We provide full service talent management and talent development consulting services. Read our blogs in this category for stories and best practices from real clients and real research.
I’ve been thinking a lot about satisfaction at work and in life. If you’re a fan of Hamilton, you know the iconic song, “Satisfied”, about the struggle of feeling dissatisfied with your life when you’re aware of other possibilities. I’ve felt this personally, and we’ve seen it in others through our work helping individuals and organizations find mutual FIT. We believe person-organization fit leads to job satisfaction and engagement.
If you know “Satisfied”, then you also know the line “I am not standing still, I am lying in wait” from the song “Wait For It”. (Is it obvious I just rewatched Hamilton on Disney+?) That line – and the entire song – describes those of us who find ourselves waiting for something better to come along. A better job. A better boss. A better company. We’re waiting for something better, but we’re not taking any action.
My message today is to stop standing still and take action toward satisfaction. That doesn’t have to mean leaving a job, although the timing for that might be right. It could simply mean taking a moment for self-reflection to understand yourself and identify why you might not be satisfied. Is it a values mismatch?
We know from research and our work with organizations that a mismatch of values or work environment preferences is likely to lead to dissatisfaction, disengagement, and eventually turnover. Long-term FIT is more likely to occur when individuals and organizations share a common approach to work and balancing that work with life.
Question of the day: Are you satisfied or standing still?
Jillian will be speaking at the NASHRM September Workshop on Tuesday, September 8th. Find out more information or register here.
Want to learn more about finding your fit? Check out our sister company MatchFIT. Visit thematchfit.com
“I’m sorry, I’m working from home and my dog is barking.” How many times have you said or heard this lately? I have a mini schnauzer with a not-so-mini personality, so I’m an experienced “I’m sorry my dog is barking” professional. So is the HR leader who said that exact sentence on our call this morning.
By now, many of us have been working remotely for months. Some for years. We’ve adopted new methods, like wearing pajama shorts under that sharp shirt and blazer because no one really ever sees below our shoulders. We’ve found a new rhythm. We work when the kids are doing homework or the baby (and/or dog) is napping. We’ve got this.
But are we engaged? Are we growing? Do we feel connected to our colleagues, our leaders, our organizational and personal purpose? We’re working longer hours and producing great work, but we don’t know if it’s sustainable. The events of 2020 are taking a collective toll on our mental health. If you are an HR leader or a manager of people, consider some best practices for supporting remote workers.
Offer options. Remember that employees have different learning styles, different engagement preferences, and different abilities. We have more options to accommodate differences when we can be in person in an office setting and use technology. Our options shrink when we’re forced to rely exclusively on technology. However, shrunk isn’t nothing. There is really great HR tech out there. There are free online tools. We’re not stuck. We can still offer different options for communication, learning, and engagement. Employee wellbeing is negatively impacted when they’re boxed into a corner. Give them some wiggle room.
If it ain’t broke, don’t break it. If you had systems in place prior to the disruption that still work in a remote environment, leave them be. For example, if you used to send an email or pick up the phone and call when you had a question, but now you’re defaulting to a video call, take a step back and ask yourself why. Do you feel required to use video calling because it’s “more engaging” than phone calls? Video calls certainly add value to a remote work environment, but they should be limited to scheduled group meetings that you would normally have in person, just like scheduling a conference room. Video fatigue is real, and our mental health slides when we feel forced into unnecessary camera time. If the good ol’ telephone ain’t broke, don’t break it.
Seek feedback. I know you know this one. Are you doing it? Openly, regularly, meaningfully? The only source that can tell you if employees are feeling energized or overwhelmed, engaged, or burned out (or Zoomed out) is…drum roll…employees. Talk to them. Remember #1 and offer options to talk to them by email, phone, video, anonymous survey, etc. Pay attention to the options they choose; that’s immediate feedback. The employee who always uses video calls may be signaling that they need social interaction. The employee who emails at midnight may be navigating a schedule with a newborn baby. Next time you’re in a virtual meeting with everyone, use a polling feature or link to a 3-question survey in the chat feature to ask for anonymous feedback about wellbeing and engagement. Here are some tips for effectively using pulse surveys.
We all have barking dogs and laughing children who are equal parts of our remote work environment, and with the right support and good leadership from HR, we can find high work engagement and general and mental wellbeing in this new worklife. We’ve got this.
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?
On a Sunday morning about 7 AM, I was in the middle of a run. It was a quiet, beautiful fall morning until I looped back around and through the sports and water park complex near my house. Cars started driving by and turning into the parking lot by the tennis center. I could hear an abundance of tennis balls popping off rackets as, what seemed to be, many people warming up.
I’ve run by on other Sunday mornings about that time to see what couldn’t be older than five and six-year-olds warming up for soccer matches. The minivans and SUVS of their parents had to have filled the parking lots with license plates from other counties and even other states before the sun even woke up.
On a Sunday.
Call me old fashioned, but this early morning quest for getting more travel soccer, or travel tennis, or travel whatever sport in for young kids just blows my mind, even if it is driving in tons of revenue for my hometown as people come and put heads in beds with their entire family for an elementary school kid to play sports all weekend.
What is the reasoning behind what has seemed to largely be held by society as a day of rest a day to get in more sports, Sunday after Sunday? Maybe it is the mindset of practice makes perfect as I wrote about last week, but whatever it is, it’s communicating that the sport, whatever it may be, is the priority. Our schedule communicates our priorities. On the weekend, family time isn’t the priority, or church or even time for a kid to rest a little and enjoy a free day to just be a kid.
I’ve had several discussions revolving around this idea of how priorities are being communicated to kids. One mom whose little girl isn’t even six months old mentioned her concern with her family growing “overscheduled” as kids’ activities develop. Another expressed concern over an hour worth of homework for her daughter on a night when she had church and dance. My own mother even expressed her observation about how kids don’t have time to just be kids anymore.
Even the Today Show had a segment addressing the increase in homework kids have to complete these days, with one teacher expressing it is not the amount of homework but the amount of extracurricular things on kids’ calendars today that results in what should take 15 minutes of homework “double and triple” that amount of time because, by the time the student actually sits down to do the homework, they have already had so much packed into their day that they are just DONE (fast forward to 2:15 of the clip to hear this comment).
Traveling and playing soccer all day every weekend for a season to me, brings on the sense of DONE before the week even starts. Especially for a six-year-old.
But if I’m honest with myself, I worry that I’ll be sucked into the travel soccer or tennis or baseball or dance craze with my own son and daughter (who will arrive in March) and they are only two and not even born yet. When everyone is doing it, aren’t you just supposed to follow suit?
What does this have to do with leadership?
Whether we are the leader of our households or the leader of a team or company, or even the leader of our own lives, realizing that we are communicating priorities to our people and ourselves by how we prioritize time is important.
Do you occupy your own time or your team’s with multiple meetings? I had one professional in leadership class tell me most of his weeks are composed of 30 hours on average of meetings. By the time he was able to get to the work that he was supposed to do as a result of all these meetings, he was just DONE, not being able to contribute meaningfully to his purpose, and therefore his ability to produce value, for the organization.
Maybe as a parent, we do want sports or other extracurricular activities or homework to be the priority for our children. But my challenge would be, if one thing takes the priority, by the time they get to everything else are they just DONE? And is it even what they want? Is what we schedule helping them express who they are and how they can contribute to the family and to society in a meaningful way or is the schedule communicating something else entirely?
As a leader, help people define how they contribute meaningfully and then avoid overschedule them with things that don’t help them see this through.
Where are you, your team, or your family overscheduled with things that don’t truly matter?
