Categories
Wellness

5 ways to combat employee burnout in 2021

We’re nearing a full year since the first stay-at-home orders were issued in the U.S., and it certainly hasn’t been an easy ride. Over the past year, employees have experienced grief, loss, disruption, hardship, illness, and more on an unimaginable scale. All of this has led to high degrees of burnout at every level of the organization. Employee burnout is a problem on a number of different fronts. First and foremost, it’s a human issue; burnout brings with it a multitude of negative mental and physical health consequences, and simply isn’t something you want to see people going through. On top of that, it’s also a business concern as burned out employees are less engaged, less productive, and less likely to stay with your organization.

As the challenges of 2020 continue to drag on into this new year, the risk of burnout is only increasing. Additionally, with many parts of the U.S. still trudging through the cold and darkness that winter typically brings, mental health concerns should be front of mind for both People teams and managers in general. Addressing burnout when employees are dealing with so many different challenges, and while most are still working from home in isolation can be difficult. In addition, many of those expected to devise strategies to combat employee burnout are suffering from it themselves. We understand how tough it is nowadays, so we’ve assembled some tips to help you help your employees counter the threat of burnout.

Why you should be paying attention to employee burnout

Employee burnout was already a problem prior to the pandemic. In 2019, Gallup found that nearly a quarter of employees felt burned out at work very often or always, while another 44% felt burned out sometimes. That means that fully two-thirds of the workforce felt burned out on the job at least some of the time even before COVID-19 came along and drastically changed the equation. According to that same study, employees in the first category of feeling burned out very often or always were 63% more likely to take a sick day, 23% more likely to visit the emergency room, and 2.6 times as likely to be actively looking for a different job. Clearly, burnout hurts in more ways than one.

Prior to the pandemic, employees who worked remotely were significantly less likely to report consistent feelings of burnout. Data from September 2019 shows that just 18% of full-time remote employees felt burned out at work very often or always, as compared to 30% of those who never worked from home. By September of 2020, that gap had closed, with 29% of fully remote employees reporting that they consistently feel burned out. Another study, also released in September of 2020, found that 58% of employees are burned out, as compared to 45% during the early days of the pandemic. Of those reporting burnout, 35% noted that it was attributable to COVID-19 and the accompanying circumstances, a significant jump from the 25% who said the same just a few months earlier. Nearly 50% of the burned out respondents attribute their struggles to their workload.

How to support employees to combat burnout in the workplace

Unfortunately, there is only so much that employers and managers can do to mitigate the broader situational issues at play that lead to employee burnout from the personal side. Increased household and caregiving responsibilities, ongoing anxiety, and simply the inability to get out of the house for very long are all factors that make it difficult for employees to stay balanced and productive during the workday. Ultimately though, there is also a lot that employers can do to better support employees through these challenging times. Here are some tips for those looking to reduce the risk and severity of employee burnout within their workforce:

  1. Empower managers. Train your managers to spot the signs of burnout, and entrust them with the tools and authority to do something about it. People teams cannot be in charge of closely monitoring every employee’s mental and emotional wellbeing at all times. Managers need to be the eyes on the ground to ensure their direct reports are positioned to succeed. When managers see cause for concern, they should have access to mental health resources to refer employees to, flexible time off policies, and user-friendly project management tools to reallocate responsibilities as needed to help the employee recover.
  2. Build in breaks. The Zoom fatigue is real, according to Stanford researchers, so it’s important to build in ways to counter it. Encourage fifty-minute meetings rather than full hours, to allow team members a few minutes to stretch their legs and get a drink or snack in between. Organize remote exercise sessions such as yoga or dancing, invite people to go on walking meetings when video isn’t required, and you can even go so far as to drop movement breaks onto people’s calendars if needed. The goal is to ensure that employees are doing something other than just sitting alone at their desks for hours on end every day.
  3. Manage expectations. Perhaps some employees have hit a point where they simply can’t produce as much as they used to in a day. That’s okay. If you ever want them to rebound to previous levels rather than simply leaving your company, you need to understand when enough is enough, even if it is less than what they would have completed in an office surrounded by colleagues. We’re obviously not suggesting that you numbly accept slacking off, but rather we’re encouraging understanding and compassion as opposed to demanding that everything be as it was when it is so painfully not. Make it okay for employees to admit they can’t handle something or can’t take on more without fear of reprisal or termination. They’ll come back stronger for it.
  4. Provide support. Right now, while the world seems to be against many of us, people need to know that their employers and colleagues have their back. Expand your benefits offerings if you can, be receptive to employee needs and requests, and last but certainly not least, ensure your team members have ample opportunities and channels to connect with each other. Whether through initiatives like employee resource groups, scheduled sessions such as virtual cooking classes or escape rooms, or simply providing digital spaces and tools for them to seek each other out, the importance of social connectivity with coworkers at this time cannot be overstated.
  5. Model taking time off. Sometimes, the only cure for burnout is to take some time off. Unfortunately, going away somewhere on vacation, the top burnout beater for those able to afford it, is pretty much off the table for the time being. In the absence of that bonus though, having a few days where employees don’t have to wake up and immediately log onto the computer next to their bed can provide a huge boost. Make sure your team members know they can take time off, and encourage them to do so as needed. Model this from the top to ensure you’re not putting up implied barriers where employees feel that they can’t take time off because no one else does. Also, just because they’ll be at home, don’t expect them to still be available on those days. Truly allow them to unplug for a bit, without mounting demands hanging over their heads.

Countering employee burnout should be a priority for every organization in 2021. Helping employees deal with and bounce back from burnout will do wonders for your bottom line, not to mention your employer brand, and will generally make for happier team members. We hope these tips will help as you consider how to best support your workforce, but if you could use some additional assistance in connecting employees and ensuring they have strong support systems to help them weather the rest of the pandemic and beyond, consider checking out Workrowd. Our platform is designed to increase transparency and connection for every employee, whether on-site or remote, and can help you ensure your workers understand the full breadth of programs that are available to them. Visit us at workrowd.com, or drop us a note at hello@workrowd.com to learn more.

