When Should You Discuss A Problem With HR?

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Working in a toxic environment can rapidly erode your feelings about your job. Just dragging yourself to the office every day can fill you with dread. And evaluating whether to speak up to HR about the toxicity — How much should you say? — can be incredibly intimidating.

We know this from firsthand experience. A few years ago, we were asked to analyse and assess what seemed like an edgy, dynamic startup. After three weeks we realised we had unwittingly joined a team trying to navigate a destructive workplace culture. The team was led by an impossible-to-please micromanager with an explosive temper. The office environment was fraught and tensions were always running high. The organisation didn’t have an HR leader, or any other senior leaders, so people didn’t know where to turn for help. It took us 18 months to start changing mentalities and toxic work habits.

To this day, we help professionals solve workplace challenges that can feel insurmountable. Toxic norms and cultures are among the hardest issues to deal with, and can make people question their values and competence, and even wonder if quitting is their only option. If you’re feeling similarly, you aren’t alone — study after study shows that these kinds of cultures drive attrition. Other people make or break our experiences at work.

Toxic Versus Irritating

For someone to be considered “toxic,” they can’t just be annoying or unpleasant. We’ve all had colleagues or bosses who we found irritating or didn’t get along with, but that doesn’t necessarily make them toxic. To be toxic, a person or situation must be outside the bounds of normal workplace behaviour. A colleague whose work style and preferences regularly conflict with your own isn’t necessarily toxic. A boss who actively undermines your career progression or a leadership team that encourages cutthroat competition between departments, on the other hand, could qualify as toxic.

This distinction is important because if you go to HR about an issue that is more annoying than toxic, they may be happy to serve as a sounding board or to offer advice — but they’ll approach it far differently than they would something truly toxic. From an HR perspective, disagreements, irritations, or isolated incidents rarely warrant escalation. If there is ongoing friction due to conflicting work styles and personalities, HR will probably advise that you and your coworker find a way to discuss and resolve the challenges. You may receive support from HR on how to have the conversation, with an emphasis on working together to find a solution. For personal support, however, I encourage you to talk to someone you trust outside of your organisation. A mentor, former boss, therapist, or career coach can be a sounding board and an objective partner to help you clarify your next steps.

You may be considering going to HR about a toxic situation at your job. If possible, you should discuss the situation with your manager first to get their input and counsel. HR will most likely ask if you’ve gone to your boss for help, so it’s a good idea to do that first. However, if your manager is contributing to the toxic environment, you should talk to a senior leader you trust to receive an objective perspective and guidance. And if you are experiencing a situation that goes against company policy or could have legal implications, HR should be your first stop.

You may worry that going to HR about a certain person or situation could backfire. Maybe you fear that the toxic person will find out you said something and take action against you. Or maybe you’re nervous that going to HR about a toxic norm in company culture could hurt your career if senior leaders hear about it. These are normal fears, and before you do anything, it’s worth thinking carefully about what you want to do and make sure you understand the possible outcomes.

What to Consider Before Going to HR

As you weigh the pros and cons of speaking to HR, here are three questions to help assess your options.

1. Have I documented what happened?

If you plan to report toxicity to HR, you will need detailed records to clearly outline your claims. Make sure to document the following:

  • What was said or done
  • The date and time of the incidents
  • If there were any witnesses

For example, your record may state: “On Tuesday, July 11, at approximately 12:30 p.m. ET, I heard [insert name] use the following language [insert exact words] within our weekly Webex team meeting. The following people were present: [insert names].”

In addition to documenting any verbal exchanges or physical interactions, it’s important to also have available text messages, emails, photographs, or any other relevant evidence of what happened. Employment lawyers recommend keeping your records at home, not at work or on your company devices. If your employment status changes in the future, you will lose access to your work computer and the emails or records may be deleted.

Documenting the details in advance allows you to provide a full account to HR and specific feedback when needed. A detailed record will also give you the opportunity to cross-reference what you’ve documented against company policies. Finally, since many toxic situations can bring up strong emotions, especially while they’re happening, documenting what occurred will ensure you have a clear, fact-based record to refer to later.

2. What’s my objective?

By the time you decide you need to talk to HR, the toxic situation may feel like it’s becoming untenable. I encourage you to identify your overarching objective in speaking up.

In other words, be clear on what you hope to accomplish. It could be that you need HR to help resolve the issue. For example, the person who is instigating a toxic situation may need professional development training or coaching to address their behaviour. You may also be hoping to bring some accountability to their actions. Or, if there’s an ongoing issue and previous interventions have failed, HR may work with the relevant supervisors to create a performance improvement plan. Clarifying your overarching objective before you act allows you to consider the implications of the potential outcomes, ranging from the best possible response to a dismissive reaction.

Remember, too, that it’s important to acknowledge the remit of the HR team, which is to serve the best interest of the employer. As an employee, any expectations that an HR person will become your primary advocate are unrealistic. This is not personal; it’s just the nature of how organisations operate.

3. Is what I’m experiencing illegal?

Finally, before going to HR, consider whether the toxic behaviour you’re experiencing is illegal.

Dealing with toxic behaviour at work — whether it’s related to harassment, discrimination, ethical concerns, safety infringements, or retaliation — can be deeply distressing. HR departments have a responsibility to ensure that companies adhere to employment laws and regulations. An employer also has a legal obligation to investigate any good-faith complaint of harassment; discrimination based on race, sex, religion, disability, or other protected status; or retaliation for reporting an issue.

If you are unsure if what you are experiencing is illegal, seek out professional counsel. An employment lawyer can answer your questions based on the applicable laws and regulations, assess the evidence, and determine the merits of your claim. If you do have a case against your employer, an attorney can explain the legal process and advise you on how to navigate your interactions with HR.

On the other hand, if what you’re experiencing isn’t illegal but is toxic, I encourage you to explore all the potential options you can pursue that align with the objective you identified. To do this, start by considering whether additional stakeholders might be able to assist. Questions to consider include: Is anyone else impacted by the toxic behaviour? Is my supervisor already aware of it? Are other contingent factors contributing to what I’m experiencing? You may be able to seek counsel from additional stakeholders before instigating a conversation with HR.

CURIOUS ABOUT THE IMPACT OF OUR UNBIASED HR SOLUTIONS?

Take the first step towards transforming your remote work culture by requesting a free demo assessment from Great People Inside.

Our team of experts will guide you through the assessment process, showcasing the effectiveness and value of our tailored solutions for your organization.

During the demo, you will have the opportunity to explore the comprehensive features and functionalities of our psychometric assessments, experiencing firsthand how they can empower your HR strategies and drive positive outcomes. From personality assessments to cognitive abilities and team dynamics evaluations, our assessments provide valuable insights to enhance talent management and foster inclusive remote work environments.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to test the power of unbiased HR solutions. Request your free demo assessment from Great People Inside today and embark on a journey of fair and effective talent management in the remote work era.

