We know HR. Read our Human Resources blog archives for stories and best practices from our work with real clients and personal experiences in the world of HR.
I often glance at what people take note of when they are a part of one of our training sessions. Not the notes or handout questions we make them fill in, but the notes where they turn over to a blank handout page or pull out their own notebook and jot things down. The notes people take because they want to make sure they remember something.
The times when people say, “Can you go back to that slide for a minute please?” And then they start furiously writing.
We also get feedback from all participants at the end of each session in order to see how the training will affect their behaviors at work going forward. What will they do differently we ask? What will they use?
After gathering this feedback and paying attention to what people take note of, I think this slide is the most meaningful slide in all of our trainings:
I think this slide is even more meaningful given our current situation with the COVID-19 crisis. I’ll be covering this slide as well as others and the tools that go along with it in a webinar: Leading in Crisis hosted by our friends at the Huntsville Madison County Chamber tomorrow, Wednesday, May 6th from 9 am- 11 am.
Click here to register. Click here to download the handout for the webinar. It has tools that go along with this information.
I hope you can join us as we learn more about leading in crisis, especially through employing the bright spot philosophy and the accomplishment list.
What do you to help you lead in crisis? What has been the best training takeaway you’ve experienced?
Feel like you’re on a rollercoaster of emotions these days? Yep, me too.
When we are living out a well-ordered life full of routines, adjusting to a life that has no or new routines can be a challenge. And living on top of our family members day in and day out with little to no break isn’t a walk in the park either. The newness of it can bring some enjoyment and much needed time to just be, then the next minute the newness can make you totally want to lose your ever-loving mind.
For example, one day last week, I was riding a high, sitting in a comfy chair with a lovely view, reading a book while the baby napped on my chest and my older kids were playing outside. The unique situation of having nowhere to be and the opportunity to read a book in the middle of a random Thursday was ideal. Five minutes later, my kids come running in screaming because one has dumped water all over the other one. They’d had just a little too much togetherness. I get onto the one that has been mean, and he smarts his mouth off to me, and I totally lose it. A transition from sheer joy to sheer anger all in about sixty seconds.
And work is no different from home when it comes to the see-saw of highs and lows. One minute I’m excited that our PPP loan is funded. Not five minutes later I’m dealing with the emotions from a long-time client wanting to cancel their contract with us due to the current situation.
My example pales in comparison to the highs and lows that front line healthcare and other works are dealing with. The emotion of seeing a patient go home after four weeks on a ventilator to then go back into the ICU and lose a patient to the virus all in the same day is the real rollercoaster of these times.
So how do we navigate the rollercoaster of emotions at home and at work? And as leaders, how do we help others do the same? I think a video of my kids riding down a hill on their bikes for the first time is a metaphor for how we survive this all:
1. Recognize and acknowledge the emotions you are feeling. Name them and help others do the same. As you can see in the video, the cream of our cookie, our middle child, takes off down the hill with no fear. As her older brother waits his turn at the top he says, “I’m scared of that hill.” As crazy as it sounds, him just verbalizing this (which is hard for him to do) I believe was the step he needed to actually push off and go.
I am scared, I am angry, I am happy. I am all of these things at once. Asking people around you about how they are feeling and allowing them to verbalize their emotions to you can be the best leadership step in helping them tackle the hill. Being vulnerable enough to express the emotions you yourself are feeling to others also sets a strong example and helps you work through being able to push off and go do the next right thing.
2. Peddle fast to capitalize on the momentum of the hill. I don’t know about you, but when I was young and would ride up and down hills, I’d coast down and enjoy the ride. Thinking consciously or not I’d conserve my energy; I’d take a break from peddling. Which made it all the harder to get up the other side.
As you can see, my two take the exact opposite approach. They are peddling their hearts out down the hill. When things look easy, or when emotions are positive and exhilarating, it’s time to peddle faster to prepare you for when things get hard.
If you’re on the high side of the rollercoaster, write a positive note of encouragement to someone, do something you truly enjoy, write down what you’re grateful for, celebrate. This will help provide the momentum needed to get up steep climbs of negative emotions and difficult situations that will come your way.
3. Recognize that we all deal with different situations and different points of the rollercoaster differently; don’t judge or condemn others or yourself for this. The middle child had no fear getting started down the hill but listen to her scream as her brother is headed down the hill. She’s screaming (and you’ll be able to see her if you look) because she was about halfway up the other side of the hill when she fell on her bike because she didn’t have the stamina to get up the other side. No fear going down, all screams going up. Her brother was the opposite. He was scared to go down but had the stamina to make it up the other side.
For too many reasons to count (both nature and nurture related) people deal with the exact same situations differently. And from one day to the next a single person may react totally differently to the same thing on a Tuesday than they did on a Sunday. Don’t be surprised by this and help people where they lack the courage to go down the hill or the stamina to get back up the other side. Help yourself too by not beating yourself up when this happens.
