Month: May 2021

When Kate Compton Barr paused just long enough in a recent Zoom meeting to notice the exhausted expressions on her employees’ faces, the CEO of socially responsible baby product company Pip & Grow had a wake-up call.

So she decided to do something unconventional: Pause operations for the month of August and give her staff four full weeks of paid time off. Within hours of announcing the move on Instagram, she says she received more than 100 messages from people wanting to work for her.

“I just recognized that instead of asking them to hustle, I needed to ask them to rest,” says Compton Barr, 39. “This is a long-term investment for us in making our staff feel appreciated. . . . We are calling it ‘the anti-hustle.’”

Compton Barr isn’t the only one taking action against the collective burnout weighing on employees. More than one in five companies are offering employees more vacation time this year, a recent survey from executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas finds.

Many employers have established mental health days to encourage employees to unplug, including caller ID startup Hiya, which declared the last Friday of every month a holiday, and technology giant Cisco, which introduced “unplug” days last year. Others have taken it a step further: PricewaterhouseCoopers in April announced it would start paying its employees to take time off, offering those who take a full week off $250. The accounting firm also launched an initiative called “Fridays Your Way,” through which it discourages staff from scheduling calls and meetings on Friday afternoons during the summer so they can “dedicate time to focus on what they need.”

The bottom line: Employees need a break. It’s an issue writer Dodai Stewart tackled in her April New York Times op-ed, in which she issues a seemingly impossible plea: What if the U.S. workforce was required to take the same week off?

“The most interesting element of this discussion is the desperate sense that something needs to change.”

Erin L. Kelly, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management
It’s a tempting idea, but it’s one that could create new economic risks for workers who are already vulnerable, says Erin L. Kelly, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Unlike employers in Sweden and Austria, those in the U.S. aren’t mandated to provide paid time off. As such, a vacation declaration would essentially push some people to take unpaid leave at a time when their families might be under great financial stress, she says. And with the unemployment rate at 6.1%, those who feel lucky to be employed may see taking vacation days as risky.

“The most interesting element of this discussion is the desperate sense that something needs to change,” Kelly says. “The push for a nationwide, coordinated break from work reflects both the unrealistic and fluctuating work demands that many people have faced and their legitimate anxiety that admitting you need a break will mark you as less committed and perhaps vulnerable to poor performance reviews, missed opportunities for good assignments or shifts and even being targeted in the next round of layoffs.”

When American workers left an average of 33% of their paid time off on the table last year, will employees actually take their hard-earned vacation days in 2021?

“Americans are sort of workaholics and don’t use the vacations that they have,” says Michael Urban, a senior lecturer in our University of New Haven. “A lot of people will hand vacation time back.”

To combat this, Urban recommends that employers proactively encourage their employees to take days off and set expectations for the staffing they’ll need on occasions such as holiday weekends.

Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, agrees. He suggests that employers find ways of signaling to employees—whether through mentions in meetings or by offering bonuses like PricewaterhouseCoopers did—that it’s all right to take vacation. But whether they decide to take their time will likely depend on how the pandemic shakes out.

“I don’t think a bonus will make people take a vacation if they don’t have places to go or are particular to accruing [vacation time],” he says. “But the more they can signal to employees that they mean it, that’s a good thing.”

Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2021/03/23/lessons-in-procurement-with-a-purpose-from-australias-social-enterprise-pioneers/?sh=20d338f922a7

To help employees feel comfortable speaking out against inappropriate behaviour, whether it takes place in the office or virtually, HR needs to create a ‘psychologically safe’ space, says Gary Rogers

Nearly half of the respondents in a recent survey by an Australian lawyer reported bullying had increased during the Covid period, while remote working was the norm.

As it seems increasingly likely that, post-Covid, organisations will move towards a hybrid style of working – where employees can continue to work from home or the office – HR needs to be aware of the hidden platform this can provide for bullying and harassment to go undetected and what they should be doing about it.

You can’t see someone crying in the bathroom or hear someone being shouted at or any discriminatory comments made when you’re working remotely. You don’t see people being made to feel humiliated, belittled or made fun of when you are not in an office environment. But there are still red flags that managers and colleagues can be trained to spot, which point to someone struggling with being bullied behind the doors of a virtual space.

Perhaps someone is unusually quiet during virtual meetings when they were once engaged, offers reduced input at meetings, appears tired or weary, is missing or being late for meetings, is not meeting deadlines, is difficult to contact or appears lost or confused. They may even be angry or aggressive towards colleagues, or you may have noticed that their tolerance levels are lower than normal for that individual.

These are all red flags that may indicate they are being bullied, harassed or discriminated against. And that is compounded by the very real fear of speaking out when an employee is subject to, or witnesses, this type of behaviour.

It has long been known that one of the biggest barriers to tackling bullying in organisations is employees’ fear of speaking out. They fear they will be ridiculed, judged, labelled or not believed (particularly relevant when the bullying is happening, unwitnessed, in a virtual space). They fear that colleagues may turn against them, that they may lose their livelihood and that reporting bullying will affect their future employment and career opportunities. These fears remain constant no matter what the space, office remote or virtual.

So what can HR do to overcome these fears? Creating a ‘psychologically safe’ space is key to encouraging employees to speak out, to not fear retaliation but instead feel supported, cared for, listened to and knowing that action will be taken when necessary.

Is this easier said than done? Not really. My CARE model, developed over 20 years of gathering evidence from various organisations that we have worked with to help create a more inclusive and open workplace culture, provides a simple, easy to follow process to create this psychologically safe environment. It offers the reassurance and security that employees need to feel free to speak out against harassment, discrimination and bullying behaviours.

The CARE model follows four simple principles:

The organisation needs to reassure employees of their commitment to creating a safe place for them to speak out against bullying and harassment.
They need to make sure that they take action by ensuring that people are confident to report and be listened to.
They need to ensure that they respond to each complaint and provide support and assistance throughout the process.
And finally they need to evaluate the effectiveness of their processes and gain feedback from those who have used the process.
And equally importantly, the whole process must be transparent so not only the employee affected but colleagues across the business can build trust in the system.

Sounds simple? It is. Employees fear what may happen to them if they speak out but, if your organisation can follow these four simple steps to demonstrate your commitment to supporting those who have been exposed to bullying, harassment or discrimination, then you create a more positive, happy and inclusive workplace with higher levels of engagement and performance and lower levels of staff turnover and complaints.

