MORE THAN MONEY: WHAT WORKPLACES CAN DO TO WEATHER CHANGING TIMES

Well, I’m back from my summer travels! 

Being away so long has helped me notice in sharp relief the uncertainty palpable in the professional world.  Many of the organizations I’m currently working with are facing unexpected challenges with hiring, augmented by the will-we, won’t-we planning for return to work. While there’s a strong contingent of employees who are excited to go back to the office, garner some work-life separation, and collaborate in person once again, there is a significant group of people who have adapted to a new way of life and don’t want to go back. 

When I heard an episode of the New York Times’ podcast The Daily last week, “Stories from the Great American Labor Shortage,” I was struck by how palpably things ARE different in the labor market today.  The podcast mostly focuses on the effects of the pandemic on the service industry—in short, good unemployment benefits and a forced quarantine period allowed restaurant and hospitality workers to recognize how unsustainable working conditions were. While those conditions and unemployment benefits remain the same, many interviewees say they won’t be going back. 

Everywhere I’ve traveled this summer, I’ve seen evidence of this story. It intrigues both the public policy student and the former team leader in me. According to The Daily, some believe the problem is unemployment benefits that are too lasting and too generous (though some recently published data counters that narrative). Others think wages are too low and consumers must be willing to pay more. There is so much complexity and friction in market conditions that impact our decisions about how much, and what kind, of work to do. We are not going to see a quick resolution to this problem, and it’s not restricted to the service industry. 

When I was a principal in the Bay Area, I worked with fabulous teachers. On multiple occasions, a seasoned teacher reached a point in life at which they planned to expand their family. After the parental leave period (our organization guaranteed every employee two paid weeks), a number of these teachers elected not to return. Their wages didn’t cover the cost of commuting and child care. If their partner worked in a higher-paid industry, it was often financially advantageous for one partner to stay home. When I talk to my college friends, I see the same thing happening with couples who are lawyers or investment bankers. The phenomenon is present in low-wage and hourly jobs, mid-wage salaried jobs like teaching, and at the high end of the spectrum. 

Personally, I’ve just come up on a year of having my own business. Sometimes I’ve had a full slate of work and other times I’ve worried whether I had enough clients to keep going. I’ve considered going back to work for someone else. My research has led me to believe that socially impactful work pays poorly and salaries in rural areas or fully distributed teams are not competitive. These full time options make the uncertainty but freedom of working for myself more attractive by comparison.

Well, you don’t have to take it from me. The World Economic Forum believes that 41% of workers worldwide are thinking of quitting their jobs. Monster.com finds that 95% of people are considering changing their jobs. And HBS reports that in April 2021, 2.7% of Americans quit their jobs, the highest rate on record.

I’ve been the boss that had retention as a major goal. I’ve been the coach who’s talked leaders through the process of deciding to stay or go. And in the sessions I lead each week, I hear what is on the minds of people who are on the cusp of a face-to-face return to work. 

So while we wait for market forces to adjust, here are a few things I believe organizations and team leaders can do beyond salary to keep their teams running.

Impact

Once our basic needs are met, the force that inspires us to choose and stick with a vocation is the desire to have a positive impact on an issue we care about. Whether that’s the laugh of a delighted child who didn’t think they could read a hard book or the completion of a net-zero building, the tangible proof that our work achieved something is a type of compensation that my generation hugely values. 

How can our company or our team have a greater impact? If I were leading a team, I might start this as a whole team conversation, filling in the chart below with all the members of my team. Then, this conversation could become a part of each individual contributor’s next coaching conversation. Is there a change on here that you want to take the lead on? Is there a program you’re working on that isn’t aligned to our team’s goals?

SUSTAINABILITY

When I was a principal, we talked about how our students could not begin to learn until their foundational needs were met. After spending time with the Blackfoot Indian people, psychologist Abraham Maslow outlined a Hierarchy of Needs, which tells us that when an individual’s basic needs (food, water, clothing) are unmet that they are not able to learn, create, or otherwise function at a higher level. We took this into consideration in our classrooms by investing time at the beginning of the year building positive classroom culture with clear behavioral norms and addressing both breaches and opportunities for celebration throughout the year. 

