Category: Company Culture

Layoffs are a painful experience for everyone. That’s why it’s so important to have a plan in place for rebuilding company culture after layoffs.

Whether it’s the managers sharing the bad news, the employees being let go, or the ones left behind, layoffs can create an atmosphere where people feel afraid. Afraid they’re next, afraid for their colleagues, or afraid of the consequences that might come from them sharing their concerns.

And we live in a time of mass layoffs. In the US tech sector alone, layoffs cost more than 100,000 people their jobs in 2023.

61% of adults between 18 and 34 have felt pressure and anxiety over layoffs. 46% of employees who were laid off were unprepared.

Companies that do have to go through layoffs therefore need to prepare employees, and the company culture, for these tumultuous times.

They also need to have steps in place for rebuilding company culture after layoffs. This can be a volatile time where everyone feels like they’re walking on eggshells, they’re worried for their jobs, and they’re adjusting to the new normal.

So, how do you go about rebuilding company culture after layoffs? Let’s take a look:

Have the uncomfortable conversations

Layoffs are challenging times. But they’ll be even worse if you don’t have the hard conversations.

It’ll be uncomfortable, you might squirm, but you’ll feel better once it’s over with.

It’s worse to carry around – and bottle up – questions, guilt, or other negative emotions that can impact your personal relationships, your work relationships, and your ability to perform at work.

The sooner you rip the bandage off, the better you’ll feel. Plus, the faster you’ll succeed at rebuilding company culture after layoffs.

Create a psychologically safe space

To have the uncomfortable conversations, you – and employees – need to feel safe voicing opinions and concerns without consequences. 

If that fear is there, there’s already something wrong with your company culture and layoffs will only make it worse.

Employees could share their feelings in a one-on-one with a manager; a company-wide town hall; in an employee resource group; in an employee feedback survey; or somewhere else. 

Wherever it is, they need to feel like decision-makers hear their concerns.

Otherwise, it can add to the already stressful time of layoffs and the looming sense of dread and uncertainty that comes with it. You’ll have a much harder time rebuilding company culture after layoffs if you haven’t built up that psychological safety.

Build connections

Sometimes, during layoffs, people’s work friends can be asked to leave while they get left behind.

Work is one of the main ways many of us socialize. So it’s important to ensure employees can still find and make new friends.

Setting up ERGs enables employees to connect with those who share similar interests or backgrounds to them. These groups also help foster relationships and create a sense of belonging, in addition to helping with rebuilding company culture after layoffs.

Be open and honest

Open and honest communication is key to any positive company culture. It’s how employees feel psychologically safe at work. Plus, it leads to greater creativity and innovation, and it makes people better problem solvers. It also means that any issues or conflicts that arise don’t stick around to fester. You can have the conversations that solve things sooner rather than later.

Making employees aware of what’s happening, what will happen, and being honest when you don’t know certain answers will help to allay some of their concerns.

Consider explaining why the layoffs are happening, and why now. You may also explain why the people who were let go were chosen.

It’s not a panacea, but it should at least calm some of the anxieties. Particularly if there are a significant number of far-reaching cuts, and you need to get out ahead of rebuilding company culture after layoffs.

Offer psychological support

Layoffs can be so stressful there’s even a term called “workplace survivor’s syndrome”. It’s a form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that can impact those left behind.

Contrary to the belief that they should feel glad they still have a job, many are left feeling concerned about how long that will last. Are they the next to go? It can also be overwhelming taking on their departing colleagues’ workloads.

It’s important to acknowledge how stressful this time can be for employees and offer them support in terms of coaching, mentoring, or counseling where they can talk through how they feel with someone unrelated to your organization. 

That way, they can learn the coping techniques to come to terms with the situation, process their grief and guilt, and find a way to move on in the new normal. Individualized support like this can go a long way towards rebuilding company culture after layoffs.

Re-align everyone with your values (or set new ones)

It can help to refresh, review, or even update your values during a time like this.

Things are already up in the air, so if employees don’t know what your values are, or they’ve fallen by the wayside, this refresher can give them a renewed focus on what the company goals are and what you want to achieve in the short- and long-term.

Reminding everyone what you stand will set you up for success when rebuilding company culture after layoffs.

Conclusion

It’s important to find avenues for rebuilding company culture after layoffs. Otherwise it can lead to employees questioning their roles within your organization. You don’t want to risk losing your key players because they decide your team is no longer the right place for them.

Supporting employees, listening to their concerns, and communicating honestly with them can help employees feel more secure and work toward future-proofing your organization.

Need help creating a safe space for connection?

Would you like to set your organization up with a central hub for rebuilding company culture after layoffs?

Workrowd has what you need. With all your employee programs, groups, and events in one place, plus automated feedback surveys and more, you can give team members more of what they want with less effort.

Plus, our real-time analytics dashboards help you track the impact of your initiatives, so you always know how far you’ve come at rebuilding company culture after layoffs.

Ready to learn more? Visit us online or write us directly at hello@workrowd.com to schedule your free demo.

Almost every employee will experience workplace conflict at some point. It wastes 2.8 hours per week for US employees, a total of $359 billion in paid hours. Which gives organizations 359 billion reasons why conflict resolution in the workplace is important.

In addition to wasting huge amounts of time, conflict in the workplace can negatively impact employee experience and mental health. It leads to awkward atmospheres, people walking on eggshells, and the employees involved not wanting to come to work.

That inevitably impacts their performance, too. Studies suggest it leads to a 12% reduction in employee productivity.

However, ¾ of employees believe that their direct manager should manage workplace conflicts more effectively. So there’s a skills gap that could be filled through additional training and increased awareness of the impact conflict resolution in the workplace can have.

It’s vital that companies find ways to resolve conflicts, as unresolved workplace conflicts can lower a company’s success rate by 20-30%. That could make a huge difference to a company’s performance in both the short- and long-term.

How to resolve conflicts at work

It’s inevitable that employees will disagree about things at some point, especially as teams grow in size.

However, managers need to learn how to handle conflicts with respect, allowing everyone to feel heard.

Employees, meanwhile, need to know how to be respectful toward their colleagues. They need to learn to disagree amicably without getting rude or personal.