Source:https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/voices/comment/dealing-with-bullying-in-a-hybrid-workforce

COVID-19’s work-related stresses strained many women’s relationships with their employers. Now, many organizations have work to do to win female employees back.

Women underwent major work-related stresses during COVID-19, and it took a toll on their relationships with their employers that organizations may find hard to repair. As reported by the 5,000 working women in 10 countries we polled in early 2021, many saw their job-related workloads increase even as their household and care responsibilities also mounted. Stress, burnout, and poorer physical health were the frequent result and, not surprisingly, our survey shows major drop-offs in job satisfaction, motivation, and productivity since the pandemic began.
Many women unhappy with their jobs are looking for positive change by considering other employers. More than half of our respondents either expect to leave their current employer within two years, or are already actively looking for work with another organization.

But our research also identified organizations that are getting it right: “gender equality leaders”—organizations whose policies, programs, and cultures explicitly support women in the workplace, and who are seeing the impact of this through increased engagement, productivity, and loyalty. These organizations demonstrate the positive impact of focusing on gender equality at work—and they also illustrate the critical components. Women who work for these organizations are confident in reporting when they encounter noninclusive behaviors at work (and encounter lower rates of such behaviors than the sample); feel supported by their employers when it comes to work/life balance; and believe that their careers are progressing as fast as they want them to.

Our study also highlights the impact when organizations lag behind—and the impact on the women who work for them—with significant variances between how these women rate their experiences in comparison to those who work for gender equality leaders. From productivity levels and mental well-being to job satisfaction—the difference is stark.
This research shows what organizations must do if they want to make a real difference on gender equality at work:

Create and maintain an inclusive everyday culture, where noninclusive behaviors are not tolerated, and where women feel able to raise concerns without fear of career penalty
Enable work/life balance that goes beyond policies, and normalizes flexible work. Demonstrate visible leadership commitment, including setting targets for gender representation at the senior level
Offer better learning development opportunities, interesting projects, and stretch assignments that work for women
Provide support and resources such as short-term sabbaticals and mental health resources that enable life outside work
As we start to rebuild the workplace postpandemic, it is incumbent on employers to rebuild the way we work with gender equality in mind: a workplace that works for all and is fit for the future.

Source:https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/value-of-diversity-and-inclusion/strengthening-women-workers-loyalty-after-the-pandemic.html

 

With the onset of the pandemic and widespread remote work, the lines between “work time” and “home time” have never been blurrier. They are perforated at best and non-existent at worst.

A lack of boundaries makes compartmentalizing—or keeping work and home matters in their appropriate mental or emotional boxes—much more difficult.

This is even truer for Sensitive Strivers, those who are genetically predisposed to thinking and feeling everything more deeply.

Without compartmentalization in place, thinking deeply can quickly become overthinking, and you may find yourself spiraling down a negative thought cycle that’s hard to climb out of.

Add to that the fact that you’re naturally more observant and self-aware to begin with, and the sudden uptick in insecurities you’re experiencing may make a lot more sense.

For example, if you’re always “on,” work becomes harder and more stressful because you’re never getting downtime to restore yourself. And your home life suffers because you’re never fully present.

The result? You feel bad for failing to show up the way you want in both contexts.

While remote working is here to stay (at least for now), your stress doesn’t have to. Here are ways to compartmentalize work so you can finally switch off and experience restorative calm.

1. Take the spotlight off your behavior.

Let’s start with a mindset shift. Without the distractions of the office and spontaneous interactions with your colleagues, your mind has, in some ways, far less to occupy it and so it may fill in the gaps in an unhealthy way. You may find yourself obsessing over your weaknesses and inadequacies or exaggerating minor mistakes you make. This is a cognitive bias known in psychology as the spotlight effect.

In reality, no one is actually paying as much attention to you as you think because they’re all so focused on their own work. So remove the spotlight and right-size your reaction. For example, if you’re beating yourself up for not speaking in one meeting, how likely is it that anyone actually noticed? Is it going to matter this time next week, next month, next year? If the answer is no, then it’s okay to let the situation go.

2. Develop an end-of-day ritual.

Without an obvious “finishing point,” like the end-of-day commute or post-work trip to the gym, it can be tricky to create a solid separation between your professional life and your home life. You may find your evening hours plagued by work worries.

Trying to suppress these thoughts by sheer force of will only makes them stronger and leads to frustration. But developing a ritual to close your day is an effective way to restore a boundary.

One exercise I share with my clients is something I call “the backpack strategy.” Think about taking all of the situations that happened during your workday and putting them in an imaginary backpack. Then shrug the backpack off your shoulders and place it in the corner, where it will stay overnight. Alternatively, grab a sheet of paper, draw a rectangle in the middle and write down your worries, thoughts, and stresses. Then tear up the paper and throw it away.

3. Stop negative thought spirals.

Whenever you find yourself lost in negative thoughts—work-related or otherwise—you can use a thought-stopping technique to ease yourself out of that spiral. When the thought arises, firmly tell yourself, “stop,” or imagine a red stop sign in your head.

Then ask yourself,

“How much is this thought serving me right now?”

“What’s a different thought that does serve me?”

“How can I focus on what’s in my control right now?”

Or you could try catching the thought and picturing it floating away as a balloon or as leaves in a stream. This helps you bring your mind back to the present moment so you can concentrate on your family, your hobbies, or your evening relaxation.

4. Find a healthy distraction.

If you find yourself reaching for your phone to steal a glance at your emails right before bed, redirect your attention toward reading fiction or a magazine instead. Remember that the stimulus you put in dictates what comes back out, so choose a distraction that will actually calm your mind. Scrolling social media or reading a work-related book probably aren’t ideal choices.

We’re likely to be living with blurred boundaries for some time. Compartmentalizing work will continue to be crucial, especially for Sensitive Strivers. Making a concerted effort to experience calmer will help you be more creative, productive, and successful.

Source : https://www.forbes.com/sites/melodywilding/2021/05/24/4-ways-to-compartmentalize-work-when-blurred-boundaries-are-stressing-you-out/?sh=726d36612cf3

I’m sure you’ve read, Remote Work is here to stay. Not only did we thrive during the Pandemic, but two-thirds of employees prefer it. Remote work saves time on commute, saves money on dressing up, and helps people deal with family issues at home.