Together, we can unlock the true potential of your remote teams and achieve remarkable success.Request a Free Demo Assessment.

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Sources:

https://www.wework.com/ideas/professional-development/creativity-culture/when-to-go-to-hr-for-a-problem
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/when-your-hr-department-is-your-friend/
https://fairygodboss.com/career-topics/when-to-go-to-hr

Can Hybrid Work Become Toxic?

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Toxicity at work — no matter where or how we do our jobs — is caused by a range of factors. It is important to recognize that some aspects of hybrid and remote work make toxicity more likely to occur.

First, though, let’s quickly outline what “toxic” actually means. It doesn’t refer to the misunderstandings, tensions, and conflicts that are a natural (and needed) part of any healthy organization. Nor does it refer to a one-off incident or a coworker who is a jerk every now and again. These kinds of irritations, for the most part, are best thought of as normal parts of (working) life.

So, what actually is considered toxic? A study by Donald Sull and his colleagues identified five attributes of a toxic culture: disrespectful, noninclusive, unethical, cutthroat, and abusive.

Toxicity carries a sense of inescapability, which is part of what makes it so painful to experience at work.

Undeniably negative as these attributes are, there is no absolute, uniformly accepted scale against which we can measure any of them — all five are subjective, anchored in each person’s experience. Making matters more complicated, a hybrid environment by definition means that employees are experiencing their work in very different contexts — some face-to-face, others remote — and those may vary by the day. As a result, hybrid workspaces aren’t uniform; some people may experience a hybrid environment as toxic while others do not. That does not make a toxic hybrid environment any less painful or damaging to those who experience it as such. However, it does mean that some behaviours may be toxic even as a result of well-meaning — or at least not ill-meaning — actions.

Remoteness changes dynamics

Working hybrid means that, compared with full-time in-office work, more communication will take place via technologies like email, text, phone, or video. One of the early findings in research on the effects of technology-mediated communication was that people become more disinhibited and exhibit less self-monitoring and self-control when communicating through technology. In other words, when we talk to one another electronically, we are more likely to blurt out things that might be hurtful. Think about heated exchanges you’ve had with colleagues both in person and electronically — chances are, you were much more tempted to try to slip in a sharp quip in an email than face-to-face.

This dynamic is not (necessarily) about being a nasty person. We all have moments of anger, frustration, or passion, and if handled badly, those feelings have the potential to turn toxic.

In face-to-face interactions, though, the human on the other side of the conversation is far more salient to us, leading most of us to recognize the potential costs of a less-careful word and bite our tongues. The point isn’t that we shouldn’t speak our minds (if we feel that we can’t, that’s bad for psychological safety), but that we should choose our words well. While the reduced self-monitoring and self-control that come with remote interactions do not necessarily cause toxicity, they certainly make it more likely for disrespectful or abusive (two of Sull’s toxicity characteristics) comments to come out.

Hybridity is fundamentally imbalanced

Hybrid also means different people are working in different contexts. Some may be at home, while others are in the office — and those locations have undeniable differences. People in the office have greater access to resources and higher visibility, often leading to more credit and quicker promotion as a result. Remote workers, meanwhile, often feel left out and shunned. Negative as these effects may be, they are not strictly toxic if everyone is equally disadvantaged at some point. The problem is when some people (likely remote/hybrid workers) feel consistently excluded — as was the experience of one manager I recently worked with.

Company policy was to allow all employees to work remotely two days a week, and the manager had allowed her team members to choose those days. She quickly discovered her team had effectively split on the basis of different (but consistent) patterns of which days people chose to come into the office. Compounding the issue, team members’ remote-work choices were heavily driven by commutes and children’s school schedules, which aligned them with demographic differences in the team. Problems arose when some team members felt they were being excluded from the discussions and meetings that occurred on the in-office days of the other group. The split led to interpersonal tensions and conflict, people feeling excluded and disrespected (two toxicity characteristics), and it ultimately resulted in turnover.

Hybridity can reduce cohesion and trust

Research shows that lack of close contact reduces connection and trust, which are key elements of a healthy culture. During the pandemic, I spoke to many employees who had started new jobs remotely, and I consistently heard that they hadn’t gotten to know their colleagues and felt disconnected. Research from Microsoft found remote working leads employees to have smaller, less-well-developed networks.

Remote (and by extension hybrid) working does not necessarily mean organizations will have a weak or inconsistent culture. Take Linux as an example. Its open-source software development from day one has been carried out by a loosely structured community of developers who have never met in person, yet extensive research on the group has found it has strong social norms governing behavior. However, it is hard to deny that the group’s structure (or lack thereof) removes or impedes many of the mechanisms we traditionally use to establish, transmit, and maintain culture. Note that Linux started with a remote, dispersed culture. While many companies have embraced remote and hybrid since the pandemic started, their cultures were already established and then adjusted to handle the crisis.

Culture is so important because it is the compass organizations use to eschew cutthroat and, in more extreme cases, unethical behavior. To be clear, hybridity does not inherently lead people to be more cutthroat or unethical (though one might argue the sense of distance between people makes them less aware of the negative ramifications of their actions). However, in every social system we find a range of behaviors, and culture typically helps us rein in the negative ones. On top of that, while people are less likely to exhibit toxic behaviors toward those they feel close and connected to, the distance that a remote/hybrid environment brings makes us more likely to view some of our colleagues not as “us” but as “them” — and it’s much easier to act poorly toward “them.”

Hybridity makes it hard to resolve issues

There’s one more key challenge in remote and hybrid work: We have fewer face-to-face interactions with colleagues, and research shows that it is harder to resolve disputes (like those around toxic behaviors) virtually. Think about trying to address a sensitive topic over Zoom with someone and worrying about everything from where they’re looking to how fast they reply. Are they giving me their full attention? Am I sure my sincerity is coming through over video? Was their slow response because they disagreed or are just lagging?

When we’re face-to-face, we have more interpersonal tools at our disposal. We have better data, as we can more easily read facial expressions and can see off-camera behaviors. We also have better tools, as face-to-face interactions allow us to synchronously work together to resolve differences. And the propinquity effect (essentially, we like people we have more exposure to) means all of this happens from a starting point of a closer relationship.

One other issue it’s important to mention is microaggressions, which some people have argued happen less often in remote settings because we’re around one another less. However, I would caution leaders and employees alike to stay vigilant for signs of microaggressions (often reflected in toxic behaviors like noninclusion) in hybrid settings. While these settings may have fewer touchpoints where microaggressions can occur, they do not remove the underpinnings of why microaggressions happen — nor do they prevent them from coming out in other outlets, such as Slack, messaging apps, or videoconferencing. In effect, hybrid work can obscure the problem without resolving it.

