As we start 2022, none the wiser of what it will look like as we did at the start of 2021, I thought I would take a look at the top 5 articles I wrote during last year which grabbed people’s attention.
I have listed the top 5 based on the number of reactions the articles received on Linkedin rather than the number of views. That is, I have counted the ones readers took the time out to like, celebrate, support, love, found insightful or made readers curious.
Read MoreAll leaders should have employee mental wellbeing as the priority. Not one of many priorities but the priority. Mind Share Partners say that in 2019 employers were just grasping the prevalence of the health challenges in the workplace. In 2020, mental health went from a nice-to-have to a true business imperative. In 2021, the stakes were raised even higher thanks to a greater awareness of the workplace factors that contribute to poor mental health. Unfortunately, employers have not done enough to address the issue. 2022 is the time to connect what they say to what they do.
Read MoreAs a leader of a hybrid team your ability to run effective hybrid meetings where some of your participants are physically co-located whilst others are remote will be paramount to employee engagement and team performance.
Truly effective hybrid meetings are not just the result of running a meeting where participants are distributed across many locations in the same way you did when everyone was physically present in the same room.
There is added complexity. When all the participants are in-person, or all of the participants are virtual, there is a level playing field. When there is a mix of both, the remote participants quickly become the second-class citizen unless the meeting facilitator knows how to run an effective hybrid meeting,
Read MoreWhile effective communication has always been an important skill for leaders, the leaders of hybrid teams need to be exceptional communicators.
The biggest challenge to communication is the lack of non-verbal communication cues.
In the absence of these clues, leaders should practice more mindful communication.
Leaders also need to intentionally promote cross-functional collaboration. Research has shown that employees working remotely increase their in-team collaboration whilst cross-team collaboration decreases. This limits information exchange and knowledge sharing.
Read MoreLeaders show emotional support for their employees by offering genuine encouragement, reassurance, and compassion.
The repercussions of the pandemic will be felt for some time to come, and everyone will have different experiences and extenuating circumstances. Emotional support for every employee, wherever they are located is paramount. It helps them overcome the challenges they may be facing currently and help them deal with future challenges as well.
Often those working remotely feel less cared for than those in the immediate proximity of a leader. That cannot be allowed to be a new reality.
Emotional support comes from leaders who lead with vulnerability, empathy and compassion and have the wellbeing of every employee as an overarching priority.
Read MoreAs a leader of a hybrid team where you and your team could be working from anywhere at any time, how do you ensure that your teams knows (a) when you are available for them (b) you are visible as their leader.
Availability and visibility are paramount to avoid team members feeling isolated, excluded and unsupported. But being available and visibly does not mean ‘always on.’ You cannot be both available and visible if you are a bottleneck.
Read MoreThe great wave of resignations is being driven by what I have called The Great Realisation. The Great Realisation is the time for reflection employees have had whilst being bunkered down and adjusting to the changes and uncertainties foisted upon them during the COVID-19 pandemic.
They have reflected on what they want from life and work, and many have realised that they deserve more from their employer. The numbers speak for themselves.
This is how employers are responding. Which one are you?
The ostriches
The wishful thinkers
The minimalists
The misdirected
The employers of choice
Everyone is so distracted by whether the future of work is a return to the office, everyone remote or a mix of both, they are missing the bigger picture.
Whilst employees are demanding flexibility and autonomy about where they work and are voting with their feet if they don’t get it, it must not be the only aspect of work you focus on if you want a healthy and high-performing team.
It cannot be the only thing you focus on if you want to retain and attract talent.
It is time to stop procrastinating about where your employees are going to work and make a decision that meets the needs of your employees and the business. Then move on and focus on what really matters.
A recent study by Atlassian called The State of Teams declared that it is not where you work but how you work that makes teams thrive.
Read MoreWhat your employees want from you, for them to stay with you, should inform your Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Not only does this help in retaining your talent it should also help attract the talent you need to be a leading organisation.
Your EVP is how you position your organisation in the employee marketplace. It tells prospective employees what you will offer them in return for their skills, capabilities, and experiences. It tells existing employees what you will continue to offer them to demonstrate you value them and want to keep them.
Your EVP is also a marketing message to customers and consumers. They want to know how you treat your employees and it will affect their loyalty to your brand.
Read MoreOrganisations are struggling to address what is being termed The Great Attrition or The Great Resignation for one reason - they don’t understand why employees are leaving in the first place.
When asked why employees were leaving, employers cited:
· Compensation
· Work-life balance
· Poor physical and emotional health
When employees were asked why they were leaving, they cited:
· Not feeling valued by the organisation
· Not feeling valued by their manager
· No sense of belonging at work
Whilst those factors cited by employers are still important to employees, they are not as important as employers think. They are out of touch. Employers are focused on transactional factors whereas employees are focused on relational ones.