Yes, there are issues: we have to avoid video fatigue, learn to pace ourselves, and of course find a comfortable place at home. But even with these issues, it’s a very good thing.

Now that we’ve broken the stigma of remote work (it used to be frowned upon), companies are building Hybrid Work models. And I’m all for it. We’ve spent a decade studying employee engagement, employee experience (EX), and “the overwhelmed employee.” And in every study, we found that flexible, empathetic, well-designed workplaces are great.

Let me share what we’ve learned, and there’s a lot more to come when we launch our EX “Bible” later this summer. (And visit The Remote Work Bootcamp.)

Hybrid Work Is Good For Business.
The first thing I want to reinforce is that hybrid work is good for business. Even if the CEO demands people to come to the office, employees love flexibility and agency to work the way they want. Yes, we sometimes have to meet face to face for design meetings, sales calls, and other important activities. But many of us need time for research, writing, design, and creative work – so giving people a “place to go” makes sense. Why else do we see so many people working in coffee shops?

While 83 percent of CEOs want employees to return in person, only 10 percent of employees want to come back full time.

Every company that’s tried this has seen positive results. Ford Motor Company, one of the oldest and most traditional companies in the world, now enthusiastically embraces flexible work – and employees love it. I’ve visited banks, insurance companies, Telcos, and lots of software companies that give people options, lots of locations to collaborate, and places and times to be alone. Microsoft’s entire campus is a massive hybrid work environment, as is Google’s and many others.

And we know this is working. Glint’s latest research shows that happiness at work is on the rise.

Consider All Dimensions of Hybrid.
Hybrid work means more than working at home. It means considering location, time, business model, and more. Here are some dimensions to consider.

Location: will you let people work remotely all the time? Some of the time? Only when managers approve? Research shows that we do need face time for collaboration, design, and personal interaction. So many companies now have flexible policies and let managers decide when people have to show up in person.
Time zone: most of you are now familiar with the “follow the sun” issues of global work. Someone in your company is working all the time, so you should consider what “standard hours” may be and how you want managers to treat people in remote time zones.
Time of work: can people time shift their jobs? Many companies (SAP for example) let employees “share their job” with others, so they can deal with family care, elder care or other issues. Shift workers do this all the time, so there are dozens of good workforce scheduling tools to make this easy. I’d suggest you make it a policy, as long as someone isn’t invisible to their peers all the time. And if you want 24 hour support, you can design for “follow the sun” service.
Hours per week: do you have a “minimum number of hours” per week? You should. Most employees will not try to push the limits, but if someone does you need a policy to fall back on. And of course managers should accommodate emergencies, vacations, and other interruptions that keep people away from their jobs.
Employment relationship: while most of us grew up thinking about work as a full-time affair, this is not necessary. Today people work by the hour, by the job, by the project, and even based on outcomes. I call this the “pixelated” workforce, and it’s something you have to get comfortable with.
Required tools and norms: many companies set up hybrid work through special tools. Uber and Lyft drivers, for example, have a whole platform for hybrid work. Outsourced call center workers have platforms for remote work. So do salespeople, service reps, and consultants. You can design how “hybrid” the work by selecting the tools to match the model.
Inclusion of diversity: the diversity of the workforce is also a form of hybrid. In the old days, we expected full-time college grads for certain jobs. But what if the job is delegated to a foreign country where wages are lower (ie. India, Romania?), that’s a form of hybrid too.
Remember that careers have changed. More than 2/3 of Millennials have some kind of side-hustle, so people are more willing to take on new work arrangements than ever before.

Focus On Culture
Hybrid work forces you to talk about culture. Why? Because there is no “management by walking around” anymore. Culture is created through work practices, management behaviors, reward systems, and how much flexibility you provide. It’s important to discuss these things, so people know what’s expected of them and what’s not allowed.

Hard-charging companies, for example, may start meetings on time and mandate attendance with cameras on. They may also demand that people come into the office on certain days. More relaxed or empowered cultures may have different norms. (In our company, client meetings can always interrupt normal internal meetings, for example).

Collaboration may actually suffer when people come into the office. Many clients tell us their companies became much more connected, collaborative, and empathetic during the Pandemic. As people go back to the office, some told us that people huddled back into their cubes and went back to the old ways. You, as an HR or business leader, have to prevent this.

I suggest that clients take time to reflect on everything that you learned during the Pandemic and write two columns: things that went well and those that went poorly. For everything that went well, spend time with your leadership to get an agreement on what you want to keep.

Many companies, for example, greatly simplified decision-making and performance management during the Pandemic. Most told us they want to keep this new, simplified way of working.

We are not “going back” to the office, we are “going forward” to a new, hybrid work culture.

Build A Collaborative Technology Platform.
The technology industry is very focused on this market. Vendors like Zoom, Microsoft, Cisco, Salesforce, Google, Facebook, and almost all others are pouring billions of dollars into tools for virtual meetings, collaboration, knowledge management, safe workplace, wellbeing, and video sharing. You and your IT department should look at these platforms and put together a set of standard tools that work together. I’m a huge fan of Microsoft Teams and Viva (we use it here), but you can build on Google Workplace, Slack, or others. But pick one core platform.

The innovations are astounding. Platforms like Microsoft Teams and Stream can video capture every conversation, transcribe meetings, and instantly help people catch up on what they missed. Tools like Loom and Guru can store video and documents and make knowledge management real. We love Otter.ai to transcribe voice from calls; platforms like EdCast, Degreed, Fuse, and Wisetail can quickly create a learning portal; tools like WalkMe, Pendo and Spekit can instantly make apps easier to use; tools like Cultivate, Glint, CultureAmp, Peakon, and Viva Insights can capture mood, help people save time, and provide online coaching.

The HR Tech market is doing backflips to get involved. I call it the merger between HR Tech and Work Tech. Every HR platform, from Workday to Paycom to ADP is trying to build features to accommodate hybrid work. I just interviewed four large manufacturing companies that use Infor, and they use the platform for onboarding, communications, workforce scheduling, and every aspect of employee communications – embracing workers in trucks, retail locations, and many in low bandwidth areas.

HR should partner with IT to create this toolset. You’ll be amazed how well these new systems work, and I would focus on integration above all. We will explain more on this topic when we launch our big EX study later this summer, but this is a massive opportunity to make work easier for people.