Here are some tips to improve conflict resolution in the workplace:

Clear communication

Communication is a key pillar of success in any team. Managers need to be able to talk to employees in a clear way, and one that makes them feel recognized.

Employees, meanwhile, need to say what they mean without being rude or disrespectful to colleagues.

Giving everyone communication training—whether they’re in a conflict or not—can help with this, as it teaches everyone how to communicate in the same way.

This isn’t the same as encouraging groupthink. Some people will read into a conversation more than others, which is one way that communication conflicts can occur. When employees understand each other’s ways of communicating, and find a middle ground, it can help to remove or reduce some of the reasons why conflicts occur in the first place.

Accordingly, clear communication can form the foundation of effective conflict resolution in the workplace.

Active listening

Active listening ensures everyone feels respected at work. 

Little things like not talking over each other, and repeating what someone has said, show that you understand. It also shows that you’re not spending more time thinking about how to reply than on listening to their point.

This is an undervalued skill, but it’s key to managing healthy relationships at work. It’s also, unsurprisingly, key to conflict resolution at work.

Even if someone’s suggestion isn’t the right fit, enabling them to be comfortable saying something will ensure they feel appreciated in the workplace and not invisible.

Compromise

Over a third of conflicts happen due to issues with style or strategy. This is inevitable when you’ve got different people from different backgrounds, with different ways of thinking, working together.

Managers need to come up with ways for employees to compromise on these different ways of doing things. However, they need to do so in a way where everyone still feels seen and heard. 

They also need to work out what the best course of action for the business is while maintaining psychological safety. It’s a fine line to tread, but one that’s vital to addressing conflict resolution in the workplace and keeping employees happy.

Targeted training

60% of employees haven’t received training on conflict resolution in the workplace. There’s a simple solution to this: more training.

Whether it’s coaching, mentoring, workshops, books, e-learning, or something else, the more training managers and employees receive on conflict resolution in the workplace, the easier it will be for them to react in a rational, not emotional, way to challenges that arise at work.

Training topics can include how to stop conflicts from escalating, how to ensure everyone feels heard, and how to keep debates respectful.

Respectful discussions

People will always have different opinions. In some cases, that can lead to more creative problem solving.

However, it can also cause more conflict if employees aren’t taught how to challenge each other in a respectful way.

When challenging ideas, discussions should feel like just that: discussions. Not attacks, or people shouting at each other. 

As soon as voices get raised, or emotions come into play instead of logic, it can lead to people feeling attacked, decisions being made based on what people want rather than what the business needs, and at worst, accusations of workplace bullying. No one wants any of that.

Respectful discussions only happen when people feel psychologically safe and have the right training. 

An element of this comes from managers leading by example. For instance, keeping their tones neutral and their emotions out of the conversation. 

This then has a ripple effect on employees, who follow that example. They can use the same techniques to talk to colleagues even if they disagree.

Positive conflict resolution in the workplace doesn’t just happen on its own. It generally needs to be taught, then reinforced by example.

Psychological safety

When employees feel psychologically safe, they’re not afraid to be wrong. That means they’re less likely to get defensive over their ideas or feel attacked when someone disagrees with them or questions their suggestion.

It’s also important that employees don’t feel like they’re going to be punished for making mistakes. The risk of this is that people are afraid to speak out when they see something going wrong. They may worry they’ll get blamed and be reprimanded for it.

The more secure employees feel, the more comfortable they’ll be in their roles. Then, they’ll be less likely to take out any fears they may have on their colleagues.

This reduction in fear can help foster healthier conflict resolution in the workplace.

Conclusion

Unresolved conflicts at work can impact your business’s long-term success. The key to conflict resolution in the workplace is more training for managers and employees so that they don’t take these discussions personally. Instead they’ll be respectful debates where everyone feels heard.

Get employee insights faster

Want to elevate conflict resolution in the workplace across your organization? Workrowd can help! With deeper visibility across your employee experience, including automated surveys and real-time analytics, you’ll always have your finger on the pulse of your people’s needs.

Empower your team to take action faster and nip conflicts in the bud. Get in touch today to book your free demo. Visit us online or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

85% of organizations find that companies with strong cultures have a competitive advantage. What’s more, 72% feel that culture helps change initiatives succeed.

Despite this, only 28% of executives understand their company’s culture. And if they don’t understand it, how can they channel it when doing their role? Let alone while interacting with employees or hiring new ones?

As for employees, just 22% feel connected to their company culture. Which is really sad, both in terms of the difference a strong company culture makes to employee morale, and the fact that companies with strong cultures see a 4x growth in revenue. That’s a lot of money potentially being left on the table.

So, how do you experience results that powerful? Here are some key areas to prioritize to join the ranks of companies with strong cultures:

Psychological safety

Psychological safety is the cornerstone of companies with strong cultures. 

If employees don’t feel safe, accepted, and listened to, they won’t perform their best at work. They’re far more likely to quiet quit or become prone to absenteeism. 

Employees may even become sick more often with exacerbated physical and/or mental health challenges.

On the other hand, when employees do feel psychologically safe at work, they’re happy. And happy people are more productive whatever their role within your business.

Shared mission

We all want to feel like we’re a part of something – like we’re making a difference in the world. (And I like to think we all want to leave the world a better place, even if some of us have different ways of going about it.)

When employees and their employer work toward a shared goal, it acts as a north star, keeping everyone focused on moving in the same direction. It also provides a lens for how the company operates, enabling more effective, efficient decision making.

Ownership

Toto Wolff, the team principal of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One team, believes it’s his job to have shoulders that can carry some of the adversity that hits the Mercedes team.

He also tries his best not to let anyone on the team down. This isn’t just something he actively does; it’s part of who he is.

Wolff takes ownership of what happens within the team, and when it’s time to celebrate, he won’t take the full credit—he knows that success is a team effort, and he tries to spotlight it. This approach is common across companies with strong cultures.

Employee listening

A key practice at companies with strong cultures is listening to employees. What do they like about work? What do they dislike? Is there anything they need to perform better in their roles?

Whether you use your employee groups or an employee survey tool to find out what they need from you, employee listening is key to getting the most out of every team member.

One thing you could do to ensure you have the feedback you need is to roll out automated feedback surveys. This allows you to monitor positive and negative trends within your organization. 