Educate employees

The first step toward avoiding toxic behavior in hybrid teams is to help people learn how it can arise. You may think, “Of course they know not to be disrespectful, abusive, or noninclusive,” but that’s not the issue. Sit down with your employees and have a conversation about how these outcomes can happen as unintended consequences of hybrid work arrangements and decisions. Remind them that toxicity is about behavior — and that what matters isn’t what your intention was but how others perceive your actions. A good starting point is to ask employees to reflect on hybrid work behaviors they may have experienced as toxic (for example, feeling routinely excluded from a social group or reading comments on Slack that they found abusive or disrespectful). The goal of this step is not to identify particular issues or point fingers but rather to increase employees’ self-awareness and the number of eyes out there looking for toxic behaviors or their antecedents.

Lay a foundation

As Benjamin Franklin famously said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” One of the most effective tools you can put in place is a culture with built-in antibodies against toxic behaviors. In particular, focus on promoting empathy and psychological safety. A culture with a core of empathy encourages employees to consider the impact of their actions on their colleagues, increasing the likelihood that employees catch themselves before behaving in a way another might find troubling. In turn, a culture that includes psychological safety is critical for those cases that empathy doesn’t prevent. We don’t always recognize the impact of our actions, and building psychological safety ensures that employees can speak up about the behaviors they perceive as toxic. Research has provided excellent practical advice for promoting both empathy and psychological safety.

Have ongoing conversations

Because the experience of hybrid work is different among employees and dynamic over time (someone may be in the office today, surrounded by colleagues, and at home alone tomorrow), toxicity is a moving target. The only truly effective way to manage such dynamism is with an ongoing process — and the cornerstone is repeated, ongoing conversations. I encourage hybrid teams and organizations to have periodic check-ins where everyone is encouraged to raise concerns or flag toxic experiences. There is no hard-and-fast rule for frequency, as it depends on how dynamic the organization’s hybrid environment is: The more and faster it changes, the more frequent those conversations should be. As a starting point, aim for a monthly check-in and adjust as needed. Make sure the psychological safety foundation is in place if you want people to share honestly, and treat these conversations as more than a superficial box-ticking exercise.

Intervene quickly

Even with a good understanding of the issues, a positive cultural foundation in place, and ongoing discussions, hybrid working may still lead to behaviors that your employees find toxic. A big problem with toxic environments is that they tend to get worse: Toxic behaviors either feed on themselves, breeding more toxicity, or cause disgruntled employees to disengage, creating new tensions due to workloads needing to be redistributed. To break the cycle, you need to not only keep an eye out for toxic behaviors but also be ready to move fast when you see them, help all parties engage in a dialogue, and work to reach a mutually acceptable solution.

Let’s say you notice a situation like that of the manager whose team was split over their WFH days. In a case like that, call a team meeting and share your concerns of how the situation might feel exclusionary. It may turn out your concerns aren’t shared — but you’re still creating buy-in and ownership of the issue, making it easier to address later if it does become a problem. If, however, you’ve recognized a budding concern for some of your team members, you have a forum to discuss and collectively resolve it before it gets too far along.

Toxicity can be an unfortunate reality of some work environments. While hybrid work does not necessarily cause toxicity any more than in-person work does, it is important to recognize that hybrid introduces some different mechanisms through which toxicity may arise. Keeping these in mind can help leaders recognize, guard against, and eliminate toxicity when it occurs — or ideally before.

CURIOUS ABOUT THE IMPACT OF OUR UNBIASED HR SOLUTIONS?

Take the first step towards transforming your remote work culture by requesting a free demo assessment from Great People Inside.

Our team of experts will guide you through the assessment process, showcasing the effectiveness and value of our tailored solutions for your organization.

During the demo, you will have the opportunity to explore the comprehensive features and functionalities of our psychometric assessments, experiencing firsthand how they can empower your HR strategies and drive positive outcomes. From personality assessments to cognitive abilities and team dynamics evaluations, our assessments provide valuable insights to enhance talent management and foster inclusive remote work environments.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to test the power of unbiased HR solutions. Request your free demo assessment from Great People Inside today and embark on a journey of fair and effective talent management in the remote work era.

Together, we can unlock the true potential of your remote teams and achieve remarkable success.Request a Free Demo Assessment.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is B_txt_01.png

Sources:

https://bloomtalks.com/why-hybrid-work-can-become-toxic/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecastrillon/2021/06/10/10-red-flags-of-a-toxic-hybrid-work-culture/
https://www.tabny.com/blog/recognizing-the-warning-signs-of-a-toxic-hybrid-work-environment

Unmasking Proximity Bias in Remote Work: Shattering the Illusion of Objectivity

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Making Performance Reviews Fairer in a Hybrid Workplace

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Performance reviews are an essential aspect of workplace culture and have become even more critical in the age of hybrid work. A fair and impartial evaluation of employee performance can drive motivation, increase engagement, and lead to overall better results. However, conducting fair and accurate reviews can be challenging in a hybrid environment where employees are working from both in-person and remote locations. To ensure a fair process, companies must be consistent, objective, and inclusive in their approach, while also fostering open communication and encouraging employee input. By taking these steps, organizations can create a performance review process that is both effective and equitable, helping to drive business success and improve employee satisfaction.

Emphasise Culture and Values

It is crucial for hybrid workplaces to have all employees understand and act according to the values of your organization — regardless of where they work.

One way to reinforce a common set of values is through your approach to performance appraisal. For example, online retailer Zappos evaluates employees both on performance and whether they are promoting Zappos culture in their day-to-day work. According to founder and former CEO Tony Hsieh, “We’ll fire people if they’re not good for the culture, even if they are doing their work perfectly fine.”

Similarly, the performance evaluation program at Johnstone Supply, a New Jersey based HVAC supply company, places its values front and centre. According to CHRO Chris Geschickter, “When we do performance reviews, our values are our leading criteria. The majority of how we do performance evaluation is by reflecting on our core values, and then assessing whether an employee’s behaviour is aligned with them, in terms of customer service, teamwork, and such. To us, performance evaluation is a conversation throughout the year, with a lot of self-evaluations.”

Values-based approaches to evaluations create a common platform for assessing performance of differently situated employees while promoting a unified workplace culture. While incorporating values into performance evaluation isn’t necessarily new, redoubling efforts towards this seemed to resonate particularly strongly in hybrid environments.

Continually Track the Most Important Metrics

Dallas-based tax services firm, Ryan, LLC, shifted to a Results-Only Work Environment in 2008, allowing employees to work from anywhere and at any time. Their transition has been a huge success — turnover has plummeted; morale, engagement, customer satisfaction, and financial performance have soared.