Read MoreDespite extensive research informing us of the benefits of empathetic leaders such as increased engagement, performance, productivity, and organisational growth, it is a leadership characteristic that is woefully missing in many organisations.
This month an EY Consulting survey confirmed that 90% of workers believe empathetic leadership leads to higher job satisfaction and 79% agree it decreases employee turnover.
The majority (88%) felt that empathic leadership creates loyalty amongst employees towards their leaders.
This could be the panacea for The Great Resignation that is causing so much angst at the current time. Empathy in the workplace not only retains your valuable talent but also attracts it, giving you competitive advantage.
Read MoreThe shift is that before remote working and hybrid teams, we approached discussions about “work” and “non-work” as separate and we could keep clear of the latter. During the pandemic, leaders have found they have had to discuss topics such as childcare arrangements, home-working environments, health-risk concerns and challenges faced by other members of the household.
Even after the pandemic ends, this will not stop. As a leader, you can’t manage a distributed team without access to the data that allows you to effectively schedule and coordinate the team activities. The challenge is that seeking access to often personal data can carry risks and legal implications and invade employee privacy.
The solution is to create an environment of psychological safety in which your employees feel safe to share information about their personal situation relevant to their work that allows for effective management.
Read MoreI stumbled across an interesting article on MIT Sloan Management Review about leaders resisting empowering their virtual teams.
Employee empowerment has many benefits including increased motivation, creativity, innovation, productivity, talent retention and attraction. Yet many leaders resist it.
Leaders are stressed and fatigued and plagued with virtual meetings. Their work time has encroached into their personal time. Yet rather than delegate they cling on to every task believing it is better if they do it themselves.
The authors drew on research to identify the reasons behind the resistance.
The reasons fell into three areas. A lack of motivation to lead others, a dislike of leading or a lack of buy-in. A fear of loss of control – by giving their teams control they had less. Concerns about the risk of employees making costly mistakes that could reflect badly on them as the leader.
Based on my experience working with leaders in many different industries and organisations, I would like to suggest five ways to effectively enable leaders to empower.
Read MoreThe last 20 months has brought about unprecedented change. The business landscape is continuing to change and rapidly evolve without us being able to foresee what the future will look like.
When we don’t know what change is coming, how much, how fast, and when, how can we ensure we are ready and have the capacity for change?
The answer is to be a F.O.R.C.E. for change. There are actions every organisation and every leader within it, can take now to be always change ready.
Every organisation needs a focus (a sense of purpose); orientation (leadership positioning); resilience (personal resolve in the face of constant change); coaches (a competent and enabled change network); and empathy (understanding and compassion for each other). Let’s look at each of those aspects of an organisation that is a force for change.
Read MoreTrust is the foundation on which successful high-performing hybrid teams are built. Managers and bosses no longer have insight into their employees’ day-to-day approach to work. It is only leaders who trust their employees to make the right decisions about work and its priorities and provide the necessary support, that will build high-performing teams.
This week on LinkedIn, I was asked this question:
What are your recommendations to convert a low trusting dept into a high trust one? 🤔
So, if there is currently a low-trust base, how do you establish a solid foundation of trust in your team? What does it mean for the hybrid team?
Read MoreMy latest article for Remote Report.
Setting clear expectations is part of the bedrock of a successful hybrid team. You can empower and provide autonomy, but without clarity your efforts will be wasted.
Without clarity, trust will be diminished.
Many leaders assume they have set clear expectations and that their employees know what is required. However, this is often not the case, and the lack of clarity causes harm, damage to relationships and it diminishes trust.
Leaders providing clarity of expectations is even more important when change is volatile, uncertain and complex. Your employees need clarity.
Read MoreMy latest article for REMOTE REPORT.
If you are a boss (note deliberate avoidance of term “leader”) and you continue to believe that productivity means “butt in seats” and that the best way to get results is through micromanagement, you are on the verge of following dinosaurs into extinction.
That’s because you are unable to adapt to the rapid changes in your environment. The catastrophic event that leads to your demise will not be an asteroid strike or a volcanic eruption, but a change in the way we work — a hybrid operating model.
Read MoreI wanted to share with you my thoughts on a recent article for Forbes from Shep Hyken. In the article Shep shares six ways to create a better employee experience.
Why does employee experience matter? Let me refer to what Shep calls ‘The Employee Golden Rule’, which is do unto employees as you want done unto customers.
In the Forbes article Shep said, ‘what happens on the inside of the organisation is felt on the outside by the customer and he shared six ways to create a better employee experience.’
It follows what Richard Branson is quoted as saying, “If you take care of your employees, they’ll take care of your customers.”
The employee experience drives the customer experience. If you want your customer to love you, then you must love your people.
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