’t something leaders can afford to take for granted. It’s important to intentionally embrace growth and stay open to learning — for yourself and everyone on your team.

“The best leaders learn from experiences — including failures — and apply those lessons to unfamiliar situations in the future,” says Gemma Leigh Roberts, a chartered psychologist specializing in leadership. “They see challenges as opportunities, as opposed to threats, proactively seek knowledge to stay up to date in a rapidly shifting professional environment, and are curious to identify areas for development and try new ways of doing things.”

Retain Top Staff by Developing Your Team

It is important to remember that if you want to get strong results across your company, you need a strong team. Your business results are driven by the people working with you. There is always pressure to get the best out of all your people in their day-to-day activities. But it’s equally important to ensure that top performers are kept happy, challenged, and supported.

Remember that talented individuals will always be able to find positions elsewhere. So, you’ll want to nurture and retain your organization’s best performers. A key way of doing this is by providing them with opportunities for career growth and development.

“While training is often necessary when teaching people new skills, it’s only the first step toward a more distant end,” says Margaret Rogers in Harvard Business Review. “In my experience, the most impactful development happens not through formal programs, but also through smaller moments that occur within the workplace: on-the-job learning opportunities that are wholeheartedly catered to the worker’s unique needs and challenges.”

Ideas for Developing Your Team While Keeping Results in Mind

1. Link Personal Goals to Business Goals

Too often, when we think about “top performers,” we consider it only from the perspective of how well people are achieving their professional goals. But it’s also important to link their goals with business objectives. To illustrate this point, let’s look at an example:

Imagine the highest-performing member of your sales team completes 50 sales in a recent month. But since then, only 5 of those sales have turned into repeat business because your top performer has been overselling in order to complete the original sales. Meanwhile, another member of the team made 30 sensible sales, and has subsequently turned 15 of those sales into valuable repeat business.

Here’s another example: Say a staff member wants to upskill for a role that will benefit your business, and they want to enhance their driving capabilities. By supporting this staff member’s personal training goals, you can help them acquire a higher-level license that will also be of value to your organization. In this circumstance, a personal goal can serve two purposes — simultaneously helping a team member grow while also helping the organization address business needs.

2. Establish Achievable Goals

If you want to motivate staff and provide them with opportunities for development, you need to ensure that you set realistic goals for their growth. It is also important for leaders to understand and agree with the scope of these goals.

“You need to have the discipline to take risks,” explains Howard Shore of management training specialists, Activate Group. “If your management and executive team are not aligned in their goals, and if your company culture is underdeveloped and unsupportive of change, this can create enormous friction.”

3. Know When to Change and Adapt

Leaders and managers recognize when their business is doing well because they’re rewarded with strong revenues, profits, and momentum. They know established goals are being met. Likewise, their employees and customers also feel more accomplished and satisfied. However, if success comes down to striking a good balance between today’s results and preparation for the future, then it’s essential to recognize when things may be off-balance.

Smart leaders know how critical it is to stay alert and keep an eye out for issues that require adjustment. When, how and why can an off-kilter equilibrium slow your progress or tip the scales of success against you? Here are some obvious but important factors to keep in mind:

  • Rising salaries
  • Increasing financial costs from external causes, such as inflation, recession, exchange rate fluctuations or taxes
  • Falling profits
  • Deteriorating business growth
  • Staffing issues
  • Supply chain problems
  • Threatening economic events or political instability.

4. Give Staff Ample Agency to Grow

It is important for staff to understand that they have agency in your business. The best way to manage this is by delegating tasks to team members, rather than trying to manage everything yourself. In this context, effective leaders focus on how to let people lead themselves. Having agency gives people a chance to develop on their own terms, and provides paths to growth that can be beneficial to the business as well as the individual.

5. Link Success to Opportunity

Just as it is wise to provide staff with the chance to grow, it is important to emphasize the idea that a company’s long-term success depends on team members’ collective contributions. Company-wide success is an opportunity for staff, too. This is why goal alignment matters. In the best-case scenario, individual success aligns with company achievements. This makes it easier to find an effective balance between results and team growth.

Final Notes on Driving Results Versus Developing Your Team

Leaders are essential to team success. A great team with poor leadership can lose focus or descend into infighting. It is up to management to find ways to maximize results while also ensuring effective development of their team. By keeping a continuous eye on both and proactively managing both sides of the equation, companies look forward to long-term success.

Can employee events lift engagement in a post-pandemic world

Can Employee Events Lift Engagement in a Post-Pandemic World?

/, , , , /by

Long before the pandemic, many organizations struggled with employee engagement. But now, it’s an even tougher hill to climb. Hybrid and remote work have become a new norm. As a result, the way we relate with colleagues is different. Indeed, the very nature of work culture has changed. So in this new environment, what can employee events do to lift engagement? For specific ideas, read on…

Maintaining work relationships is hard — especially now, as businesses strive to adapt to a post-lockdown world. Finding occasions to connect with peers isn’t easy. Collaboration is often cobbled together virtually. Trust is more difficult to build. And weaker communication makes problems harder to solve.

No wonder relationships among individuals and teams have become stilted. And these weakened workplace relationships are ultimately diminishing organizational productivity, innovation and success. This is a compelling case to revisit your organization’s existing employee engagement strategies.

How Engagement Affects Employee Success

When employees don’t feel connected to their work, they’re less likely to be motivated and engaged. This leads to numerous issues. Disengaged employees communicate less and achieve less. They can have a negative impact on customer experience. Research also shows that disengaged employees cause 60% more errors than their engaged counterparts.

In contrast, highly engaged employees are more likely to show up for work and share ideas. They’re also 18% more productive. Perhaps most importantly, they experience greater job satisfaction. This means they’re less likely to look elsewhere for a different position.

Engagement saves organizations from unwanted talent turnover, unnecessary recruitment costs, lost productivity, and potentially unhappy customers. But in this new era of flexible work, how can reinvestment in work relationships elevate engagement? And how can employee events help?

Where Do Employee Events Fit-In Today?

Many organizations are hesitant to bring back events. Post-pandemic culture may seem to have moved beyond in-person gatherings, but companywide special occasions can be powerful tools for boosting morale. When thoughtfully designed, events can be used to recognize employee achievements, celebrate successes, and create a sense of unity and togetherness.

All these factors help create a culture of collaboration and camaraderie that boosts employee engagement. Employee events can also humanize your organization, not just for employees but also for their families, for customers, and for other stakeholders.

Ultimately, the power of shared experience is just as relevant now as it was in the past. Perhaps more so. After all, we are social animals. And events remind us how to care about each other and unite around a common purpose.

5 Ways Employee Events Help Foster Connection

In the fog of the pandemic, many of us have forgotten how to host events. That’s to be expected. So let’s take a closer look at factors that can help your organization host successful gatherings. And what can leaders do to make events a priority again? Consider these tips:

1. Create a Team-Building Opportunity

Before you think about planning a large-scale event, first focus on helping co-workers meet one another again. In fact, so much time has passed, some newer team members may not have developed strong relationships yet. So, stage a team-building activity to help break down barriers, encourage collaboration, and establish more personal relationships.

The activity could be connected to work. For example, a Lego-building challenge would put team communication and problem solving to the test. But be sure to emphasize fun above all else. Simply socializing for the fun of it will build the kind of camaraderie that can improve employee belonging, trust, and morale.

2. Plan a Social Activity

A team-building event doesn’t have to be packaged that way. Simply getting people together to spend time laughing and bonding can be massively beneficial. You could host a casual social gathering such as a trivia night, happy hour at a local bar, a game night, or a catered lunch. These kinds of events encourage employees to relax and get to know each other in an informal setting.

Try scheduling activities like these regularly — say once a month. A regular pace gives people something to look forward to and lowers the pressure of a one-off event.

3. Host a Networking Event

Informal networking events let employees meet and develop stronger relationships. They also help break down silos and silences that tend to build up over time, especially in remote teams.

Of course, with a networking event, it’s critical not to fall into some traditional traps. Many of us have horrible memories of hierarchical networking events that promoted cliques and inappropriate behavior. Instead, focus on making your event accessible and welcoming. Lower the barrier to conversation — nobody should be left in a circle of higher-ups trying to get a word in.