You can then double down on the positives and even use them as part of your employer brand to attract new hires. 

For any negatives, you can take action so that your employees feel more listened to and supported.

Want help with your surveys? Get in touch to discover how Workrowd can help you automate your survey sending and analysis.

Quality of life

Never underestimate the impact someone’s personal life can have on their ability to perform in their role.

For example, Timpsons CEO James Timpson regularly checks in with all employees, even the ones who work in different parts of the UK. He’s based in London but has stores across the country. This can sometimes mean a whole day of travel just to get from London to Newcastle.

The travel doesn’t deter him. He visits stores then asks employees—regardless of rank—how he can improve their quality of life. 

He has a £1 million budget per year which often goes specifically towards things like new teeth for employees.

The National Health Service’s dentistry is impossibly stretched right now, meaning it’s harder than ever to get affordable dental care. 

Timpson knows the difference teeth can make not just on someone’s confidence, but on their quality of life, too. 

After all, if your teeth hurt, you’re less likely to be able to eat well and look after yourself. Which means you can’t perform your best at work. If they’re really bad, they may even hurt when you’re not eating.

While dentistry may sound trivial and unrelated to work, it builds employee loyalty and happiness. It’s a pretty genius move on the part of companies with strong cultures if you ask me.

Upskilling and reskilling

Many of our jobs risk becoming obsolete or changing completely thanks to the rise of AI and shifting business landscape. One way to protect and support your employees through the new industrial revolution is by offering them upskilling and reskilling opportunities.

This could mean learning skills related to what they already do, or exploring topics in a completely different department. It all depends on what’s happening with their role and where they want to go with their career.

The more options you provide employees, and the more you listen to their suggestions, the safer and more secure they’ll feel working for your business.

And the more internal knowledge you get to retain, even if someone’s original job becomes obsolete. Retaining that internal knowledge alone could save you a lot of money, as it does for other companies with strong cultures.

Work-life balance

Do you expect employees to respond to messages outside of working hours? Or do you actively discourage them from doing so?

For many of us, we now default to responding to messages as soon as they arrive, even if it’s outside of working hours and we’re hanging out with loved ones or trying to disconnect for the weekend. We don’t question if there’s another way to do things.

But there is. 

And it starts with leaders setting an example: encouraging employees to use their lunch breaks to get away from their desks, to use their weekends to recharge, and to spend time doing things that make them happy. Work-life balance is often a core component at companies with strong cultures.

Conclusion

Companies with strong cultures revolve around supporting employees to be their best selves, at work and outside of it. 

When employees feel comfortable in their minds and bodies—and have an employer who can help them navigate the ever-changing world of work—they can perform their best, creating a stronger company culture and enabling you to make more money.

Want to ensure your organization is included when companies with strong cultures come to mind? Workrowd has the tools you need to succeed.

With a central hub for connection, culture, and career progression, you can give every team member more of what they want, without the stress. Visit us online to see how we can support you in achieving your company culture goals, or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com to schedule some time to chat.

Empathy. We’ve all heard the word. But how many of us really know what it means? Or actively practice it? Especially when it comes to empathy at work?

It’s not about walking a mile in someone’s shoes. It’s not about offering them a shoulder to cry on.

The dictionary defines it as: “The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.”

Walking a mile in someone’s shoes or offering them a shoulder to cry on doesn’t necessarily mean you understand what they’re going through or share their feelings. Everyone reacts differently to the same situations.

How I’d react to an incident at work is different from how a Workrowd colleague would react, or how a stranger would respond. Despite all of us being in the same situation.

So if that’s not showing empathy, what is?

The dictionary said it best: “understanding.”

That’s the key, and that’s where most people go wrong.

Offering someone a shoulder is a sign of compassion or sympathy, but not necessarily empathy.

To feel empathy, you have to truly understand the other person’s emotions even if you wouldn’t respond to a situation in the same way.

Why does empathy at work matter?

Consulting firm EY found in 2021 that 90% of employees believe empathetic leaders increase job satisfaction. What’s more, 79% believe they lower employee turnover. Those are some pretty significant numbers.

For companies struggling to retain employees, cultivating empathy at work could make a huge difference.

Greater empathy can also lead to more innovation. In fact, 61% of employees at empathetic organizations felt they could innovate.

Just 13% felt they could at apathetic organizations.

In our ever-changing, fast-moving times, the more innovation going on in your business, the more likely you are to differentiate yourself from competitors to both customers and employees. And the more money you’re likely to make as a result.

But first, that requires a psychologically safe workplace.

And how do you build that?

Empathy!

4 ways to build empathy at work

How can you create more empathy at work? Let’s take a look:

Define what empathy means in your business

As I mentioned in the introduction, a lot of people have heard of empathy, but very few people understand what it really is.

There’s a difference between witnessing racism and really feeling its impacts in the short- and long-term.

Same as there’s a difference between seeing someone in a wheelchair and understanding the challenges that come from living in a world that isn’t disability friendly.

So, what does empathy at work look like at your organization? How will you show empathy to your employees?

Will it be through active listening?

Sending feedback surveys and acting based on the results?

Training managers and employees on what empathy at work looks like and how to use it?

Or something else?

Make your CEO human

The larger a company is, the more a CEO can feel like a mythical creature who only comes out at night.

Employees further down the ladder may have only heard their name and seen their headshot on LinkedIn. They may never have had a conversation with them.

When CEOs open up to employees and show a human side, it creates a connection that can help motivate team members, foster understanding, and set an example. Managers and employees alike can then follow this display of empathy at work.

Get managers to set an example

If a manager sets an awkward work environment, employees won’t feel comfortable in their roles. They’re also likely to subconsciously mimic this to protect themselves.

If a manager creates a welcoming work environment, everyone will feel involved and want to be a part of that team. New team members will be more likely to stay because they’ll feel like they belong.

Managers can set an example by how they talk to their team members and even how they greet them in the mornings. Everything from their body language to their tone of voice can set the atmosphere for the day.

If a manager is having a bad day, they should either tell their employees that they’re feeling off, or find a way to not let their mood rub off. Otherwise, it can ruin the productivity of everyone on their team.

Open the lines of communication

Open communication is important in any relationship. But how can employees share their feedback in your workplace?

Who can they go to if they have issues with a colleague? Or their boss?

