3 Lessons in Low Turnover

The last few years have been a rollercoaster when it comes to employee security and company turnover. On the one hand, we’ve seen the Great Resignation, on the other, rounds of layoffs. Even in uncertain times, employee retention and maintaining low turnover rates manages to be a top priority for many companies. Many in leadership assume that a competitive salary is enough to make a difference in employee retention. Studies show, however, that employers need to take a comprehensive approach to keeping their best employees happy in other ways.

Inc.com has a great new article with three suggestions for these comprehensive measures. The first centers around building trust among employees and management/leadership. Cultivating an environment in which everyone feels heard is essential to building this trust. If an employee feels as though they are not being heard, as though their ideas are not valued, that employee is much more likely to seek a more supportive and trusting environment.

The second tactic is to promote community by holding employee-led events. These differ from the traditional team-building exercises in that employees are able to promote something that they are passionate about. Whether it be weekly yoga sessions, daily meditation breaks, or annual events that are important culturally such as Pride celebrations or International Women’s Day; when employees can share their passions with the team, everyone grows together as a community.

The third strategy is something that some businesses are learning about the hard way. One thing that we have seen from the COVID pandemic is that employees are largely demanding more flexible schedules. This is especially important if that employee is a caregiver to someone outside of work (children, aging parents, an ill relative, etc.). Those who have to keep working once they leave the office (or clock out if they work from home) need more flexibility with holiday time to actually feel like they are able to take a break. The more flexible a holiday schedule/PTO is, the better employees can support their own individual needs in this area. Check out the full article here for a deeper dive and in-depth examples from companies across the country.

Not to Worry About Quiet Quitting

By now most everyone has heard the new trendy term “quiet quitting”. This in fact, has nothing at all to do with quitting, it simply indicates when employees choose to do the bare minimum that their job requires. Never going above and beyond, never putting in unpaid extra hours, never responding to emails past COB. Some may see this as employees setting healthy boundaries in the quest for work/life balance, while some see it as laziness and a detriment to the company. Over the last month the term gained a lot of traction thanks to one TikToker, whose video on the subject quickly went viral, garnering over 8 million views in just a few weeks. But does this new concern have staying power? Is it actually something that businesses and leadership need to be concerned with? The brains over at Wharton give a resounding ‘no’.

Matthew Bidwell, a management professor at Wharton, has a new quick read (and quick listen on Wharton Business Daily) about what the real issues are that management needs to be worried about. While leadership is of course always interested in getting the highest performance out of their employees, the much bigger issue these days is keeping employees, period. Let’s go beyond the “no one wants to work anymore” mentality here. There has always been those who do not want to be defined by their labor and seek more freedom in their chosen lifestyles. In August, however, 4.3 million workers voluntarily left their jobs, setting a new record. So who has time to worry about quiet quitting when actual quitting is so much more detrimental to a company? Take a few minutes to give Professor Bidwell’s article a quick read, and listen to his discussion on the wider labor market, and where this trend may be going.

The Four Day Work Week

“A culture of busyness” is the phrase used to describe the American work ethic. Despite the “no one wants to work anymore” rhetoric floating around among those struggling to hire, Americans still overall embrace the daily grind as part of what defines the individual. As a new generation of employees come up in the workforce, they are prioritizing and demanding more of a work/life balance. There are mounds of research that support this shift in priorities, and show that a shorter work week leads to a boost in company morale and overall happiness among employees. There’s even a non-profit called 4 Day Week Global, which is dedicated to promoting the idea of a shortened work week, research surrounding it, and helping implement the transition from a 5 day to 4 day office environment.

This past June, over 70 companies in the UK signed up to be part of a 6-month test run for making the shift to a 4 day work week. Around 40 other countries from North America have joined the program as well. This experiment could be the inspiration that many others need to start their own transitions.

But, are Americans really ready for this? It’s hard to shake off the American cultural ideal that our lives largely revolve around work. Thanks in part, however, to the pandemic shifting to so many remote situations, the concept may be easier to get used to than previously thought.

Now a few of the incredibly talented faculty members at Wharton (Adam Grant, Lindsey Cameron, Matthew Bidwell, and Michael Parke) have contributed to a new article outlining some of the hurdles the US might have to overcome should this trend catch on. Take 10 minutes to read up on how we can embrace the shift if we are ready, and how we can start to warm up to the idea if not. As one CEO put it after shifting abruptly to the 4 day week; “Work will fill the space you give to it. My bet is that we’re going to become vastly more efficient from Monday to Thursday.” If the current research holds, this could be momentous.

