Editorial
Four global companies seeking to redefine themselves. Four different scenarios. Can you identify the common thread?
One firm has been growing leaps and bounds through acquisitions and no longer has a broadly shared sense of community. Another is living with over 40% of its workforce having fewer than 18 months of tenure, driven by early retirements and turnover during the pandemic. The third is seeking to reboot diversity, equity and inclusion, as they believe in the positive impact it can have and now realize their previous efforts have regressed as they were left on autopilot for the last three years. The fourth organization is struggling with how to define, identify and grow potential in a meaningful way that promotes career growth for individuals as well as successors for critical roles in their business.
All major initiatives — any one of these is of the magnitude and importance to earn a place on HR’s strategic roadmap.
The common thread? In each case, the demands on people leaders have changed, and organizations have not kept pace with what those leaders need.
Hierarchy has given way to employees wanting to know the business case behind the decisions that impact their lives, most notably where/when people are expected to work.
Observable yet undeclared shifts in culture and values have driven employees to form their own conclusions, heavily influenced by the behaviors of their immediate team. The stalling of DEI initiatives has raised questions about the authenticity of past and future leadership commitments in this space. And, the lack of clarity from managers about career growth and the opportunity for advancement has inadvertently encouraged employees to seek growth elsewhere.
In a nutshell, it’s tougher than ever to lead people.
Related Article: Middle Management Is Stuck. Time for a Reset
How We Define the Future of Work
In contrast, some healthy trends have emerged …
First, there’s broad understanding of the issues at play. The shift in labor market expectations is widely known, as are the struggles that organizations are facing as they adapt.
Second, hybrid work has been proven and is widely embraced.
Third, the importance of people managers being human-centered is so clear. Perhaps the rise of AI will enable managers to invest more time in those human aspects of their work.
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Fourth, the rebalancing of power between employers and employees is ongoing. That debate continues to influence employee experience as well as the employee value propositions that firms declare.
Lastly, integrating the quality and purpose of life with work has become a key criterion for employees when making career decision making. Individuals — and therefore organizations — have a greater opportunity to thrive beyond traditional financial goals.
As we continue to create “the future of work” in real time, here are some ideas to support frontline managers so they can help redefine what “normal” is.
Additional Perspective
Jeanine Stewart, PhD, PCC, SHRM-SCP is a neuroscientist, executive coach and workplace culture advisor with a passion for working with executive leadership teams to build the capacity for thriving, resilient organizations. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
Since the 2015 publication of Kim and Mauborgne's well-received book on corporate strategy, “blue ocean” has become a catchphrase for uncontested market opportunities. The authors’ extensive research demonstrated that by entering a newly discovered economic landscape, businesses can release previously untapped potential and achieve unprecedented performance.
If ever there was a need for people leaders to perform at unprecedented levels through transformational practices, it is in this era of the distributed workforce. In my work as advisor and coach to industry leaders, my clients frequently express anxieties about employee engagement. One CEO recently said, “I want to be a trusting boss, but how can I really know how much anyone is working?”
In our current reality work and personal lives have merged, creating millions of variations on the concepts of work-life balance, total rewards and employee motivation. Employers’ competitive market edge now depends upon finding new ways to hold onto or expand the business’ share of employees’ focus and attention. In order to elevate employee engagement while navigating remote and hybrid work landscapes, leaders now must compete for mindshare as well as market share, putting new demands on managers and tapping into novel leadership competencies. In essence, we need blue ocean strategies for managers to identify uncontested opportunities for employee engagement. How might we do this?
As a starting point, I encourage my clients to borrow from the macro-level business strategies described by Chan and Mauborgne’s team to identify novel strategies for micro-level individual needs. I’ve adapted four of the authors’ strategy questions to prompt leaders toward fresh insights about employee engagement:
- What long-standing work constraints or factors could go away without loss of productivity?
- How might we model and pilot new value propositions, including low-cost/no-cost rewards for our employees?
- Where would we be wise to go beyond what our competitors are offering, to gain the edge on talent retention?
- What might we create that has never been attempted before to drive employee engagement?
Leaders of remote or hybrid workforces should consider how they might inspire employee engagement in new ways that align with new workplace realities, while pushing beyond outdated assumptions about the way engagement ought to be won.
- Invest in human-centered skills development. People leaders need a core set of skills including listening, asking effective questions, demonstrating empathy, building trust and self-regulation of their actions. As Josh Bersin has long said … soft skills are power skills.
- Seek guidance by forming a People Leaders Council. Establish a core set of leaders who can proactively define priorities and reactively guide decisions in a time of crisis or uncertainty. No need to guess what they need — ask them.
- Don’t dump weak policies on frontline leaders. In efforts to reduce costs and increase efficiency, corporate functions often eliminate support roles that are genuinely helpful to employees. By default, employees turn to their managers for answers. The net result is frontline managers take on more work in their already overburdened day, and they are unable to offer the same level of support as dedicated experts.
- Design for digital and mobile. Use apps, provide video guides, make content searchable and post FAQs. Leverage the People Leaders Council to inform any design decisions so the information and workflow is optimized to meet their needs. Remember, the foundation of design thinking is empathy for the user.
- Communicate with intention and clarity. Even with the best intentions, corporate messages often generate as many questions as they answer. Engage a few People Managers to critique key messages before they launch.
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