There should be formal processes in place, as well as informal ways to discuss less serious matters.

Sending regular surveys to see how your employees really feel is another way to find out what they think. It allows you to stay informed about what’s happening within your business and analyze the results.

Seeking to understand what employees are going through in this way can really help you build empathy at work.

Conclusion

Fostering empathy at work is a key trait of any successful organization. It improves creativity, productivity, and innovation—all components that have never been more important for businesses.

Listening to what employees have to say, and setting examples, helps employees understand your workplace culture. This is especially true if instigating the new, more empathetic attitude meets some resistance.

Over time, you’ll start to see the benefits of empathy at work and your employees will repay you with their hard work and loyalty.

Ready to up your game when it comes to empathy at work? Giving employees a one-stop shop for building real connections is a great place to start.

Workrowd enables you to do just that, alongside automated surveys and real-time analytics. Curious to learn more? Drop by our site, or reach out directly to hello@workrowd.com today.

Many businesses, both big and small, use all-hands meetings to get everyone together. So it’s always good to have some all-hands meeting ideas on hand to ensure you’re making the most of yours.

All-hands enable organizations to share company updates, industry news, and future plans. For some businesses, these meetings are a regular occurrence, happening monthly or quarterly. For others, they’re yearly or intermittent depending on what’s happening.

Regardless of how often you hold your all-hands, they offer an opportunity to improve employee engagement and create a sense of belonging. 

When employees are truly happy and feel like they belong in the workplace, they work harder and stay for longer. All-hands are just one way that you can make people feel like an important part of the team, no matter what their role is.

So, let’s take a look at some all-hands meeting ideas to create a more connected culture:

Change up the speakers

Hearing the same C-Suite executives talk every time can get repetitive for employees. Especially if you hold monthly all-hands meetings.

So why not give employees a chance instead?

Rather than the head of each department giving updates each month, rotate which employee shares a team’s updates. This gives them the chance to build their public speaking and leadership skills. It also shows you’re invested in their professional development—something which is increasingly important to employees.

Not to mention public speaking skills increase people’s confidence and can help them more easily articulate their thoughts.

Hold it at different times and locations

While holding a company-wide meeting at the same time may sound like a good idea so people know when to expect it, if every meeting is at 9am on the first Monday of the month, it excludes the same people. Meaning those team members feel less connected to the business and may not get the opportunity to ask their questions. 

So if you held the meeting in the morning last time, consider doing it in the afternoon the next. 

If you meet in person but have a distributed team, change which location you hold it at. Consider making it available online as well. That way it’s easier for people to attend whether they work in that office or not. It’s one of the easier all-hands meeting ideas that can offer a big payoff.

Make it accessible

If it’s a short update, or you have a global team, can you do the update online? Or take a hybrid approach?

This ensures people with disabilities don’t have to worry about travel arrangements, parents don’t have to pay for expensive care, and it’s not eating into employees’ time with their loved ones.

You could record the all-hands (whether it’s in-person or not), then create a replay for people who can’t watch live. This makes it accessible to everyone regardless of their time zone or working schedule.

If you decide to host it in-person or hybrid, make sure you choose an accessible venue. 

It should have a working elevator, a plan in place for wheelchair users if there’s a fire, working toilets, parking and/or public transit links, and somewhere employees can get food and drink.

This ensures your employees can be at their best for the meeting.

To make things even more accessible, you can use Workrowd to centralize materials you want to share before or after the meeting. Any meeting information also becomes archived and easy to find, so everyone can quickly refer to it when needed.

Make it interactive

The more you involve employees, the less likely they are to tune out. 

Sorry, but all-hands can be boring and repetitive. They may be interesting to managers , but you want employees to get value from them, too. This only happens if they feel valued and bought into the company mission.

So make sure to give employees the chance to ask questions about what’s happening in your business/industry. You could allow them to put executives on the spot, or give them the option to submit questions in advance.

Using Workrowd, you can make sessions more interactive, giving employees the chance to discuss the meeting before, during, and after on the meeting’s page.

Be open and honest with your employees and they’re more likely to reward you with their loyalty. Introducing more interactivity is one of the all-hands meeting ideas every organization should consider.

Send a reminder

With everything going on at work, it can be easy for employees to forget that an all-hands is even happening.

Sending a reminder can help keep it top of mind. This then means people are less likely to leave organizing travel, accommodation, or childcare to the last minute.

You can also use Workrowd to schedule and collect meeting RSVPs so you know who’s coming. Your team will then get automatic reminders as well. It puts some of the all-hands meeting ideas on autopilot, so you can focus on creating an even better experience.

Offer optional socializing and networking

While I disagree with mandatory workplace socializing, there is a place for optional socializing. 

Whether this is going out for a meal, an activity, or a book club, giving employees the chance to hang out with their colleagues face-to-face and do something that isn’t work-related can help with collaboration and allow them to let off some steam.

Get feedback

If you want everyone in your company to pay attention to, and get the most from, an all-hands, you need to know how they feel about it. 

Regularly soliciting feedback on the meetings’ format and usefulness ensures you can see what’s working and can act to continuously improve it.

To make your life even easier, Workrowd can automatically follow up with employees after your all-hands. You can collect employees’ feedback, then see the results in your automated analytics dashboard. 

That way, you’ll know exactly what employees love—and aren’t so keen on—within your current format. It then makes it easy to improve on your all-hands meeting ideas for next time.

Conclusion

To get the most from company-wide meetings, you have to meet employees halfway. 

All-hands aren’t just about you sharing company updates. They’re about finding out what your employees want and need from you going forward. 

You can do that via a Q&A, or send a survey after the all-hands to find out what they think. 

Changing up how and when you host all-hands meetings ensures they’re accessible to more people regardless of their location or circumstances.

Ready to take things to the next level with some of these all-hands meeting ideas? Workrowd’s all-in-one suite of tools can help.

Using our one-stop platform, you can easily keep everyone in the loop, encourage better discussions, and collect feedback on how your all-hands meeting ideas are working out.

Does this sound useful for your organization? If so, visit us online to learn more and see how Workrowd can help you build a more connected culture. Or, just send us a quick note at hello@workrowd.com to set up some time to chat.