Establish A Listening Platform and Culture
As I talked about in Employee Listening is the most important practice in business, hybrid work is a rapidly changing situation. People will constantly bring up new ideas, issues, and suggestions. You need to survey people regularly, create open channels for conversation, and hold lots of open town-hall meetings.

Among all the practices we studied during the pandemic, Listening came up as the most important and impactful of all. Listening helps with productivity, inclusion, diversity, and employee retention. And this requires a set of tools and analytics platforms that make it easy, scalable, and open. Workday just spent more than $500 Million to acquire Peakon; Qualtrics is now worth more than $20 Billion; Medallia now offers end-to-end listening which directs feedback to the right stakeholder. This is more than just turning on SurveyMonkey and sending out a few questionnaires: this is an opportunity to build a platform for employee listening, and use it for direction going forward.

Integrate Hybrid Work with the Wellbeing Program
Hybrid work can be great for many people, but it also introduces new pressures on employees. Some people work too many hours; others may be drinking or abusing drugs at home; some may be interrupted or harassed by family members; and others may just have trouble with travel, internet, or setting up a safe work location.

Your Wellbeing (and Facilities) team has to be part of the Hybrid Work program. What mental health, coaching, fitness, and wellbeing benefits will you provide? How will you help people stretch, walk, and take time off if they’re remote for long periods of time? How will you give people a break when they travel or work on the road? These are not new issues, but they should be included in your Hybrid Work program. (Join Wellbeing at Work our collaborative learning program to learn more.)

Bring Leadership Into The Conversation
Many of you remember the famous Yahoo fiasco where the CEO peered into everyone’s VPN log history and came down hard on people who were home but not working full time. If leaders don’t trust or believe in your hybrid work program, it won’t work at all. And many leaders, to be honest, are still not sure how to feel.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPM Chase, famously made the edict that “he wants everyone back in the office.” As successful as he is, this kind of message backfires for many people. We are in a very tight (and tightening) labor market: you want flexibility to be central to your program. If people feel constrained, monitored, or unprotected at work, they’ll “check out” in the office, show up in an unproductive way, and undermine your company behind your back. Get leaders involved in the conversation: they have to feel comfortable with the policy you develop.

By the way, new research from Glint shows that managers are among the most stressed people in your company. Not only should they agree on your hybrid strategy, we have to make sure this makes their lives easier too. Companies like Verizon, Sanofi and others have started monthly open-mic meetings for managers to discuss their own strategies to cope with hybrid work.

Double down on IT security.
I spent more than 25 years working remotely, managing remote employees, and working as a partner in a remote-first consulting firm. If there’s one thing to note: sometimes weird things happen. Problems like theft, embezzlement, data loss, and bad behavior continue to happen. And I’ve seen it all.

Your IT security team should look at your policy, and decide whether location information, VPN security, or new password policies are needed. Make sure you communicate your company’s data privacy and protection policies and continue the communications about behavior and leadership principles. I’ve seen lots of poor behavior happen when people are not in the office, and now it’s all tracked and monitored for posterity.

Experiment With New Ideas
As I mentioned above, Remote Work is not “going back” its an opportunity to “go forward.” We no longer “go to work” or “come in to work” – we essentially “do work” wherever we are. This means there will be a lot of new ideas yet to come, so keep your mind open.

As we interviewed dozens of companies about Hybrid Work, we uncovered lots of new ideas. Companies are now using Virtual Reality training to replace fly-in meetings. Organizations are providing extra healthcare and educational benefits to help women come back to work. Managers are having peer-to-peer meetings to see what’s working.

Trust
Let me leave you with one more point. Work is not a “place” – it’s “what people do.” You and your leadership have to trust people. Give them clarity, mission, skills, and growth – they will figure out how to get work done. Trust remains one of the most important tools you have.

If you follow the guidelines in this article, your Hybrid Work program will thrive. And your company will grow like never before.

Source : https://joshbersin.com/2021/05/hybridwork/

Introduction:

The focus we adopt becomes our reality.

The common instinct during uncertainty is to adopt a perspective that is based on our previous experience of how we have handled similar situations. This gives us a map to what we believe is the solution to problems, leading to a sense of certainty. However, this map is outdated and it doesn’t align with the territory anymore. The sense of stability and certaintyin our solutions has no basis since the world is just the opposite –  (VUCA) volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous!

We need new maps to understand this world and develop innovative solutions. This paper is offering a new map with a caveat. The caveat is that the map doesn’t attempt to simplify a complex world or build certainty in an ambiguous world. The map helps leaders to embrace the complexity and work with it as an ally.

The word  VUCA was coined by Warren Bennis in 1987. According to Bennis, the VUCA world meant new ways of seeing and responding to changes. The old dogmas, strategies and management tools will not work anymore. Organisations have to learn new orientations of management and leadership.

I believe that, in these times of the pandemic, we are in a “double” VUCA world requiring not just new orientations and approaches, but a transformational focus to our purpose and meaning as organizations.

In my book “ If you feel good, you work good” Relationships lead to results, I have outlined some of the transformational insights from the story of Citicorp Overseas software Limited (COSL), an organisation that was an outlier of its times. This story, I believe is highly relevant to organisations and leadership to deal with the uncertain and complex world. This article summarises some of the insights and uses that to construct a map to comprehend and act in this world.

Organisational Paradigms and Pillars:

Organisations are created for a purpose. The purpose could be business as well as social. The purpose of the organisation generates a meaning in the minds of people who are associated with it. COSL began with the purpose of outsourcing information technology requirements of Citibank to India. However, COSL also acquired a purpose of contributing to building the IT outsourcing industry in India. This was the combination of the business and social purpose.

Purpose and meaning are strengthened and cascaded into the organisational strategies, policies and processes based on paradigms and pillars. When we observe organisations, what we see are actions taken by leaders to deal with problems and opportunities presented to them. Underlying the various actions are paradigms and pillars. Paradigms are belief systems or worldviews and they articulate the purpose, meaning and culture of an organisation.Pillars are based on paradigms and evolve into strategies that drive actions in an organisation. How organisational leadership respond to situations will depend on paradigms and pillars that have been internalised

In my book I articulate three paradigms and two pillars that helped COSL live its purpose and meaning. This allowed COSL to thrive even when there were threats to its survival and be successful much beyond the expectations of its owners. It also helped to build an organisation that was ahead of its times. I believe these are highly relevant in this uncertain and complex world.

