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Does COVID Have the Power to Make the Workforce Happier?

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COVID has forced the reimagination of work.

I know it sounds cliche. Have we really sat down to think about COVID beyond Zoom calls and hybrid work environments?

Many external forces disrupt work and industries, whether industries are clocking it or not:

  • image of a man and woman in front of an online meeting on their computer screenBitcoin and banking
  • Competitive rate sites and the travel industry
  • Uber drivers and taxis
  • Microlending and loan sharks
  • Online gambling and casinos
  • Amazon and department stores
  • Etsy stores and your grandma’s church bizarre
  • eBay and auction houses

image of woman in uniform in WWIIWhether it was the rise of women working because the men went off to WWII and we needed people to enter the workforce in droves, or entrepreneurs finding a better way to address the pain points of consumers, or employees themselves opting out of work in “The Great Resignation“, we’ve always had disruptive external forces that have created changes that have forever shifted the face of work.

Do we see COVID as one of the biggest workforce revolutionary engines we’ll see in our generation? Or are we still only talking about Zoom fatigue?

The Long Haul From the Long Tail

In statistics, as in business, a ‘long tail’ of some distributions of numbers is the portion of the distribution having many occurrences far from the “head” or central part of the distribution. The distribution could involve popularities, random numbers of occurrences of events with various probabilities, etc. In our case, COVID is the impetus of a long-tail workforce reinvention that we have some glimmer of what that will look like, and the story is still unfolding.

The good news is, now you have a better sense of what you’re dealing with, you’re better able to impact the long-term.

The bad news is, not everyone is actually studying what is truly happening. We have to dig deeper into understanding what is going on within our team, our organization, our business, our industry, our country and the world to know what needs to happen now.  And we must face the fact that things will never be the same in how we treated work and the workforce before COVID.

Want to hear some good news? It’s the perfect excuse to reinvent.

image of house hit by tornado before COVIDOnly 30% of North Americans were actually satisfied at work. If you saw this and didn’t know what to change, your voice wasn’t heard to reinvent, you had too many distractions or competing priorities, you now have the perfect excuse to reimagine.  Just like when that tornado rips off the front of your house, and now you have the perfect reason to rebuild your home with the curb appeal, that you wouldn’t have justified the expense otherwise.

This is not your only priority, or perhaps the biggest disruption depending on your industry. Yet, caught up in the moment of the long tail of this pandemic, it feels that way. The ripple effects of the pandemic in how it impacts work continue to throw shockwaves.

Three Long Tail Responses to COVID

Organizations are in different places in managing the long tail of this pandemic:

  • Denial – ignoring it and hoping things will get back to normal
  • Study – curiously studying and getting an education about options
  • Transform – rebuilding as if their business was starting fresh and iterating fast

Here’s the key I hope you remember: your people need to be part of the solution no matter where you’re at. If you’re getting push back that things won’t be “normal”, ask about it. If you’re studying it, include insights of your people about what they’re seeing, reading, and creatively solution-finding. If you’re transforming, go to the closest place the value is created and study the direct impact on staff and clients to gauge success. Your culture and systems may drive one of these three responses; however, you can value people in every one of these approaches.

image of work team around a table shaking hands before COVIDThis is a defining time of how much you show you value your people. This is also a time where you can succeed in it being a time of doing with versus doing to people.

When you show people you value by studying, responding, and evolving as a result of this massive time of workforce change, one of the unintended consequences that are a huge win is the closer connection, fluid collaboration, and demonstrated respect for people. Recognition isn’t a corporate event you can’t wait to get “back to” post COVD. It’s happening (or not happening) right under your nose in how you’re handing this transformation.

Looking for more ways to show your appreciation through COVID?  Check out these helpful resources:

The Cost of Not Recognizing…To You, Your Team, Your Organization & Even Your Industry

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There is a cost to not recognizing your people!

Every one of these statistics has come up on my data on recognition. Appreciation isn’t a “nice to do”; it’s a need to do if you:

  • image of people clapping to avoid the cost of not recognizing talentwant to stop The Great Resignation and improve retention

  • wish to increase wellness and well-being

  • need to decrease workplace incivility and increase collaboration

  • want to engage every generation of your workforce

It’s easy to feel that turnover, bullying, apathy, rising sick time and other concerning workplace trends are unfixable, hard to understand and out of control. I get it. I was one of those leaders in my organization required to try to “fix” them.

Here’s something I learned that almost seems too impossibly simple to be a solution, yet here it is: if people feel valued, they will work harder and are more likely to stay. Over 100 team consultations in my career, I have yet to have an exception to that rule.

Have you ever…

  • Quit a job because you received too much support
  • Couldn’t get your work done from how distracting it was with everyone complimenting you all the time
  • You felt so valued it went to your head

Doubt it. Wouldn’t it be nice if that were a risk?

The Cost of Not Recognizing

If anything, I suspect you worked somewhere that felt pretty good, and then something changed. You desperately missed the way it used to feel, how people supported each other, the recognition that used to be part of meetings, conversations and evaluations. I have also heard folks leave a workplace to go somewhere with better pay or benefits or perks only to come back because they didn’t feel they mattered.

Recognition is relationship glue, reputation repair, and retention relief.

image of an employee getting an award to avoid the cost of not recognizing talentThe trick is, it needs to be “the way we do things around here.” It takes intention. The good news is, when done well, it doesn’t take buckets of time, money and even energy.

If you still think, “but we pay them,” guess what…everyone does that. And, the expectation of benefits that meet people’s needs is a growing focus too. The Conference Board of Canada recently released some results that over 8% of Canadians aren’t satisfied with their benefits. You may see this as just part of your comp & benefits; however, your talent is using it as “should I stay or should I go” criteria. It’s yet another way employees and leaders are deciding: “do you really value me?”