After about a week of tackling the hill, our middle gained the stamina to get all the way up on the other side. She did because we offered her grace when she couldn’t at first by carrying her bike up to the top for her, then teaching her strategies to keep her momentum going, then offering her big words of encouragement as she was in the midst of getting to the top on her own.
Tackling the peaks and valleys of the current situation with grace is the best we can ask of ourselves and of others. When we acknowledge our emotions and those of others and help each other through the ups and downs, we walk away a little stronger, with a little more stamina to tackle the next set of peaks and valleys that will certainly come our way.
My 13-year-old came to me last week and said “Mom, we are living through history. In five to ten years, kids will learn about this pandemic in history class and I’ll be able to say ‘yeah, I was there’!” And he’s right.
Students will hear about how our world came together to fight COVID-19. They will be amazed by the fact that we quarantined, that so many businesses had to close their doors, but hopefully, they’ll be inspired by the way we innovated to overcome this pandemic and support those in the front lines.
I don’t know that we ever could have been fully prepared for what this virus has presented us with, but I do think we could have been more prepared than what we were. In my fifteen years in HR, I’ve only had one client that had the forethought to create a Pandemic Response plan. Even during my time in healthcare, the facility I worked at had a plan for outbreaks, we managed the H1N1 flu with ease, but wouldn’t have been prepared for something of this magnitude.
While we as a nation weren’t prepared for the worst-case scenario, and we’ve quickly exhausted our usual resources, we’ve stepped up to the challenge and begun to think outside of the box. So many people and companies have come forward to help, from people around the country sitting at sewing machines making masks for healthcare providers, using 3-D printers to make masks, veterinarians donating their equipment, reconfiguring CPAP machines to function as ventilators, automakers shifting to make ventilator parts, breweries making hand sanitizer, and the list goes on.
There’s a saying out there “expect the unexpected, then it becomes the expected.” Imagine how much quicker we could have responded if we had thought outside of the box before a pandemic hit if we had imagined the absolute worst-case scenario instead of just what we were used to. That company I mentioned above that had a Pandemic Response plan in place, together we took that plan and turned it into a full-scale Business Continuity plan. They were prepared for the worst-case scenario, they knew what to do if they had to shut down their facility if their employees all had to work remotely. They went into this pandemic prepared, simply implementing the plan they already had in place. And in speaking with them recently, that implementation went very smoothly. And not only were they prepared for a pandemic, but they’re also prepared to handle other worst-case scenarios such as a natural disaster.
How could having a Business Continuity Plan have impacted your organization’s response to this pandemic?
Assess. Business Continuity plans help organizations consider the Kobayashi Maru, the no-win scenario. What major events could impact your organization’s ability to function? Plans help organizations assess the risk of a pandemic, a natural disaster, a blizzard, a major power outage, data loss, and other “it would never happen here” situations.
Prepare. Business Continuity plans allow organizations to do just what Kirk did in Star Trek; redefine the problem to create a winning solution. Once you’ve assessed those worst-case scenarios, you can start to determine how your organization would need to react in each case. Who is considered a key employee to help get your organization through the situation, who is responsible for communication, how will you keep your employees working and continue to be able to pay them? What resources might be at risk and how do you acquire alternative resources? How do you implement remote work, do you need to stand up an alternative work site or data center? Is there something your organization can offer others in each scenario to help minimize the impact or provide necessary resources to your community? Once your plan is complete, practice it. Make sure everyone knows their role and responsibilities. And review the plan annually to make sure it is up-to-date.
Respond. So many companies are struggling right now because they didn’t have a plan in place. Some struggled to figure out alternative work solutions, set up remote access for employees, determine how to manage a remote workforce, who is considered key employees, how to keep from having to furlough or layoff their workforces. By having a plan in place before disaster strikes, when it does strike, your organization is prepared to respond. You’ve already figured out the critical tasks that need to be completed to stay afloat, it’s just a matter of notifying your Disaster Response team that it’s time to act. And your response will be much faster and must smoother than organizations that didn’t plan ahead.
Recover. While the response is critical, planning for recovery is just as important. A major part of any good Business Continuity Plan is the recovery phase, which must begin almost immediately. Most Business Continuity Plans address the short-term needs of recovery, looking at recovery in three phases- the first 24-hours, the first week, and the second week. During these phases, organizations should be assessing their long-term needs and planning to meet those needs. As the recovery phase continues, some of those needs may change, so you must constantly be assessing and reassessing long-term needs.
How could your organization have been more prepared for this Kobayashi Maru?
The Five Love Languages for romantic relationships and parents and children can also be applied at work. Adapted to be the Five Love Languages of Appreciation instead of love in the workplace, the approach is the same. Know what other people need and give them that.