Key to making it work is a performance appraisal approach that uses a set of agreed-upon performance metrics that are consistently tracked, and can be accessed at any time on a convenient intranet dashboard. Former CHRO, Delta Emerson, explained, “Managers and employees can log on and see their dashboard. It displays their revenue targets and other performance goals, as well as where they stand and how their performance feeds into incentive pay. Finally, we hold managers accountable by tracking turnover and engagement scores in their groups.”

It’s important to note that Ryan’s approach — which provides clarity on goals and continuous measurement of performance — translates perfectly to hybrid work environments. Their system is fair and transparent for both those employees who mostly work at the office and those who mostly work remotely, and, importantly, creates accountability for managers in engaging and retaining employees.

Leverage Technology

With agreement on which metrics of employee performance to track, companies can then leverage technology to further level the playing field. General Electric, for example, uses an app-based system that allows employees to share performance milestones with their teams and managers.

While the company once prided itself on its process of formal, competitive annual performance reviews, this new approach encourages collaborative performance conversations. Managers use it to provide frequent feedback through performance “touchpoints” to employees. And peers use it to provide real-time developmental feedback and recognition.

This approach focuses employees and managers on continuous improvement and development, bolstering decisions on raises, promotions, and developmental opportunities which now occur year-round. As a result, the app-based system helps level the playing field by ensuring employees, managers, and co-workers can better “see” each other’s work and provide feedback no matter where work gets done.

If your workplace has changed, your evaluation process must too

The move to remote or hybrid environments for many companies has been a bumpy one. What I saw in my research though is that traditional good management including frequent goal-setting, peer feedback, and progress reporting, still mattered. The difference was in how companies now need to apply these principles. And while I saw companies applying them in the variety of ways I outlined above, they all were successful for three reasons.

First, they defined performance in terms of customer satisfaction, company values, core activities, and project completion. Second, they incorporated regular goal-setting and feedback sessions. Finally, they encouraged collaboration and team building by sharing performance assessment responsibilities across the workforce.

The lesson, then, is that creative approaches to performance evaluation are not only possible, but required at hybrid workplaces. It is the only way to ensure that all employees are evaluated and developed according to their merit, regardless of where they do most of their work.

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?      

Request a free demo: 

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Sources:

https://headtopics.com/us/making-performance-reviews-fairer-in-a-hybrid-workplace-34961716
https://lattice.com/library/how-to-successfully-conduct-performance-reviews-in-a-hybrid-workplace
https://content.mycareersfuture.gov.sg/how-conduct-fair-transparent-performance-appraisals-hybrid-workplace/

Managers It’s Time to Stop Distracting Your Employees

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It’s no secret companies spy on their staff. A recent New York Times article stated that 8 of the 10 largest American companies surveil their employees with tracking software. According to The Washington Post, global demand for employee monitoring tools increased by 65% from 2019 to 2022.

The rise of remote work has made corporate leaders paranoid, thinking they must monitor their employees’ every digital move.

Employee productivity software often measures vanity metrics, such as how many emails employees send, virtual meetings they attend, and how much time they spend typing on their computer keyboards. It doesn’t track tasks away from the computer — disregarding time spent thinking, reading or writing on paper, for example — or measure accomplishments and outcomes. Not even the leaders of productivity software approve of this use case for their apps.

Managers play a crucial role in the success of a business, but they can also be a source of distraction for their employees. Distractions can come in many forms, from interruptions during meetings to unrealistic deadlines and constant changes in direction. In this article, we will discuss some of the common ways managers distract their employees and what can be done to mitigate these distractions.

One of the most common ways managers distract their employees is through constant interruptions. This can include interrupting employees during meetings, not allowing them to finish their thoughts, and constantly checking in on their progress. This type of distraction can be particularly frustrating for employees who are trying to focus on a specific task or project. To combat this type of distraction, managers can set clear boundaries around when and how they will communicate with their employees. They can also schedule regular check-ins and stick to them, rather than constantly dropping in unannounced.

Another way managers distract their employees is through unrealistic deadlines and constant changes in direction. When employees are constantly being asked to shift their focus or are given unrealistic deadlines, they can become overwhelmed and stressed, which can negatively impact their productivity. To mitigate this type of distraction, managers can communicate clearly with their employees about the goals and priorities of a project. They can also work with their employees to set realistic deadlines and provide them with the resources and support they need to meet those deadlines.

In addition, Managers may distract their employees through micromanaging their work. This type of distraction can be particularly frustrating for employees who are experienced and skilled in their field and are looking for autonomy in their work. To reduce this type of distraction, managers can trust their employees to do their jobs and provide them with the resources and support they need to be successful. They can also give them the flexibility to find their own ways of completing tasks.

Finally, Managers may distract their employees through negative or toxic work environment. This type of distraction can be particularly destructive for employees, who may feel demotivated and disengaged from their work. To combat this type of distraction, managers can create a positive and inclusive work culture where employees feel valued, respected and heard. They can also provide regular feedback and recognition for a job well done.

In conclusion, managers play a crucial role in the success of a business, but they can also be a source of distraction for their employees. Distractions can come in many forms, from interruptions during meetings to unrealistic deadlines and constant changes in direction. To mitigate these distractions, managers can set clear boundaries, communicate effectively, provide realistic deadlines, trust their employees, and create positive and inclusive work culture. By addressing these distractions, managers can help their employees to be more productive and engaged in their work.

Set an example

Company culture, like water, flows downhill. People turn to their managers to know what’s expected of them. You can’t demand that your staff work without distraction if you’re constantly looking at your phone in the middle of meetings or sending emails at midnight.

So, make time for focused work yourself. Let people know when you’re available, and don’t interrupt others during their focused work or off-hours. The most critical step to building an indistractable workplace is being an indistractable boss.

While leaders may suspect the source of employee distraction is Facebook, TikTok, or Netflix, in truth, it’s more likely to be how we work. The above strategies — discussing the problem of distraction at work, adopting schedule-synching, cutting down on superfluous agenda-free meetings, and modelling what it means to be indistractable — can help you improve employee well-being and productivity by getting to the root causes of distraction at work.

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?      

Request a free demo: 

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Sources:

https://www.risely.me/how-to-keep-your-team-away-from-workplace-distractions/
https://www.nysscpa.org/article-content/managers-can-set-an-example-when-it-comes-to-workplace-distractions-011223#sthash.fpYkIv9L.dpbs
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/8098-distractions-kiling-productivity.html

Why Managers & Employees Clash Over Remote Work

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The shift to remote work has brought about many changes for both employees and managers. While remote work can offer flexibility and the ability to work from anywhere, it also introduces new challenges and opportunities for disagreement between managers and employees. Here are some common areas of disagreement and ways to address them.