True work-life balance is a make-or-break element of attracting and retaining top talent. So it can help to have some solid work-life balance tips in your toolkit.

A good work-life balance is very important to 72% of employees. And 57% of employees feel that a poor work-life balance is a deal breaker when they consider a new job.

Yet 77% of employees have experienced burnout at their current job. And just 60% of employees feel able to balance work and personal commitments. 

That feels like somewhat of a contradiction to me. Surely, with the right work-life balance, fewer employees would experience burnout? 

Which means many of us aren’t balancing work and personal commitments as well as we think we are.

It’s all too easy for employees—particularly remote employees—to work just five more minutes to get something done. 

And for those five minutes to turn into five hours…

…then when they look up at the clock, they realize it’s almost bedtime and they’ve spent all day staring at a computer screen.

So what are some work-life balance tips to ensure employees really do have a positive experience? And that they can comfortably fulfill personal commitments in addition to their jobs?

Encourage disconnection outside of office hours

One of the biggest work-life balance tips centers around being able to disconnect. And to do that, it means only responding to notifications during working hours.

A simple way to get employees to disconnect is to have set work hours on apps like Slack or Teams. 

And make it clear that employees shouldn’t feel the need to “check in” when they’re just browsing through their phone off hours. 

Or worse—on vacation! 

(Yes, I do know people who’ve done this while lounging by the pool. Insert horrified emoji here.)

Some phones and operating systems allow you to set different home screen layouts depending on the time of day or what you’re doing. You could suggest employees set this up if they use their phone for work. 

Or if they have a separate work phone, get them to set an alarm so that they know it’s time to turn it off for the day.

If it’s harder for them to get to Slack, Teams, or emails, and they’re not getting notifications every time a message comes in, they’re less likely to check those messages outside of working hours.

Give employees time back if they work overtime

One way you can show employees you value their work is by giving them time back if you know they’ve worked overtime to finish a task or project.

This ensures they don’t lose out on time with their loved ones, or relaxing, just because they wanted to finish something before wrapping up for the day.

Make sure employees use their paid time off (and consider offering them more)

It’s all very well and good offering paid time off (PTO), but if employees don’t use that time, is it anything more than a token gesture to lure in new hires?

Employees should be able to use their paid time off without feeling guilty about it. Or like they’ll be reprimanded for doing so. 

PTO is key to employee wellbeing, providing them with vital time to recharge their mental and physical batteries. And helping them come back to work happier and healthier. 

If employees don’t use their PTO at your company, ask yourself why? And how can you change that? When thinking about work-life balance tips, paid time off should be a core consideration.

Talk to employees about their schedules

If you have an employee who’s regularly online well outside of working hours, talk to them. Is it that their workload is too much and they don’t feel they can get everything done during their allocated hours? Or are they a workaholic?

Either way, no matter how great the results that person gets you now are, they’re at high risk of burnout.

So be sure to keep in touch with them. Suggest they disconnect on weekends, use their PTO, and don’t check in off hours. Or just send them this list of work-life balance tips with a friendly note!

Allow employees to work where they work best

79% of workers feel a flexible schedule allows for a better work-life balance. 

And 91% decided to work remotely because they wanted a better work-life balance. 

That says something about the office environment and how much time we can lose to things like the daily commute.

Everyone’s ideal work environment is unique. For some, it’s at home in their own space. It’s in the office, surrounded by other people for others. However, for most, it seems to be a hybrid work model.

To find out what makes the biggest difference to your employees, ask them! Send an employee survey with questions on how they feel they work best, and ask for their feedback on how things work now.

Most importantly, implement changes based on the feedback so that employees know you listen. Otherwise, they’re less likely to take part in similar activities in the future. Plus, you won’t get much in the way of work-life balance tips from their suggestions if they don’t feel heard.

Provide discounts on well-being activities

Days out with loved ones, a trip to the gym, or even a vacation are all excellent ways for employees to reduce their stress levels and get a change of scenery. Particularly for employees who work from home.

Staff discounts are a great way to show employees you value them and to help them disconnect.

Could you partner with an employee benefits platform to offer discounts? Or work with local businesses/your customers to provide employees with exclusive offers?

Whether it’s subsidized gym memberships or discounts on meal boxes, little things like this can contribute to improving employees’ overall well-being inside, and outside, of work.

Make sure employees take their lunch breaks away from their desks

When I worked in an office, I almost always ate at my desk because I brought in my own lunch and reheated it in the staff microwave.

But, before I ate, I always went for a walk so that I got a break from the office. 

Whether your employees go for a lunchtime walk like I did, go to the gym, or just sit outside on a bench, remind them to get away from their desk during the day. It breaks up the day, gives them a change of scenery, gets their blood flowing, and can calm their stress levels if the office is noisy. It’s one of the more straightforward work-life balance tips that can have a big impact.

Conclusion

A positive work-life balance is key to our long-term health. It reduces stress levels, gives us more time with loved ones, and prevents burnout.

The right work-life balance is different for everyone, but the key is to ensure employees can disconnect from their jobs without feeling guilty or like everything will go wrong because they’re unreachable for a few hours.

Looking to implement some of these work-life balance tips? Workrowd can help. By centralizing all your employee information, programs, groups, and events, you can save team members time and highlight all the great ways they can find better balance.

Plus, with real-time analytics, you always know who may be struggling and in need of more support. Want to learn more? Visit us online or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

We’ve all heard of culture fit, where businesses hire employees based on how well they fit into the company culture. This can help businesses run more coherently and lead to less tension in the workplace. But it can also lead to groupthink. That’s where culture add comes in.

If everyone’s experiences are the same, and they all feel the same way about something, opinions, beliefs, and attitudes never get challenged. Which makes it harder for employees to think creatively and solve problems. This can mean it takes longer to get things done. It can even put you behind your competitors.

Culture add, on the other hand, enhances your company culture while avoiding groupthink.

What is culture add?

Imagine a five-foot wall, with three people trying to look over it. The first person is six feet tall and can see over it fine. The second person is five foot, so they can’t really see, but they can on tiptoes. The third person is four foot and can’t see at all.

Culture fit is hiring only six-foot-tall people, so you don’t realize the wall is an obstacle to some.

Culture add is hiring those people who can point out that there’s a problem, and therefore help you find a solution because they see the world differently.