Categories
Employee Experience

Tips for building a world-class digital employee experience

Now that we’ve been in the clutches of the pandemic for more than a year, it’s clear that the need to develop and deliver a world-class digital employee experience is here to stay. The employee experience extends from pre-hiring all the way through off-boarding, so there’s a lot to consider. If you want to ensure your company’s reputation as an employer of choice, you’ll need to do your best to reduce friction at every point in the employee journey. While that may sound like an overwhelming mandate, there are many tools out there to assist you.

For better or worse though, tools can only take you so far. Building a top-notch digital employee experience requires the right balance of automated processes, self-service options, and human elements. For instance, it’s important to provide ample information to help employees easily answer their own questions about benefits, but it’s also key to have someone available to support them in selecting the right plan for their circumstances. The ultimate goal is to streamline processes and make employees’ lives as easy as possible, while at the same time keeping costs down and freeing up People team members to focus on the tricky parts of work life that really require human support/intervention. Read on for our top tips to build a digital employee experience that delights and drives impact.

Why the digital employee experience is more important now than ever

We’ve all been through a lot over the past year. Many have lost loved ones, lost jobs, and almost all of us have lost our way of life. Mental health issues have skyrocketed; between 2019 and 2020, reported symptoms of anxiety have more than tripled, and depression symptoms have almost quadrupled. Questions about the vaccine, new strains, and what a safe return to the office could even look like abound. In order to remain engaged and productive amidst ongoing homeschooling and other household challenges. employees need to be able to easily access the information they need, communicate with colleagues, and clearly understand their objectives.

Moreover, as the economy rebounds, employers looking to attract and retain the best talent will need to offer something better than what employees can get by going to work for the competitor. Without exciting office perks, free food, and the other usual hallmarks of ‘great’ employee experiences to fall back on, companies will need to identify new ways of outshining similar job offers. Additionally, many employees have learned a lot more about what is important to them in their work lives over the course of the pandemic, so employers have new expectations to contend with as well. All of this makes optimizing the digital employee experience one of, if not the most important thing companies can do in 2021.

Five areas to focus on to upgrade your digital employee experience

There are innumerable different ways to approach building a great digital employee experience, so it can be difficult to know where to start. Accordingly, we’ve assembled some of our top recommendations to help you frame your thinking:

  1. Focus on flexibility. In a recent Deloitte study of 1,000 white-collar professionals, virtually all respondents noted that workplace flexibility was a priority for them. Two significant shifts have made building flexibility into your policies one of the most crucial things you can do to elevate your employee experience, digital or otherwise: shifting household responsibilities including child and elderly caregiving, and the forced transition to remote work which gave employees a taste of what flexibility has to offer them. Translate this to your digital employee experience by ensuring that employees have all of the tools they need to work from a variety of locations and at a variety of times.
  2. Prioritize accessibility. In order to build an enviable digital employee experience, it’s crucial to prioritize accessibility over gatekeeping. Employees shouldn’t have to constantly ask around in order to collect the documents and information they need to do their job well. Ensure that every team has a clear information management system so that employees know where to go to access relevant files, and be as transparent as possible with broader company and benefits information. According to a McKinsey report pre-pandemic, employees spend nearly two hours every day searching for information. Do your digital employee experience a favor by making sure employees can access the systems and information they need, when they need them.
  3. Set expectations. While remote working certainly came with benefits for many employees, including eliminating their commutes, it also contributed to pressure to be working all the time. This is unhealthy and unproductive for any employee experience, so clarify to your employees when they should be available digitally, and when it’s good to be ‘off the clock’. Similarly, clear is kind; without as much contact with colleagues and superiors, employees can wind up in the dark about their objectives and deliverables. Identify digital tools to guard against this, whether they’re check-in-related or designed for project management. Eliminate as much ambiguity from people’s workdays as possible, both for their mental wellbeing, and to protect the company from paying for needless or inaccurate work.
  4. Connect colleagues. Seamless social connectivity is crucial to differentiating your digital employee experience from those of your competitors. Nearly 40% of workers report a worsening sense of isolation in 2021, which impacts everything from productivity to retention. Offering a digital space for employees to connect more casually, particularly around issues not related to their core job responsibilities is a key element to keeping your team engaged and collaborating successfully. Planning digital events is great, but it’s also important to empower your team to make those informal connections themselves via a dedicated “virtual water cooler” setting.
  5. Stay consistent. Don’t give employees more to worry about than they already have. Inconsistence breeds anxiety, so do everything possible to encourage consistency across your digital channels at all times. Ensure employees know what systems are to be used for which functions, what use cases apply for each communication channel, and promptly share any changes with employees at all levels of the organization.

Designing and delivering a top-notch digital employee experience in today’s day and age is both difficult and easier than ever. There are myriad tools at your disposal to help you meet and exceed the recommendations above on behalf of your team. Of course we’re biased, but if you’re looking for a great way to satisfy item four in particular, Workrowd can help. Our digital employee experience platform serves both people and profit and is designed to empower every employee to build a work life they love. Come visit us at workrowd.com to learn more, or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com. We’d love to see how we can help you help your people, especially as we continue to weather the waves of the pandemic.

Categories
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

Celebrating Women’s History Month at work in 2021

Next Monday marks the first day of March, and with it comes the start of Women’s History Month. What began as a local ‘Women’s History Week’ in 1978 in Santa Rosa California has now been a federally-recognized, dedicated month for more than three decades. In contrast to years past however, women’s participation in the labor force is currently experiencing a significant decline. In January, it hit its lowest level in 33 years due to the layered impacts of the pandemic. This makes celebrating Women’s History Month at work in 2021 more important than ever.

Simultaneously, as organizations work to step up their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, championing women represents a crucial piece of the puzzle. While social distancing rules continue to present challenges to those trying to organize employee initiatives, there are still many opportunities to acknowledge the crucial role that women play in your company and rally around the cause of advancing women’s issues worldwide. Check out this list of ideas for celebrating women’s history month at work in 2021, and every year.

Why it’s important to celebrate women in the workplace

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 2.2 million fewer women in the workforce in October 2020 than at the same time just one year prior; 865,000 left in September alone. Moreover, women accounted for 100% of job losses in December. While 156,000 women lost their jobs in the last month of the year, men actually gained 16,000. With women shouldering the overwhelming brunt of the additional housework and childcare brought on by the pandemic, experts suggest that this crisis could erase a full generation’s worth of progress on gender equity.