Remote work, hybrid work, distributed work, flexitime… Work flexibility takes many forms. But employee centricity is essential to sustain a successful business. Consequently, an important shift such as changing the entire way your workforce works requires considering both points of view: the employer and the employee. Is your staff ready to do all their meetings online? How are you going to maintain a corporate culture? The working model must reflect the business’s needs and fulfill your team members’ expectations. Getting their feedback and discussing the best strategy to put in place is fundamental. Is switching to a remote work schedule the right move? What are the advantages and disadvantages of remote working? This article details the pros and cons of remote work for employees and employers. Hopefully, this will give you a better idea about if prioritizing a “work from anywhere” policy is the right approach for your flexible company.

Communication and collaboration

One of the main challenges of remote work is maintaining clear and effective communication and collaboration. Without the ability to meet in person or have impromptu conversations, it can be more difficult for employees to stay up-to-date on projects and for managers to ensure that work is being completed effectively.

To address this issue, it is important for both managers and employees to establish clear communication channels and protocols. This may include setting regular check-ins via video call, using project management tools to track progress, and setting up virtual meeting spaces for team collaboration. It is also important for both parties to be proactive in communicating any issues or concerns they have, and to make an effort to be responsive to communication from the other party.

Work-life balance

Remote work can blur the lines between personal and professional time, which can lead to disagreements over boundaries and expectations. Some employees may feel that they are expected to be available at all times, while others may feel that their manager is not respecting their personal time.

To address this issue, it is important for both managers and employees to establish clear boundaries and expectations around work hours and availability. This may include setting specific times for meetings and check-ins, and allowing for flexible scheduling within certain limits. It is also important for both parties to be mindful of the other’s needs and to communicate openly about any conflicts that arise.

Performance evaluation

Evaluating the performance of remote employees can be more difficult than evaluating in-office employees, as managers may not have as much visibility into the day-to-day work of their team. This can lead to disagreements over how work is being measured and how to fairly evaluate the performance of remote employees.

To address this issue, it is important for both managers and employees to establish clear goals and expectations, and to regularly communicate about progress towards those goals. It may also be helpful to use a variety of methods for evaluating performance, such as self-assessments, peer feedback, and objective measures of output. By using a diverse range of evaluation methods, managers can get a more complete picture of an employee’s performance and avoid any potential disagreements.

Productivity is not the only place where managers and employees disagree. They also have very different ideas about the disciplinary consequences of not coming into the office. We asked both managers and employees what happens to workers who stay home on “work days.” Employees were far more likely than managers to answer “nothing,” while managers were more likely to say that the worker was risking termination.

These differences in opinion reflect the need for more clear-cut policies on working from home. The best available approach for most companies is organized hybrid. Employers should choose two or three “anchor” days a week that all employees come into the office — typically between Tuesday and Thursday because Monday and Friday are the most popular work-from-home days. These in-office days should include the bulk of meetings, group activities, trainings, and lunches so that employees see the value of coming together. And attendance should be enforced the same way it was pre-pandemic: Not coming to work on anchor days is not acceptable, except in the case of emergencies, like a sick child or a burst water pipe. Finally, managers should actively encourage working from home on non-anchor days, so employees can enjoy the benefits without fear that they’re missing out on something at the office. 

Conclusion

Remote work can bring about many challenges and opportunities for disagreement between managers and employees. By establishing clear communication channels and protocols, setting boundaries and expectations around work-life balance, and using diverse evaluation methods, both parties can work together effectively to overcome these challenges and ensure the success of their remote work arrangement.

It’s natural that a massive shock to working conditions like working from home would cause disagreements between employees and managers, but we’ve had more than two years to navigate this change and the outlines of the new era are coming into focus. The best evidence we have suggests that organized hybrid raises employee and firm productivity. Managers and employees need to get on the same page.

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?      

Request a free demo: 

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Sources:

https://headtopics.com/us/research-where-managers-and-employees-disagree-about-remote-work-33689105
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/01/remote-work-culture/
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210908-what-bosses-really-think-about-remote-work

Distrust In HR Department And What Can Be Done To Solve It

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Some crisis situations burst on the scene and are in plain view for the world to see. Others can simmer for months or years out of sight, out of mind and under the radar of corporate executives.

The distrust that employees have in their company’s HR staff is an example of a simmering internal crisis that can boil over and scald the image, reputation and credibility of organisations and their leaders.

But before business leaders can address the problem, they need to understand what’s causing it.

‘A Natural Distrust’

Rachel Fiset is the managing partner of law firm Zweiback, Fiset & Coleman. She said, ‘’Employees have traditionally had a natural distrust for human resources because the department generally prioritises the company over the employee.

‘’Human resources will often field complaints by employees — but the actual response to the complaints may look like the company is only working to ensure its own legal compliance in a given situation and not to improve the employee’s working conditions,’’ she noted.

Serving The Bottom Line

HR consultant Claire Brummell observed that, “Many HR departments can be seen to approach employees as little more than a resource to serve the needs of the corporate bottom line, where the needs of the leaders, departments and business are considered and prioritized over that of, and often to the detriment [of], the needs of the employees.

“HR Departments that function from this place of utilising humans as little more than another expendable business resource have already failed their employees and will garner their distrust.”

Insights From Surveys

Two surveys provide these important insights into the trust problem.

Human relations platform Cezanne HR recently surveyed over 1,000 workers at organisations with more than 250 employees in the UK. They found that:

  • Almost half (47%) of employees don’t trust HR to help with conflict resolution.
  • 48% don’t trust HR to make them aware of internal promotion opportunities.
  • More than two in five (45%) of respondents don’t believe HR will act impartially, while 43% believe senior staff members are favoured.

Last year, U.S.-based Zeneefits, an HR, payroll and benefits company, released a report called “Human Resources: Helpful or Horrible?” According to their research:

  • 38% of employee respondents feel HR does not equally enforce company policies for all employees, with 18% of that group believing managers get special treatment.
  • 71% of HR employees in the survey stated that less than 30% of complaints they received in the last 2 years resulted in any disciplinary action. Having less than a third of cases result in disciplinary action led employees to wonder — if they bring complaints forward, will anything even result?

Historical Bias

Lesa Hammond is a 30-year veteran of HR and was the chief human resources officer at three universities. She is now an instructor in the HR certificate program at San Francisco State University and CEO of workplace platform Attaché for Business.

She pointed out that, “Much of the distrust in HR come from an historical bias employees and management hold or a lack of transparency by the HR department. If the leadership of the company, of which HR should be a part, does not have respect for the department, it is not given much power and becomes a bureaucratic bottleneck, rather than a strategic problem solver.

“Employees also lose faith in HR when they come with a problem and it appears it is being held against them or nothing seems to be happening regarding the problem,’’ she commented.