Even though the developers of this concept replace “appreciation” for “love” when applied to the workplace, I have no problem with calling it love languages at work. Our workplaces can and are better places when we show love in the right way and context everywhere we go. Including the office. Especially in the office.
But what about the fact that touch is one of the five love languages? With as many issues that we have seen in the workplace related to inappropriate sexual advances often involving touch, how do we deal with this?
First, it is an issue of measurement. Where it is easy to describe ways someone may want and need touch in a romantic relationship, assessing appropriate touching in the workplace to discern if it is someone’s language of love or appreciation is rather difficult.
Next, it is an issue if touch is okay at all in the workplace. If we can’t assess it appropriately, is doing anything related to touch at work okay?
I think at times touch is completely appropriate at work. But how do we discern when and how and who when it comes to such a sensitive subject?
First, knowing who it is okay to touch and how is important. One way to discern this is to see if someone is comfortable giving appropriate touch at the office. If they are hugging, it is probably okay for you to hug them. If they always offer you a hand to shake instead of a hug as a greeting, it probably best to stick with a more formal handshake with that person.
Second, we need to realize that touch is often needed to express certain things. One, touch may be what is most appropriate in work situations to express care, concern, and empathy. People are people inside of work just like they are outside. There are situations when people are hurting or in need and touch is absolutely the appropriate response. This means that in some industries where care is the primary work being done, appropriate touch may be a part of the job description.
Two, physical touch has been shown to be appropriate to express spontaneous celebration. Think about sporting events and how often people spontaneously touch to celebrate. There are instances in the workplace where touch, such as a high five for winning a major contract or a fistbump for finishing a complex project, makes a lot of sense.
When thinking about touch in the workplace it is also important to take into account cultural differences.
What do you think about physical touch in the workplace?
Expressing love at work may seem like a little too much. But in reality, showing love is really showing people you care. It isn’t about recognizing people’s accomplishments, it’s about appreciating people for who they are.
When we are talking about love at work, we are really talking about how to show people you appreciate them. We talked about how to apply quality time as a love languageat work on the blog last week. Quality time is a love language that is sometimes hard to know how to apply to work, but the love languages that are most and least desired in terms of frequency of those who have completed the Motivating by Appreciation (MBA) Inventory assessment-a tool to assess showing appreciation through the love languages at the office- are two of the most frequently used forms of showing appreciation at the office.
But are we applying these two love languages correctly?
The most frequently used method of showing appreciation at the office is tangible gifts, yet it is the least frequently desired. The employee recognition industry is a multi-billion dollar one. But according to research cited in The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, “Only 6% of employees choose tangible gifts as their primary language, and 68% report it is their least valued appreciation language.”
The most desired form of showing appreciation- chosen by approximately 45% of employees surveyed through the MBA– is words of affirmation. People wanted to feel appreciated by what you say to them.
The fact that the most frequently used way to thank people, or to show them appreciation, is the least desired one and that the most desired is so desired one points to what I think may be wrong with showing appreciation in the workplace in general.
The way we make our words of affirmation mean nothing is by:
Not being specific. Saying, “thank you” or “atta boy” and leaving it at that. We need to personalize our appreciation with specifics. What did someone do or how do they consistently behave that you appreciate?
We give our words in the wrong context. Some people like public praise and some do not. Making our words personal means knowing the right context to give them in. Research cited in the The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace notes that 40-50% of employees do not want to receive recognition in front of a large group. Most of the time though, words of appreciation are given in a formal setting with a large group once or twice a year at company events.
We only provide words of affirmation when performance warrants it. Sometimes we need to praise for consistent behavior over time that is actually a reflection of someone’s character. This still needs to be specific, but often people want to be noticed for who they are, not whether it led to an immediate result or not. Character, in fact, is what leads to lasting results.
The Way We Fail at Work with our Gifts
Tangible gifts are most often given to recognize people, not to show appreciation to them. We get a watch or a plaque for our years of service, or a gift card for Christmas. These are the types of things that make the employee recognition industry big business. But they aren’t the things people desire.
Gifts go wrong when:
They aren’t personal. Does everyone want a watch or a plaque? I really don’t care to have either myself. What actually often means the most is when a tangible gift is given that you show you know a person well enough to give them something they want. Giving someone a gift they don’t want or value actually has a worse effect than giving no gift at all.
They are lip service to appreciation. When everyone gets the ham for Christmas every year, do you actually feel any appreciation? My guess would be no. Especially if you are a vegetarian. Lip service for appreciation is usually so depersonalized.
Stuff is the focus instead of experiences. Gifts often fail to be what people actually want in a tangible gift. What people often want if they value gifts are really experiences, not stuff. They want tickets to the sports game, a gift certificate to the spa, or a small getaway. But again, be sure not to violate number one. Don’t give me a sports tickets and don’t give my husband a trip to the spa.
How often do you use words or gifts to show appreciation at work? Which one do you default to and why? And do you make your words and your gifts personal?