Three paradigms:

Paradigm	Meaning	Implications
Machine	Organisations are made of parts andare predictable. When things fail, parts need to be replaced	People are treated as another resource like machines, materials and money.
Process	Organisations are process flows. Bottlenecks need to be removed to generate outputs.	People play roles and are required as long as process demands. If not, they become redundant.
Organism	Organisms are complex and people are the organisation.	Relationships define an organisation’s results

 

As Margaret Wheatley said in A Simpler Way, “In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions”

COSL believed that relationships at work was its core. Relationships helped the organisation transform an adversity into an opportunity.  When the world becomes double VUCA, COSL leveraged the strength of relationships not only to get results and overcome the situation, but also to transform itself with the world. When we see organisations as living organisms, then our response will be to strengthen our core.

COSL’s essence was relationships and its culture was stated in this one short sentence :

“If you feel good, you work good”.

People feel good when they have

• interesting and challenging work,
• when they have great relationships with colleagues
• when they experience their organisation as their home.

Impact of paradigms:

 Leaders in organisations operate from one of these paradigms and drive the purpose, meaning and culture of the organisation based on that. Let us examine the impact of paradigms on relationships and values in an organisation:

Paradigm	Relationships	Values
Machine	Utilitarian. There are apparent relationships as long as people are needed.	Survival is the primary value. Values maybe listed, but what is followed is based on expediency.
Process	Relationships are required to perform a role	Continuity is the primary value. In case of value conflicts, values that stop continuity are discarded.
Organism	People work together because they have a relationship.	Essence or core is the primary value. This means alignment to values at all times and none is discarded.

The three paradigms mentioned above define the culture of an organisation and drive its purpose. This is especially so when the world becomes more uncertain and complex. Based on the purpose and culture defined by the paradigms, the strategic action pillars emerge.

Two Pillars

The pillars are based on the paradigm of organisations as a living organism where relationships form the basis for working together and values drive  actions. Two pillars are articulated below and each of them drive four strategic actions. These pillars might be articulated in machine and process paradigms as well. However, they are discarded the moment uncertainty and complexity sets in.

The first pillar is calledCORE.  This acronym stands forChoice, Openness, Respect and Experience. When the CORE is present in any organisation, people feel good. The second pillar is called COSL. The acronym stands for Colleagueship, Outstanding quality at work, Solution focus and Learning orientation. When people feel good, they work good.  Working good is not just doing one’s job and meeting targets. Working good is to live the dimensions of the COSL pillar.

The table below gives details of the two pillars:

Pillar	Strategies	Actions
CORE	Choice – a culture of freedom where individuality is respected. Openness – an environment of psychological safety to express oneself without fear. Respect –where people are treated like one wishes to be treated. Experience – a culture that generates experiences of wellbeing.	1.      No one right way. Decision making is empowered to the lowest level in the system. 2.      Dissent is a fundamental right and encouraged. 3.      Listening respectfully to every view, especially ones that are diverse 4.      Experiences of engagement and wellbeing generate moments of truth
COSL	Colleagueship – drives teamwork and collaboration Outstanding quality at work – leads to outstanding quality of products and services Solution focus – a commitment to deliver and delight customers Learning Orientation – Willingness to take risks and learn from mistakes	1.      My Manager is my friend at work 2.      My work shows my quality as a person 3.      Focus both on issues and also possible solutions 4.      A non-punishment culture where learning is seen as an investment for the future

 

 Reflections:

Having read this article, I invite you as to reflect on the three paradigms and two pillars of your own organisation based on the lessons from COSL. Here are some questions that might help:

1. What is the image of the organisation that I carry in my mind?
2. How are my beliefs around relationships and results at work?
3. What are my values that form the core of my organisational leadership?
4. How much of the CORE (Choice, Openness, Respect and Experience) I bring in my contract with my employees?
5. Lastly, how do I bring COSL ( Colleagueship, Outstanding quality at work, Solution focus and Learning orientation) to my leadership?

These reflections help to discover the essence of one’s leadership and help organisations thrive in these double VUCA times and beyond. It maybe this pandemic and tomorrow it maybe something else. We can’t control what the world throws at us. However, we can respond to that with the essence of who we are as leaders and organisations.

Paradigms are deep rooted and it might take time and effort to transform them. It may look easier to start with the pillars since they are strategies and actions. However, pillars and paradigms are inter-related and it will be important to work with both of them together.

 

If you like my article and want to implement these paradigms and pillars in your organisation,you will find all that and more in my book “If you feel good, you work good – Relationships lead to Results”. Kindle and print versionsavailable here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0936SJK6X or https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0936SJK6X

 

SankarasubramanyanRamamoorthy is a Mumbai, India based Organisational Development Consultant, Trainer, Coach, Appreciative Inquiry Practitioner, Personal Growth Facilitator and Writer. He is the founder director of Changeworks Consulting Services Private Limited. (www.changeworksindia.com) and is on the board of NTL Institute, USA (www.ntl.org).

So here we are, at the other end of that long tunnel, the one we kept seeing the light in the distance. We’re there. Pretty much, anyway.

For the most part, we’re back in business at the same ol’ stand – to some extent or another – but just how we’re going to do that business is another question. One thing is certain, though. It will be different. Crises expose faults and strengths, and that means they compel change. With that certainty, I contacted 10 leaders (nine corporate and one nonprofit) to do what was clearly an informal survey about the changes they anticipate. These discussions ran the gamut, from product line to reorganization to security, to marketing and business development, and so forth. Fill in the blanks; there were much more. There was nothing scientific at all about this, but it was most definitively enlightening.

Six of the leaders are male; four are female. Their ages range from (guessing now) early 40s to late 60s (maybe older). Seven lead services organizations; two run manufacturing firms; one runs a global e-commerce business. All took big hits in 2020-21; all survived.

Common issues

Every issue was on the mind of more than one single executive. Rather, at least two agreed with every issue mentioned. In some cases, there was unanimity. But most striking was the issue that dominated: leadership development was on everyone’s mind.

PROMOTED

What if I’m gone?

The most important imperative of any leader is to develop new leaders. Why? As one leader asked in a stark manner, “What if I die? What if, all of a sudden, I’m gone? How will this place run?”

On the surface, that looks like a cut-and-dried succession planning issue, not a revelation. However, when focused on the “how” rather than the “what” it becomes a different and more intriguing topic. It’s about the approach to leadership.

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How do we lead?