You’ve probably come across the equity meme where three people look over the wall, and the two shorter people stand on boxes to see over the wall. Culture add in a business is a real-world equivalent of that.

Benefits of culture add

So, how can focusing on culture add benefit your business? Let’s take a look:

More creativity and better problem solving

When you hire someone based on culture add, rather than culture fit, it brings in fresh perspectives.

Someone with a more creative background might not be a typical choice for a software developer, but if they have the right soft skills, they’ll pick up on the hard skills they need to succeed.

Hard skills can be taught. It’s not impossible to teach soft skills, but it isn’t as easy. And it usually takes longer.

But if you hire someone who shares your organizational values, such as a growth mindset, alongside your existing, talented employees, you get to experience the benefits of their innovative ideas.

The more diverse a group of people is, the more creative that group will be. Everyone will bring new perspectives to the table based on their life experiences. This leads to better—and faster—problem solving, and increased innovation.

Think about it: if a company is full of men, they have no idea what problems women face.

So they can’t tap into that market as efficiently or as well as a team that includes equal amounts of women in decision-making roles.

The same is true of race, religion, disabilities, and other communities.

The more you embrace diverse backgrounds, and look for culture add, the more creative problem solving you’ll get from your employees.

Happier (and more productive) employees

Culture add increases workplace diversity, which helps employees experience different cultures and ways of living.

With a more inclusive culture, employees will be happier and more productive in their roles.

They’ll want to come to work because they’ll feel like valued members of the team.

Less bias

Hiring for culture fit risks bias creeping in. If hiring managers only hire people who think like them, over time it may lead to them overlooking talented candidates who think differently but are equally capable of doing the job.

When a team is already diverse, there’s less chance of bias taking over because more perspectives will be involved in the hiring process. Moreover, hiring managers will already be used to working with a range of different people.

Increased diversity

Many businesses these days have diversity targets. While these can sometimes feel like lip service, they actually work.

A study found that companies with gender diversity targets didn’t end up hiring incompetent women. Instead, it weeded out the incompetent men!

When you look for culture add, you’ll open your talent pool up to a much wider range of candidates.

You’ll get to embrace people’s differences and utilize the strengths that come with those new perspectives.

Improve your employer brand

High-quality candidates know their worth. They won’t apply for a role at a business where the culture feels unwelcoming or off to them. If something makes them uncomfortable when they’re going through the hiring process, they may drop out. Meaning the hiring process could take even longer.

A welcoming company culture, where you focus on culture add, creates a more welcoming work environment.

This comes across in how employees talk about you on review sites like Glassdoor, social media sites like LinkedIn, and among their peers.

Since one of the best ways to hire new talent is from employees’ networks, if they’re singing your praises, their peers will want to work with you. And if you’ve put the work in to create a diverse team, you’ll attract more diverse candidates, too. Your positive employer brand will give you an ongoing advantage in the talent market.

More revenue

Every business wants to make more money, right?

Well, companies that focus on culture add make more money. 33% more money, in fact.

This extra revenue could be used on business growth, employee development, talent acquisition, or even rewarding employees for their hard work with pay raises.

Conclusion

Culture add creates a better workplace culture and generates more revenue for businesses. It’s the next step beyond culture fit—finding people who complement your working environment, not just people who fit in because they think like everyone else.

Once you start hiring for culture add, it’s important to ensure your new team members feel welcome and included. That’s where Workrowd comes in.

Give your people one-stop shopping for everything culture and engagement, so they can find community and tap into what’s important to them from day one. Plus, with real-time analytics, you can stay agile and quickly make any changes needed to keep everyone thriving.

If this sounds useful for your organization, visit us online to learn more, or send us a quick note at hello@workrowd.com.

Communication forms the backbone of pretty much everything we do in life. So it shouldn’t be any wonder that taking steps to improve employee communication can do wonders for your company culture.

The Dunning-Kruger effect occurs when people overestimate their skills or knowledge in a particular area. Frequently, this happens when they don’t have many skills or much knowledge on a subject.

This can also be true for the opposite end of the spectrum, where high performers underestimate their skills (imposter syndrome, anyone?).

Knowing how to communicate the good and the bad—and everything in between—is imperative for a better company culture.

It prevents written or verbal communication being misinterpreted, and ensures every employee knows what’s expected of them. This keeps everyone focused and boosts employee engagement.

So, how can you improve employee communication, and with it, your company culture?

Set an example

Employees follow the examples set by their superiors. If you want to improve employee communication, it starts by looking at how you communicate with employees from the top down.

How do you speak to them? Is it with respect and an open mind?

Do you subconsciously project your bad moods onto those around you?

If you’re not sure, ask your employees—at every level—for their feedback. How do they feel in your presence? When you send them an email? In a meeting?

If you want to get some really honest feedback, you could ask them to submit their comments anonymously. That way, you know you’re getting answers that will really help you improve.

When asking employees for feedback, be sure to act on it, even if you dislike what’s been said. Most business don’t act on feedback they get from their employee surveys, which leads to people feeling like they’re a waste of time.

To create a positive company culture, you have to show that you’re willing to listen to good and bad feedback, then make changes accordingly.

Create guidelines

Clearly explaining how employees should communicate helps everyone understand the best way to talk to their colleagues and grow the company culture.

Your people will be much more able to understand how to communicate if you show them examples in different contexts rather than telling them to do this or that.

The more examples you can show, the more employees will come to understand the types of communication that are the most effective in the workplace.

Remember: it’s a skill

Many people forget (or don’t realize) that communication is a skill. We have to actively work to get better at it.

Sometimes, we can learn bad communication habits from our family, friends, or job.

Every business has different expectations of their employees and how they work together. This results in every business having subtly different communication skills, and employees taking those with them when they leave and go somewhere new.

Teaching employee communication should therefore be treated like any other skill an employee might have to learn. 

Including it in your onboarding is a great way to show how you expect everyone to communicate in your business. It’s also one of the easiest ways to improve employee communication from day one.

Hold workshops

Another way to improve employee communication is by holding workshops. 

If you’re short on time, this could be a lunch and learn, or even a series of lunch and learns with each one focused on a different area, such as:

• Spoken feedback
• Written feedback
• Writing emails
• Effective meeting conduct
• Storytelling
• One-on-ones
• Body language 

If you’re unsure, you could send an employee survey to get people’s thoughts on what areas of communication they’d most like help with.