4. Celebrate Employee Achievements

Celebrations are a great reason to get your team together socially to build connections. Celebrate employee accomplishments, such as promotions, anniversaries, or awards. This not only shines a spotlight on people who’ve earned recognition. It also sends an important signal that says you value people who work effectively and support your organization’s values.

If your main goal in hosting corporate events is to boost engagement, celebrating achievements is a prime way to do that. Feeling genuinely appreciated can have a major impact on a person’s feeling of engagement at work.

5. Try Volunteering Together

Offer opportunities for employees to volunteer together and give back to the community. This is an excellent way to build team spirit and encourage bonding. At the same time, volunteer opportunities reinforce a sense of purpose and remind everyone of your shared values.

Helping others has been shown to support physical and mental wellbeing. In fact, a Stanford Graduate School of Business study found that company-sponsored volunteering has a double impact. It promotes social bonds among co-workers and also boosts their sense of identification and belonging.

Final Notes on Events and Engagement

In today’s work environment, organizations are still grappling with fluid work structures and juggling new challenges and opportunities. All the more reason why we need to rebuild connections that can help people feel engaged. People want to feel engaged in their work. So, start offering events that help people to develop genuine human relationships. I assure you, your team will begin to operate more productively, more happily, and with greater enthusiasm.

What kind of employee retention strategies really work? Check these 9 ideas from HR and business leaders

Employee Retention Strategies: 9 Ideas That Are Working

/, , , , , , /by

TalentCulture Content Impact Award Winner - 2023Keeping valued employees onboard is top-of-mind for many organizations these days. But what kind of employee retention strategies are actually working?

To find out, we asked numerous HR and business leaders to tell us which methods are making a difference for their workforce. And they responded with a variety of answers worth considering. Here are 9 of the best ideas we received:

  • Actively Support Employee Mental Health
  • Invest in Employee Growth
  • Invite Family Members to Team Events
  • Support Employee Sabbaticals
  • Assign an Employee Partner for Each New Hire
  • Create a Culture of Trust and Connection
  • Offer a Generous PTO and Benefits Policy
  • Build Meaningful Onboarding Connections
  • Provide Professional Development Opportunities

To learn more about how your organization can make the most of these employee retention strategies, read the full responses below…

9 Effective Employee Retention Strategies


1. Actively Support Employee Mental Health

One of the most powerful ways we have improved our retention rate is by proactively supporting employee mental health. We make workplace wellbeing a priority by encouraging mindfulness and reminding people to take short mental health breaks every day.

To ensure our employees benefit from improved wellbeing, we’ve also brought in trainers to teach various mindfulness exercises. These simple improvements have been easy to implement. Yet, they’ve helped our employees become happier and more engaged at work. This, in turn, has led to increased retention.

Mark Pierce, CEO, Cloud Peak Law Group

2. Invest in Employee Growth

To help retain our best talent, we provide ongoing internal and external opportunities for career growth.

For each position in every department, we publish clear, open-source career ladders. And we offer programs that help each employee develop skills and competencies needed to become a subject expert at their current level or qualify for success at the next level.

These opportunities include a robust Skill Enhancement and Employee Development (SEED) program for individual contributors, and a rich Leadership Essentials and Development (LEAD) program for people leaders. These are cohort-based programs we offer twice a quarter. In conjunction with other social learning activities, these programs improved our retention rate by 28% in the second half of 2022.

On the external development front, we offer a Be Your Best Self program that lets employees spend up to $1,500 a year on certifications, conferences and other activities in line with their professional goals. This initiative elevated our retention by 13% in the second half of last year.

Elizabeth Boyd, Fractional Director of Talent Development and Learning, TalentLab.Live

3. Invite Family Members to Team Events

Rather than hosting happy hours and team events for “employees only,” we invite spouses and children, too.

In addition to helping employees get to know their colleagues better, this is an excellent way for families to become familiar with colleagues their wife, husband, partner, mother or father works with each day. This means family members can put faces to names during future at-home conversations about work.

What’s more, these informal family relationships often help employees become much closer. Sometimes, colleagues’ family members become friends, as well. All of this leads to a much happier workplace that employees hesitate to leave.

Janelle Owens, HR Director, Guide2Fluency

4. Support Employee Sabbaticals

Effective work-life balance isn’t just a distant goal to achieve. It’s a reality we are all continuously managing and renegotiating. Sometimes, for whatever reason, the life component suddenly takes precedence. That’s when an employee must radically rebalance key priorities.

By offering extended time away through sabbatical leave, you provide significant reassurance. Should the worst happen, employees know they can take time away from work without risking their employment status.

Similarly, if a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity arises, such as long-term traveling, studying, or focusing on personal growth, people know a formal mechanism is in place to support them.

Some of our organization’s most engaged and loyal employees have taken sabbatical leave multiple times. Even those who haven’t exercised their right to a sabbatical think highly of the option. They appreciate the fact that we offer flexibility, should the need arise.

Chloe Yarwood, HR Manager, Test Partnership

5. Assign an Employee Partner for Each New Hire

Whenever you’re expanding your team, think about group dynamics. Sometimes when you hire new staff for positions that are similar to others’ roles, members of your team will feel scared. They may assume you’re looking to replace them when that’s not the case.

To ease any tension or anxiety, ask existing employees to team-up with new people on relevant projects. Give them responsibility for delegating tasks to the new hires, so they feel included and empowered to make onboarding more successful.

This helps existing staff feel more control over the situation. They’ll also pick up on the fact that you need more resources to manage a growing workload. By recognizing this is an investment in everyone’s success, existing staff should feel more secure in their positions. This also means they’ll be less likely to look elsewhere out of fear.

Dennis Consorte, Digital Marketing and Leadership Consultant for Startups, Snackable Solutions

6. Create a Culture of Trust and Connection

We’ve found that one of the most effective ways to keep employees is to focus on building a culture based on trust and connection. This doesn’t happen overnight. But it can make a huge impact over time.

We started by implementing weekly team meetings where people from different departments discuss issues or challenges we’re facing. This opens lines of communication among team members. Everyone is welcome to share ideas for improvement. It’s also a forum to discuss what has worked in the past or could work in the future. This creates an active dialogue around innovation that encourages employees to grow professionally.

These regular meetings give us a chance to build stronger relationships through group problem solving. They also help us develop mutual understanding, while recognizing everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. Plus, we have an opportunity to celebrate individual and collective successes.

Travis Lindemoen, Managing Director, nexus IT group

7. Offer a Generous PTO and Benefits Policy

Because our entire team works remotely, we have to make sure the work people do is more valuable to them than the work they would otherwise be doing in a more traditional setting. That’s why we offer 38 days of PTO (personal time off) each year, as well as private healthcare stipends employees can use to maintain their mental and physical health. 

Similar companies typically don’t offer any of these benefits. That’s why we stand out among competitors. It helps us recruit strong talent, and ultimately it means employees stay with us longer, as well.

Gordana Sretenovic, Co-founder, Workello

8. Build Meaningful Onboarding Connections

Our organization invests in multiple policies and programs to improve employee retention. One stand-out initiative is our structured onboarding plan, which includes intentional workforce integration activities such as team-building exercises and networking events.

We believe strong retention really begins on Day One. So, by introducing every new hire to the company culture, we can help people more quickly feel comfortable in their roles. This has led to increased overall engagement across the organization. It has also helped improve job satisfaction and reduce turnover.

Grace He, People and Culture Director, teambuilding.com

9. Provide Professional Development Opportunities

One of the best ways to keep people engaged in their jobs is to provide opportunities for professional growth. It not only helps employees learn new skills, but also demonstrates that your organization wants to invest in their growth and development.

This could include internal or external training programs, mentorship opportunities, tuition reimbursement programs, or a combination of these options. For example you can provide funding for people to attend relevant conferences or networking events, so they can develop a broader range of professional relationships skills in your industry. This not only helps build a more knowledgeable and competent workforce, but also improves retention.