Given the fact that women had not nearly achieved parity to begin with, this consequence of COVID-19 would simply add insult to injury. Women still earn just $0.81 for every $1.00 a man earns, and that disparity is exacerbated further by race. This isn’t just a problem for women though; it’s a drag on the economy overall. McKinsey & Company estimates that if gender parity were to be achieved by 2025, the U.S. economy would grow by $4.3 trillion. The exodus of women from the workforce hurts everyone. Accordingly, it’s crucial that workplaces champion women early and often. One easy way to do so is to celebrate Women’s History Month at work in 2021 in a highly visible way that drives real impact.

Ideas for celebrating Women’s History Month at work in 2021

In an ideal world, every company would celebrate every employee every day, regardless of gender, race, age, role, title, department, etc. In reality, we know that doesn’t happen simply by looking at the data in the paragraph above. While getting to this point will require deep and sustained work on issues of bias, sexism, racism, classism, etc. over the long-term, it can begin with relatively simple efforts. Celebrating the achievements of individuals from underrepresented communities through events such as Black History Month this month, or Women’s History Month starting next week, can help companies begin taking strides towards their ultimate inclusion and belonging goals. Consider implementing one or more of these ideas to acknowledge Women’s History Month within your workforce:

  1. Profile underappreciated women in your organization. While women in positions of power in your organization may have a high degree of name recognition amongst your staff, there are droves of others making a substantive difference to the company every day who deserve similar attention. Select a handful of women across different departments and interview them, then publish the profiles through your internal and external communications channels. Showing appreciation for more female staff and leaders beyond those who are typically recognized will help to build a more welcoming and supportive environment for all women.
  2. Hold a panel discussion with women leaders. Highlighting female employees who have successfully climbed the career ladder can provide others with role models and crucial lessons around how to advance within the organization. Make sure that in addition to sharing advice for how to follow in their footsteps, you also make space for the panelists to describe the challenges they’ve come up against, so other women understand that they’re not alone in what they’re facing. Of course, gauge and confirm interest in participating rather than expecting or requesting that people join the panel. Just as with our recommendations for Black History Month, it is not these women’s job to speak for everyone or do more work than they already do.
  3. Offer a training on gender equality. As we discussed earlier in this post, gender inequality is still a very real issue, with very real consequences. There are a number of training providers that focus on working to combat gender bias and build more inclusive workplaces, so consider it an investment in your company’s future and hire one to engage your workforce next month. If done right, your people and your bottom line will thank you.
  4. Build a strategy to advance women in your workplace. There are many ways to celebrate Women’s History Month, but one of the most valuable steps you can take is to assemble a committee to identify areas for improvement around gender equity, and establish a plan to address them. This could include setting goals around how and when you’ll reach gender pay equity, expanding your benefits packages to better support working mothers, evaluating and remedying any disparities in promotion rate, etc. Building a strategy for the long-term will make a much bigger difference than simply making superficial efforts for a month.
  5. Partner with a women-focused nonprofit to drive change. Another more significant way you can recognize Women’s History Month is by supporting women and girls with your company’s dollars and time. Find a nonprofit that aligns with your company’s mission and lay out a plan to partner and assist them. There are myriad issues impacting women and girls both worldwide and right here in the U.S., as well as many ways to engage with them, so figure out what’s right for your company and get started on making it a reality.

Celebrating Women’s History Month at work in 2021 is crucial as women continue to suffer disproportionate effects from the pandemic. Determine ways to better support female employees both during March and all year-round, and watch as your employer brand and bottom line enjoy the benefits of your efforts. Building more robust employee support networks through initiatives like employee resource groups for women and/or parents can go a long way towards improving life for female employees. If you could use some help in identifying what programming would be the best fit for your organization, come visit us at workrowd.com or drop us a line at hello@workrowd.com; we’d be happy to connect and see how we can best support.

Categories
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

Diversity & inclusion statistics to inform your work in 2021

The diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) landscape has changed significantly over the last year, but we still have a long way to go. If you’re advocating for greater investment in DEI at your company, or if you’re trying to help them execute on newly established commitments, it can help to be armed with concrete data to back up your ideas. While the importance of a strong DEI strategy may seem obvious to some of us, including those who see it as simply the right thing to do, others still require a bit more convincing. Luckily, we’ve got your back with some compelling statistics about diversity and inclusion to help inform your efforts in 2021.

Ultimately, we all know that the power of diversity, equity, and inclusion extends far beyond what any numbers can convey. It is about treating everyone, regardless of their race, religion, nationality, gender, age, sexuality, ability, or any other singular aspect of their personhood, with dignity and respect. Furthermore, it is about making sure everyone feels that they belong, and that their ideas and opinions are welcome without reservation (unless of course those ideas are grounded in the persecution of others). DEI is about building engaged workplaces where innovation flows, and everyone gets a seat at the table and an equal voice in the discussion.

Key data points in support of investing in diversity and inclusion

Use these diversity and inclusion statistics to help elevate your conversations around DEI in 2021.

  1. Companies with inclusive cultures saw 2.3 times higher cash flow per employee over a three-year period.

There’s been a lot of focus on the benefits of diversity in recent years, but ultimately, diversity without inclusion is akin to a puzzle that’s missing a piece. You can visually see the picture, but it will never feel complete. Make sure you can access the full benefits of any diversity efforts by coupling them with a strong focus on inclusion.

  1. Companies with higher-than average levels of diversity saw 19% higher innovation revenues.

Having an array of different perspectives at the table results in more lively discussions that churn out more interesting and innovative ideas. Only exchanging thoughts with people who have similar backgrounds and experiences can create an echo chamber in which there’s no room to challenge the standard ways of thinking, thereby limiting your company’s potential.

  1. If just 1% more people with disabilities were hired, U.S. GDP would increase by $25 billion.

The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is 7.3%, more than double the pre-pandemic rate for the general population of 3.5%. People with disabilities have many valuable skills to contribute if companies and hiring managers would be more open-minded to bringing them onto their teams, with massive potential implications for the economy overall.

  1. Companies in the top 25% for racial/ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to outperform their peers.

Racial and ethnic diversity is a critical element in the DEI equation and positions companies to exceed the performance of their competitors with less diverse teams. When paired with an inclusive culture, more racially and ethnically diverse companies are better positioned to succeed.