Unequal Treatment Of Co-Workers

Employment attorney Jonathan LaCour, of Employees First Labor Law said many of the cases he handles lead straight back to problems in a company’s human resources department.

“One common reason employees distrust HR is that they see unequal treatment of co-workers due to friendships or connections within the company, or because of someone’s status as a manager. Company handbooks almost always state that human resources policies will be implemented fairly, consistently and impartially. Everyone can see when it’s not,” he observed.

Lack Of Qualifications

LaCour noted that, “Another area where companies create problems for employees and themselves is when they put people in charge of human resources who have no business being there. In one recent case, a man with no experience in human resources was hired to help run the department. He turned out to be an aggressive sexual harasser and cost the company a lot of money.

“In another case, a company with 160 employees made a payroll accountant their human resources manager — for half a day every week. This person had no prior experience in anything HR related and was impossible for employees to get hold of. And when they handed out advice, it was entirely ignorant of applicable law,” he recalled.

Visibility

Sue Lingard, marketing director of Cezanne HR said, “HR teams have to get out and get in front of employees—and do it on a regular basis. The research found that the better-known they are, the higher the level of trust, and that’s good for the way the whole business works together.

“Start with the onboarding processes, but then ensure there are other opportunities where HR can be seen by more people. Perhaps by championing diversity, equity and inclusion or climate change initiatives, hosting drop-in days or sitting in on wider team meetings,” she advised.

Transparency

Sebastien Anderson is the founding partner of Labour Rights Law Office in Canada. He recommended that HR staff be transparent about their role and refrain from misleading employees that the HR department is on their side or is their friend. “In my experience, too many naive employees believe that HR advisors are like neutral ombudspersons troubleshooting potential conflict between an employee and their manager(s),” he observed.

“HR advisors who mislead employees about their role give all HR professionals a bad name and seed distrust between employees and management,” Anderson concluded.

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

https://www.breathehr.com/en-au/blog/topic/business-leadership/what-can-you-do-when-you-lose-the-trust-of-an-employee
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/10/hr-has-lost-the-trust-of-employees-here-is-who-has-it-now
https://www.recruiter.com/recruiting/employees-losing-trust-in-employees-after-pandemic/

Are Work Friends Invaluable?

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Millions of people suffer from loneliness. More than 300 million people globally don’t have a single friend, according to Gallup data. And more than 20% of people don’t have friends or family they can count on whenever they need them, let alone any work friends.

The average person spends 81,396 hours — the equivalent of more than nine years — at work. “Americans are now more likely to make friends at work than any other way — including at school, in their neighbourhood, at their place of worship, or even through existing friends,” according to the Survey Centre on American Life.

So, people spend a lot of their lives at work, and that’s where they’re most likely to develop friendships. Yet of everything companies do to improve employees’ lives and promote their happiness, social well-being is the aspect they invest in least, according to a Gallup survey of CHROs of the world’s largest companies. Indeed, Gallup finds that globally, only three in 10 employees strongly agree they have a best friend at work.

Why Should Companies Care?

Despite claiming “people are our greatest asset,” many executives I’ve met expect employees to leave their personal lives at the door when they come to work. Yet Gallup’s data shows that having a best friend at work is strongly linked to business outcomes, including improvements in profitability, safety, inventory control, and employee retention.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Minnesota not only confirmed that close friendships increase workplace productivity, they also found out why — friends are more committed, communicate better, and encourage each other. And according to a global study by the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), “Interpersonal work relationships have a sizeable and significant positive effect on the job satisfaction of the average employee. Relationships rank first out of 12 domains of workplace quality in terms of power to explain variation in job satisfaction.”

If increased productivity, profitability, job satisfaction, and retention aren’t enough, Gallup’s latest findings show that since the start of the pandemic, having a best friend at work has an even greater impact on important outcomes — like workers’ likelihood to recommend their workplace, intent to leave, and overall satisfaction. With the unavoidable increase in remote and hybrid work, best friends at work have become lifelines who provide crucial social connection, collaboration, and support for each other during times of change.

Unfortunately, the pandemic not only exacerbated global loneliness, it also took a toll on workplace friendships. Among people working in hybrid environments, Gallup has seen a five-point decline in those who say they have a best friend at work since 2019.

Whether a workplace is fully in person, fully remote, or hybrid, a culture that prioritizes and encourages work friendships is good for employees and good for the bottom line. So how can managers create and maintain a friendship-friendly workplace that delivers measurable results while also helping to combat the global epidemic of loneliness? Here are some actions to take right now:

Establish a buddy system

Everyone needs a buddy, especially when they’re new to a company. Teaming up new hires with veteran employees can expedite onboarding and productivity. Workplace buddies not only give new hires tips like where stuff is and what the unwritten rules are, but they help them make connections with other people in the company. And some of these initial connections will almost certainly lead to long-term relationships.

The key to an effective buddy system is the frequency of the interactions. Microsoft found that when its new hires met with their buddy more than eight times in their first 90 days on the job, 97% said that their buddy helped them become productive quickly. But when new hires met with their buddy only once during the first 90 days, that number was only 56%.

Increase face time

Before the pandemic, work was a place where colleagues could get coffee, have lunch, and run into each other in the hallway for impromptu conversations. For people who started working remotely full time in 2020, one of the biggest changes was the sharp decrease in hours they spent engaging socially with work friends.

Building friendships requires talking to, seeing, and being with people. The best way to connect is to see each other — even if it’s on Zoom or FaceTime. But at a minimum, co-workers need to talk more and email less. Email will never live up to face-to-face dialogue. Plus, it’s much easier to misinterpret what someone means over email.

Business leaders need to set an example: Communicate in person more and email less. Further, leaders can encourage in-person interactions by revising expectations, establishing new cultural norms, and even updating workplace configurations. For example, encourage cross-training or have workers rotate job duties so they can collaborate with people in other areas of the company. Exposure to new people creates opportunities to meet new friends. Plan on-site social events, meetings, or lunches. Move people’s workspaces closer together. Where else do you spend so much time with people from different walks of life organized around a common mission? And where else are you so dependent on the efforts of others?

Jam constantly

When people share a common goal and achieve great things together, they form a connection. The joy is in working together to produce magic. Using the Beatles as an example of a high-performing team, The Economist states: “The Beatles love what they do for a living. When they are not playing music, they are talking about it or thinking about it. They do take after take of their own songs, and jam constantly.”

If you’ve ever been part of a collaborative “jam session,” you know the feeling. Your employees want to feel that too — the satisfaction and pride of creating something great while having fun. Best friends trust, accept, and forgive each other. And when they work together, Gallup research has shown that they are significantly more likely to engage customers and internal partners, get more done in less time, support a safer workplace, innovate and share ideas, and have fun on the job.

Don’t force it.