Albert Einstein used to say, “In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they’re not.” Thinking about leadership approaches, Einstein was right again. Once on the ground and in the pitch of battle, things change, pointing to the shrewd observation by General Dwight Eisenhower when he said, “In preparing for battle, I’ve learned that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

Four leadership approaches

Textbooks on leadership, books and articles on organizational management, biographies of great leaders, and my discussions with ten of them all point to four approaches to leadership – not styles,as that’s a different discussion. Admittedly, we all migrate from one approach to another, depending on circumstances, but leaders are generally seen in one of these four lights as their primary approaches.

Directive

The directive leader focuses on gathering information, carefully assessing data, developing clear-cut objectives, and compelling subordinates to achieve these goals. Examples: Jack Welch, General Eisenhower, and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Charismatic

The charismatic leader has extraordinary interpersonal qualities, is entrepreneurial, has radical (read: unusual, daring) vision, and uses emotional appeal to motivate followers. Examples: John F. Kennedy, Elon Musk, and Joe Namath.

Political

The political leader is savvy and manipulative, keeps goals flexible and vague, advances patiently, and coordinates resourcefully. Examples: Take your pick; I’m avoiding this controversy. Not going anywhere near it.

Participative

Here, we switch to the characteristics of the organization, as participative leaders stress that over themselves. These organizations emphasize joint decision-making, decentralization, shared power and shared leadership, democratic management, and 360-degree communication. Examples: The 3M Company, W. L. Gore & Associates, and The National Institutes of Health. Although working in a tightly run agency, the NIH’s Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett emerged as this generation’s Jonas Salk – and no less – because she had the authority, the resources, and the support to pursue her work.

All ten leaders whom I contacted were either aware of these leadership approach issues before 2020 or have become laser-focused on them since.

“It’s not ‘Will you lead’?” said one. “It’s ‘how will you lead’?”

All agreed, for what this informal, anecdotal narrative is worth.

Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/eliamdur/2021/05/23/its-not-will-you-lead-its-how-will-you-lead/?sh=3566304e6b22

More than one in three workers experience a loss in confidence after spending a significant amount of time away from work, a study has found, with women almost twice as likely to be affected as men.

A poll of more than 1,000 people who had returned to work after an absence of a year, conducted by Survation for Vodafone UK, found 37 per cent of those who return to work after a year or more away experience a loss of confidence in their own ability.

This loss of confidence was nearly twice as prevalent in women (42 per cent) than in men (24 per cent).

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The research also showed women returning to work were more likely to face barriers than men.

Nearly half (45 per cent) of women cited caring responsibilities as a challenge when returning to work, compared to 30 per cent of men; and 46 per cent of women cited childcare costs as a hurdle, compared to just 23 per cent of men.

Similarly, just under a third (31 per cent) of women returners said they found it hard to reacclimatise to working life after a long break, compared to a quarter of men (25 per cent).

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The report has raised concerns over how women might be disproportionately impacted as lockdown restrictions end and businesses prepare for the work from home advice to be lifted – potentially from 21 June.

Laura Farris MP, co-chair of the Women and Work All-Party Parliamentary Group, said that given the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak and the number of people who have been out of the office environment or on furlough for the last year, it is “even more pressing” for organisations to do more for returning workers.

“It’s clear that supporting people who have taken a career break, particularly women, back into work can deliver significant economic benefits as well as improve an organisation’s retention rate and diversity,” she said.

This was echoed by Joe Levenson, director of communications and campaigns at the Young Women’s Trust, who said it was “little surprise” women’s confidence was impacted more than men when taking time away from work.

“With women continuing to take on the majority of childcare and other unpaid caring responsibilities and too many employers continuing to resist a flexible approach, it’s little surprise that women report being less confident than men about returning to work after time away,” he said.

Levenson added that employers who do not address this disparity in confidence were not only letting women down, but would also fail to “make the most of talented and hardworking employees.”

The report highlighted the need to support returners, and especially female returners who – according to a PWC figure cited in the report – have the potential to contribute £1bn to the UK economy.

It argued employers and the government need to provide greater support to encourage people, who may have taken a career break, back into the workforce, and is calling for part of the £2.5bn National Skills Fund to be allocated to help returners develop the appropriate skills.

Julianne Miles MBE, CEO of Women Returners, said that women who had taken career breaks due to the pandemic would “swell the ranks of talented returners who face major hurdles when they want to resume their careers”.

“Bringing this talent back into suitable employment will require a united effort from employers, government, and support organizations,” Miles added. “So we welcome this report and particularly the recommendations for employers to be more open-minded in recruitment and the UK government to ring-fence funding for returners.”

This year’s students are more driven by clear paths for career progression, training and development, rather than high future earnings, while gender disparities reveal stark differences in career priorities.

Universum’s Annual Talent Research 2021 surveyed over 40,000 students across the UK to reveal their career expectations and which employer attributes they consider most important. Conducted annually over the last 30 years, employers can use these insights to help shape their branding and to understand the long-term impact of Covid-19 on today’s entry-level workforce and how students’ priorities vary for different sectors.

Companies that fulfilled students’ priorities and branded their companies successfully throughout the pandemic have made the greatest gains in the rankings. This includes companies such as Pfizer (+35) and AstraZeneca (+29) who have heavily featured across UK media, leading the way with the Covid-19 vaccination rollout. We’ve also seen the NHS top the medical rankings, as well as rising 7 places in the Business rankings, who again have shown their great courage and outstanding work throughout the pandemic. However, other brands such as British Army (+18), and Tesco (+17) in the Business and Commerce rankings, and National Grid (+39), and Network Rail (+23) in the IT rankings have made gains, but investing and focusing on their employer brand whilst connecting with students over the last year.

People notice your brand
On average, UK students consider 27 employers when looking for a job. Despite the current candidate rich market, employers are still competing for students’ attention, and strong employer branding is required to attract the right talent.

Students are increasingly prioritising company values which go beyond future earning potential, as shown by Lloyds Banking Group, which moved up 25 places in the rankings since last year and recently won an award for their early careers campaign ‘the Virtual HQ’. By creating an alternative reality that showcased their company values, Lloyds was able to successfully leverage the work it was doing to attract more people to its brand.

AstraZeneca has also seen an extensive increase in the rankings this year, showing that what your company is doing really matters to young people when looking for their future career. They’ve not only seen growth in the Natural Sciences rankings (up +6 places from last year), but have also risen 29 places in the IT rankings and 15 places in the Business and Commerce rankings, showing they are attracting people from all sectors.