As I read the articles about why people are resigning or changing jobs, so much of what I see focuses on long hours, unsafe working conditions, and a lack of respect or opportunities for advancement. Ironically, in a moment of society where we live longer, have better access to medical care, more plentiful food than ever before, many adults are unable to reach the esteem and self-actualization parts of the pyramid because of unmet needs.

I’m not saying that organizations should attempt to meet employees’ needs for them, though I know some organizations that do. Rather, I believe sustainability means different things to different people. For my sister, it’s being able to ride her pony once a day; for me, it’s the flexibility to work from wherever I am; for my brother, it’s a supportive boss that is open to dialogue about the rapidly changing COVID situation in Madagascar. This topic of sustainability goes hand in hand with flexibility about how work gets done and boundaries around when employees can count on having time for themselves and their families.

What organizations and team leaders can do to enable people to meet their own needs is be ultra-clear about what is and is not required and be flexible about the rest. For example, if it’s essential that all your team members be present for a 10 a.m. standup every day, say that. If it’s essential to get a response in less than an hour during the workday, make that clear. But for many people I’ve coached, the lack of explicit expectations means that assumed ones creep in—a boss who sends a message at 5:30 am and expects a response by 8:30, an individual with a health condition who doesn’t want to return in person but worries he’ll be passed over for promotion as a result. Clear expectations allow people to set their own boundaries so they can devote time to their “sustainability” without fear or confusion about sacrificing what’s expected of them. And yes, with how much things have changed during COVID, most of us could use a reset, even if we had a good culture before the pandemic began.

Opportunities to learn and grow

Today, the official retirement age is 66. If we assume that most of us start working after college at age 22 and work until our retirement age, then those of us 44 and younger are less than halfway through our careers. I may fancy myself a former principal with a master’s degree and a number of professional credentials, but, God willing, I am less than 25% through my working life. Opportunities to learn and develop are valuable to us far beyond the years in which we conventionally go to school. 

I like this model of compensation, which illustrates that in addition to salary, benefits, and days off, there is a whole other type of compensation, a subset of which is employee experience (including impact and sustainability). The outer part, the indirect compensation, is how a person’s qualifications and experience become more valuable due to having served in a given position.

Image Credit: https://www.digitalhrtech.com/compensation-and-benefits/

Historically, we’ve thought of this learning and development as coming from on-the-job experience. But I believe technology offers vast and largely untapped potential for more explicit learning opportunities. While these tend to be sprinkled in, usually in response to company or nationwide events, there’s an opportunity for more purposeful sequencing of training and advanced opportunities. According to research by Gartner, 70% of employees report they aren’t taught the skills they need to do their jobs. I would posit that many on-the-job learning experiences are better suited to come AFTER exposure to additional coursework and training. 

For example, consider a team that underwent significant changes in management right before COVID. Now their work has ramped up, and there is a need for more dispersed leadership across the team. They need a session that will allow them to align on the what and why of their goals before individuals are poised to take leadership of unique initiatives. 

Or consider an HR team that wants to recruit more diverse applicants to their firm. A deep dive into industry-wide and local best practices for recruiting and interviewing might set them up to approach the next interview season more strategically.

Or think about team leaders about to go back to work. What are the actions they can take to support their employees as we navigate the uncertainty of COVID this fall and the winds of the Great Resignation? How might a training with other managers provide them time to think about this question, the opportunity to contextualize their experience within larger trends, and confidence in their plan? 

There is a lot that we can do while we wait for the market to correct on more quantifiable aspects of compensation. Don’t take it from me. I’ll leave you with a lovely regression analysis that concludes, “One implication [of our study] is that changes in management practices that increase employee satisfaction may increase business-unit outcomes, including profit.” (Harter et al, 2017).

Interested in learning more about how I help businesses and teams thrive? Let’s chat!