Timothy Allen, Sr. Corporate Investigator, Corporate Investigation Consulting

 

 

How can employers avoid employee survey fatigue? Check these expert tips - including an idea you probably haven't thought about

Avoiding Survey Fatigue: 4 Tips and a Breakthrough

/, , , , , /by

Without a doubt, employee surveys are the most widely used employee engagement tool. Surveys make it possible for employers to gather workforce feedback quickly and easily in a form that’s convenient and comfortable for participants. They are often easier to set up and manage than other feedback mechanisms. Plus, acceptance rates show that employees prefer surveys over other tools. However, you can have too much of a good thing. In fact, research indicates that a constant flow of surveys can be costly and self-defeating. That’s because it leads to survey fatigue.

What is Survey Fatigue?

Survey fatigue is a common issue that HR and business leaders should keep in mind when seeking employee feedback. On one hand, people tend to appreciate being asked for input. On the other hand, surveys can reach a point of diminishing returns when employees become emotionally tired and disengage from the process. This happens for multiple reasons:

  1. When people receive too many survey requests within a short timeframe,
  2. When survey logic, structure, or content is overly complex,
  3. When surveys are unnecessarily long or repetitive,
  4. When people feel their feedback isn’t seriously received.

Survey fatigue decreases participation rates. This, in turn, can reduce data accuracy and understanding of employee community sentiment.

How Does Survey Fatigue Affect Employee Satisfaction Programs?

The goal of a good survey is to obtain the most reliable insights from a representative cross-section of your employee base. The higher the participation rate, the more accurate your response data is likely to be.

Survey fatigue can translate into lower overall response rates that jeopardize data quality. This seriously threatens your ability to gather valuable information about workforce satisfaction, morale, cultural health, and overall employee experience.

Can you conduct an effective survey with a low response rate, if the data is representative of your overall employee community? Yes. But only if you are very sure that the lower number of respondents is actually statistically representative of the larger group. And that is difficult to accomplish.

Here’s one reason why: People with strong opinions or extreme positions aren’t affected by survey fatigue, so they’re more likely to respond. That’s because they’re highly motivated to make their voice heard.

As a result, the survey data will reflect only the most extreme views. It won’t accurately represent the majority view because survey fatigue caused other employees to abandon the feedback process. This is a type of survey bias called non-response bias.

How to Avoid Survey Fatigue

It’s important to understand the most frequent causes of survey fatigue, as well as best practices to avoid it. While there’s no single way to prevent fatigue in employee surveys, combining multiple methods can help you develop engaging, accurate surveys that yield high response and completion rates.

Here are 5 strategies to try (including one you’ve probably haven’t yet considered):

1. Limit Survey Frequency

One of the most important ways to avoid survey fatigue is to carefully time the cadence. Some organizations assume “more is better,” so they send multiple surveys every month. But that kind of pace can overwhelm employees, and may overwhelm your staff, as well. Instead, step back and consider your goals. Then develop fewer surveys, each with a specific objective. For example, you can use pulse surveys to get a quick snapshot of employee sentiment about key topics of interest. On the other hand, a full-scale engagement survey is more appropriate for measuring overall employee satisfaction and commitment.

2. Keep Surveys Concise

Long, complex surveys can be overwhelming. They’re likely to discourage employees from participating. It’s important to keep every survey targeted, concise, and to-the-point.

3. State Your Purpose Every Time

You’ll want to be sure employees understand each survey’s objectives and importance. When people know how their participation can affect their work life, they’re likely to take the time to share their opinions. For example, let’s say you want to know how employees feel about your return-to-work policy before you adjust it. Tell them upfront you’re gathering feedback about this because you’re planning to implement changes next quarter.

4. Remember, Timing Is Everything

Survey timing can have a significant impact on response. For instance, surveying employees during busy or stressful timeframes may produce inaccurate results, because people may not have the time or energy to respond as fully or thoughtfully as they normally would. Instead, distribute the survey when employees are likely to provide meaningful feedback. And be sure to keep the response window open long enough to collect data from those who want to participate.

5. Tap Into the Power of Passive Listening

Here is one feedback strategy you probably haven’t considered yet — passive listening. Thanks to new technology, these capabilities are revolutionizing the traditional survey process. By leveraging AI technology, passive listening can improve your understanding of employee morale, work culture, and trending topics in work conversations. All of this intelligence is gathered automatically in real time, and is continuously available for deeper analysis and action.

By working in the background, passive listening gives HR teams a wealth of employee sentiment insights without forcing people to respond directly to a survey. In addition, passive listening helps HR and business leaders make future surveys even better by providing a head start in understanding what employees already think about key issues.

Final Notes

Survey fatigue can harm your organization’s efforts to gather valuable information about retention, satisfaction, morale, cultural health, and the overall employee experience. But you can avoid fatigue by reducing the frequency of feedback requests, keeping surveys concise, clarifying your purpose, carefully scheduling delivery timeframes, and relying on passive listening tools to gather helpful intelligence without having to develop and distribute surveys.

By following these guidelines, you can increase overall feedback and improve data accuracy, while gathering more valuable workforce insights.

Which benefits do onsite workers like the most?-Learn what works for modern employees in the post-pandemic era

Which Benefits are Best for Onsite Employees?

/, , , , , /by

Numerous jobs can be performed remotely or on a hybrid schedule. Still, more than 70% of full-time roles require people to work onsite. For instance, consider those involved in transportation, manufacturing, construction, and agriculture, as well as frontline workers in healthcare, education, retail, hospitality, and other service industries. How can companies in these sectors attract and retain talent more effectively? This article looks at how specialized benefits for onsite employees can help.

Demand for Onsite Employees Remains High

Employers have been reeling from a series of one-two punches in recent years. It all started with the pandemic quarantine in 2020. Then in 2021, more than 47 million people left their jobs during the so-called “Great Resignation.” Soon after that, the notion of “quiet quitting” caught fire, when many who remained in their jobs decided it was no longer worth the effort to go above-and-beyond.

By the start of this year, work trends hit a low ebb. On average, 4 million U.S. employees were resigning each month, and at least 50% of the workforce was doing no more than the bare minimum. Yet job openings remained at historic highs. No wonder companies continue scrambling to engage and retain talent — especially frontline workers.

How Targeted Benefits Help

With inflation already cutting into profits at many companies, higher wages aren’t in this year’s budget. So instead, they’re developing special benefits packages for onsite employees.

Of course, benefits have always been a factor in every candidates’ decision to accept a job offer. But now, attractive benefits are even more important —  especially when remote or hybrid work arrangements aren’t an option.

Thoughtful benefits that address the interests of onsite employees can make a big difference in an environment where employers offer remote and hybrid workers  35-hour workweeks, unlimited PTO, gym memberships, and a host of other creative options.

Here’s how a solid benefits package can help tip the scale in your favor in today’s talent market…

Which Benefits Do Onsite Employees Value Most?

1. Flexible Schedules

When remote work isn’t an option, flexibility is a must. In fact, 95% of workers think flexible hours are more attractive than remote work, according to a recent Future Forum survey. An Adobe survey echoes this finding, with 84% of respondents saying they desire a more flexible work schedule.

2. Flexible Personal Time Off

Flexibility in PTO has also been gaining traction. In the wake of the pandemic, traditional ways of allocating time off no longer appeal to onsite employees. For example, imagine a parent sometimes volunteers at their child’s school for several hours during the work day. That employee should feel empowered to adjust their schedule accordingly.

The same concept should apply for people who need PTO when they need time off to focus on their mental wellbeing. In fact, a recent Harris Poll found that 23% of workers are receiving new mental health services from their employers.

3. Childcare Assistance

Childcare benefits have also become more popular. Whether it’s a stipend to help cover ongoing costs, discounts on daycare center services, or onsite childcare options, these benefits can make a significant difference. In fact, childcare costs increased more than 40% during the pandemic, and they continue to rise. This is why onsite employees consider childcare assistance a highly valuable benefit.

4. Career Development

For many workers, professional growth is a primary concern. That’s why learning and development opportunities can elevate your benefits package for onsite employees.