Suggest some reading

Recommending a book is a subtle way to show your employees the kind of communication you want to encourage in your business.

When it’s a nonfiction book, it can also reflect your values and give employees key takeaways for the workplace.

An example is “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott. This book talks about how to effectively communicate in an open and honest way without causing offense.

You don’t have to share recommendations via a structured book club. That said, if you do, it’s worth setting up an employee group to connect everyone.

You could offer recommended reads as part of your onboarding process, or share a recommendation during a meeting.

To make these recommendations inclusive, try to only suggest books that are easy to read and have an audiobook available. Extra points if it’s available from libraries (or employees can request it to their library).

Encourage the use of plain English

Many people assume plain English means boring, but it doesn’t. What it actually means is cutting the fluff from your writing. 

Not the personality, but the long sentences; the in-depth descriptions; the sentences without punctuation.

All these things make your writing less accessible and harder for someone to understand. 

The most popular newspaper in the UK has an average reading age of eight, despite its audience being adults, for a reason. 

If you can make people do less mental work, even if your employees are highly educated, they’re more likely to understand what you say and take action. In turn, this will help them tailor their own writing, so you can improve employee communication on two fronts.

Don’t forget body language

It’s not just our words that speak—our body language does, too. However, we’re not always that good at interpreting it.

When I first started doing poetry readings, my university lecturer said that the audience will look disinterested not because they’re ignoring me, but because they’re concentrating. 

He was right. Eyes were closed; arms were crossed. I felt like I’d lost them. 

But at the end, they all smiled and clapped and complimented me. So they had been listening, even though they hadn’t been sitting on the edges of their uncomfortable plastic seats.

Body language can also be cultural, or even related to someone’s health issues. 

So, consider the bigger picture when judging someone based on theirs, and don’t make assumptions.

And don’t forget that your employees may misread your body language, too. 

For instance, if you sit with your arms crossed, they may see you as defensive or inaccessible. It could be that you’re really just cold though because you sit under the AC!

Conclusion

Effective employee communication is at the heart of every business. The more you seek to improve your communication skills, the more your employees will follow your example and get better at communicating with each other, too.

If you want to improve employee communication in an organic way, giving your team additional space to interact and grow is important. If people only interact with their direct team, they’ll only learn that one communication style. Connecting everyone through an all-in-one hub ensures employees interact with a wider circle of colleagues.

Plus, Workrowd makes it easy for team members to start initiatives that improve employee communication like Toastmasters groups, lightning talks, and more. If this sounds useful for your workplace, visit us online to learn more, or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

During the pandemic, only a quarter of employees felt they had psychological safety in the workplace. Burnout, stress, and feelings of loneliness all increased.

When six in ten employees feel psychologically safe, and able to voice their opinions, businesses can experience a 27% reduction in staff turnover and a 12% increase in productivity. 

It also means employees experience 74% less stress, 29% greater life satisfaction, and 76% higher engagement at work.

And psychological safety in the workplace also makes it 67% more likely that workers will apply any newly learned skills to their jobs.

What is psychological safety?

Psychological safety in the workplace looks like people feeling comfortable sharing their ideas and concerns, asking questions, admitting mistakes, and taking risks at work, without fear of negative consequences.

When employees feel able to speak up and make mistakes, they’re happier in their roles and less likely to leave. They’re not spending their working days on edge, waiting for someone to snap at them over a minor error.

How to build a psychologically safe work environment

No-blame culture

A no-blame culture means that if a mistake happens, nobody gets blamed or scapegoated. 

The team analyzes the mistake, takes away any learnings from it, and makes changes going forward.

Employees continue to feel able to share constructive feedback with their colleagues. Their mental health doesn’t take a hit out of fear for their futures, either.

As a result, high-performing teams stay high-performing and the psychological safety in the workplace remains.

The Mercedes F1 team is famous for its no-blame company culture. Watching their seven-year winning streak come to an end over the past couple of years has tested this approach. Plus, their new car design has significantly impacted their performance in the championships.

Despite this, nobody blamed or fired anyone on the team.

Instead, they simply moved people around the company to find roles that better fit them. 

When asked about the team’s no-blame culture, Mercedes Team Principal, Toto Wolff, explained: “The human mind is structured in a way that when something happens, when a problem comes up in the race, or a part fails, human nature will always be ‘it’s your fault,’ because that allows me to release pressure. Understanding that is an important first step that is just the pressure release valve for yourself.”

He continued: “It’s important to recalibrate yourself, recondition yourself, and then say okay, what has actually gone wrong? And only if you’re calm and reflected, but also an emotional leader, will people be able to come out of their hiding spaces and say, ‘I think we should have done that better or this better.’ I think this is a very important ingredient to make the team progress. To uncover every problem that’s come up and not blame the person.” 

Listen to everyone’s opinion—and encourage employees to voice theirs

Not everyone is comfortable voicing their opinions at work. Especially if someone has reprimanded them in the past for doing so, either at their current or a previous job. The only way that will change is if they experience psychological safety in the workplace.

Taking employees’ suggestions, and making a habit of doing so without allowing someone else to take credit for them, will further help employees feel comfortable sharing their thoughts.

If they feel like someone else will get the credit, or like people won’t listen to them, they’re less likely to make suggestions and more likely to retreat into themselves.

Support risk taking

Employees need to feel like they can take risks, or suggest taking a risk, without being penalized for it.

Taking an attitude of “no suggestion is a bad suggestion” opens you up to a wider range of ideas. Even just one of them could revolutionize your business.

There’s no such thing as a stupid question

Employees need to feel like they can ask questions without judgement. Otherwise, they’re less likely to seek out help when they need it. 

If they know there’s no bar for what is or isn’t a stupid question, they’re more likely to reach out. They’ll know they can safely ask colleagues or their manager to help them find the answers they need. 

If they get judged, talked about behind their back, or ignored for asking questions, they’ll be stuck for longer, feel worse in their role, and struggle even more when a bigger problem arises.

Encourage asking for help

Asking for help is one of the quickest ways to learn and grow. It’s often easier to get advice from someone we work with than to spend time researching something and trying to find the relevant information ourselves.