  1. Despite the fact that 60% of companies have metrics in place to measure the success of their diversity and inclusion programs, 75% of employees from underrepresented backgrounds don’t feel they’ve personally benefited from the initiatives.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion has been on the radar of many large companies for decades now, so much so that the majority have systems in place to track their progress. Unfortunately, their efforts haven’t paid off as evidenced by the fact that three-quarters of underrepresented employees haven’t felt the impacts. That’s why it’s high time for a new approach.

  1. Companies with inclusive cultures are twice as likely to meet or exceed financial targets, three times as likely to be high-performing, six times as likely to be innovative and agile, and eight times more likely to achieve better business outcomes.

Inclusive cultures drive vastly better business outcomes across the board. This stems from inclusion’s strong positive impact on employee engagement, productivity, psychological safety, happiness, and more.

  1. Having more women in C-level positions results in 34% higher returns to shareholders.

Greater representation of women in the C-suite yields higher earnings. It’s tough to argue with concrete financial data, and this point suggests that shareholders would be well-served to push for more gender diversity in the upper echelons of the company as well.

  1. More than two-thirds of employment seekers consider workplace diversity to be an important factor when considering whether to pursue a job opportunity.

Even now, when unemployment has spiked due to the pandemic, employer brand matters. While some job seekers will take what they can get out of necessity nowadays, others who have a bit more flexibility know that it’s important to seek out a role they enjoy where the company culture aligns with their values. In many cases, this means prioritizing diversity and inclusion.

  1. Cognitive diversity can enhance team innovation by 20%.

Neurodiversity is a relatively new term on the DEI scene, but it’s an important one. Ensuring diversity of thinking, and building inclusive environments for individuals who may have different cognitive abilities is one way to ensure that your teams stay on the cutting edge and maximize their chances of success in rapidly evolving markets.

  1. Companies that have “two-dimensional” diversity (e.g. on the basis of both gender and race) are 45% more likely to capture a larger share of the market, and 70% more likely to have broken into a new market in the past 12 months.

Focusing solely on gender, race, LGBTQIA+ identity, or any other singular attribute sets you up for box checking, and will only go so far in helping your business and employees to thrive. Ensure that you’re welcoming team members as whole people rather than demographic check marks, and prioritize intersectionality to reap the full benefits of your DEI efforts.

Despite the ongoing debate and doubts, the business case for diversity and inclusion is clear. In fact, while we may be a bit biased, we would go as far as to say that with evidence like this, it’s undeniable. Use these diversity and inclusion statistics to help inform your internal conversations in 2021 around the true value of diversity, equity, and inclusion. If you need to talk through it with someone, feel free to ping us at hello@workrowd.com, and we’ll be more than happy to serve as a sounding board and help you craft your pitch.

If your company is already at the point where it’s looking to invest in more diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, check out the Global ERG Network where we’ve got extensive support for employee/business resource groups, diversity councils, and beyond. Alternatively, if you want to stick to just running things in-house, Workrowd’s platform can help. Regardless of what you do, the most important thing is that you do something. Diversity, equity, and inclusion can’t wait; not for your colleagues, and not for your bottom line, so get started and keep at it.

Categories
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

Honoring Black History Month in the workplace

If your organization is one of the many taking a more active stance on diversity, equity, and inclusion in 2021, you hopefully already have a plan for how you’ll be honoring Black History Month in your workplace. Black History Month is an important time to actively acknowledge the pioneering African Americans and members of the Black diaspora who came before, and the crucial role they played in building our country and culture. February has been officially dedicated to this cause by every U.S. president since 1976.

Each year, the administration also designates a theme for Black History Month. This year’s theme is ‘Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity’. As remote working has given much greater insight into many people’s home lives than ever before, and as the needs of employee caregivers are being given more weight, this is an important topic to incorporate into the already crucial need for more DEI programming. How can you honor both this year’s theme and Black History Month in general in your workplace? We’ve got some dos and don’ts to help you plan a successful program.

Why it’s essential to honor Black History Month in the workplace

While it should come as no surprise to readers of this blog, inclusion is important. Josh Bersin found that inclusive companies had 2.3 times higher cash flow per employee over a 3-year period. He identified the embedded approach to diversity and inclusion at these organizations as one of the “magic practices” that drives the success of top-performing companies. The study furthermore found that the inclusive companies were 1.7 times more likely to be innovation leaders in their market.

These bottom line benefits are driven by the fact that inclusive environments set employees up to do their best work. From recruitment to retention, engagement to productivity, inclusion impacts every aspect of the employee lifecycle, and increases happiness and wellbeing. In addition, inclusivity creates a level of psychological safety that enables employees to focus on their work rather than on worrying about past or future attacks and slights. It also opens the door for them to bring novel ideas to the table without fear of ridicule or retribution, thereby driving the innovation revenues referenced above.

Setting aside time to authentically honor and acknowledge the contributions of leaders of color through events such as Black History Month shows employees that your organization is willing to put their money where their mouth is. Allocating resources to such programs, coupled with genuine, ongoing DEI efforts, lets everyone know that inclusion isn’t just a front at your company, but something that must be practiced by every employee every day. Highlight the achievements of Black and African American pioneers across U.S. history, but make sure that you’re doing the same for the Black and African American pioneers within your organization. Celebrating Black History Month in the workplace isn’t just about recognizing the past, but about looking towards and building for a future where we can achieve real equity for all people who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color.

Tips for authentically celebrating Black History Month in the workplace

The first and most important element when planning any Black History Month initiative is that February cannot be the only time that you recognize and champion Black and African American people. Your Black History Month efforts should be part of a larger coordinated strategy grounded in anti-racism and designed to build truly inclusive, equitable spaces for all people of color. Otherwise, anything you do will ring hollow. Make it clear to employees how any initiatives this month tie back to your larger focus on inclusion and belonging.