Shared Leadership and WFH

Although shared leadership might not be something that most executives aspire to, it may now be part of the new work landscape hastened by the global pandemic. With the omicron COVID variant on the rise and experts warning of a post-holiday surge in cases, the idea of returning to an office full time is looking less and less likely in the near future. Not to mention that most employees do not want to return to an office full time (76% wish to stay remote, according to a new study).

So, with most leaders coming to terms with this reality over the past year, they are now looking to maximize remote efficacy. New research (penned by the same author) shows “when collaborators are separated by geography, typical approaches to leadership are not as effective. Instead, “shared leadership,” which involves dividing up leader responsibilities across multiple people, was more helpful the more teams work virtually across locations.”

Check out the full article from Chief Executive Magazine and read the recommended strategies for transitioning to a shared work team, and sharing responsibility in our newer, even more virtual world.

Breaking Free From 9-5 Culture

As we continue to come out of our collective pandemic haze, a return to the traditional 9 to 5 is not in the cards for a lot of employees. Turns out, that’s not such a bad thing. With multiple benefits for both employees and management, asynchronous work is rising in popularity. According to a Microsoft Work Trend Report, the 9-to-5 workday is disappearing, as the increase in remote work has allowed for more flexible hours.

HBR’s Rebecca Zucker’s new article lays out six guidelines to get your organization from “9 to 5”, to “whenever”. Check out the full article to ensure a smooth transition and a more productive team.

3 Tools to Help Your Team During a Transition

We all have to navigate times of uncertainty and change at some point in our lives. Whether these changes are professional, personal, or societal, they can be eased by using what developmental psychologist D. W. Winnicott termed “transitional objects”. This could be something physical (such as a literal security blanket), or something more abstract (an idea, a routine, or agreement). These things can help someone feel grounded when the world around them is spinning. Research shows that not only can these transitional objects help employees during times of upheaval, but there are things that leaders can do to ease the process. Specifically, those in leadership need to consider three important attributes that help people process transitions:

• choice,

• a connection to a purpose,

• and using something new as a bridge toward the new goal or situation.

Now that more and more of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated against COVID and companies are able to return to work in various capacities, we are once again in a transitional period. As we make our way back into physical office space, resume travel, and are otherwise becoming used to the “new normal”, take a look at HBR’s article on how leaders are best able to help their teams through this next period of change.

WFH Doesn't Have to Mean All-Day Calls

As we enter the 11th month of many of the COVID pandemic in the U.S., many of us are still working from home (WFH). Slowly but surely, we are all coming around to the realization that we can generally maintain a fairly high level of productivity despite our remote locations. Many employers, in order to compensate for a decentralized workforce, have encouraged employees to stick to working normal business hours. One way to maintain these hours is the various video calls employees join daily, sometimes taking up the entire workday. Trying to keep these hours while dealing with competeing requests (from children, spouses, a household, balancing health & wellness, etc.), begs the question: does it really make sense to stick to the normal 9-to-5? The answer seems to be no.

This past fall, Marco Minervini, Darren Murph, and Phanish Puranam of Harvard Business Review looked to the example of GitLab to explore this question. GitLab has been going strong for 6 years, with a 100% remote workforce, and they are a fascinating example of how to navigate the peaks and valleys of this model. With over 1,300 employees spread over 65 countries, GitLab uses tools that allow team members to work on ongoing projects in their own preferred times. This can (and has) increased aggregate productivity, but simultaneously provides coordination challenges across physical space and time zones.

As they say; “Working from home in an effective way goes beyond just giving employees a laptop and a Zoom account.” Check out their in-depth and fascinating article that details how GitLab has successfully run this model for over six years, and how other C-suite leaders and business owners can move away from the regular 9-5 grind.

Five Questions for CEOs

Just in case there was any doubt, these last few weeks have set the record straight on whether Covid is going away any time soon. No doubt the recent spikes we’ve seen will send many of your employees back into work-from-home (WFH) status (if they ever returned to the office in the first place, that is). And although a few promising vaccines are providing a light at the end of the tunnel, the workplace is not slated to return to normal anytime soon. On the brightside, this winter could provide a time for C-Suite leadership to reflect on the long-term nature of who goes remote, who doesn’t, and other considerations that will spring from those decisions.

Chief Executive magazine recently published a short article reviewing some of these considerations, not the least of which will be equity among those with different work agreements. These considerations include:

• Will your workers’ compensation change, if anyone goes remote?

• What restrictions will you apply to remote workers?

• What is your long-term strategy?

• How will you manage and measure productivity remotely?

• What kind of culture are you creating?

Click on the link above to go into a deep dive of these five questions, and read how some CEOs are addressing these issues. Then take a moment to ponder your own answers.