Time to get serious about the power of recognition for both great business results and keeping great people satisfied and successful.

Why not share this blog post with your fellow recognition diehards, whether it’s firmly in place or not. All it takes is one person to start a recognition ripple effect, but why not start with two?

For more ideas on creating a recognition ripple effect, check out these great resources:

Why Are They Leaving? What it Takes to Keep Your People VS What They Are Getting

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If you want people to stay, you need to care about them. 

As I shared last week, the verdict is out in Canada if we’re seeing “The Great Resignation” in the same volume as in the US. We are seeing tremendous turnover, stress, and uncertainty.

image of staff meeting Here is my prediction:

  1. Great companies and leaders will rise to the current challenges and shine as the people-centric cultures they are, attracting the best and engaging with zest.
  2. Curious companies and leaders will use these challenges as leverage to finally reassess their people strategy, moving it to the top of the list (like many have wanted to, but the other biz drivers trumped). Course-correcting retention issues will become a strategic focus.
  3. Rigid companies and leaders will get stuck, apathetic that nothing can be done, ineffective people practices will go unchecked, and innovative industry people practices will be ignored.

This is not to shame, blame or criticize anyone.

We’re all doing the best we can.

The reality is, the changes in our workforce are here to stay. Employee expectations are higher, choices are greater, and there isn’t a single business that could survive without great people. We need to wrestle with the current challenges as if they were here to stay (because they are)

Before you go, though, here’s some hope…

The very first, easiest and least resource-intensive step: recognize the people you already have. Now. What have you got to lose? (Oh, that’s right: great people. So worth every bit of effort, right?)

Check out the McKinsey & Company trends for a deep dive into this business crisis.

These other resources are available to help you create a plan to retain your best and brightest:

Deep Dive Day Description with Sarah McVanelPS. – If the talent crisis of 2021 feels like it’s come out of nowhere and doesn’t look like it’s letting up anytime soon, maybe we can help.

Learn more by clicking on the image.

Let’s create a plan to battle it together and have a quick chat about it.

“The Great Resignation”: Trend or Not, Why Turnover Still Needs Our Attention

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The Great Resignation is upon us!

Or is it?

A recent Globe and Mail article claims that for those of us in Canada, “The Great Resignation” is not a real thing.

“Official” trend or not, I have clients in an unprecedented staffing crisis. We need to talk about turnover. For them, great places to work that they are, attracting, onboarding and retaining top talent has never been more challenging. We need to talk about turnover and what to do about it.

Here’s what no one is really talking about: Your biggest “competition” for talent isn’t necessarily other employers. You are at risk of losing your best people to the employee him, her or themself.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

Now, employees and leaders alike are making intentional choices about sticking around based on:

Image of happy man with box of belongings giving his great resignation– the work they most prefer
– the commute they can avoid
– the lifestyle they want
– the hobby they can turn into a biz
– the side hustle they can scale up
– the team with people nicer to them
– the lifestyle changes they’ll make to compensate for less pay

In other words, people are redefining what career and life success looks like for them.

Employees, middle managers, and even executives are realizing they don’t have to sacrifice sleep, incivility, lifestyle, focus, “work-life balance,” and happiness (among other things) in a role they climbed to because they thought they “had” to be there.  The world of work is being redefined as you read this.  Sometimes the thing isn’t the thing.

The Great Resignation – real or not – isn’t the issue. It’s a symptom. 

The issue is: Do people have a reason to stay? 

Now, more than ever, we must pay close attention to the “Employee Experience‘, where you might hear someone say:

  • Employee Experience Graph to avoid the great resignationI feel my work is meaningful
  • I feel valued and appreciated
  • I am respected
  • I have similar values to the organization
  • I am healthy and well

Work offers tremendous indisputable value in people’s lives: connection to others, a sense of contribution and meaning, opportunities to grow, and do interesting work (to name a few). These things cannot always be found by leaving to work for yourself, going back to school, and starting from the “bottom” in another industry.  Yet, in unprecedented numbers, people are willing to give that up if other costs are too high.

The Slow Burn

This has been building for a while. Before you think:

  • “It’s COVID”
  • “It’s those Millennials!”
  • “It’s this policy or that policy” (e.g., vac’ing)

Cherish your health to avoid the great resignationJust like we saw the collapse of loyalty in the 90s after massive rightsizing and downsizing, these last 19+ months have shown us that we have to cherish our health, decide what’s important to us, make intentional choices about who earns their way back into our “bubble.” We are forever changed, and one of the first things to go was our assumptions about work.

Here’s an example:  An HR company that does engagement surveys and recognition programs was hit hard at the start of COVID and laid off 75% of its workforce. Okay, not great, yet understandable. The issue: they didn’t call folks to check in with them when furloughed. Okay, truth bomb: if you profess to care about people, and then when the economic chips are down and don’t treat your people with care, you haven’t earned them back.

A paycheque isn’t enough. Everyone gives one of those. Want people’s hearts, minds, attention, skills and time? Make that human experience we call work so enticing that it’s an easy exchange of value.

If you’re in a turnover tsunami, instead of asking “how many people are leaving,” I suggest asking, “what reason do people have to stay?”

PS. If you need some help with navigating turnover and want to come out the other side with a delicious employee experience, let’s talk. I’ve been doing some intensive deep dives with clients lately with huge success. Let’s grab a tea and have a quick chat about it.

Looking for ideas to appreciate and inspire your team to avoid tumorous turnover? Check out the resources below:

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