Once you’ve grounded your approach in your larger DEI strategy, consider these tips to ensure your efforts drive real impact:

  1. Don’t reinvent the wheel. There are many organizations offering webinars and sessions that may be of interest to your employees. Tap into these networks. Research events happening near you, or being offered by organizations you partner with, and ensure your employees know about them. For instance, through the Global ERG Network, we’re offering a panel discussion tomorrow, 2/10 at 1pm Eastern entitled ‘Are You an Ally?’ focused around workplace responses to the Black Lives Matter movement (register here!).
  2. Bring in the experts. If you have the budget, offering a relevant diversity, equity, and inclusion training during Black History Month is a great way to demonstrate your commitment to building a better workplace for African American employees. Many DEI trainers successfully transitioned their workshops to virtual formats earlier in the pandemic, so determine what you want the session to focus on, then find a practitioner to deliver a session to help you meet your employees’ needs.
  3. Provide options. Not everything you plan will work with everyone’s schedule or will be something they’ll choose to participate in. Accordingly, it’s important to provide options to cater to different levels of knowledge, diverse learning styles, and varying schedules. For instance, if you’re planning a book club, consider providing a few different books for people to choose from, along with corresponding discussions. If you’re offering training, hold at least two separate sessions to help ensure everyone who wants to can attend.
  4. Give back. Planning volunteer opportunities that support the Black community is a great way to honor those who came before in the effort to advance equity and social justice. Find a local organization that supports African Americans near your company headquarters, or partner with a national nonprofit and/or advocacy organization to provide your employees the opportunity to learn and to become an active part of the solution.
  5. Hold space. It’s important not to put your Black employees on the spot as part of your Black History Month programming. Under no circumstances should they be responsible for planning or even participating in any initiatives, unless they have explicitly voiced interest in doing so. Allow and enable them to honor this month in their own way, and empower other employees with the space to stretch their boundaries and explore new topics in contexts where they’re supported to ask (non-offensive) questions.

Honoring Black History Month in the workplace is an important element of a holistic DEI strategy that actually drives inclusion and truly supports employees who identify as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color. Ultimately though, Black History Month shouldn’t end on the last day of February, but should instead carry on year-round and through everything you do. Recognize and celebrate African Americans every day, those outside of your company, and especially those on your team, and strive to build a legitimately anti-racist organization. If you could use some help in creating inclusive spaces, we encourage you to check out the Global ERG Network and the Workrowd platform, both of which come stocked with DEI resources and support for building inclusive employee communities. As always, you can reach us at hello@workrowd.com.

Categories
Company Culture

How employee communities drive positive company culture

The importance of having a positive company culture has only grown over the past year as businesses have been thrust into one of the most challenging economic eras in history and forced to adapt on the fly. While there has long been evidence that companies with better cultures are more successful, the overnight transition to work from home further exposed the disparity between those that had succeeded in cultivating thriving employee connections, and those that had not. While being remote has presented a challenge for those looking to build up their culture right now, there’s a straightforward solution that many companies overlook.

Employee communities can provide crucial support infrastructure in a way that the company cannot sustainably offer from the top down. By enabling employees to self-organize around demographics and other important needs or interests, employers empower culture champions to thrive in all departments and at all levels of the organization rather than having it be the sole responsibility of HR or executives. Employee communities can be an all-around win for the organization, for employees, for the budget, for the employer brand, and beyond, so investing in them is simply the smart move if you want to cultivate a positive company culture.

Key aspects of a positive company culture

There are a number of crucial components of a positive company culture that will drive engagement, productivity, retention, and employee happiness. We’ve listed some of the most important ones below, but there may be others that are important to foster in your company or industry.

  1. Inclusion. Building an inclusive workplace is an essential step towards ensuring success for your organization. Experiencing exclusion causes the brain to release an enzyme that attacks the hippocampus leading to an array of negative outcomes from reduced ability to problem solve and innovate, to a lack of motivation to connect with people. Subjecting employees to episodes of exclusion on a regular basis contributes directly to creating a toxic culture, so fostering inclusion is imperative.
  2. Recognition. Employees need to know that their efforts are valued and appreciated. In the absence of that, there’s little incentive to put in extra, or really any effort for an organization that doesn’t recognize their contributions. Ensure that you’re noting how your team has helped the company reach its goals, or risk a negative culture filled with unmotivated employees.
  3. Transparency. If you truly respect your team members, you’ll be open and honest with them. Clear and transparent communication across all levels of the organization is a hallmark of a positive company culture, as no one has to wonder and worry about what they’re not being told. Particularly during this era of frequent layoffs, do your team and your culture a favor and foster an environment of open communication.
  4. Growth opportunities. From learning and development to promotion ladders, employees want to know that they’ll have the chance to expand their skillset and progress in their careers. Having a number of people in positions that they feel are dead-end will only lead to unhappiness and negativity, so make it clear that your company not only wants employees to stay, but has allocated resources towards ensuring that they do.
How to make employee communities work for you

While this list may initially seem overwhelming, this is exactly where employee communities can come into play. By connecting employees to their peers, these groups can build inclusion for each and every team member to feel that they have a place to belong within the company. Employee communities also provide a space for team members to break out of their assigned roles and showcase alternative skillsets and talents, giving them the chance to be recognized for more than just their core job performance. Additionally, employee communities offer a way for people to find out about what may be happening in departments outside their own, and are great channels for spreading news and collecting employee feedback. Last but certainly not least, employee communities can provide ample opportunities for learning and development, as well as to design and lead new initiatives and efforts.

Starting employee communities doesn’t have to be difficult, either. Identify your internal culture champions who are already making a difference for their colleagues and offer them more formal support. Brainstorm some key ideas these groups could center around and send out a company-wide survey to gauge interest. While it’s always helpful to provide a budget, it’s not absolutely necessary, which means that employee communities can be launched at very little cost. Obviously, it’s always better to allocate resources to something if you want it to succeed, but we know that budgets can be tight nowadays.

While which employee communities you launch will ultimately depend on your individual company, there are some tried and true strategies for getting them off the ground. If you’re interested in learning more and especially if you’re looking to start employee resource groups, give us a shout at hello@workrowd.com. Between our engagement and culture software solution designed around employee groups, to the Global ERG Network, we’ve got tools and resources to help you get going and sustain your momentum. Happy community building!