If your budget doesn’t support a full-blown educational initiative, even a simple lunch-and-learn event series can help. Topics can reach beyond work-related skills and knowledge. For example, workers might find it helpful to learn about personal financial planning, healthy eating, time management or other life skills. By gathering input about employee interests, you can co-create a curriculum.

Building a Better Benefits Packages

How to attract and retain employees with benefits is a question for the ages. Many types of incentives can enhance recruitment and improve engagement, productivity and performance. But whatever you choose to offer, the overall package must make sense for your company and your culture, as well as individual employees. These guidelines can help you make better decisions:

1. Conduct Focus Groups

Involving employees in planning discussions is always a good idea. It’s the most logical way to arrive at reliable answers about the benefits people value most.

You’ll want to schedule at least several different sessions, each with a representative sample of onsite employees. You’ll also need to prepare a series of carefully designed questions, along with discussion prompts to keep the conversation going. Additionally, be sure to choose moderators who are skilled at leading discussions, probing for details, and gathering feedback from all participants.

2. Send out Surveys

If you don’t have time or energy to conduct focus groups, you can rely on the tried-and-true method of distributing an anonymous survey to gather honest input. This process may uncover certain employee benefits and incentives you wouldn’t learn about in group discussions. That’s because some people aren’t comfortable sharing their ideas in a small group  setting, so an anonymous survey can be an effective way to give more employees a voice.

3. Establish an Employee Resource Group

Employee resource groups (ERGs) are voluntary, employee-led groups that share a common interest and/or characteristic. They generally focus on accomplishing specific goals that tie-in with organizational culture and work life. Most groups exist to help cultivate inclusion and a healthy work environment, so this can be an ideal way to bring together voices that can speak and act on behalf of onsite employees.

4. Monitor the Competition

Even if you have strong internal input, you’ll find that studying industry competitors offers a wealth of information about how to build an attractive benefit plan for onsite employees. Look at standard practices and benchmarks — both inside and outside of your industry. With this kind of contextual insight, you may even find that you can expand and improve upon what others offer.

The Bottom Line on Benefits for Onsite Employees

Money may be one of the fastest ways to motivate employees, but even  employers with deep pockets can’t compete on price alone. Another company will inevitably find a way to offer people more. This is why a thoughtfully designed benefits package can be your strength. People are motivated by more than compensation. It all comes down to finding the right mix of benefits to attract and retain onsite employees.

For the best solution, start with your organization’s culture, values, and business realities. Then craft a benefits package that fits that framework.

How can proactive support lift employee engagement? Check this advice for HR and business leaders

How Proactive Support Lifts Employee Engagement

/, , , , /by

For more than two years, employees have slowly — and sometimes reluctantly — returned to their workplaces. Leaders have been trying to instill a sense of normalcy within their organizations, even as team members grapple with new and ongoing challenges. But in many situations, a critical element is still missing: personal, proactive support. Let me explain…

Today’s world is a challenging backdrop for us all. Inflation is hitting everyone’s pocketbook. The economy isn’t healthy. And geo-political instability remains a constant. Meanwhile, daily life goes on. No wonder employees sometimes seem distracted. Whether people are dealing with challenges with work, family or other areas of their lives, they often need support from their employers.

But today’s workers expect more than just generous healthcare plans and personal time off. They are looking for flexibility — not only to work from home, but to focus on family matters when necessary. They’re interested in professional guidance. And they want the kind of transparency and feedback that will help them thrive professionally and personally. In short, they’re looking for genuine, proactive support.

Where did this start? Let’s take a closer look:

The Rise of Quiet Quitting

The tumult of recent years led us all to re-examine professional norms. Workers began openly asking deep questions like these:

  • “Do I need to commute to an office each day, when I can accomplish more by working from home?”
  • “Is my current job as personally fulfilling as I would like it to be?”
  • “Does my employer give me what I need to excel in my role?”

Not surprisingly, we saw the Great Resignation wave in 2021. And that gave way to last year’s “quiet quitting” surge, when some workers decided to contribute only the minimal level of effort necessary. This trend caught-on fast. In fact, by the second half of 2022, more than 50% of U.S. workers had joined the “quiet quitter” ranks, according to Gallup.

The Next Wave: Conscious Quitting

But dissatisfied workers can’t remain quiet for long. Indeed, as former Unilever CEO, Paul Polman predicted early this year, “An era of conscious quitting is on the way.”

To get a handle on this shift, Polman commissioned a survey, called the Net Positive Employee Barometer. The results reveal that a majority of U.S. and U.K. employees are dissatisfied with corporate efforts to improve societal wellbeing and the environment.

Nearly half of respondents said they would consider quitting if their employer’s values didn’t align with their own. In fact, one-third have already quit for this reason — with even higher resignation rates among Generation Z and Millennial workers. Here’s why:

  • Younger workers believe they should rethink their commitment to an employer if the organization doesn’t demonstrate important values. Primarily, this includes Generation Z employees (born between 1997 and 2012). They’re highly socially aware. And by 2025, they will comprise almost 30% of the global workforce. They have also normalized the idea that workers can make demands on their employers.
  • Boomers and Generation X workers are also questioning workplace norms, although they’re less vocal about it. These workers were raised to “dress for the job you want”, “go above and beyond,” and “always be respectful.”

So we’re seeing a natural generational transition, hyper-accelerated by COVID and the Great Resignation. Workers are challenging the status quo. They’re looking for employers to meet them where they are and give them what they want.

But employers need to realize engagement is not one-size-fits-all. Multiple generations are involved, with different people at different points in their careers.

Proactive Support Starts With Awareness

If an employee is tuning out, do you know why? If you’re unsure, it’s time to dig deeper. When an employee performs at 85% capacity, their behavior could be about your organization, about their own circumstances, or a combination of factors. Regardless, it deserves an honest assessment. For example:

  • Is your infrastructure designed to encourage employee success?
  • Do you provide the kind of culture and resources that help people perform at their peak?
  • How well do the employee’s skills and knowledge fit their role?
  • Is the individual struggling with a personal crisis, such as a divorce?
  • What other factors may be influencing the employee’s behavior?

Employee engagement depends on an environment that promotes work-life integration. Unlike so-called “work-life balance,” work-life integration acknowledges each employee as a whole person (not just a 9-to-5 version). In daily life, this means employees are free to run an errand or tend to a family member during work hours, if needed.

This kind of freedom comes when employers trust their people to make wise choices about how to get the job done.

Mapping the Work-Life Territory

To empower people this way, HR and business leaders must clarify employee roles and responsibilities, and be sure they’re aligned with broader objectives. To get started, consider questions like these:

  • What are your company’s goals?
  • Do these goals cascade down and across your organization, so teams and individuals understand how their role (and associated responsibilities) contribute?
  • How do employees feel about their objectives?
  • Do you sense a gap between expectations and employee buy-in?
  • Are you actively listening to employees? Do you understand their mood, morale and daily experience?
  • How do you gather input and confirm employee sentiment?
  • Do you demonstrate that you’re paying attention?

How Proactive Support Works

Engagement is never perfectly consistent. In any given year, engagement will dip at some point for some people — even among high performers. This may be a response to work challenges, the organizational environment, or even personal issues, such as caring for an ill parent.

An environment of open, honest communication and support should offer enough elasticity to account for these dips.

Likewise, an individual’s capacity for engagement evolves and changes over time with their role. For example, a recent college graduate’s engagement “peak” is likely to look different than someone with 20 years of business experience.

If a dip in engagement does require intervention, start by gathering input from the individual, so you can identify the root of the problem. Often, you’ll find that an engagement drop coincides with an energy drain in the work environment. For instance:

  • Is the employee’s valuable energy being spent on the wrong things?
  • Are people required to do “focus work” in a noisy, chaotic office?
  • Have collaboration or communication tools become a distraction?
  • Are low performers or disgruntled team members creating a dysfunctional group dynamic?

Look for other signs that deserve further investigation. If a vocal person is suddenly quiet during meetings, take note. If someone stops volunteering for projects, take note. If someone is less responsive to requests than usual, take note. Talking with a core group of people (including an employee’s manager, the HR team, and co-workers) can provide a view into an employee’s contribution to the company and can shed light on issues that may not be obvious.