Not to mention asking for help is a good way for employees to meet team members from other departments. 

I’ve had bosses in the past say to me: “don’t come to meet with problems, come to me with solutions.” While I understand wanting employees to solve their own problems, it can create fear around asking for help. Which is exactly the opposite of building psychological safety in the workplace.

It should be acceptable for an employee to ask for help when they’re feeling stuck. They shouldn’t feel like they have to solve everything on their own. They should feel like their colleagues are there to support them.

Embrace everyone’s skills and talents

Every employee has a unique set of skills and talents that they bring to a role. If they don’t experience psychological safety in the workplace, they’re less likely to lean into those skills and talents. As a result, your business doesn’t get to benefit from them.

Instead, employees may find it harder to generate ideas or even think clearly. The pressure of having to adapt to fit into the workplace, rather than be who they are, will take its toll on their physical and mental health.

Psychological safety matters

Psychological safety in the workplace is a key building block for employee satisfaction and engagement. The safer employees feel in the workplace, the more you’re going to get out of them. Plus, it will be better for their long-term health and wellbeing.

If you want to increase psychological safety in the workplace, it’s important to have the right tools. Giving employees a one-stop shop for connecting with colleagues and finding important information lets them know they’re supported.

Plus, with real-time analytics, you can unlock new insights about how to further increase psychological safety in the workplace. If you’d like to learn more, drop by our site, or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

Your candidate experience has a huge impact on your employer brand. It affects how candidates feel about you and the types of reviews they leave online after going through the vetting process.

Negative reviews impact who’s likely to apply for future roles, so finding ways to mitigate them is important.

Here are five ways to improve your employer brand with a better candidate experience: 

Use a clear job title

Job titles like “ninja” or “rockstar” sound great, but part of being accessible means using clear language.

Sometimes, if the job title is for a ninja or a rockstar, it’s not clear what the role entails.

Saying that someone is an HR manager is a lot clearer than saying they’re a people guru, for example.

Being clear also helps with your visibility on job search sites and LinkedIn. Candidates search for keywords. This means if you’re not using those keywords, or they don’t see them in the job description or title, a great fit could end up not applying.

Don’t sugarcoat expectations

Sometimes, businesses can sugarcoat what’s expected of employees. Or, they might not go into detail about how stressful a role can be.

While you don’t want to tell them the role will be stressful (if it is, you’ve got bigger problems that need fixing), you do want to be upfront if it’s a fast-paced environment. Roles where things move quickly attract different types of people than those that move at a more leisurely pace.

For someone to be successful in a role, you need to clearly explain what success in the role looks like. Surprisingly few businesses do this, which means doing so is another great way to boost your employer brand.

Be honest about salary

Ever seen a job posting that just states “competitive salary” instead of what the actual budget for the role is?

Don’t do that.

From a business point of view, I get it. 

From a moral point of view, it’s frustrating for candidates to get to the end of a process and discover that you don’t have the budget to pay what they’re looking for.

Or to learn later that you had a higher budget but chose not to pay them that because their imposter syndrome or lack of confidence prevented them from asking for a higher salary.

Calling your pay “competitive” makes your business look opaque and old-fashioned.

It subconsciously suggests that you’ll pay candidates what they think they’re worth, not what you think they’re worth. You have a budget for the role, so why not just say that from the start?

Most of the time, I’ve found that when a business says the pay is competitive, what they actually mean is that they’re paying pittance.

I work as a freelance writer, and when I first started out and applied for roles where agencies or businesses said their pay was competitive, they usually charged a cent per word while expecting writers to churn out tens of thousands of words per month. That’s a whole lot of writer’s cramp for not a lot of pay.

Their focus was on volume over content quality. But as the industry changes, quality content will become increasingly more important than quantity.

To get the best hires and elevate your employer brand, you need to be upfront about your expectations and salary. It’s as simple as that.

Give feedback

If someone’s unsuccessful in applying, they’re 4 times more likely to try again for a future role if you offer feedback.

The best way for us to grow is through feedback. We can only get better when we know what to work on.

Despite how many candidates want feedback after an unsuccessful job application, 30% of candidates have been through at least one interview where they never heard back.

This leaves them with a more negative view of the company they wanted to work for. In other words, it can seriously damage your employer brand. It also means they’ll repeat the same mistakes whether they reapply to your business later or they apply elsewhere.

Be clear and helpful in your feedback, and don’t worry about adhering to certain sandwich-style comment structures.

You don’t have to go really in-depth, just provide a few bullet points explaining the strengths and weaknesses.

If it really did come down to someone else having more experience, candidates will still appreciate your honesty and transparency. Being communicative is a simple, but extremely significant thing you can do to bolster your employer brand.

Ask for feedback from candidates

As mentioned above, feedback is one of the best ways for us to learn and grow.

You don’t know what’s broken in your hiring process until you get feedback from people experiencing it. This is especially true from the folks who are unsuccessful.

There may be other ways of doing something that you hadn’t considered in the past. Or, your inclusivity could do with some extra work.

Likewise, if something is working really well, you want to make sure that you’re aware of it. That way, you don’t try to fix what isn’t broken.

This can sometimes happen when attempting to improve things whether it’s a hiring process, a marketing plan, or a novel.

We need to know what’s good and bad about something so that we focus on growing our strengths and enhancing our weaknesses. This is certainly true when it comes to both your candidate experience and your employer brand.

Conclusion

The experience you provide candidates has a huge impact on your employer brand. It affects how the outside world feels about your business, and this can have a ripple effect. Especially if anyone who did experience your hiring process is particularly vocal.

We’re more likely to share negative experiences over positive ones. If you want to avoid negative publicity that can harm who you attract to future roles, you want to make the process as positive as possible.

The more positive it is, the more positively candidates will feel about you, even if their application is unsuccessful. They may then come back in the future to work with you and be the perfect fit.

If you’re ready to take your employer brand to the next level, it’s important to make sure your employee experience is something to be proud of. Making the most of your employee programs, groups, and events ensures candidates can easily see you have a great company culture.

With an all-in-one employee experience hub like Workrowd, you can connect all your tools to streamline processes and get more bang for your employer brand buck. Visit us online, or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com to learn more.