Thanks to the pandemic, the days of all-but-mandatory happy hours and “kindergarten offices” full of games and colourful toys designed to encourage workers to stay late for fun team-building activities might be behind us. According to Paul Lopushinsky, founder of Vancouver-based consultancy Playficient, “That culture isn’t really about fun; it’s about getting people to stay longer.”

You can mandate policies, training or timesheets, but you can’t make people be friends. You don’t want your employees to start hating the very thought of company parties. If your company still discourages workplace friendships despite the proven benefits to business outcomes, remember this simple premise: To ignore friendships is to ignore human nature. In the battle between company policy and human nature, human nature always wins. The evidence suggests that people will fulfil their social needs, regardless of what is mandated. Companies do far better to harness the power of this kind of social capital than to fight against it.

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/14/business/work-friends.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/katecooper/2021/09/28/the-importance-of-work-friends/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/forget-work-friends-more-americans-are-all-business-on-the-job-11660736232

Quiet Quitting Is About Bosses, Not Employees

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“Quiet quitting” is a new name for an old behaviour. The authors, who have conducted 360-degree leadership assessments for decades, have regularly asked people to rate whether their “work environment is a place where people want to go the extra mile.” Their data indicates that quiet quitting is usually less about an employee’s willingness to work harder and more creatively, and more about a manager’s ability to build a relationship with their employees where they are not counting the minutes until quitting time.

Every employee, every workday, makes a decision: Are they only willing to do the minimum work necessary to keep their job? Or are they willing to put more of their energy and effort into their work?

In the last few weeks, many of those who choose the former have self-identified as “quiet quitters.” They reject the idea that work should be a central focus of their life. They resist the expectation of giving their all or putting in extra hours. They say “no” to requests to go beyond what they think should be expected of a person in their position.

In reality, quiet quitting is a new name for an old behaviour. Organisational psychologists have been conducting 360-degree leadership assessments for decades, and they’ve regularly asked people to rate whether their “work environment is a place where people want to go the extra mile.” To better understand the current phenomenon of quiet quitting, we looked at the data to try to answer this question: What makes the difference for those who view work as a day prison and others who feel that it gives them meaning and purpose?

The data collected indicates that quiet quitting is usually less about an employee’s willingness to work harder and more creatively, and more about a manager’s ability to build a relationship with their employees where they are not counting the minutes until quitting time.

What the Data Shows

We looked at data gathered since 2020 on 2,801 managers, who were rated by 13,048 direct reports. On average, each manager was rated by five direct reports, and we compared two data points:

Employees’ ratings of their manager’s ability to “Balance getting results with a concern for others’ needs”

Employee’s ratings of the extent to which their “work environment is a place where people want to go the extra mile”

The research term we give for those willing to give extra effort is “discretionary effort.” Its effect on organizations can be profound: If you have 10 direct reports and they each give 10% additional effort, the net results of that additional effort are increased productivity.

The graph below shows the results. We found that the least effective managers have three to four times as many people who fall in the “quiet quitting” category compared to the most effective leaders. These managers had 14% of their direct reports quietly quitting, and only 20% were willing to give extra effort. But those who were rated the highest at balancing results with relationships saw 62% of their direct reports willing to give extra effort, while only 3% were quietly quitting.

Many people, at some point in their career, have worked for a manager that moved them toward quiet quitting. This comes from feeling undervalued and unappreciated. It’s possible that the managers were biased, or they engaged in behaviour that was inappropriate. Employees’ lack of motivation was a reaction to the actions of the manager.

Most mid-career employees have also worked for a leader for whom they had a strong desire to do everything possible to accomplish goals and objectives. Occasionally working late or starting early was not resented because this manager inspired them.

What to Do If You Manage a “Quiet Quitting ”Employee

Suppose you have multiple employees who you believe to be quietly quitting. In that case, an excellent question to ask yourself is: Is this a problem with my direct reports, or is this a problem with me and my leadership abilities?

If you’re confident in your leadership abilities and only one of your direct reports is unmotivated, that may not be your fault. As the above chart shows, 3% or 4% of the best managers had direct reports who were quietly quitting.

Either way, take a hard look at your approach toward getting results with your team members. When asking your direct reports for increased productivity, do you go out of your way to make sure that team members feel valued? Open and honest dialogue with colleagues about the expectations each party has of the other goes a long way.

The most important factor is trust. When we analysed data from more than 113,000 leaders to find the top behaviour that helps effective leaders balance results with their concern for team members, the number one behaviour that helped was trust. When direct reports trusted their leader, they also assumed that the manager cared about them and was concerned about their wellbeing.

Our research has linked trust to three behaviours. First, having positive relationships with all of your direct reports. This means you look forward to connecting and enjoy talking to them. Common interests bind you together, while differences are stimulating. Some team members make it easy to have a positive relationship. Others are more challenging. This is often a result of differences (age, gender, ethnicity, or political orientation). Look for and discover common ground with these team members to build mutual trust.

The second element of trust is consistency. In addition to being totally honest, leaders need to deliver on what they promise. Most leaders believe they are more consistent than others perceive them.

The third element that builds trust is expertise. Do you know your job well? Are you out of date on any aspects of your work? Do others trust your opinions and your advice? Experts can bring clarity, a path forward, and clear insight to build trust.

By building a trusting relationship with all of your direct reports, the possibility of them quietly quitting dissipates significantly. The approach leaders took to drive for results from employees in the past is not the same approach we use today. We are building safer, more inclusive, and positive workplaces, and we must continue to do better.

It’s easy to place the blame for quiet quitting on lazy or unmotivated workers, but instead, this research is telling us to look within and recognize that individuals want to give their energy, creativity, time, and enthusiasm to the organisations and leaders that deserve it.

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

https://www.axios.com/2022/09/07/quiet-quitting-pandemic-labor-jobs-unions
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/398306/quiet-quitting-real.aspx
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/02/how-quiet-quitting-became-the-next-phase-of-the-great-resignation.html

Recreating a Community at Work

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For decades, we’ve been living lonelier, more isolated lives. As our social connectedness and sense of community has decreased, so has our happiness and mental health. And with more aspects of our lives becoming digital, it has reduced our opportunities for everyday social interaction. The nature of our work, in particular, has shifted.

In 2014, Christine and Energy Project CEO Tony Schwartz partnered to learn more about what stands in the way of being more productive and satisfied at work. One of the more surprising findings was that 65% of people didn’t feel any sense of community at work.

That seemed costly (and sad!), motivating Christine to write Mastering Community, since lonelier workers report lower job satisfaction, fewer promotions, more frequent job switching, and a higher likelihood of quitting their current job in the next six months. Lonelier employees also tend to perform worse.