Adam Isle, Global Talent Acquisition Lead – Early Talent & MBA Programmes at AstraZeneca said: “By supporting our early talent to share their authentic experience of life at AstraZeneca, and investing in student ambassadors, we’ve continued to inspire, engage and attract students, and showcase AstraZeneca as a great place to work. We’ve innovated throughout the pandemic, and embraced digital formats across AstraZeneca.”

Young people are changing the way they look for jobs
Social media channels such as LinkedIn and Facebook have become popular tools within the job search and can heavily influence the way young people see a company. When we look at how students are searching for jobs, men prefer using sites such as YouTube (15% men vs 10% women), and Reddit (6% men vs 2% women), whereas women prefer company websites and job boards, with the largest differences being employers’ corporate websites (49% women vs 46% men) and Totaljobs (12% women vs 10% men).

Social media has a huge influence amongst this demographic and can compliment more traditional methods of recruitment such as job boards, to connect with prospective employees on the topics that matter most – such as training and development, career advancement opportunities and day-to-day tasks.

Employers need to demonstrate how they’re tackling and addressing the topics that matter most to young people in order to drive greater engagement. Students are now less interested in hearing about social events but more so how the company is innovating in it’s industry, when it comes to product developments but also diversity and inclusion initiatives. All of this highlights again that they are looking for companies they can invest their time into longer-term.

Steve Ward, Universum’s UK Director, said: “It’s evident that the economic volatility we are witnessing at the moment – as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic combined with Brexit – has clearly contributed to a shift in priorities for students. Now more than ever, students and graduates entering the workforce are concerned with a career path inside a single employer – with training, development and job security – which has jumped ahead of high earning potential, the portfolio career characteristic of their Gen Y predecessors. The pandemic has not only influenced priorities but also highlighted disparities between male and female students when it comes to the platforms they search for roles on, attractive industries, remote working and pay.

“All of which means that, for employers not only is it vitally important to create a structure that provides a clear path to progression and a supportive training and development programme to enable and encourage candidates, but to also tailor that message to the relevant platforms and understand the different needs of male and female talent. Graduates have even more opportunity to gather information on a prospective role than ever before. Ensuring you’re showing up in the right place with a message that’s in line with their priorities will help cut through the competition, increase talent retention and yield better business success.”

Source:https://www.thehrdirector.com/business-news/education/uk-students-are-more-attracted-to-companies-perceived-as-pandemic-winners-with-pfizer-nhs-and-tesco-topping-the-employer-rankings/

As I’m sure you’ve read, Remote Work is here to stay. Not only did we thrive during the Pandemic, but two-thirds of employees prefer it. Remote work saves time on commute, saves money on dressing up, and helps people deal with family issues at home.

Yes, there are issues: we have to avoid video fatigue, learn to pace ourselves, and of course find a comfortable place at home. But even with these issues, it’s a very good thing.

Now that we’ve broken the stigma of remote work (it used to be frowned upon), companies are building Hybrid Work models. And I’m all for it. We’ve spent a decade studying employee engagement, employee experience (EX), and “the overwhelmed employee.” And in every study, we found that flexible, empathetic, well-designed workplaces are great.

Let me share what we’ve learned, and there’s a lot more to come when we launch our EX “Bible” later this summer. (And visit The Remote Work Bootcamp.)

Hybrid Work Is Good For Business.
The first thing I want to reinforce is that hybrid work is good for business. Even if the CEO demands people to come to the office, employees love flexibility and agency to work the way they want. Yes, we sometimes have to meet face to face for design meetings, sales calls, and other important activities. But many of us need time for research, writing, design, and creative work – so giving people a “place to go” makes sense. Why else do we see so many people working in coffee shops?

While 83 percent of CEOs want employees to return in person, only 10 percent of employees want to come back full time.

Every company that’s tried this has seen positive results. Ford Motor Company, one of the oldest and most traditional companies in the world, now enthusiastically embraces flexible work – and employees love it. I’ve visited banks, insurance companies, Telcos, and lots of software companies that give people options, lots of locations to collaborate, and places and times to be alone. Microsoft’s entire campus is a massive hybrid work environment, as is Google’s and many others.

And we know this is working. Glint’s latest research shows that happiness at work is on the rise.

Consider All Dimensions of Hybrid.
Hybrid work means more than working at home. It means considering location, time, business model, and more. Here are some dimensions to consider.

Location: will you let people work remotely all the time? Some of the time? Only when managers approve? Research shows that we do need face time for collaboration, design, and personal interaction. So many companies now have flexible policies and let managers decide when people have to show up in person.
Time zone: most of you are now familiar with the “follow the sun” issues of global work. Someone in your company is working all the time, so you should consider what “standard hours” may be and how you want managers to treat people in remote time zones.
Time of work: can people time shift their jobs? Many companies (SAP for example) let employees “share their job” with others, so they can deal with family care, elder care or other issues. Shift workers do this all the time, so there are dozens of good workforce scheduling tools to make this easy. I’d suggest you make it a policy, as long as someone isn’t invisible to their peers all the time. And if you want 24 hour support, you can design for “follow the sun” service.
Hours per week: do you have a “minimum number of hours” per week? You should. Most employees will not try to push the limits, but if someone does you need a policy to fall back on. And of course managers should accommodate emergencies, vacations, and other interruptions that keep people away from their jobs.
Employment relationship: while most of us grew up thinking about work as a full-time affair, this is not necessary. Today people work by the hour, by the job, by the project, and even based on outcomes. I call this the “pixelated” workforce, and it’s something you have to get comfortable with.
Required tools and norms: many companies set up hybrid work through special tools. Uber and Lyft drivers, for example, have a whole platform for hybrid work. Outsourced call center workers have platforms for remote work. So do salespeople, service reps, and consultants. You can design how “hybrid” the work by selecting the tools to match the model.
Inclusion of diversity: the diversity of the workforce is also a form of hybrid. In the old days, we expected full-time college grads for certain jobs. But what if the job is delegated to a foreign country where wages are lower (ie. India, Romania?), that’s a form of hybrid too.
Remember that careers have changed. More than 2/3 of Millennials have some kind of side-hustle, so people are more willing to take on new work arrangements than ever before.