During the Dips: Stay Flexible, Observe, and Act

Whenever you diagnose disengagement, you’ll want to treat it with a direct approach. Earlier, I mentioned keeping a pulse on employee experience. One-on-one employee/manager meetings are key here.

A manager might say to a remote employee, “I’ve noticed a change in your availability recently. It’s been difficult to reach you over the past few weeks. Is something happening that I can support you with?”

Keep probing. Does the employee seem unaware of an issue? Is contact or communication eroding with others on the team? Could the organization take steps to help the individual re-engage? If not, does the employee no longer seem to believe in the company’s mission?

Once you know the answers to questions like these, it’s important to follow-through quickly with affected employees and leaders. The worst thing you can do is nothing at all. Unanswered issues tend to arise in pockets. But negativity can be contagious, and it can spread rapidly across an organization.

Final Thoughts on Proactive Support

Success in the future of work requires more buy-in than ever. Workers want to feel good about supporting their company’s mission. They want to believe their company trusts them and supports them, in return.

Relying on a holistic, proactive approach to the employee-employer relationship will earn you the kind of buy-in that keeps your team members engaged and motivated.

Rethinking the manager's role: Focusing on employee career growth is more effective than focusing on employee engagement. Here's why...

Rethinking The Manager’s Role: Here’s How to Get Better Results

/, , , , , , /by

Sponsored by The Culture Platform

At some point in the last 20 years, companies started to believe employee engagement should define a manager’s role. And looking back, this conclusion made some sense. After all, managers are the organizational layer between leaders and people on teams. So why not embrace this as a framework for managerial effectiveness?

How The Engagement Expectation Began

The shift to engagement as the center of a manager’s role coincided with the arrival of tech-savvy millennials and the promise of HR software to power the so-called engagement revolution. It sounded good in theory. But it has largely been a failure.

Frankly, there is no evidence that investing in “managing” employee engagement actually works. Instead, research consistently points in the opposite direction. So let’s dig deeper for answers.

Throughout most of the industrial economy, managers weren’t very good at managing people. In fact, job turnover surveys typically found the #1 reason employees quit was “my manager.”

No wonder organizations decided to invest in technology to help. But what has that accomplished?

If you add up the revenue of engagement software and HR tech firms over the past 20 years, you’ll see customers spent perhaps $25 billion on these tools. Even so, the level of U.S. employee engagement remained mostly unchanged throughout this timeframe. It has consistently hovered around 32%, according to Gallup. Abysmal.

Why do we need to change what's wrong with a manager's role? 20-year U.S. employee engagement trends from Gallup

Rethinking the Manager’s Role

I believe this idea of managing engagement was flawed from the beginning. Flawed because managers actually manage people and their expectations about success. If every employee could perform at a top 10% level, get promoted, and work from home, engaging them in their work would be a breeze. But that’s not reality.

Today, when people leave a job, they usually don’t say their boss is the primary driver. Instead, they point to a desire for professional growth or career advancement. With this in mind, I would say managers have the most important role in any organization. So this is why I believe it’s time to rethink the manager’s role.

What if organizations actually embraced what employees want? And what if they empowered managers to help their people plan for professional growth and advancement?

Currently, most organizations don’t think this way. They culturally believe career planning is an individual employee’s responsibility.

I vehemently disagree with this conventional thinking. It’s really just an artifact from an era when employees could comfortably expect to spend their entire career at one or two companies.

For most managers, empowering employee career-building will require new attitudes and actions. Changing cultural norms and setting clear expectations isn’t an easy or intuitive process. This means managers will need a new framework or model for managing people that is different from today’s engagement-centric approach.

A New View of the Manager’s Role

I propose a new concept built for the modern manager-employee relationship. 

I call it goals with purpose.

Goals with purpose align an employee’s current job role with future career aspirations. This alignment is the key to creating an emotional connection between an individual and the work they’re performing as part of the team.

For managers, this is no doubt much more challenging than seeking engagement through a simple pulse survey or weekly poll. Those engagement tools are easy to use and they appeal to the mass market by design. However, they don’t address what matters most to employees.

The Power of Goals With Purpose

What does it mean to set goals with purpose? Through the research I’ve conducted at The Culture Platform and the listening I did at Cisco with hundreds of companies, I’ve processed this input and determined what constitutes a goal with purpose.

At its highest level, this kind of goal is the way an individual contributor on a team clearly sees how today’s job role aligns with future-minded growth opportunities.

Specifically, a goal with purpose has five attributes:

1. It is tangible
It aligns a job role in a measurable way with goals that matter to the organization’s success. An individual contributor should be able to “hold” this goal in their “hands.”

2. It shapes personal growth
It reflects the strengths of the person in that role. Experienced leaders know a job role should never play to someone’s weaknesses.

3. It demonstrates a pathway
It aligns a current role with a future role. The future role may even be outside the organization or team.

4. It helps people navigate the organization
It clarifies the position an individual plays on the team. This helps dispel politics and endless positioning.

5. It empowers a reputation
It enables people to communicate with facts about their accomplishments. Ideally, it provides a “signature” project to build an individual contributor’s credibility.

Managerial Success: A Call to Action for Leaders

A manager’s role has never been more important to organizational success. It has also never been harder to be a manager, given the pandemic, work-from-home disruption, the current era of business “efficiency,” and the unrelenting pace of change.

If managers have an organization’s most important job, leaders need to realize an employee’s emotional connection to the company is earned. They also need to recognize it is worth the effort.

Tapping into an individual’s intrinsic motivations is the key to inspiring discretionary effort — that magical relationship between an employee, their manager, and their company. It’s the sweet spot where going above-and-beyond is the way things work.

During Cisco’s heyday, we called these magical moments the “Cisco Save.” In other words, when we needed to accomplish something important, a group of people would step up and do whatever it took to get the job done.

As leaders and managers, we can make work more magical for our people. But engagement doesn’t make someone want to do “whatever it takes.” We finally know that now, after 20 years of trying. It’s time to try a better way. We need to make goals with purpose every manager’s priority and make career empowerment the new managerial normal.

What do goals with purpose mean to you? How could this approach help your organization move in the right direction? I look forward to seeing your comments and ideas.

After Layoffs, How Can Employers Handle Survivor Guilt?

After Layoffs, How Can Employers Handle Survivor Guilt?

/, , , , , /by

We may or may not be heading for an economic downturn this year, but we certainly are seeing a slew of layoffs. The technology industry has been most heavily affected, with more than 224,000 jobs eliminated since the start of 2022. Although many small companies are affected, we’re also seeing announcements from big names like Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Meta.

Now, layoffs are spilling into other sectors as well. For instance, Disney, Goldman Sachs, and FedEx recently announced job cuts. Even McDonald’s is downsizing.

But no matter where and when layoffs happen, we can’t help wondering about the people who’ve lost their jobs. How will they cope financially? How will their mental health be affected?

It’s natural to be concerned about their wellbeing. But what about employees who remain onboard? We shouldn’t forget about them.

Many of these layoff “survivors” are likely to be suffering as well. They may be expected to put in extra effort or take on additional tasks to cover for those who are gone. All the while, they’re worrying about whether their own job will vanish next. Survivor guilt only compounds their problems.

Recognizing the Trauma of Layoffs

When lives are lost in a traumatic event, survivors sometimes feel guilty because they didn’t die. Or they may obsess about what they could have done (but didn’t) to help save others. This survivor guilt phenomenon also emerges in the aftermath of work layoffs. Although the situation is less dire, employers should take it seriously.

Remaining employees may feel guilty because they still have a job when others lost theirs. They may believe they’re less worthy or less skilled than those who were laid off, which further compounds feelings of guilt. This is one reason why layoff survivors typically don’t perform as well as predicted, which can ultimately harm business performance.

Learning From Covid Layoffs

The last big wave of layoffs happened during the Covid pandemic. At that time, my organization conducted research to understand the impact on employees. Specifically, we asked people how much they agreed or disagreed with these questions:

  • I am annoyed or angry that I am still working, when others have been laid off or furloughed.
  • I feel guilty about having a job, when others have been laid off or furloughed.