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Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

The crucial importance of building diverse leadership

Last week marked an historic day during which we saw the first in what will hopefully be a long line of non-White male occupants of our nation’s highest offices. After winning the election, Joe Biden promised to build ‘a Cabinet that looks like America’, indicating that he would nominate a number of underrepresented individuals to high-ranking positions. While saying it and doing it are certainly two different things, it’s nonetheless an extremely exciting proposition.

Perhaps more importantly, having the first Black, first South Asian, first female Vice President in the history of our country now actively serving is progress in and of itself, when taken against our multiple century history of only electing White men of a similar religious affiliation. While we have yet to see a female U.S. president, and have only had one non-White commander in chief, integrating new perspectives gleaned from diverse backgrounds at the top levels of our government is a step in the right direction. Rather than governing from a standpoint of never having lived through any of the events that many Americans experience on a daily basis, having people in elected office who understand can lead to better policies. The same dynamic plays out within companies.

Why it’s critical to have diversity in management

Having diverse leadership in executive, director, and management-level positions is crucial for a number of reasons. For one, BCG found that teams with diverse management vastly outperformed their peers when it came to innovation. According to the study, companies that had above-average levels of diversity among managers reported 19% higher innovation revenues than those with below-average diversity (45% versus 26%). In today’s rapidly evolving market, innovation is quickly becoming a key driver of company success, so suffice it to say that companies with fewer diverse managers should be concerned.

Similarly, companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on their executive teams are more than 20% more likely to have above-average profitability, according to McKinsey. Those in the top quartile for ethnic/cultural diversity were more than 30% more likely to see higher than average profits. Clearly the financial incentives are there, but beyond that, working for a company with diverse leadership is important to employees and job-seekers as well. In fact, nearly 90% of job-seekers believe that the level of diversity at a potential employer is an important factor that impacts their decision whether or not to work for them. If a company’s bottom line needs it, and top talent wants it, then why aren’t more companies taking greater strides to diversify their leadership?

Concrete steps for diversifying your management team

Part of the reason that little has changed in the upper echelons of American companies is that maintaining the status quo benefits those in charge. Ultimately, in order for new, more diverse faces to join their ranks, current leaders will need to move aside, as only so many C-suite and management-level positions can reasonably exist in any given company. Similarly, many people don’t want to have to break out of their shells to learn and consider new ideas. The reason so many companies use the ‘because that’s the way we’ve always done it’ line is because it’s easier than creating and implementing new strategies.

As we just laid out though, this perspective ultimately dampens companies’ profit potential. Accordingly, it follows that those companies that want to succeed should break out of their old ways and move forward into a more diverse, more inclusive future. In order to do so, they’ll need to:

  1. Strive to eliminate hiring biases. Hiring bias is real, and it is extensive. Work to disarm it at every step in the process including how you write your role descriptions, where you recruit candidates from, how you design your interview process, and beyond. There are so many opportunities for bias to creep in, most of which aren’t even recognized by our conscious brains, so you have to be vigilant and employ tools to help you wherever possible. For instance, there’s software that can help remove gendered wording from job descriptions, and other platforms that will blank out names on resumes to help evaluators be more objective.
  2. Diversify hiring at all points in the pipeline. Don’t just look to recruit entry-level talent from diverse sources; focus on hiring underrepresented folx at every level and in every department of the company. Having a couple of token leaders from diverse backgrounds won’t do much good if the entire rest of the company remains homogenous and impenetrable to minority candidates. Actively seek to hire the best person for the job in every instance, devoid of bias, and ideally, you’ll see more diversity across your entire workforce.
  3. Design clear promotion pathways. While it’s one thing to bring diverse hires in the door, it’s entirely another to retain and nurture them. If you want to build a more diverse leadership team, ensure every employee, regardless of background, can grow with your company and rise within the ranks. Empower all individuals, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds, with the tools and resources to reach the C-suite, and you’ll wind up with more managers from non-dominant groups across all teams.
  4. Shift towards a more inclusive culture. In the absence of an inclusive culture, your diverse hires are more likely to leave your company for a more welcoming and supportive competitor, so press for inclusivity early and often. Conduct trainings for employees at all levels to teach them about inclusive behavior and mindsets, make them aware of their biases, and educate them on how to be a true ally. Ensure that diverse employees feel respected and valued, so that they’re interested in staying and incentivized to climb the ladder.
  5. Repeat. This is a key piece that many companies overlook. Changing the face of management at your company will not happen overnight. It can only be achieved through sustained action on each of these points over the long-term. It’s not a one-and-done type of effort, so build your strategy to go the distance.

While this list may seem daunting, building diverse leadership is ultimately worth it if you want your company to succeed in the new world of work. Set your organization up to win by diversifying your management teams, and building a truly inclusive culture. If you could use some support in getting started, Workrowd has an engagement and culture management platform with diversity, equity, and inclusion resources built right in. Come see us at workrowd.com or reach out directly at hello@workrowd.com.

Categories
Employee Engagement

New issues that will impact employee engagement in 2021

As usual around this time of year, there are a lot of articles out there predicting the big areas where HR needs to focus its efforts this year. Infinite mentions of remote working, company culture, wellbeing, and so on have flooded blogs and news outlets. Ultimately though, while there are a lot of new things HR will have to contend with this year, from vaccine compliance to returns to the office, employee engagement has remained a pretty unyielding opponent.

While engagement did see a brief bump around the start of the pandemic as many employers stepped up their efforts amidst employees transitioning to working from home, it dropped back down to standard levels within a few months. The percentage of employees who are engaged has been simmering between the mid-20s and mid-30s for decades now; having only a quarter to a third of employees engaged costs U.S. companies hundreds of billions of dollars per year. As we dive deeper into what people insist on calling ‘the new normal’, it’s time to imagine a new normal for employee engagement levels as well.

Chart of U.S. employee engagement trend from 2000 through 2020
U.S. Employee Engagement Trend 2000-2020
Historical reasons for employee disengagement

Disengagement stems from a number of different sources, some of which can be influenced by employers, while others are simply a matter of preference. For instance, if an employee has little to no interest in what they do, or considers their job simply a necessary evil, few efforts by the employer will make a substantive difference. On the other hand, for employees who do care in some regard about their work, having an employer show that they care in return can go a long way toward boosting engagement.