During the pandemic, many of us became even more isolated. Community, which we define as a group of individuals who share a mutual concern for one another’s welfare, has proven challenging to cultivate, especially for those working virtually. To learn more, we conducted a survey with the Conference for Women in which we asked nearly 1,500 participants about their sense of community at work before and since the pandemic and found it has declined 37%. When people had a sense of community at work, we found that they were 58% more likely to thrive at work, 55% more engaged, and 66% more likely to stay with their organization. They experienced significantly less stress and were far more likely to thrive outside of work, too.

People can create community in many ways, and preferences may differ depending on their backgrounds and interests. Here are several ways companies have successfully built a sense of community at work that leaders can consider emulating at their own organizations.

Create mutual learning opportunities

After creating an internal university for training years ago, Motley Fool, the stock advisor company, realized that the teachers got even more out of it than the students. The feedback led to a vibrant coaching program in which about 10% of employees act as a coach to other employees. For many, being a coach is a favourite part of their job. Chief People Officer Lee Burbage said, “When you think of progress and growth in a career, your mind tends to stay boxed into ‘What is my current role? What am I doing?’…we really try to encourage side projects…taking on a teaching role, taking on a coaching role, being a leader in one of our ERGs, that sort of thing.”

Burbage went on to describe how the company helped foster a sense of community by enabling employees to learn from one another in a less formal way:

We’ve had incredible fun and incredible effectiveness going out to [employees] and saying, “Hey, is anybody really good at something and would be interested in teaching others?” All it takes is for them to set up a Zoom call. We’ve had everything from DJ class to butchering class. How to make drinks, how to sew. Tapping into your employees and skills they may already have that they’d be excited to teach others, especially in the virtual world, that makes for a great class and creates an opportunity again for them to progress and grow and meet new people.

Plug into your local community

Kim Malek, the cofounder of ice cream company Salt & Straw, forges a sense of meaning and connectedness among employees, customers, and beyond to the larger communities in which her shops are located. From the beginning, Kim and her cousin and cofounder, Tyler Malek, “turned to their community, asking friends — chefs, chocolatiers, brewers, and farmers — for advice, finding inspiration everywhere they looked.”

Kim and Tyler worked with the Oregon Innovation Centre, a partnership between Oregon State University and the Department of Agriculture, to help companies support the local food industry and farmers. Kim Malek told Christine that every single ice cream flavour on their menu “had a person behind it that we worked with and whose story we could tell. So that feeling of community came through in the actual ice cream you were eating.”

On the people side, Salt & Straw partners with local community groups Emerging Leaders, an organization that places BIPOC students into paid internships, and The Women’s Justice Project (WJP), a program in Oregon that helps formerly incarcerated women re-join their communities. They also work with DPI Staffing to create job opportunities for people with barriers like disabilities and criminal records, and have hired 10 people as part of that program.

In partnership with local schools, Salt & Straw holds an annual “student inventors series” where children are invited to invent a new flavour of ice cream. The winner not only has their ice cream produced, but they read it to their school at an assembly, and the entire school gets free ice cream. This past year, Salt & Straw held a “rad readers” series and invited kids to submit their wildest stories attached to a proposed ice cream flavour. Salt & Straw looks for ways like this to embed themselves in and engage with the community to help people thrive. It creates meaning for their own community while also lifting up others.

Create virtual shared experiences

Develop ways for your people to connect through shared experiences, even if they’re working virtually. Sanjay Amin, head of YouTube Music + Premium Subscription Partnerships at YouTube, will share personal stories, suggest the team listen to the same album, or try one recipe together. It varies and is voluntary. He told Christine he tries to set the tone by being “an open book” and showing his human side through vulnerability. Amin has also sent his team members a “deep question card” the day before a team meeting. It’s completely optional but allows people to speak up and share their thoughts, experiences, and feelings in response to a deep question — for example:

If you could give everyone the same superpower, which superpower would you choose?

What life lesson do you wish everyone was taught in school?

He told Christine, “Fun, playful questions like these give us each a chance to go deep quickly and understand how we uniquely view the world” and that people recognized a shared humanity and bonding.

EXOS, a coaching company, has a new program, the Game Changer, that’s a six-week experience designed to get people to rethink what it means to sustain performance and career success in the long run. Vice President Ryan Kaps told Christine, “Work is never going back to the way it was. We saw an opportunity to help people not only survive, but thrive.”

In the Game Changer, members are guided by an EXOS performance coach and industry experts to address barriers that may be holding them back from reaching their highest potential at work or in life. Members learn science-backed strategies that deepen their curiosity, awaken their creativity, and help sustain energy and focus. The program structure combines weekly individual self-led challenges and live virtual team-based huddles and accountability, which provide community and support. People who’ve completed the Game Changer call it “transformative,” with 70% of participants saying they’re less stressed and 91% reporting that it “reignited their passion and purpose.”

Make rest and renewal a team effort

Burnout is rampant and has surged during the pandemic. In our recent survey, we found that only 10% of respondents take a break daily, 50% take breaks just once or twice a week, and 22% report never taking breaks. Distancing from technology is particularly challenging, with a mere 8% of respondents reporting that they unplug from all technology daily. Consider what you can do to focus on recovery, together.

Tony Schwartz told Christine about the work his group did with a team from accounting firm Ernst and Young. In 2018, this team had been working on a particularly challenging project during the busy season, the result being that the team members became so exhausted and demoralized that a majority of them left the company afterward.

To try to change this, the 40-person EY team worked with the Energy Project to develop a collective “Resilience Boot Camp” in 2019 focused on teaching people to take more breaks and get better rest in order to manage their physical, emotional, and mental energy during especially intense periods. As a follow up, every other week for the 14 weeks of the busy season, the EY employees attended one-hour group coaching sessions during which team members discussed setbacks and challenges and supported one another in trying to embrace new recovery routines. Each participant was paired with another teammate to provide additional personal support and accountability.

Thanks to the significant shifts in behaviour, accountants completed their work in fewer hours and agreed to take off one weekend day each week during this intense period. “Employees were able to drop 12 to 20 hours per week based on these changes, while accomplishing the same amount of work,” Schwartz told Christine.

By the end of the 2019 busy season, team members felt dramatically better than at the end of 2018’s. And five months after the busy season, when accounting teams typically lost people to exhaustion and burnout, this EY team’s retention stood at 97.5%. Schwartz told Christine that his main takeaway from that experience was “the power of community.”

Community can be a survival tool — a way for people to get through challenging things together — and helps move people from surviving to thriving. As we found, it also makes people much more likely to stay with your organization. What can you do to help build a sense of community?

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?

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Sources:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/researchers-discover-best-way-to-avoid-procrastination
https://medium.com/productivity-power/can-a-self-imposed-deadline-help-beat-procrastination-13936992d1ea
https://www.fastcompany.com/3026895/self-imposed-deadlines-dont-stop-procrastination-heres-what-might