We found that remaining employees were much more likely to feel guilty than annoyed. In fact, only 5% agreed or strongly agreed that they felt annoyed or angry. In contrast, 33% agreed or strongly agreed that they felt guilty. This means a third of respondents were experiencing survivor guilt.

Upon closer inspection, we found that the extent of this guilt varied considerably from person to person. In part, it was due to differences in personality preferences for either Thinking or Feeling, a dimension included in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) framework.

People with a Thinking personality preference prefer to make decisions based on objective logic. In contrast, those with a Feeling preference favor decisions based on values and how those decisions affect people.

Our research found that individuals with a Feeling orientation were significantly more likely to experience guilt than those who lean toward Thinking. Specifically, 44% of people with a Feeling preference agreed or strongly agreed that they felt guilty, compared to only 21% people with a Thinking preference.

How Guilt Affects Remaining Employees

Given today’s economic pressures, organizations could see a repeat of the 2020 survivor response. It’s important for line managers to pay close attention to this, because survivor guilt can erode job performance.

But here’s a potential problem: Managers and executives are far more likely to have a Thinking personality preference. This means they’re less prone to survivor guilt, themselves. They’re also less likely to notice survivor guilt in others, or take it seriously.

How can organizations bridge this gap? The MBTI assessment and similar tools can help managers understand if their staff members see the world the same way they do. When an assessment reveals misalignment, it can help managers recognize that, even if they aren’t experiencing survivor guilt themselves, they should be open to others who are struggling.

Steps to Minimize Survivor Guilt

Managers and HR specialists can take several steps to mitigate the worst effects of survivor guilt. For example:

1. Let remaining employees know that you addressed all those who were laid off as individuals and you treated them as well as possible. But don’t communicate this message if it isn’t true. People with a Feeling preference have a knack for sensing inauthenticity. So lying will make matters worse than saying nothing at all.

2. Offer to help employees who lose their jobs. For example, you may want to offer outplacement counseling to everyone who is laid off. Providing this kind of support is a moral thing to do. Plus, it can improve morale and engagement among those who remain. So, even though it increases the upfront cost of layoffs, this investment can lead to tangible business benefits.

3. Reassure employees that, even if they had been prepared to make sacrifices themselves, the outcome wouldn’t have changed. Again, don’t communicate this message unless it is true.

4. Clearly explain the rationale for layoffs to those who are leaving as well as those who remain. This helps avoid the appearance of arbitrary decision making.

5. Do not congratulate survivors because they still have a job. This may only increase any guilty feelings they’re experiencing.

6. Establish multiple channels to share information on an ongoing basis. People have different communication preferences, depending upon their personality. That’s why it’s important to offer a variety of methods, especially if your organization includes remote and hybrid workers. Here are several ideas:

Provide opportunities for people to ask questions and submit suggestions. Some people prefer live face-to-face discussions, group meetings, online forums, or instant messaging. Others need to think about questions and submit them in writing. These people may feel more comfortable with on-demand online events, online feedback forms, email messages, or anonymous surveys.

Whatever communication mix you implement, be sure to set expectations for how quickly you’ll respond to questions, ideas and comments. And once those guidelines are in place, be sure to follow through.

Final Thoughts

Whenever employers initiate layoffs, it’s vital to consider the organization’s psychological contract with employees. Unlike a tangible work contract based on things like salary and working conditions, the psychological contract is intangible. It focuses on values and “the way we do things around here.” This contract is an implied agreement between employer and employee.

Organizations must consider if and how layoffs violate this contract. When this is the case, leaders must explain their actions. Otherwise, employees with a Feeling personality preference may walk away from their jobs without any explanation or warning. They’re likely to feel justified because their values have been compromised.

To avoid these unintended consequences, think ahead about the implications of layoffs — not only for those who will lose their jobs, but also for those who will remain. Then act accordingly. If you want your organization to prosper in the long-run, ignoring survivor guilt is not an option.

Employee Appreciation Day Why Not Celebrate All Through the Year WorkHuman SVP on the #WorkTrends podcast

Employee Appreciation Day: Why Not Celebrate All Year?

/, , , , , , , /by

Sponsored by Workhuman

How often does your organization acknowledge team members who deserve recognition? Certainly, Employee Appreciation Day is an ideal opportunity to thank everyone. But an annual pat on the back isn’t nearly enough to move the meter on employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention.

So, what does effective recognition actually look like, and how can Employee Appreciation Day help? According to today’s #WorkTrends podcast guest, companies that get recognition right treat it as an ongoing conversation where everyone is invited to participate.

Makes sense. But what kind of impact can employers expect? The numbers are impressive. For example, research shows that when we regularly acknowledge employees, they’re 90% more likely to be happier at work. They’re also 70% less likely to burn out. And they’re 60% more likely to stay onboard. To find out more about what’s driving these outcomes, tune in now…

Meet Our Guest:  Derek Irvine

Had a blast discussing this topic with Derek Irvine, SVP of Strategy and Consulting Services at Workhuman! Derek is a foremost expert on recognition and the human side of business. I can’t think of anyone who’s better qualified to help us understand how to make each day feel like Employee Appreciation Day. So please join us as we dig deeper:

Why Appreciation Matters

Welcome, Derek! You’ve studied employee appreciation for years. What does science tell us about its value?

Actually, appreciation is like a natural medicine. When someone sincerely thanks us at work, it releases happy hormones. It boosts our health and wellbeing. So in a way, Employee Appreciation Day is like a wellness day.

Unfortunately, however, research says 80% of people aren’t appreciated enough. This means they’re more likely to become disengaged or quit. So this is important. But it’s something we can fix.

Factors That Support Appreciation
How does Workhuman honor Employee Appreciation Day?

Of course, we acknowledge all of our employees and celebrate as a team. But for us, every day is Employee Appreciation Day. So we’re committed to a continuous dialogue. And our reward strategy is built on three foundational blocks:

  1. Fair Pay: People need to feel appropriately compensated for their contribution.
  2. Ownership: We aren’t a public company, but everyone has a real stake in the company’s success.
  3. Recognition: These are the spontaneous moments when we acknowledge people for reaching a milestone or supporting our values.

Appreciation as a Cultural Priority

Spontaneous. I love that word. What other steps can companies take to build a culture of recognition?

In addition to being spontaneous, it’s also important to be intentional. Because most people I talk to agree that they should show more appreciation. And then, other priorities take over, so taking the time to say “thank you” constantly falls from the top of their to-do list.

You’ll want to put a drumbeat in place to be sure this intention won’t slip off of your agenda.

Getting Started

What would you say organizations should do to make Employee Appreciation Day more meaningful for everyone?

Well, it could be a great day to launch your all-year initiatives. So maybe you could recognize people at a special gathering. But then also announce your commitment to change your organization’s habits and explain how you intend to create a culture based on ongoing recognition.

That’s my top recommendation because it will help your organization pivot in a more positive trajectory, and it will have a lasting impact.

Tools That Enhance Appreciation

How can technology help employers make recognition work better?

Using technology to thank people may seem odd. But it can help in several ways.

It can provide a nudge that reminds managers to reach out to people at specific times. But beyond that, with a platform like ours, you’ll create a fantastic repository of all the human connection stories that are happening in your organization.

You also have a huge data pool you can use to understand your culture better. For example, you can ask: What words are people using? What skills are being celebrated? Are particular leaders being recognized for skills we hadn’t seen? Are there dark spots in the organization where people aren’t being thanked at all?

Insights like these can be a powerful way to enhance your work culture with more intention…

For more insights from Derek about why and how to make every day feel like Employee Appreciation Day, listen to this full podcast episode. And be sure to subscribe to the #WorkTrends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.

Also, to continue this conversation on social media anytime, follow our #WorkTrends hashtag on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Employers: What are some simple ways you can help remote employees feel connected? Check these ideas from Social Flowers CEO, Brian Gomes

Simple Ways to Help Remote Employees Feel Connected

/, , , , , , , , , , /by

TalentCulture Content Impact Award Winner - 2023Sponsored by Social Flowers

What a difference three years can make! I’m sure that’s what many remote employees are thinking these days. Before the pandemic, only 6% of people worked remotely in the U.S. Now, after peaking at 60% during the height of the pandemic, that number has leveled off to about 30%. But we’re all still learning how to navigate this new work-from-wherever terrain without leaving anyone behind.