Some of the ongoing issues that drive disengagement include:

  1. Toxic managers. According to SHRM, 6 out of 10 employees say that their manager is the reason they left their organization. Managers who are unclear, unkind, or otherwise demotivating play a key role in driving disengagement. Improving your manager training programs can help turn this problem around.  Efforts could focus on strengthening communication, increasing feedback, and boosting recognition to start.
  2. Dead-end roles. Failing to provide learning and development opportunities and/or career ladders is a grave mistake in today’s economy. Employees with no incentive to try their best, and no vision of their future with the organization, are at extremely high risk of disengagement and turnover. Ensure that your team members understand how they can grow with the company, and offer ways to expand and improve their skills.
  3. Insufficient compensation. Employees who aren’t compensated adequately with salary, benefits, and company culture are unlikely to be engaged. Not receiving sufficient rewards for the time and effort they expend on the company’s behalf will only lead to resentment and retention issues. Even if you can’t provide as compelling of a compensation package as some competitors, you can make up for it in other ways through wellbeing support and a positive work environment.
New concerns that will impact employee engagement this year

While the usual suspects will undoubtedly continue to stymie efforts to increase employee engagement in 2021, there are also a few new potential culprits on the scene. Due to the pandemic and all of the issues that accompany it, both employees and employers are facing some serious new challenges. Among them:

  1. Health & safety. More than any other time in recent history, employers across industries will have to make serious accommodations within their workplaces to ensure the health and safety of all employees. Between requiring mask wearing and social distancing, adequately sanitizing surfaces, executing contact tracing and office shutdowns, etc., there’s a lot to consider. Ultimately though, no employee will remain loyal and engaged while working for an employer that doesn’t prioritize their health and safety. Make sure you have clear policies in place, stay up-to-date on all recommendations, and ask your employees early and often how you can make them feel more comfortable and protected amidst the ongoing public health crisis.
  2. Burnout & PTO. Burnout is a serious concern for employees who have been under outsize amounts of stress and working longer hours than ever with no vacations to look forward to during the past year. Ensuring that employees are able to take time off when they need it, and that they have the supports they need in the face of escalating household responsibilities combined with increased work expectations will be critical to keeping employees happy and refreshed. Consider implementing mandatory minimums for paid time off, and step up your benefits around child and elder care, as well as healthcare and sick time.
  3. Flexible working. Not everyone will be comfortable or ready to go back to the office at the same time. Between the staggered vaccine rollout, different family structures, and varied perspectives on virus safety itself, employees will need a menu of options to ensure they feel respected and supported through any office return process. Employees forced to return under conditions that make them feel rushed and/or anxious will not be able to focus on their work and will be much more likely to leave. Additionally, not enabling employees to work schedules that are conducive to meeting their new responsibilities due to the pandemic will further reduce engagement.

A ‘new normal’ requires a new approach to employee engagement. There are many new issues and concerns to take into account when mapping out an employee engagement strategy for 2021. We’ve listed some of them above, but as always, it’s crucial that you solicit input from your employees early and often. If you could use a better way to poll employees, keep everyone on the same page, and strengthen company culture no matter where employees work, come visit us at workrowd.com or reach out directly to hello@workrowd.com.

Categories
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging

What to do when practicing inclusion requires exclusion

Last week was certainly one for the books. In the U.S., we saw record deaths from COVID-19, a flipped Senate, a certified new president, and an angry mob that stormed the Capitol (to put it mildly). Thousands of people died, and millions saw their beliefs crushed on the national stage, whether they were rooting for an alternative election outcome, or still clinging to a belief in civility. Undoubtedly, the majority of employees had strong reactions to the week’s events, putting employers in a difficult situation regarding how to respond to the compounding crises.

We talk a lot about inclusion, transparency, and encouraging employees to bring their whole selves to work on this blog. In an era characterized by such extreme polarization though, how can a workplace successfully uphold these ideals without completely contradicting themselves? How do you practice inclusion of everyone’s beliefs, be transparent about your own, and champion whole people when so many beliefs are directly predicated on exclusion? It’s a question we’ve been grappling with here at Workrowd recently, and we wanted to share our thoughts.

The double-bind of striving for inclusion in today’s day and age

Unfortunately, a significant number of Americans today espouse beliefs that are inherently exclusive. From overt racism to xenophobia to classism and beyond, much of our current civic life revolves around deeply held prejudices. While many protested against systemic injustice over the summer, we also saw large groups gather to protest against those people. Although many in that latter group will argue that their message is in fact not that Black lives don’t matter, but instead that ‘all lives matter’, by standing up in opposition to those fighting for the sanctity of Black and brown bodies, the implication is strong that some lives matter more than others.

Similarly, while they weren’t without prompting from the top, tens of thousands of people believed it was their responsibility to respond to the election outcome by physically harming those they deemed responsible. Within hours, we witnessed a surreal confluence of events, where Georgia elected two Democratic senators followed almost immediately by an insurrectionist uprising attempting to overtake the Capitol. Surely many workplaces have employees on both sides of the debate. With such divergent beliefs among your employee population, how can you respect everyone’s ideas? Moreover, what do you do when allowing people to bring their whole selves to work directly results in exclusion and/or outright harm to others?

Ways you can still champion inclusion for all when values differ

Ultimately, the only answer we’ve been able to come up with to the questions posed in the preceding paragraph is that you can’t. You cannot champion inclusion for all when some beliefs are inherently exclusive. In other words, everyone needs to collectively believe in inclusion while also maintaining their own beliefs that don’t contradict the top level ideal. This doesn’t mean that you can’t encourage people to share their opinions, but simply that the focus must be on inclusion first, unmitigated discussion of personal beliefs second. We’ve assembled a few tips to help you walk this tricky line:

  • Be clear about your goals. Constantly expressing your desire for everyone to feel included while also stating that everyone should feel free to bring their whole selves to work is contradictory and can create a stressful disconnect for employees. You don’t have to devalue the importance of authenticity, but ensure that it’s clear that your topmost objective is to build a workplace where people feel welcomed. This means that everyone must make an effort to meet their colleagues where they are, listen with an open mind, and educate themselves on different lived experiences. Prioritizing inclusion over the free share of ideas may seem counterproductive or counterintuitive, but enabling the flow of ideas that create a hostile work environment for some is far more damaging.
  • Offer trainings on how to be inclusive. As much as we want to believe that humans are inherently righteous and good, inclusion does not come naturally to us. Accordingly, it’s critical that you provide support, particularly for managers, in order to help everyone understand what you mean when you talk about inclusion. These cannot simply be one-off trainings, either; they should be held at least quarterly in order to keep everyone up-to-speed and continuously learning, rather than allowing them to simply revert to their baseline immediately after the once yearly session.
  • Make space for difficult conversations. As much as it pains us to say this, inclusive work environments won’t work for everyone. Ultimately. there will always be people who don’t want to break out of their comfort zone, champion others, or learn about lived experiences beside than their own. If you truly want to create an inclusive workplace, you have to be ready to call those people out early and often, before they poison those around them with their words and actions. Speak with them first, make clear the changes that need to occur, and if they refuse to make an effort or continue to violate basic principles of inclusion, you may end up having to cut ties. It might not feel very ‘inclusive’ but it ultimately is the only way to actually build real inclusion for the rest of your team.

There’s certainly still a lot to process after last week’s uproar, and there will undoubtedly be more changes to come, but we wanted to start to put some language around it while we’re still in the ether. Just like exclusion, inclusion comes at a cost, and it ironically may require excluding those who don’t agree. This can be a difficult paradox to sit with, but progress has never come easily, and some people who have historically been very comfortable will have to be made uncomfortable for the greater good.

If you could use some support in building safe spaces and stretching towards inclusion, especially across a distributed workforce, come check us out at workrowd.com. We’d be happy to discuss how we’re navigating this contradiction internally, and learn more about any challenges you may be managing. Stay safe, everyone.

Categories
Company Culture

Make 2021 a year of connection & collaboration

Unlike most years, 2020 has left many people wary of making predictions or setting out resolutions for the upcoming months. The innumerable bouts of upheaval combined with the ongoing anxiety and uncertainty have left even those in best-case scenarios hesitant to venture any expectations about what the new year will bring. Most of us have had our sense of security irrevocably shaken by the events of 2020, between the health and financial threats, the ongoing scourge of racism and social injustice, and the fact that all of our lives changed completely, virtually overnight. We’re not without cause for hope though,  as we welcome the first days of 2021.

As we mentioned last week, we’ll hopefully see a large swath of the developed world get vaccinated before the end of the year, and ideally we’ll expand that access to countries not currently at the front of the line as well. Within a few weeks, the U.S. will have confirmation on who will control the Senate for the next term, and we’ll finally put the presidential election to rest by welcoming a new president to the White House. We’ll hopefully see economies around the world bounce back as well, with the vaccine giving us the ability to work, travel, and socialize in a way we haven’t been safely able to since early in 2020. With all this potential positivity on the horizon, let’s focus on building more of what we missed into our work lives this year, by making 2021 the year of colleague connection and collaboration.

The importance of connection & collaboration in business & in life

If we learned nothing else from the pandemic, it’s that the fabric of our lives is woven from social connections. Everything from our schools to our economy to how we eat depends on our ability to connect and interact with each other, which made it all the more painful when COVID-19 robbed us of that ability. The overwhelming majority of leisure providers are struggling today because so much of what we like to do is predicated upon being able to gather and move around freely. Being isolated takes a heavy toll on people’s mental and physical health. A review of 148 studies with a total of more than 300,000 participants found that individuals with stronger social relationships had a 50% increased likelihood of survival. In fact, loneliness is as damaging to a person’s health as smoking a whole pack of cigarettes every day.

Successful, sustained team collaboration is similarly crucial to success. A study by UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School found that highly collaborative organizations saw significant bottom line benefits including more engaged employees, attracting more top talent and retaining them longer, increased velocity, and higher profitability. That’s a lot of benefits. Harvard Business Review also reports that a culture driven by team collaboration and professionalism is at the root of improving employee wellness. Researchers at Stanford found that even participants who simply believed that they were working collaboratively with a peer performed vastly better on an assigned task than those who believed they were working alone. Another recent study also found that companies that promote collaboration are five times more likely to be high-performing.

How you can encourage your company towards connection & collaboration in 2021

Both connection and collaboration suffered hits in 2020 as a significant subset of businesses shifted to work from home without robust supports in place. While we all suffered through more than our fair share of video calls in efforts to stay in touch, no one can deny that the Zoom fatigue is real. Accordingly, as we dive head first into 2021, here’s a shortlist of recommendations for ensuring your team can capitalize on the full benefits of collaboration and connection:

  • Make use of specialized tools. You can’t leave the water cooler in charge of company culture any more. You need to invest in software that can help your team stay in sync and in touch no matter where they’re based, in-office or at home. There is an array of tools available to you, from chat apps, to Slack bots, to our personal favorite, full engagement and culture management suites like Workrowd. This is no longer an area where can afford to cut corners, so do your due diligence and select a solution that will support your team to do their best work.
  • Set aside dedicated time for supporting your colleagues. Burnout is on the rise amidst the myriad struggles of the last year, so don’t underestimate the power of listening. Set a strong example of how to champion connection and collaboration for every team member by making time for non-work discussions and truly asking how people are doing rather than immediately diving into action items at the start of every meeting. You may be surprised by what a difference authenticity can make.
  • Connect your team to outside resources. Don’t limit your thinking to the boundaries of your company. There are plenty of resources available through outside networks that will connect your team members to crucial learning and development opportunities beyond the scope of what you can provide in-house. The Global ERG Network is one example where you can leverage the knowledge and experience of other companies to supercharge your diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and accelerate your progress. Be open to sharing, rather than cagey and concerned about competitors, and you’ll reap the benefits.

If nothing else, the year ahead of us promises to be an eventful one. We can only hope it will be less devastating than the one that preceded it, but regardless of what happens, the odds are strong that your team will need as much support as they can get. There is already talk of a ‘tsunami’ of mental health needs as we begin to ascend from the depths of the pandemic, so plan your time and efforts accordingly. If you’re interested in learning more about one or both of the solutions we mentioned above, either our in-house employee engagement and company culture management system, or the Global ERG Network to help you take your DEI work to the next level, give us a shout at hello@workrowd.com. Happy new year, all; we look forward to connecting and collaborating with you in 2021.