Focus On Culture
Hybrid work forces you to talk about culture. Why? Because there is no “management by walking around” anymore. Culture is created through work practices, management behaviors, reward systems, and how much flexibility you provide. It’s important to discuss these things, so people know what’s expected of them and what’s not allowed.

Hard-charging companies, for example, may start meetings on time and mandate attendance with cameras on. They may also demand that people come into the office on certain days. More relaxed or empowered cultures may have different norms. (In our company, client meetings can always interrupt normal internal meetings, for example).

Collaboration may actually suffer when people come into the office. Many clients tell us their companies became much more connected, collaborative, and empathetic during the Pandemic. As people go back to the office, some told us that people huddled back into their cubes and went back to the old ways. You, as an HR or business leader, have to prevent this.

I suggest that clients take time to reflect on everything that you learned during the Pandemic and write two columns: things that went well and those that went poorly. For everything that went well, spend time with your leadership to get an agreement on what you want to keep.

Many companies, for example, greatly simplified decision-making and performance management during the Pandemic. Most told us they want to keep this new, simplified way of working.

We are not “going back” to the office, we are “going forward” to a new, hybrid work culture.

Build A Collaborative Technology Platform.
The technology industry is very focused on this market. Vendors like Zoom, Microsoft, Cisco, Salesforce, Google, Facebook, and almost all others are pouring billions of dollars into tools for virtual meetings, collaboration, knowledge management, safe workplace, wellbeing, and video sharing. You and your IT department should look at these platforms and put together a set of standard tools that work together. I’m a huge fan of Microsoft Teams and Viva (we use it here), but you can build on Google Workplace, Slack, or others. But pick one core platform.

The innovations are astounding. Platforms like Microsoft Teams and Stream can video capture every conversation, transcribe meetings, and instantly help people catch up on what they missed. Tools like Loom and Guru can store video and documents and make knowledge management real. We love Otter.ai to transcribe voice from calls; platforms like EdCast, Degreed, Fuse, and Wisetail can quickly create a learning portal; tools like WalkMe, Pendo and Spekit can instantly make apps easier to use; tools like Cultivate, Glint, CultureAmp, Peakon, and Viva Insights can capture mood, help people save time, and provide online coaching.

The HR Tech market is doing backflips to get involved. I call it the merger between HR Tech and Work Tech. Every HR platform, from Workday to Paycom to ADP is trying to build features to accommodate hybrid work. I just interviewed four large manufacturing companies that use Infor, and they use the platform for onboarding, communications, workforce scheduling, and every aspect of employee communications – embracing workers in trucks, retail locations, and many in low bandwidth areas.

HR should partner with IT to create this toolset. You’ll be amazed how well these new systems work, and I would focus on integration above all. We will explain more on this topic when we launch our big EX study later this summer, but this is a massive opportunity to make work easier for people.

Establish A Listening Platform and Culture
As I talked about in Employee Listening is the most important practice in business, hybrid work is a rapidly changing situation. People will constantly bring up new ideas, issues, and suggestions. You need to survey people regularly, create open channels for conversation, and hold lots of open town-hall meetings.

Among all the practices we studied during the pandemic, Listening came up as the most important and impactful of all. Listening helps with productivity, inclusion, diversity, and employee retention. And this requires a set of tools and analytics platforms that make it easy, scalable, and open. Workday just spent more than $500 Million to acquire Peakon; Qualtrics is now worth more than $20 Billion; Medallia now offers end-to-end listening which directs feedback to the right stakeholder. This is more than just turning on SurveyMonkey and sending out a few questionnaires: this is an opportunity to build a platform for employee listening, and use it for direction going forward.

Integrate Hybrid Work with the Wellbeing Program
Hybrid work can be great for many people, but it also introduces new pressures on employees. Some people work too many hours; others may be drinking or abusing drugs at home; some may be interrupted or harassed by family members; and others may just have trouble with travel, internet, or setting up a safe work location.

Your Wellbeing (and Facilities) team has to be part of the Hybrid Work program. What mental health, coaching, fitness, and wellbeing benefits will you provide? How will you help people stretch, walk, and take time off if they’re remote for long periods of time? How will you give people a break when they travel or work on the road? These are not new issues, but they should be included in your Hybrid Work program. (Join Wellbeing at Work our collaborative learning program to learn more.)

Bring Leadership Into The Conversation
Many of you remember the famous Yahoo fiasco where the CEO peered into everyone’s VPN log history and came down hard on people who were home but not working full time. If leaders don’t trust or believe in your hybrid work program, it won’t work at all. And many leaders, to be honest, are still not sure how to feel.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPM Chase, famously made the edict that “he wants everyone back in the office.” As successful as he is, this kind of message backfires for many people. We are in a very tight (and tightening) labor market: you want flexibility to be central to your program. If people feel constrained, monitored, or unprotected at work, they’ll “check out” in the office, show up in an unproductive way, and undermine your company behind your back. Get leaders involved in the conversation: they have to feel comfortable with the policy you develop.

Double down on IT security.
I spent more than 25 years working remotely, managing remote employees, and working as a partner in a remote-first consulting firm. If there’s one thing to note: sometimes weird things happen. Problems like theft, embezzlement, data loss, and bad behavior continue to happen. And I’ve seen it all.

Your IT security team should look at your policy, and decide whether location information, VPN security, or new password policies are needed. Make sure you communicate your company’s data privacy and protection policies and continue the communications about behavior and leadership principles. I’ve seen lots of poor behavior happen when people are not in the office, and now it’s all tracked and monitored for posterity.

Experiment With New Ideas
As I mentioned above, Remote Work is not “going back” its an opportunity to “go forward.” We no longer “go to work” or “come in to work” – we essentially “do work” wherever we are. This means there will be a lot of new ideas yet to come, so keep your mind open.

As we interviewed dozens of companies about Hybrid Work, we uncovered lots of new ideas. Companies are now using Virtual Reality training to replace fly-in meetings. Organizations are providing extra healthcare and educational benefits to help women come back to work. Managers are having peer-to-peer meetings to see what’s working.

Trust
Let me leave you with one more point. Work is not a “place” – it’s “what people do.” You and your leadership have to trust people. Give them clarity, mission, skills, and growth – they will figure out how to get work done. Trust remains one of the most important tools you have.

If you follow the guidelines in this article, your Hybrid Work program will thrive. And your company will grow like never before.

Source:https://joshbersin.com/2021/05/hybridwork/