Why Remote Work is Here to Stay

I understand why people want to continue enjoying the flexibility of working from a distance — even for a few days a week. Remote work remains popular because it offers advantages to employees and employers alike. For example:

BENEFITS FOR REMOTE EMPLOYEES:

  • Less commute time
  • Higher productivity (90% say they’re more productive)
  • Better mental health (74%)
  • Increased happiness with work (In fact, 61% would accept a pay cut to continue)

BENEFITS FOR BUSINESS:

  • Lower overhead costs from less office space
  • Increased work output (4% more hours each week, on average)
  • Lower absenteeism (52% are less likely to take extra time off)
  • Potential savings in employee pay (People value working from home as much as a 5-7% pay increase)

Remote Employees Face Real Challenges

Despite the flexibility and freedom of working from anywhere, working at a distance also has its drawbacks. For instance, research says many remote employees struggle with social isolation and disengagement. Specifically:

To ensure remote work strategies succeed in the long term, leaders need to help people feel more connected. But that’s not always easy to accomplish from a distance.

Helping Remote Employees Feel Connected From Afar

It’s natural for remote employees to feel disconnected and lonely sometimes. After all, work relationships play a vital role in keeping employees happy, healthy, and productive. So, how can leaders bridge that gap? Start with stronger support and communication. For example:

1. Clarify Remote Work Expectations

McKinsey says remote employees who receive detailed information are 5x more productive and 3x less likely to experience burnout. That’s a good reason to articulate your vision, policies, and practices so people understand how they fit into your overall work structure and strategy. Be sure to capture this information in documents, videos, and other reference materials that are regularly updated and available to all.

2. Think Outside the Virtual Meeting Box

Many employers have learned the hard way that online meetings aren’t the only remote work solution. In fact, 56% of employees say these sessions are too frequent or too long, and 42% say they feel Zoom fatigue. Avoid overload by promoting the use of asynchronous chat and collaboration tools like Slack. Also, let people choose when and how they want to conduct team meetings or 1-on-1 conversations.

3. Leave Room for Face-to-Face Communication

There is no substitute for in-person meetings. They are the fastest, most effective way to build trust and strengthen relationships. Even if you can bring people together only for an occasional planning, training, or team-building event, you’ll find it’s worth the investment.

4. Support Social Interaction

Connections won’t flourish with all work and no play. Encourage your entire staff to develop relationships by organizing online lunches, coffee breaks, and fun online events. Offer digital community tools and resources so everyone can casually exchange information and ideas.

5. Double Down on Appreciation

When organizations celebrate together, employees are 20x more likely to feel connected and want to stay on board. That’s an impressive reason to acknowledge personal and professional milestones. Set up a channel on Slack or Microsoft Teams for managers and peers to honor individual and team achievements, as well as birthdays and other life moments. Also, if you’re a manager, lead by example. Take time to acknowledge individuals, personally.

A Powerful Way to Connect: Send Flowers

I’ve discovered sending flowers is one of the simplest but most effective ways to help remote employees feel connected. Research says all humans have a basic need to be recognized. And the most successful kinds of recognition are timely, genuine, personal, and meaningful. Receiving flowers ticks all of those boxes.

How Flowers Made a Difference in My Life

As a flower delivery business owner, I’ve seen first-hand how flowers can play a key role during life’s most important moments. But I didn’t truly understand how much they mean until my father passed away.

My immediate family had ordered arrangements for the casket and the funeral service. But I was really touched when extended family and friends also sent flowers.

Initially, I was surprised. But upon reflection, I was grateful so many people wanted to express how much my dad meant to them by sending gorgeous arrangements. Through their efforts to honor his life with the beauty of flowers, I felt a deep emotional connection that remains with me to this day.

Social Flowers: An Easier Way to Connect With Remote Employees

I created Social Flowers so others could feel this same kind of connection. The idea is simple. We make it easy to send flowers to anyone, anywhere, anytime — even if you don’t know where they’re located.

When ordering, you simply enter the recipient’s email address or mobile number. They receive a link to choose where and when they want to receive their flowers, which a local florist delivers.

You can send flowers to celebrate a birthday, a work achievement, or just to brighten someone’s day. This service ensures that you can be present for all the important moments in a remote employee’s life.

How Social Flowers Works

How to send flowers to remote employees - an easier wayAs we’ve developed our business, I’ve relied upon Social Flowers, myself, to solve logistical problems that can make it difficult to send flowers.

In one case, I knew my friend Nancy was having surgery. I didn’t know the exact date of her procedure, or if she was staying at the hospital overnight, and I didn’t want to bother her. I knew where she lived, but I hadn’t been to her home in years and I couldn’t find her address. Fortunately, I did have her mobile number, so I used that to send an arrangement through Social Flowers.

After I placed the order, Nancy accepted the text notice and chose to receive the delivery at her house. Soon afterward, I received a “Thank you!” text from her. It’s gratifying to see first-hand how this modern tool makes it so much easier to keep in touch and support others when they need it most.

Closing Note

Helping remote employees feel connected doesn’t need to be complicated. Even small gestures can make a big difference — whether people are face-to-face in an office, or are working together from a distance.

It’s the same lesson I learned from my father’s funeral. With sincere intent and just a bit of thoughtful effort, you can lift anyone’s spirits anytime. Chances are, that gesture will bring you closer together in a way neither of you will forget.

Does a shorter workweek actually work? Learn more about what it means to shift to a more flexible work schedule

Does a Shorter Workweek Actually Work?

/, , , , /by

The pandemic has sparked a global conversation about whether people who’ve been working from home should be free to choose their preferred work location. It’s a natural question for employers to ask as they prepare for the future of work. Now, even some ardent return-to-office fans are starting to rethink their stance. 

For example, late last year, the world watched as Twitter CEO Elon Musk issued a strict remote work ban. He soon softened his position, but it wasn’t enough to lure back many disaffected employees. Musk is among a growing list of leaders who are learning that today’s workforce prefers flexibility and wellbeing over “long hours at high intensity.”

The remote work debate continues. But this focus on where we work overshadows a more central argument about how much we should be working. Specifically, the ability to choose a shorter workday or workweek can help employees meet their individual needs. At the same time, reduced hours can help employers, because people are more engaged and productive when they are working, according to a report in The Atlantic.

 

The Downside of a Shorter Workweek

 

For most U.S. employers, reducing the standard 40-hour workweek would be a drastic change. This kind of shift in the status quo will no doubt draw resistance.

Opponents of a shorter workweek say this approach will be costlier and riskier to manage. They also note that, because some people won’t be able to participate, workforce inequality will increase.

Certainly, ineffective implementation could lead to poor employee morale and customer satisfaction. In fact, it could backfire if employees are expected to squeeze extra hours into a 4-day workweek. If managers don’t commit to a revised work structure, it will likely erode employee experience and customer experience, as well.


Why These Criticisms Don’t Stand


Interestingly, many of these 4-day workweek criticisms are similar to arguments against remote work. Clearly, every job cannot be conducted from home. A firefighter or police officer, for example, can’t fight fires or crime remotely. Microsoft Teams and Zoom simply aren’t designed to support these front-line professions.

Regardless, many of these workers can benefit from a shorter work schedule. And it can improve their performance when they are on the clock. For instance, a 4-day workweek trial study in New Zealand found that employees sustained their productivity, even though they experienced up to 45% less stress.

Less time spent working means more time spent with loved ones. In addition, a shortened workweek can help close the gender pay gap. For instance, in a U.K. survey, 2 million unemployed people said childcare responsibilities were the reason they remained unemployed. And 89% of these respondents are women.

 

Discomfort is a reflection of leaders gripping the bat too tightly. It’s a control issue. Many prefer uniformity and the status quo. It’s similar to the push-back we’re seeing with the shift to permanent hybrid work schedules.

Still, engagement studies continue to show year after year that work cultures are broken. Employers can’t continue doing the same things and expect different results. In the post-pandemic economy, we must reevaluate the classic 5-day workweek, as well as the standard 40-hour, full-time work schedule.

 

Reimagining the Workweek

 

Between the turbulent stock market and the Great Resignation in recent years, every company is facing significant challenges. Employees often share their feedback about serious work issues as they abandon ship, but for many organizations, the meter still isn’t moving in the right direction. The underlying problem is that we’re stuck in old ways of thinking.

 

Workers interviewed about why they left their companies often cited the lack of work-life balance as a massive contributing factor. Burnout became an overwhelming issue as companies shifted to work-from-home models. That’s not too surprising. Instead of leaving problems at the office, many people carried those problems wherever they were, at all hours of the day and night. For them, the work-from-home dream actually became more of a nightmare.

But employers have learned how to alleviate some of the stress by giving people more control over their work schedule. In fact, one recent study found that 94% of employees feel a sense of wellbeing when they know their employer cares about them. The option to choose a flexible schedule can accomplish that.

What’s the ROI?

The tangible benefits of a shorter workweek aren’t always obvious, but they deserve attention. In addition to decreased overhead and utility costs, a 4-day workweek means fewer sick days.

You can also realize financial gains by increasing employee retention. Say someone wants to leave your company to find a better work-life balance. You could offer that employee a reduced work schedule at the same salary, knowing they’ll likely remain onboard longer. Here’s why:

It costs an average of $4,000 to hire a new employee, and that person may need a year or longer to learn the job well enough to exceed expectations. The estimated cost of replacing an employee is about 9 months of their salary. And those costs add up fast when you have a revolving door of employees.

You might also want to consider several high-profile 4-day workweek business cases:

  • Perpetual Guardian saw an increase in employee commitment and empowerment without losing productivity or customers.
  • Microsoft Japan printed 59% fewer pages and used 23% less electricity during the program.
  • Unilever saw a roughly 34% decrease in absenteeism and stress levels.

 

3 Ways to Succeed With a Shorter Workweek

 

Getting started isn’t too complicated. In fact, our firm has worked with multiple companies that have shifted to a 4-day workweek. In one case, a manufacturing client in a rural community focused on its pool of working parents. This was a win/win because the adjusted schedule works for both the company and parents who want to stay involved with their kids’ schooling and extra-curricular activities.

As you develop and implement your game plan, be sure to include these elements:

 

1. Involve Your Team

Although the C-suite traditionally makes key business decisions, every employee has a valuable perspective. Some may prefer a 5-day workweek, while others might opt for a shorter schedule. Before you can implement a functional plan, you need to understand your employees’ wants and needs. They deserve a voice because ultimately, they need to make it work.

 

2. Focus on Outcomes

Your employees are central to this process, but your business and your customers matter, too. When assessing any job schedule, consider the outcomes you want to see instead of simply tracking hours. Focus on metrics like production, quality, or customer experience.

 

At the end of the day, shifting to shorter schedules can optimize resources and yield long-term savings. In the U.K. more than 50% of business leaders reported cost savings after shifting from a 5-day work schedule to a 4-day workweek. It shouldn’t matter if your team works 20 or 40 hours a week, as long as the job is done right.

 

3. Stay Open to Continuous Improvement

Forecasts are built on historical performance, so change can be uncomfortable at first. But once you shorten the workweek, you should see measurable improvement in team satisfaction, performance, and business results.

 

Don’t forget the importance of training. Everyone will need time to get used to new employee schedules, new work shifts, and new ways of managing staff. As long as communication remains open, your organization can successfully move through this culture shift.

Closing Notes

A shortened workweek doesn’t mean your team will accomplish less. In fact, flexibility is the cure for many problems companies are facing in this post-pandemic era.

Employee experience is a human experience. No matter when or where people work, it’s important to find a reasonable balance between work and life. If you redesign your work schedules now, employees will appreciate this change. And over time, you can expect to see even more benefits from your efforts.

How to Defeat Distance in a Distributed Team

How Do You Defeat Distance in a Distributed Team?

/, , , , /by

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

No doubt, you’ve heard this familiar quote. You may even have said it to encourage others who are separated from those they love. But although research says this tends to be true, people in long-distance relationships may not find it comforting. In fact, many would say that physical distance creates psychological distance.

Whatever the reality, the fact remains that in professional life, a parallel scenario often arises among colleagues on a distributed team. Physical distance can easily lead to psychological distance. And when that happens, performance suffers.

The Psychology of Teams

Teams define the very essence of organizations. Modern companies are built around a pyramidal structure, which itself is the combination of smaller pyramids we usually call “teams.” Ideally, the team’s diversity, harmony, trust, and commitment directly influence the creativity, speed, and quality of its output. And collectively, the dynamics of an organization’s teams define its overall impact.

For decades, managers have been striving to build teams that “dance” well together. And many have succeeded at driving team performance that rivals a Bolshoi Ballet. What’s the magic in this recipe? The key ingredient is the personal connection members forge with one another.

These connections transcend basic operational interactions. Not surprisingly, in healthy work environments, we sometimes hear people refer to their team or culture as a “family.” The metaphor makes sense — especially in intense environments like the military or an innovative startup company.

However, experts say leaders should tread lightly when using the term “family” in the context of organizational culture. After all, no one should feel so obligated to an employer that they can’t develop a meaningful life outside of work.

Today, as we look beyond the pandemic era, we see a business landscape that is increasingly defined by hybrid work models – where co-workers on the same team are working from different locations at different times. So, as a leader, how can you ensure that the connections among your team members will grow deeper, rather than withering away? Here are several suggestions…

3 Ways to Bring Distributed Team Members Closer

1. Drive Ownership

In a distributed team environment, it is a good idea to get everyone involved in decision-making. While this may not always be practical, it is often easy to accomplish.

For example, say you’re planning to recruit a new team member. Rather than making unilateral decisions about the role and the candidates, it’s a good idea to get buy-in from some senior contributors. This will encourage these colleagues to see themselves as participants in a critical decision-making process. It also helps develop a sense of ownership in the hiring process, so they’ll be more invested in ensuring the success of the new employee.

2. Encourage Cross-Sharing and Learning

Nothing strengthens work relationships better than shared interests. Therefore, it makes sense to make learning a central focus for your team.

Create a distributed framework for formal and informal knowledge sharing, communication, and performance support. This sends everyone a clear message that operational delivery is not the team’s primary goal. Rather, the growth and success of each member should be everyone’s priority.

As team members step up and share their knowledge or expertise with others, it helps to build mutual respect and appreciation, both of which are hallmarks of great teams.

A word of caution, however. Do not make the mistake of treating learning sessions as isolated, one-off sessions. Instead, for maximum benefits, provide relevant context. Weave instructional content, performance support, and informational resources into the fabric of the team’s operating guidelines. And be sure to index and publish these assets where they can be easily searched, accessed, and updated by all.

3. Organize Periodic Physical Meet-Ups

Most of us have discovered the wonders of video conferencing in recent years. We’ve also developed new social norms, thanks to the likes of Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and others platform providers. But although we often rely on digital technology to close the distance between people, nothing can replace in-person interaction.

Therefore, to drive remote team success, try investing in periodic face-to-face meet-ups. The ideal frequency will vary depending on multiple factors. For example, you’ll want to consider the nature of work and the geographic footprint of your team members. If everyone in your group is located in the same city, meet-ups could be more frequent than for those in different cities, states, countries, or continents.

Regardless, every manager should ensure that each meet-up offers a balanced mix of work endeavors and recreation. This will help everyone feel more connected and energized throughout the session and beyond.

Do You Manage a Distributed Team? What’s Your Next Move?

No plan or approach is bulletproof, mind you. But one thing is certain. If you incorporate these measures into your daily business practices, you will significantly improve the chance that you’ll reduce the distance between distributed team members. After all, it’s likely you’ve heard another popular quote:

“Out of sight, out of mind.”

For any leader seeking success in today’s hyper-competitive business world, this is a key issue you will want to avoid, no matter where your team members are located. So, go ahead. I encourage you to try these ideas to defeat “distance” across your organization. And don’t forget to share your experience!